Males typically wore a simple knee-length tunic made of wool, while only male citizens could wear the formal toga. Freeborn women and freed women wore long tunics and respectable matrons wore a long sleeveless garment and cloak when outdoors. While clothing styles were similar across classes, poorer citizens and slaves wore lower quality fabrics and styles suited to their work. Women took pride in their appearance and wore jewelry, did their hair, and used cosmetics and perfumes.

1. Everyday Life - Clothing

2. Everyday Life - Clothing
• Very little clothing survives from Pompeii and Herculaneum, although frescoes and
statuary provide some idea of what people wore
• Most males wore a tunic , a simple knee-length garment, belted at the waist, usually
made from woollen fabric
• Only citizens were entitled to wear the toga which was only usually worn on formal
occasions

3. Everyday Life - Clothing
• The poorer freeborn working man, freedman
and slave all wore similar tunics loosely tied
at the waist
• Adult male citizens of high status wore a
personalised signet ring that was used to
make an impression in sealing wax in order
to authorise documents

4. Everyday Life - Clothing
• Freeborn women and freed women wore similar
clothing
• Their basic item of clothing was a full, long tunic
(tunica) and assembled in two styles similar to the
Greek style of tunic
• Married women were also expected to wear the
stola, a long sleeveless tunic, frequently if not
always suspended at the shoulders from short straps
• It was worn on the top of the basic tunic

5. Everyday Life - Clothing
• Respectable matrons wore a stola, a long,
sleeveless garment, on top of the tunic and a
long cloak or palla, when they went outdoors

6. Everyday Life - Clothing
• While women of all three classes wore similar styles of garments, the quality and
colour of the fabrics may have varied
• The clothing of poorer working women and slaves would have depended on the
work they did
• Not all slaves were poorly dressed
• The skeleton of a women found near Pompeii had a gold serpent bracelet with the
engraving “from the master to his slave girl”

7. Everyday Life - Clothing
• Women took pride in their
appearance
• They wore jewellery, did their
hair in various styles and
many wore makeup
• Evidence for this comes from
the objects that have been
found: ivory combs, silver or
bronze mirrors, cosmetics and
perfume containers, and
jewellery such as rings,
earrings, necklaces, bracelets,
pins and brooches