ABOLLA
ABOLLA a thick, double cloak, which, according to Servius
(
ad
Verg. A. 5.421), resembled the chlamys, and
which he identifies with the
duplex pannus of
Horace (
Hor. Ep. 1.17,
25). It was of foreign origin; and in a Roman
inscription (A.D. 202) found in Mauretania, there is mentioned the
abolla cenatoria in a
Lex vestis
peregrinae (
C. I. L. 8.4508). The generally
accepted identification of the word with the Greek
ἀναβολὴ is questionable etymologically; and it is rightly
pointed out by Daremberg and Saglio (s. v.), that the Greek word applies
especially to the manner of wearing
any cloak
(thrown back over the shoulder), while the Latin denotes a cloak of a
particular form. Varro (ap. Nonium, p. 538, 16) contrasts it with the toga
as a distinctively military garment (
vestis
militaris), much as the sagum and toga are commonly contrasted.
The sagum (
q. v.) appears as early as Cato (
Cat. Agr. 59) to have been not confined to
military wear; and the abolla similarly had become in imperial times an
indiscriminately worn garment. Thus we find it used as an outdoor dress in
Juvenal, 4.76. Ptolemy of Mauretania offended Caligula by the
|
Abolla, Military Cloak.
|
splendour of his
purpurea abolla
(
Suet. Cal. 35), and Martial satirizes a
similar extravagance in the fop Crispinus (
abolla
Tyria, 8.48). While for rich and fashionable wearers the original
[p. 1.4]military form of the abolla was probably altered,
and its rough texture exchanged for fine linen, it seems to have retained or
exaggerated its simple coarseness when adopted by philosophers. It was thus
worn by the cynic, serving alike for day-and night-clothes (Martial,
4.53.5; Hor.
Ep. l.c., same as
the
τρίβων διπλοῦς,
D. L. 6.22). Hence
facinus
majoris abollae (
Juv. 3.115) means
“a crime committed by a deep philosopher.” The abolla as
worn by soldiers is probably to be recognised in the bas-relief from the
arch of Septimius Severus, figured above; as worn by philosophers, in the
annexed representation from a silver vase in the Paris Cabinet des
Médailles (
apud Daremberg
|
Abolla, Cloak of Philosophers.
|
and Saglio, s.v. cf. Marquardt,
Röm.
Alterth. vii. p. 553).
[
A.G] [
W.S]