AN antiquarian would be sadly at fault, had he to write a history of the fashions in female dress at Rome, or even to explain the terms which occur in connection with the subject. The meaning of such names generally vanishes with the fashion that gave rise to them, and less than a century afterwards, there is no tradition that can give any satisfactory intelligence about the peculiarity of a stuff or a particular form of dress. Commentators must fail, for the most part, in their attempts to explain the various articles of fashion mentioned in Plaut. Aul. iii. 5, and Epid. ii. 2; and the old grammarians, who are much too ready to explain the nature of such things by the first suitable etymology they can meet with, can be but little trusted, since the fashions of earlier times were probably quite as incomprehensible to them as they are to us.

Whoever therefore intends to treat concerning the dress of the Roman ladies, will do well to confine himself to generalities, and this is the more satisfactory, as the several articles of dress always remained the same in the main, and the fashions appear to have extended mostly only to the stuff or quality, or to the other accessories, which are of no importance.