GA´LLICAE
GA´LLICAE
sc. soleae or
crepidae,
were a kind of low shoes intermediate between the
calcei, which were half-boots, and the
soleac, which did not cover the foot at all. They thus resembled the
CREPIDAE, but were reckoned by the Latin
writers among the SOLEAE; the question to which
class they belong is discussed in
Gel. 13.22
(21), § 5. Two specimens, from Gaulish figures on a relief found at
Rome, are given by Rich (s. v.); one of these is without any fastening, like
a slipper, the other laced in front. The wearing of gallicae, as of other
soleae, was accounted negligent if not
effeminate; a point which comes out in the only two classical passages where
they are mentioned. In Gellius (
13.22) the story
is told of one Castricius, a professor of rhetoric under Hadrian, who
rebuked his pupils for coming to his lecture
tunicis et
lacernis indutos et gallicis calciatos; not wearing the toga
might be excused by custom, but coming
soleati was
altogether wanting in decorum. So Cicero contrasts his own travelling dress
with that of Antonius,
cum calceis et toga, nullis nec
gallicis nec lacerna (
Phil. 2.30.76). The
etiquette which prescribed the wearing of calcei within the city, and in
official dress everywhere,. has been noticed under CALCEUS: we add
Cic. in
Verr. 5.33, § 86;
in. Pis. 6.13.
Under the later empire gallicae were much more generally worn, and various
sorts are mentioned as in common use among the price-lists of the Edict of
Diocletian ( “gallicae viriles rusticanae bisoles, gallicae viriles
monosoles, gallicae cursoriae,”
Ed. Diocl. 9, 12 ff.; Marquardt,
Privatl.
577).
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