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Fringe was most often employed by the Romans as trim on religious garments.

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By Dr. Kelly Olson
Professor of Classics and Graduate Chair
Western University Canada

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Introduction

This article examines the presence and meaning of fringed garments in Roman iconography and literature; there are no examples yet recovered from the archaeological record. Fringed garments in Roman society were not common; and when fringe did occur, it appeared on certain types of garments only.¹ This overview of fringes in Roman antiquity will argue that fringes on garments in the Roman world may have served an apotropaic purpose, i.e. the power to avert evil or bad luck.

A fringe is an ornamental appendage to the border of an item.² Today, fringe is a trim that is added to a finished textile; in antiquity, it was usually part of the garment and simply the warp end of weaving left unfinished. Where inlaid fringe did occur, wool, silk, linen or leather loops were stitched or inlaid in an S-shape on a woven garment and then the ends of both loops were cut (Fig.1). If the fringe consisted of warp ends, they would need either to be knotted close to the weft or braided or twisted so that the whole garment would not unravel. If a garment was not fringed in the ancient world, it was usually finished off in a variety of other ways, for example by using a spiral warp; or with heading/starting and closing borders, a technique whereby the warp is looped through the border and thus requires no further finishing;³ or by tying off the warp threads close to the edge of the garment before snipping off the ends. It does not appear that the warp ends were merely left long as a matter of course to save the effort in finishing the garment (i.e. on poorer-quality clothing) – or, at least, fringe is seldom visible in the iconographic evidence.

Fringe in Ancient Egypt, the Near East, and Greece

Fringe appears with some regularity on male garments in the visual sources of the ancient Near East (Fig. 2)⁴ and scholars of the Near Eastern world have concluded that fringe on a garment signified a special high social status in a man. From the 9th century BCE onwards, fringe and tassels appears on depictions of the clothing of gods, kings and great warriors.⁵ The fringes of a garment were considered to be an extension of the wearer’s power and character and could even be used as a signature when pressed upon a document.⁶ Much later, ‘Matthew’s mention [in the New Testament] that scribes and Pharisees wear their fringes long (Matt 23:5) is a stinging remark intended to underline their thirst for social recognition’.⁷ There is also visual evidence that people wore garments with fringed edges in ancient Egypt, at least from the time of Thutmose II (c. 1490–1436 BCE);⁸ and evidence for different coloured fringes on Egyptian garments.⁹ Fringes (tzitzit) also have an important history in Jewish religion.¹⁰

Fringes appear to a certain extent on Greek clothing: on the ‘Warrior Vase’ from Mycenae, Greece, c. 1200 BCE (LH IIIC, Fig. 3), soldiers march with fringed tunics.¹¹ But usually in the Greek world fringes were an exotic occurrence. Dandified young men in the late 5th century ‘laconised’ or used appearance to imitate the Spartans by sporting short, fringed cloaks made of rough cloth, long hair, beards and dirty hands.¹² And some luxurious items of Persian clothing, adopted by Athenians in the 5th century BCE for reasons of status, also had fringes: the long-sleeved chiton or chitoniskos cheirodotos, for example, the shape itself non-Greek, was sometimes finished off with fringe.¹³ The ependytes was another Persian import, a shorter, sleeved, coat-like garment, worn by women and parthenoi (virgin girls) during some ritual activities, often embellished with fringe.¹⁴

Usually, then, the presence of fringes on a garment in ancient Greece or the Near East marked the garment out as sumptuous and the wearer as a person of some status.¹⁵ This may be explained in part by the sheer inconvenience of fringes, familiar to anyone who has ever worn a fringed garment: long, delicate fringes get tangled, knotted, torn and all too easily caught on things. They are a lovely but imprac-tical decoration. In addition, fringes have a graceful, even arresting, movement while the wearer is in motion– and this fact may have served to mark the wearer out as a person of importance.

Fringe as a Fashion Item in the Roman World

While fringe on blankets is mentioned by Varro, the elder Pliny and Celsus (and is sometimes seen on blankets in Roman iconography),¹⁶ fringes do not seem to have been worn much on everyday clothing in the Roman world either by men or women.¹⁷ Only three occurrences in ancient literature of a fringe being used as a fashion item for men are known to the author. Julius Caesar is described as being ‘remarkably’ (cultu notabilem) dressed in a broad-striped tunic with fringed, wrist-length sleeves,¹⁸ a tunic made inappropriate by its long sleeves as much as by its fringe. The upstart fictional character Trimalchio has about his neck a napkin with a broad stripe and fringes hanging from it on all sides.¹⁹ And finally, in the 4th century, Ammianus Marcellinus describes the Romans of his day in this manner:

Other men, taking great pride in coaches higher than common and in ostentatious finery of apparel (ambitioso vestium cultu), sweat under heavy cloaks … and they lift them up with both hands and wave them with many gestures, especially with their left hands,²⁰ in order that the over-long fringes (longiores fimbriae) and the tunics, embroidered²¹ with party-coloured threads in multiform figures of animals, may be conspicuous.²²

The written sources imply that fringes were effeminate or somehow an inappropriate fashion for a man; probably because of their Near Eastern (that is, ‘effeminate’) origin; for the Romans, certain races were naturally mollis or soft.²³ Or perhaps the Romans did not favour fringes because certain religious groups (such as the Jewish people) did.

By contrast, Roman women never seem to appear in fringed wear as a fashion item in literature. The only reference to fringe comes from the scholiast on Juv. at 2.124, who wrongly described segmenta as ‘fringes’ (incorrectly, as segmenta are bands or borders on women’s dress).²⁴ A linen shroud from Roman Egypt (Fig. 4) also exists which depicts a woman wearing a fringed/beaded tunic or undertunic, with an Egyptian god on either side of her. Her fringes may be part of her local dress; the Romans clearly seem to have associated fringes with the East (Fig. 5, a relief from Rome).²⁵

In a text likely dating to the late 4th century CE, the Eastern queen Zenobia is described at public assemblies in Palmyra arrayed gorgeously ‘like a Roman emperor’ in a purple-bordered garment with gems hanging down from the fringe.²⁶

Fringed Cloaks in the Roman Military

Fringe was also present on some Roman military cloaks. Sumner has observed that:

a number of cloaks depicted both on Trajan’s Column and elsewhere clearly have at least one edge that is fringed. It is not certain if this indicates any kind of status but it does appear to be associated with higher grade troops including cavalrymen … praetorians, and senior officers such as tribunes. Other sculpture and art works indicate that some cloaks could be further decorated with tassels²⁷ at the bottom corners.²⁸

The scarlet paludamentum was the general’s cloak; in iconography it is thickly fringed and pinned with a large circular brooch (Fig. 6, on a bronze statue of the emperor Augustus now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens).²⁹ After the death of the emperor Commodus, the author of the Historia Augusta tells us that the sale of his clothes included ‘curly’ military cloaks (cirratas militares), possibly a reference to fringe.³⁰

Fringes on Roman Religious Garments: ‘Rica’ and ‘Ricinium’³¹

Outside military wear, fringe was most often employed by the Romans as trim on religious garments. A few sources speak of women wearing a fringed garment in the context of ritual. The rica seems to have been a small cloak (how small is unclear, but small enough to drape over the head – perhaps like a handkerchief). Festus and Paul. ex Fest. state the rica was a four-sided garment (vestimentum quadratum) and that it was fringed.³² Festus also states that the rica and the ricula³³ are ‘little ricinia’, little pallia women use for covering the head, and which flaminicae (wives of Roman priests) wear in place of vittae.³⁴ Festus then goes on to assert that ‘others say that it is made from fresh white wool, that virgins make [it], virgins who are freeborn citizens with fathers and mothers still alive, and that it is dyed with a blue colour’.³⁵ Varro seems to equate it with a garment for use in sacrificing; in other authors rica seems to have been employed as a synonym for ‘mantle’ or even ‘veil’.³⁶ The rica was thus a small fringed female garment, sometimes associated with ritual activity and with flaminicae.

Another cloak, the ricinium, is known about only from literary sources.³⁷ Festus defines the ricinium as a four-sided ancient garment in general use (omne vesti-mentum quadratum), says that it may be made praetexta with a purple stripe (praetextam clavo purpureo; the toga praetexta is a toga so bordered) and further defines it as a ‘man’s toga’(?) used by women.³⁸ Varro also names the ricinium as a garment of the greatest antiquity (antiquissimi amictui ricinium); and Servius describes the ricinium as a garment originally for women.³⁹ Festus considers the ricinium almost a generic term for any four-sided mantle and then goes on to mention it in relation to mime-dancers.⁴⁰ Sometimes the ricinium is described as ‘duplex’,⁴¹ a term which continues to puzzle modern commentators. Varro stated that women wore it ‘double-folded’ (duplex, probably meaning having a double layer of cloth) and ‘half thrown back’.⁴² Isidore (following Servius and Varro?) states ‘likewise also the ricinium is so called by that Latin name because a doubled part of it is "thrown back", which vulgarly they call the mafurtium’.⁴³

Some ancient authors mention the ricinium as a cloak of mourning for women, although for what purposes and for how long they adopted it is unclear. Varro tells us women don it when they are mourning⁴⁴ and also that, while the corpse is above ground, women mourn in ricinia; but that, at the funeral itself, they are wrapped in dark pallae.⁴⁵ Cicero mentions the number of ricinia allowed at funerals in the XII Tables.⁴⁶ Based on these references, several modern authors identify the ricinium as the distinctive mantle of the widow and state that it has a fringed border. As a result, the woman at the juncture of the third and fourth panels of the north frieze of the Ara Pacis in Rome (Fig. 7) has been identified by some as Augustus’ daughter Julia, the widow of Agrippa, because she wears this mantle. Kleiner states that ‘the fringed shawl or ricinium of a widow is draped across her left shoulder … Julia is represented in widow’s garb, which alludes to Agrippa’s death in 12 BC’. A woman in the second group of the north frieze (Fig. 7, also from Rome) is also wearing a fringed mantle, identified as a ricinium, ‘indicating that she is a widow’. She again has been variously identified by virtue of this mantle.⁴⁷ As we have seen, however, the literary sources do not describe the mourning mantle or ricinium as fringed. It is not without significance that the only two women in fringed cloaks appear together, in the north frieze, along with a young boy who also wears a fringed cloak (he is possibly a camillus, a religious attendant).

A number of points are worth noting at this stage: the ricinium is not described as fringed in the literature; the ricinium is not associated with formal religious ritual (such as sacrifices or worship); and in the literary sources it is portrayed as a female garment. In addition, the garment which is described as fringed and is associated with ritual in the literary sources is the smaller rica, also a strictly female garment. Although Festus does indeed state ‘the rica is a little ricinium’, modern authors are wrong to assume from this that both mantles were fringed: ancient literature names no mantle as fringed except the (small) rica.

The Arval Brethren or Fratres Arvales were a company of twelve priests who originally offered sacrifices for the fertility of the fields. Were it not for the inscriptions featuring the Arval Brethren, all the above statements might be assumed to be correct. But, in the Arval acta, the priests’ inscribed protocols from Rome, boys functioning as their attendants are described as riciniati and praetextati (i.e. wearing the ricinium and the purple-bordered toga of the citizen boy) across a wide chronological period.⁴⁸ And it is also noteworthy that in several of the inscriptions it is the promagister (or vice-master of the priests) who wears the ricinium: he is described as riciniatus et soleatus (wearing the ricinium and sandals).⁴⁹

Fringe can be seen on some garments in Roman artistic depictions of ritual despite literary references to ritual fringed garments for men being non-existent. The earliest appearance of fringe can be found on some Etruscan statuettes of priests such as the small haruspex (Fig. 8).⁵⁰

Fringe appears on the cloaks of men and boys who (probably) have a religious function on the reliefs of the Ara Pacis (Fig. 9 and 10), on one of the west panels of the same monument (that of Aeneas sacrificing)⁵¹ and on the smaller Cancellaria reliefs (the so-called Vicomagistri relief from Rome, 14–37 CE; Fig. 10).⁵² These figures often carry incense boxes or statues of the Lares and clearly have a ritual function.

Pollini and others⁵³ have tentatively identified the figures on the smaller Cancellaria relief as the boys of the Acta, who are riciniati et praetextati.⁵⁴ The boys in the relief, however, wear fringed mantles and ungirded tunics (not togae praetextae as the inscriptions state) – as do most boys wearing fringed mantles in other depictions of Roman ritual.⁵⁵ Although this type of mantle is known to appear on youths in depictions of ritual, there is no name found for it in the literary sources; and nor is it known what the ricinium looked like. The ricinia of the Arval inscriptions may, therefore, have been fringed mantles but they could also have been doubled, short, decorated or coloured in some fashion. The ricinium of literature and epigraph is not necessarily the fringed mantle of Roman iconography.

One final puzzle: why does any Roman garment at all have fringe, given that fringe as a fashion item was regarded as something to be avoided? Perhaps the fringe was in some way apotropaic, i.e. intended to guard the wearer against ill-chance, accident or the Evil Eye.⁵⁶ Much like the shifting oscilla in Roman gardens,⁵⁷ tinkling tintinnabula in houses,⁵⁸ music in temples⁵⁹ and bouncing phallic amulets,⁶⁰ the movement of fringe may have been intended to distract demons and bearers of the Evil Eye from their intended target. The fact that fringe is not usually a fashion item but instead appears on military wear and on ritual garments (at least in Roman iconography, whether or not the mantle depicted is in fact a ricinium) supports the view that this might be the reason behind ornamenting a garment with fringes. Priests and generals might need additional protection from misfortune and accident; a case has indeed been made recently that rosettes and tassels on Jewish clothing in the Hebrew Bible serve an apotropaic purpose.⁶¹

Conclusion

Fringe as a fashion item for men seems to have been frowned upon, perhaps because of its Near Eastern (and therefore ‘effeminate’) connotations; it is not mentioned at all as a fashion item for women. In Latin literature and in Roman iconography, fringe is seen on blankets, on some religious garments and on some high-status military cloaks. It might simply have been intended to signal high status: holders of religious office and military generals were necessarily of the elite classes and, perhaps, the presence of fringe on their garments reflects this. But the wearers of such garments also needed extra protection from invidious persons and demons, and this is something that an apotropaic fringe might have offered.

Appendix

Endnotes

1. Little has been published on ancient fringes, but see Hildebrandt and Demant (2018, 201–202). In the medieval period fringe was used mainly for ecclesiastical garments and was a rare ornament for lay dress before the 15th century (Cumming etal. 2010, 86).
2. On the technology of fringe, see Barber (1991, 151–154, 274).
3. Granger-Taylor (1987, 115–116); Barber (1991, 115–116, 134–137).
4. Barber (1991, 146–147); Cleland etal. (2007, 74–75).
5. Bertman (1961, 128).
6. Horn Prouser (1996, 27); Spoelstra (2019, 82, with referencesin n. 121).
7. Batten (2010, 155).
8. Bertman (1961, 121–122).
9. Barber (1991, 224).
10. Silverman (2013, 138–142); Spoelstra (2019).
11. Now in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, inv. no. 1426. On this vase and similar iconography, see Kelder (2010, 40–43).
12. Ar. Wasps 474–476; Plato Prot. 342; Demos. 54.34; Geddes (1987, 309).
13. On the chitoniskos cheirodotos, see Miller (1997,156–165, 179–180); Lee (2015, 110–111, 113, 118).
14. Miller (1989; 1997, 170–183); Lee (2015, 123–124, 126). See the woman in a fringed ependytes on an Attic red-figure volute krater, c. 430 BCE, in the Museo Archeological Nazionale di Spina, inv. no. 44894 (Art Resource ART465030); Miller (1997, fig. 68).
15. Miller (1997, 159); see also Lee (2015, 95).
16. Varro L. 5.79. Pliny Nat. 7.171. Celsus 2.6.6. Roman art: see the fragment of an equestrian statue now on display in the Coliseum, Rome (unlabelled): https://www.roundtheworldmagazine.com/inside-the-colosseum/horse-statue-roman-colosseum-rome-italy/ (accessed 25 September 2021). See also the architectural relief of an elephant wearing a fringed blanket in the Getty Villa (80–100 CE), Roman. Italian marble, inv. no. 71.AA.463.1.
17. ‘Fimbria’ was, of course, also a Roman cognomen, found in the family of the Flavii; for instance, G. Flavius Fimbria (BNP Flavius I5).
18. usumen imlato clavo admanus fimbriato; Suet. Iul. 45.3.
19. laticlavia mimmiserat mappam fimbrii shin catqueill incpendentibus; Petr. Satyr. 32.
20. Their left hands may be covered with rings (?).
21. On embroidery in the ancient world, see Wace (1948); Barber (1991, 197–200, 320–321); and now Droß-Krüpe and Paetz gen. Schieck (2015, with references).
22. Amm. Marc. 14.6.9.
23. On Roman notions of Near Eastern and Asian effeminacy, see Cic. Mur. 31; Virg. Aen. 4.215–217, 9.598–620, 12.97–100; Val. Max. 2.6.1, 9.1.ext.7. On Greek effeminacy, see Olson (2017, 164 n. 124, with references). On Persian effeminacy, see Makhlaiuk (2015, 312–315); Eastern effeminacy, Williams (2010, 148–151).
24. fimbriata esi vevitta taevestes. Juv. 2.124 reads: segmenta et longos habitus et flammeas umit (‘he’s wearing the bride’s segmenta, long dress, and veil’). Scholia: see Iahn (1851, 173–385); Wessner (1931). On segmenta, see Olson (2008, 30–31, with references).
25. When Pliny writes about the magnetic properties of amber, he states that in Syria the women make whorls of it and call it ‘harpax’, or ‘the snatcher’, because it picks up leaves, straws and the ‘fringes of garments’ (vestium fimbrias rapiat; Nat. 37.37). Apuleius describes the cloak of the goddess Isis at Met. 11.3 as dark wrap with ‘a knotted fringe at the lower edge’.
26. ‘Romanorum ad contiones galeata processit cum limbo purpure ogemmis dependentibus perultimam fimbriam;’ HATyr Trig. 30.14.
27. On tassels on Roman clothing, see Hildebrandt and Demant (2018, especially nn. 3 and 16).
28. Sumner (2009,83).
29. On the paludamentum, see Wilson (1938, 100–104); Heskel (1994, 134); Sumner (2009, 72); Olson (2017, 77, 78–79 with references).
30. HAPert. 8.2–4.
31. For a more detailed treatment of the rica and ricinium, see Olson (2004–2005, 117–123).
32. Fest. 368L; Paul ex. Fest. 369L: rica est vestimentum quadratum, fimbriatum, purpureum, quo flaminicae pro palliolo utebantur.
33. Ricula: see Turp. Comm. 74 (aspexit virginem … in capite … indutam riculam).
34. ricae et riculae vocantur parva ricinia, ut palliola ad usum capitis facta. Gran<ius> quidem ait esse muliebre cingulum capitis, quo pro vitta flamini care dimiatur; Fest. 342L.
35. Fest. 368L, Paul. ex Fest. 369L: alii dicunt, quo dexlana fiat sucida alba, quod conficiunt virgines ingenuae, patrimae, matrimae, cives, et inficia turca eruleo colore.
36. See for example Non. 865L; Varro in Non. 866L; Gellius NA7.10.4.
37. In addition to the references here, see also Non. 880L (in which the garment [ricinum] is mentioned in a list by Novius).
38. esse dixerunt ‡vir toga‡ mulieres utebantur; Fest. 342L.
39. Var L. 5.132; Ser. ad Aen. 1.282.
40. omne vestimentum quadratum … unde reciniati mimi planipedes; Fest. 342L.
41. Var. L. 5.132.
42. This part of the definition is probably due to a false etymology, possibly from reicio; see also Serv. ad Aen. 1.282.
43. Isid. Orig. 19.25.4: idem et ricinium Latino nomine appella tumeo quod dimidiaeius pars retro reicitur; quod vulgo mavortem dicunt. Vocatum autem mavortem quasi Martem; signum enim maritalis dignitatis et potestatis in eo est. On the mafurtium, see Olson (2008, 54), with references. In Servius Aen. 4.262, the togas that the flamines and augurs wear are duplex: perhaps the double layer of wool had a religious significance. See Olson (2021).
44. Non. 869L. Non. 882L.
45. Interestingly, this statement assumes the ricinium and the palla were different in some way.
46. Cic. de Leg. 2.59.
47. Kleiner (1993, 33, 49 n. 23).
48. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL); CIL 6.02067a, 6.2068, 6.2075, 6.2078, 6.2080, 6.2086, 6.2087, 6.2099, 6.2101, 6.32396. On these inscriptions, see Beard (1985) for some helpful comments and a translation. Pollini (2012, 321) describes the ricninium as a ‘fringed religious shawl’.
49. CIL 6.2067a; 6.2068, 6.2075, 6.2078, 6.2080, 6.2086, 6.2099. Commentarii fratrum Arvalium (CFA); CFA 00065 = AE 1964, 00069a, 6.2104. In addition, the Arval Brethren had the right to assume the toga praetexta when they performed their religious duties, and sometimes the Brethren appear in the inscriptions as praetextati: CIL 6.2067a, 6.2068, 6.2075, 6.2078, 6.2080, 6.2086, 6.2099, 6.2104.
50. A haruspex was a priest who interpreted omens in the entrails of sacrificial animals.
51. On depiction of religious ritual on the Ara Pacis, see Ryberg (1955,38–48); Koeppel (1985); Elsner (1991); Billows (1993).
52. On these reliefs, see Ryberg (1955, 75–80); Pollini (2012, 309–368).
53. On riciniati, see Fless (1995,53); Pollini (2012,321–328).
54. Fless (1995, 53); Pollini (2012, 322).
55. Pollini (2012, 322) assumes that as the boys in the smaller Cancellaria relief wear no togas, the praetextatae the youths wear in the Acta refer to a garment called a ‘tunica praetexta’, citing as his evidence Livy 22.46.6 (here, Spanish troops commanded by the Carthaginians wear linen tunics bordered in purple: Hispani linteis praetextis purpura tunicis candore miro fulgentibus constiterant). However, when the Romans referred to youth in the broad-striped tunic, they used the term laticlavi (see for example Suet. Aug. 38.2, 94.10). On the latus clavus, see Olson (2017,19, with references).
56. Thanks to A. Batten for this suggestion (pers. comm., 9 July 2019). On the Evil Eye, see Clarke (2007, 63–81); Elliot (2016). On apotropaism in religious practice, see Spoelstra (2019, n. 9) (Judaism); Morgan (2018,39)(late antiquity); Elliot (2017) (post-biblical Israel and early Christianity).
57. An oscillum was a decorative plaque hung in a Roman garden in such a way that it shifted with the wind. On oscilla and the Evil Eye, see most recently Wilk (2014).
58. A tintinnabulum was a wind-chime. See Johns (1982, 67–68).
59. On apotropaic music, see Perrot (2016).
60. See Whitmore (2017, 59) on fascina: ‘since visibility is relevant to the amulet’s function, the constant motion of these pendants … darting in and out of clothing folds, would capture the attention of those already staring, successfully averting the evil eye’.
61. See Spoelstra (2019).

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Chapter 11 (149-159) from Textiles in Ancient Mediterranean Iconography (Ancient Textiles Series 38), edited by Susanna Harris, Cecilie Brøns AND Marta Zuchowska, (Oxbow Books, 02.03.2022), published by OAPEN under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.