CHAPTER XIX
After my father had debated the affair of the breeches with my mother, --he consulted _Albertus Rubenius_ upon it; and _Albertus Rubenius_ used my father ten times worse in the consultation (if possible) than even my father had used my mother: For as _Rubenius_ had wrote a quarto _express_, _De re Vestiaria Veterum_, --it was _Rubenius’s_ business to have given my father some lights. --On the contrary, my father might as well have thought of extracting the seven cardinal virtues out of a long beard, --as of extracting a single word out of _Rubenius_ upon the subject.
Upon every other article of ancient dress, _Rubenius_ was very communicative to my father; --gave him a full and satisfactory account of
The Toga, or loose gown. The Chlamys. The Ephod. The Tunica, or Jacket. The Synthesis. The Pænula. The Lacema, with its Cucullus. The Paludamentum. The Prætexta. The Sagum, or soldier’s jerkin. The Trabea: of which, according to _Suetonius_, there were three kinds.--
----But what are all these to the breeches? said my father.
_Rubenius_ threw him down upon the counter all kinds of shoes which had been in fashion with the _Romans_.------
There was,
The open shoe. The close shoe. The slip shoe. The wooden shoe. The soc. The buskin. And The military shoe with hobnails in it, which _Juvenal_ takes notice of. There were, The clogs. The pattins. The pantoufles. The brogues. The sandals, with latchets to them. There was, The felt shoe. The linen shoe. The laced shoe. The braided shoe. The calceus incisus. And The calceus rostratus.
_Rubenius_ shewed my father how well they all fitted, --in what manner they laced on, --with what points, straps, thongs, latchets, ribbands, jaggs, and ends.------
----But I want to be informed about the breeches, said my father.
_Albertus Rubenius_ informed my father that the _Romans_ manufactured stuffs of various fabrics, ----some plain, --some striped, --others diapered throughout the whole contexture of the wool, with silk and gold ----That linen did not begin to be in common use till towards the declension of the empire, when the _Egyptians_ coming to settle amongst them, brought it into vogue.
----That persons of quality and fortune distinguished themselves by the fineness and whiteness of their clothes; which colour (next to purple, which was appropriated to the great offices) they most affected, and wore on their birthdays and public rejoicings. ----That it appeared from the best historians of those times, that they frequently sent their clothes to the fuller, to be clean’d and whitened: ----but that the inferior people, to avoid that expence, generally wore brown clothes, and of a something coarser texture, --till towards the beginning of _Augustus’s_ reign, when the slave dressed like his master, and almost every distinction of habiliment was lost, but the _Latus Clavus_.
And what was the _Latus Clavus?_ said my father.
_Rubenius_ told him, that the point was still litigating amongst the learned: ----That _Egnatius_, _Sigonius_, _Bossius Ticinensis_, _Bayfius_, _Budæus_, _Salmasius_, _Lipsius_, _Lazius_, _Isaac Casaubon_, and _Joseph Scaliger_, all differed from each other, --and he from them: That some took it to be the button, --some the coat itself, --others only the colour of it: --That the great _Bayfius_, in his Wardrobe of the Ancients, chap. 12--honestly said, he knew not what it was, --whether a tibula, --a stud, --a button, --a loop, --a buckle, --or clasps and keepers.------
----My father lost the horse, but not the saddle ----They are _hooks and eyes_, said my father----and with hooks and eyes he ordered my breeches to be made.
##