FA´SCIA
FA´SCIA
dim. FASCIOLA (
ταινἴα,
ἀπόδεσμος), any long narrow strip of cloth employed as a
bandage.
1. A band worn round the head as an ensign of royalty (
Suet. Jul. 79; Sen.
Ep. 80.10)
[DIADEMA; first cut to
FALX].
2. A band worn by women round the chest for the improvement of the figure
(Terent.
Eun. 2.3, 23; Propert. 5.9, 49;
Ov. A. Am. 3.276, 622; Sen.
fr. 83, Haase;
Fascia Pectoralis,
Mart. 14.134). [
STROPHIUM]
3. A band worn round the legs and shins, a kind of stocking: hence called
fasciae crurales (
Dig.
34,
2,
25) and
tibiales (
Suet.
Aug. 82). That such bandages also covered the feet is clear from
the epithet of
fasciae pedules (
Dig. 34,
2,
26). Cicero reproached Clodius with effeminate habits for
wearing purple fasciae upon his feet, and the
CALAUTICA a female ornament, upon his head
(
de Har. Resp. 21.44;
Fragm. Or. in Clod. et
Cur.; cf. Non. p. 537). Afterwards, when the toga had fallen into
disuse, and the shorter pallium was worn in its stead, so that the legs were
exposed,
fasciae crurales became common even
with the male sex. (Hor.
Sat. 2.3, 255;
V. Max. 6.2.7; Grat.
Cyneg. 338;
Petron. 100.46.) The Emperor Alexander Severus always wore both fasciae and
bracae (Lamprid.
Al. Sev. 40), even although, when in town,
he wore the toga. Quintilian, nevertheless, insists that the adoption of
them could only be excused on the plea of infirm health. (
Inst.
Or. 11.3.144.) White fasciae, worn by men (Val. Max.
l.c.; Phaedr. 5.7, 37), were a sign of extraordinary
refinement in dress: the mode of cleaning them was by rubbing them with a
white tenacious earth, resembling our pipe-clay (
fasciae
cretatae,
Cic. Att. 2.3). In the imperial times the
Roman soldiers wore such
fasciae (
“si(miles)
tibiale alienavit,”
Dig. 49,
16,
14.1). The bandages wound about the legs are shown
in the illuminations of ancient MSS., e. g. in the Vatican Virgil. See also
cut under
LIBRA Vol. II. p. 63.
4. The sacking of the bed on which the mattress rested (
Cic. de Div. 2.6. 5,
§ 134;
Mart. 5.62,
14.159; Becker-Göll,
Gallus, 2.333; Guhl and Koner, p. 572, ed. 5).
5.
Fasciae were also the swaddling clothes in
which infants were wrapped (Plaut.
Truc. 5.13): see cut under
INCUNABULA
[
J.Y] [
W.W]
