ABSTRACT
The paenula was associated with bad weather, especially rain, and travelling. It was worn by various kinds of people – including women: labourers wore workaday versions and SOLDIERS on the northern frontiers wore them both on-and off-duty. Soldiers on Trajan’s column wear paenulae, as does the emperor himself. The paenula was also commonly worn by ordinary citizens in crowd scenes of ‘the people’ on state reliefs (Anaglypha Traiani, Arch of Constantine). In the early empire the paenula was not considered APPROPRIATE attire for upper-class Romans – except when travelling – but clearly there were superior versions: e.g. Canusian of the best quality Apulian wool, those worn as FASHION items in Rome, the paenula gausapina of fine WHITE wool with shaggy NAP, and Caligula’s paenula decorated with EMBROIDERED pictures and GEMS. Although ordinary paenulae were probably the natural COLOURS of wool, or DYED a dark colour, they could be white or RED – mosaics represent various colours – even of LEATHER (scortea, Martial, 14.130), SKINS or FUR. Worn over a tunic, not over a toga, paenulae gradually came to replace the toga as the official dress of Roman citizens by the fourth century AD: an edict of 382 (Code of Theodosius 14.10.1.2) even decreed that it should be worn by SENATORS. The paenula also eventually became a CHRISTIAN church vestment, the correct dress for bishops from
the time of Constantine. Casula is another name for late imperial paenulae, which evolved into the chasuble.
