Talk:Toga (Nova Roma)

Revision as of 12:59, 18 August 2008

The primitive toga

This was the original semicircular form in the republican times until the end of the 2nd century BC, which can be seen on this statue:

Development during the 2nd-1st centuries BC

In the end of the 2nd century BC, the aristocracy started to enlarge their toga to have a more impressive drapping. They increased the width of the material bigger and bigger through the decades:

Now they had a very large toga drapped the way seen on this statue, and a bit later, this version of drapping became even more popular at the end of the republic with the sinus, seen on this statue:

The classical toga - theories about its shape

But having this new fashion of drapping and the large measure of the material, they had a problem caused by the lots of material in the corners "x" and "y". The last end of the toga falling from the back and its first part under the visible drapping downstage were getting to be very unwieldy, because, if the corners are not enough narrow, the first and last parts of the toga become too podgy that makes it very bad to drap. Also, the Roman aristocracy continued to increase the width of the toga to have a larger sinus, and it caused even more problems because of those corners with "too much material", so finally they simply started to cut down the corners:

"Theory 1"

An other hypothesis says that they cut it down in a semicircular way, so they had an oval, ellipsis-like shape:

"Theory 2"

SUMMARY: THE SHAPE OF THE CLASSICAL TOGA

I think that the even cutting is more likely because it is a more simple solution; anyway, they now had this variant of the toga that is called "imperial", and was worn during the principate. I think "classical toga" is a better name for this variant, because it is which became the most symbolical and characteristical version of the Roman toga.

In the photo at right, you can see my classical toga wich is made according to the "Theory 1":

Please compare it yourselves with ones on the Roman statues, like this, or this, or this and so on...