A római toga viselése Pannoniában – egy mítosz és a valóság
Absztrakt
One of the most important research projects in the past few years is the Szombathely Iseum Project, which has attracted great academic interest. This interest, however, is a result of the site’s significance in the field of religious history, and its importance in industrial history is less well-known. This study aims to bring to the fore the importance of the unique archaeological material found at a Roman textile workshop in Savaria’s suburb in the context of fashion history. The textile tools as well as lead labels frequently used in contemporary service industry found at the site, dated to the years between 70 and 120 AD, suggest the operation of a complex, well-organised and well-managed workshop, which provided comprehensive services including the repair and cleaning of used garments. This workshop is likely to have offered Roman-style repairs to Roman-style garments for Roman citizens, who had settled in the newly founded settlement or within its administrative boundary. The term ‘Roman style’ refers to the fashion that these citizens brought from home, which was profoundly different than the local native customs and garments. The afore-mentioned lead labels were widely used to record details about the received items and the services requested, as well as to aid retrieval for the customers. It is conspicuous that in Savaria and other parts of the Empire they never mention the most emblematic Roman garment, the toga. In contrast, similarly to other provinces, citizens of Pannonia had a penchant for having themselves portrayed wearing this symbol of Roman citizenship originally from the Italian peninsula. The lack of references to toga is all the more interesting, because at the time of the workshop’s operation, Savaria was the capital of the provincial assembly, where locals mingled with Pannonian Romans at the annual celebratory events. The contemporary representations and the archaeological material unearthed at the site of the cleaning and clothing repair shop in Szombathely raise the question of the relationship between the images commissioned by Pannonian citizens and contemporary provincial reality.