Matrona and Whore: The Clothing of Women in Roman Antiquity

Author: Olson Kelly  

Publisher: Bloomsbury Journals (formerly Berg Journals)

ISSN: 1751-7419

Source: Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, Vol.6, Iss.4, 2002-11, pp. : 387-420

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Abstract

Prostitutes and adulteresses were presumably immediately identifiable from their clothing – both were supposedly togate. But specific passages on the togate adulteress/whore are very few. Apart from Cicero and Nonius, the toga is not mentioned specifically in connection with the appearance of prostitutes. Instead it appears that whores, depending on their station, appeared in everything from rich clothing all the way down to nothing; the toga, the prostitute's supposed identifying mark, is in fact rarely mentioned – there was instead a range of prostitute clothing. Nor do we find any evidence that the adulteress or the prostitute was “compelled” to wear the toga, as is often asserted by modern authors. Like the use of the word stola or stolata to designate the woman of impeccable virtue, it seems possible that the word togata was employed not to designate common social practice, but as shorthand or metonomy for the sexually licentious woman: it is not clothing which is designated, but moral systems.