The Etruscans. a people as devoid of refined taste as the Greeks were remarkable for it. bold and dashing designers of the coarser and more thoughtless kind. were still not more elaborately clothed than the Greeks. The later Etrusean work passes by insensible gradations into that 'Italian work of the centuries during which the Roman Republic and the early Empire controlled the whole peninsula, and introduced insensibly its own strongly Hellenic tendencies into the arts of the subject countries. The effect of this on the art of northern Italy was altogether for tunate, except in so far as the lover of strongly accentuated national peculiarities found reason to regret their partial disappearance. The terra-cotta sarcophagi, with high reliefs and with what are almost statues wrought upon the covers; the bronze statues and groups, the jewelry of the fourth century B.C., and the fol lowing epoch, are almost Greek in their charm, while preserving a certain attractive local color. It is probably because of this constantly increas ing influence of the Grecian artistic sense upon all the nations of Italy that the Roman dress from the earliest times known to us remains Greek in its simplicity, although very different in form. The toga and its relations to the outer cloak of the Greeks is discussed under DRESS. Here there must be some mention of the different ways of wearing it, sonic of which were connected with ceremonial occasions. Thus, when a statue or a bas-relief shows a Roman draped in a large and elaborately folded toga. one fold of which is brought over the head, he is assumed by modern students to be a person who is performing a sacrifice. The toga, as ordinarily worn. showed the tonica in front, from the throat nearly to the waist. hut the long end could be thrown over the right shoulder so as to cover the tunics en tirely, and in this way the toga would cover the whole person, from the neck to the ankles. Here, as among the Greeks. good taste dictated the utmost simplicity of effect, except in the mere arrangement and careful disposition of the folds. There was no other garment of the men while in the city which in any way concerned their appearance. as the only leg-coverings known were bandages or wrappers, not unlike those worn to-day by the peasantry in some parts of Europe. On the other hand, the toga par ie.rta, which was worn by eertain officials, and even by some priests, had a 'purple,' that is a dark crimson border, and the trabea seems to have been a sort of cloak with still more elabo rate stripes, including perhaps one made entirely of red cloth, which generals were allowed to wear on the day of their triumph. It is probable, however, that in this last usage the military cloak of red was worn during the triumphal pro cession, that being the one occasion when the soldiers of the Republic were allowed to appear within the walls with their arms and military trappings. The women were dressed as simply as the men. wearing over the tunica merely a garment called the stola, which replaces for them the toga of the men„ and when the woman of rank went abroad, usually in a litter, a shawl like garment called the pails might also be added. That which makes the peculiar stateliness of the dress seen in female statues of the early Empire is the contrast of the folds of the long tuniea, reaching the floor, nearly covering the feet, and forming a strongly marked base, as it were, for the whole figure. while the more loosely folded stola above it seems to reinforce the lines of the undergarment. A veil of more or less thin and floating material covered the head, and could be brought around to the front to hide the face at pleasure. It must be constantly kept in mind that the idea of beauty in dress was simply uni form whiteness and many skillfully contrived folds; the whiteness was kept up by the use for woolen garments of the most elaborate system of cleansing applied by the fullones, or cleansers, and. for the folds of the drapery. highly trained experts—body servants who knew their business —were employed. It is evident how great an effect these peculiarities, of dress had upon the art of sculpture.
In all the above discussion of costume, one thing is very noticeable—the absence of anything like tailoring, except, perhaps, among the Chi ne4:e. The clothes of the Greeks and the Romans, like those of the people of the Pacific Islands, always approximated to the ideal of an uncut, imsewed, unaltered piece of textile fabric; square or oblong, as in the himation, chlamys, sagnin, or paludamentum; semicircular or semi-oral in shape, or approximately so, as in the toga, or simply sewn down one side so as to make it tubular garment of one piece of stuff, as in the later ehiton. and in the tuniea. A curious re
production of this characteristic of ancient cos tume exists among the wilder Arabs, the Bedou ins of the desert, and the horsemen of the up lands. They wear a shirt, indeed, and this is of thicker stuff, and covers the body more com pletely than what we know by that name, but apart from this their covering is almost wholly a matter of unaltered or scarcely altered pieces of woolen. Perhaps two breadths of the narrower stntr are sewn together to make the hairk, or, as in the north of Africa, a square of striped woolen stuff is caught up in the middle of one side so as to form a sort of hood, as in the burnous: or, as in the Out or (amok the square of stuff may have its two outer edges folded over toward the middle, so that the two edges meet or nearly meet, and then two openings are made in the two outer folds where the stuff is actually creased, which serve as armholes, so that the square blanket resembles an overcoat. But in all this there is absolutely no fitting of the piece of stuff to the body. It is a heavy woolen blanket, which is adapted more or less to the shoulders so as not to slip off, but is not other wise altered in any way, and might cover a man or a woman, and a person of any stature. What is curious about this costume is the enormously heavy woolen dress worn in the desert and under the semi-tropieal sun. It is evident that nothing but a heavy material is expected to keep oil' the heat of the sun or the burning wind of the desert; and therefore a man who wears only the long shirt, and has the legs and feet, arms and neck absolutely naked, will pile two or three of these heavy woolen things upon his shoulders and head. The result of this arrangement is that the only decoration sought for is in the beauty of two or three colors arranged in stripes of dif ferent widths, and broken more or less by the carrying of threads of different colors across the stripes, in the way of eounter-charging of her aldry. A much greater development of design by stripes alone is in the cotton dhurries of India. The aba may indeed be further adorned by very simple embroidery in woolen thread.
The first appearance of any tendency to fit the garments to the person among nations more western than the Chinese is probably in the leg-coverings of the Persians and Syrians, as represented in Grecian and Greco-Roman art, and yet these garments are of extreme simplicity and there is no appearance of tailoriffg in any modern sense in connection with them. They are merely loose trousers, gathered at the ankles, or sleeved tunics; and their use seems. to have come from the mountain regions of Asia Minor and the shores of the Caspian Sea. The barba rians of Europe, Gauls, Scandinavians, and Ger mans, made up suits of clothes in a not dissimi lar way; but it does not seem that their example affected the Greco-Roman world very much.
The beginning of change is to he looked for in the Byzantine Imperial epoch. From a time as early as the seventh century A.D. there is a con stant increase in the number of garments won], and in the elaboration of their shape and their combination, while at the same time the costli ness and splendor of the stuffs arc in no way diminished, and the custom begins which was destined to have so much effect on the costume of later times in Europe, the sewing of jewels. mounted in slender rings, or (-batons, of gold or silver gilt, to the material. Sometimes smaller fragments of glittering material of no value were used in this way, as in a later time pieces of mirror were used throughout the lands influenced by Persian decorative ideas. In the Byzantine Empire the dress of the officials shows a certain disposition to follow early Roman traditions, but only in the general shape of outer garments and to a certain extent in their names. The general aspect of a member of the Imperial family, or an officer of the as it is seen in the mosaics of Ravenna, or in the illuminated manuscripts of the time, is altogether different from that of higher antiquity. The robes reached to the feet, they were closely sewed 1111, and not very loose or flowing, not greatly tending toward elabora tion of folds or to what we commonly call 'drapery; and over them are worn dalnuttics, maniples, and stoles, not merely by the clergy, but by the laity as well, and showing plainly where the peculiar clerical dress took its origin. See COSTUME, ECCLESIASTICAL.