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THE CLOTHED BODY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
17-19 January 2002

Ron Newbold
Adelaide University

Costume in Ammianus and Gregory of Tours: top gear and bottom gear.

Ammianus focuses strongly on what we might be called top gear, dress and accessories that signify high rank, office and authority. There are a number of cases where clothing and insignia feature in illegitimate or dangerous aspirations for power, and brought destruction upon the aspirants (or threatened to). An ongoing concern is how appropriately attired people are. Amminaus scorns the pretentious clothing of Roman nobles and their wives, implies that Procopius' rule was doomed by the inadequate regalia available at his inauguration, took some pleasure in retailing Julian's reaction to his overdressed barber, and considered the craven Epigonius to be a philosopher only in attire. Gallus' forced change from high to low status clothing portends his imminent end and a woman has to endure the humiliation of being stripped naked before being executed. Quite a few of the references are mundane, such as people being recognised by their garments, wearing mourning clothes or giving clothes as gifts. However in his ethnographic excurses, references to the attire of foreign peoples helps define their otherness.

Gregory too has some mundane references to clothes but seems largely oblivious to high status finery, unless it is the shining gear, humble clothing such as the hair shirt that denotes spiritual commitment or reorientation, a change of 'habit', a declaration of faith that can be torn off by enemies and persecutors while leaving the faith itself intact. Real ascetics eschew footwear in winter. The most striking feature of clothing in Gregory is the magical powers, to heal or punish, that it can absorb from the bodies of holy wearers.

In both authors, clothes and character may be mismatched but Ammianus does not share Gregory's fondness for rude attire and certainly not his belief that a few threads from the clothing of one long dead can work miracles.