ABSTRACT
UNDERWEAR Remnants of LEATHER loincloths have been found from 7,000 years ago: the simplest, and probably first, undergarment worn by human beings, alone in warmer climates, covered by other garments in colder. The EGYPTIANS of the second millennium BC wore such fabric undergarments beneath their kilts: supplies for use after death were buried in pharaohs’ tombs. Greek and Roman men may have worn loincloths, but wearing underclothes was by no means obligatory, and it remains unclear whether Greek women wore undergarments. ARTISTIC evidence only rarely
shows underwear – usually worn alone – and literature seldom mentions it. LOINCLOTHS were worn by some labourers, as outerwear by GLADIATORS, ATHLETES, ACTORS and possibly SOLDIERS and HUNTSMEN, and perhaps worn under early togas, before the TUNIC became customary. Women athletes and entertainers wore BRIEFS – similar garments were perhaps worn when BATHING – but otherwise the sparse evidence is against these being routinely worn as underclothes (Martial, 3.87, 11.99). There is much more evidence for BREASTBANDS as underwear. Undertunics were worn by both sexes, and again appear to be referred to by various names: the subucula, worn especially by men; the indusium/intusium, worn by MATRONS; the supparum (-us), an undertunic for girls and BRIDES. Camisia is used in later Latin, possibly for an undertunic worn by girls, cf. caltula. Other forms of underwear also appear to have been worn by those in ill-health (e.g. feminalia).
