Tunĭca
（
χιτών). A garment for men and women worn next the person.
With men it was a loose shirt of woollen stuff, consisting of pieces sewed together at the
sides, and having either no sleeves or only short ones reaching half-way down the arm. Longer
sleeves were considered effeminate, and first came into general use in the third and fourth
centuries A.D. Ordinarily the tunica was girded up over the hip, and reached to the knees
only. It was considered unbecoming to allow it to appear beneath the lower part of the
toga. It was worn by the Roman at home and at work, and also by slaves and
strangers. Senators and patricians were distinguished by a
tunica with a
broad purple stripe (
latus clavus, hence
tunica
laticlavia)
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Ordinary Tunic. (Column of Trajan.)
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Slit Tunic. (Pompeian painting.)
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extending from the neck to the under seam; the knights by a narrow one (
angustus clavus, hence
tunica angusticlavia). (See
Clavus.) The purple
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Woman with Stola and Inner Tunic. (From a marble.)
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tunica, adorned with golden palm-branches (
tunica
palmata), was, with the
toga picta (see
Toga), the dress of a general on the occasion of a triumph. (See
Triumphus.) It very early became the custom to wear
beneath the tunic proper a
tunica interior, which was of wool. Linen
shirts did not come into use until the fourth century A.D. Women wore a double tunic, an under
one, a chemise (
tunica intima), consisting of a garment fitting closely
to the body and reaching over the knee, and over this the
stola (q. v.).
See
Exomis;
Subucula.
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Tunica Intima or Chemise. (Roman bas-relief.)
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