SY´NTHESIS
SY´NTHESIS The synthesis was a costume specially
made for wearing at dinner, and was also known as
vestis
cenatoria (
στολὴ δειπνῖτις）
or
cenatorium alone. It seems, from the other
uses of the word
synthesis, to have been a suit
rather than a single garment, and was apparently easily put on and off, for
we hear of dandies wearing several changes of attire at the same dinner
(
Mart. 5.79,
2).
It was most in vogue during the Saturnalia (
Mart.
14.1,
1, &c.); and it cannot have
been altogether a fashion of the times of the Empire, for the Arval brothers
wore it at their feasts (
Acta, 27 [Mai, 218,
219], 17 [Mai, 241]). In their case, as befitted a solemn festival, the
synthesis was white; but for ordinary occasions green (
Mart. 10.29,
4), purple (Petron.
30), and other bright colours (
Mart. 2.46) were
preferred. (Marquardt,
Privatleben, pp. 322, 371; Iwan
Müller,
Handbuch, pp. 875, 928;
Becker-Göll,
Gallus, 1.15.)
[
W.C.F.A]
