The Toga in Military Context

This paper synthesizes literary reports of Republican-era Roman soldiers being issued togas with visual representations of what these garments might have looked like. It follows the recent suggestion of Ursula Rothe that the toga of the Early and Middle Republic was an outdoor wrap that was worn in many contexts, including military ones, as well as by unmarried women and children (Rothe 2021). Livy reports four occasions where togas were issued to Roman soldiers: on an emergency basis to cavalrymen who survived Cannae (22.52.2), as a requisition from Iberian communities for Roman troops (29.3.4-5) and two mass procurements of clothing that included thousands of togas for armies in Africa (29.36.2) and Macedonia (44.16.4). A passage of Frontinus (Str. 4.1.26), describing the humiliation of a cohort commander whose unit had been routed, indicates that the military toga was belted, and this should be seen as an actual belt, rather than an additional wrap of the toga (i.e. the cinctus Gabinus).

With the repeated appearance of togas in martial contexts in the literary record, an examination of the visual record provides some candidates for what these might have looked like. From the Late Republic/Early Empire, the Tarpeia relief on the Basilica Aemilia shows a figure in a cuirass and helmet, perhaps the god Mars, wearing a toga-like wrap over his armor as he observes the execution. The context is mythic, and the featured armor is not contemporary, but the scene suggests the possibility of a toga/armor pairing outside of combat. For a combat situation, we have the Late Republican (c. 50 BC) Guerreros de Estepa from Spain, featuring a pair of legionaries in combat (one has a drawn sword). One wears a mail shirt, but the other wears a bulky belted garment with many creases and folds, with a tunic sleeve protruding from beneath. This would align with the toga as belted over-garment as described by Frontinus.

A similar belted garment can be seen on the Mainz Principia reliefs (c. 50 AD), in which a soldier attacks with drawn sword wearing a baggy, belted garment, also with one of his tunic sleeves protruding from beneath. By the end of the first century AD, however, the paenula, a hooded poncho, had largely displaced the toga as the soldiers’ overgarment of choice.

The paper concludes with the suggestion that Roman soldiers wore belted togas in combat as a sort of surcoat. Worn over armor, it could provide warmth, protect armor from the elements, and still be easily stripped off if the soldier overheated. Outside of combat, it could still serve as a wrap in camp, and perhaps even a blanket if necessary. While by the Late Republic, the increasingly large and elaborate toga came to symbolize civil peace (esp. Cic. De Consulatu Suo Frg. 6), the toga as a multipurpose wrap also proved a routine part of the soldier’s kit during the Republic and beyond.