TRUE or FALSE? Romans did not wear pants.

TRUE OR FALSE? Romans did not wear pants.

FALSE. Republican Rome viewed the draped clothing of Greek and Minoan (Cretan) culture as an emblem of civilisation and disdained trousers as the mark of barbarians. But Roman soldiers mounted steeds (and adopted pants) in the first century A.D. after getting trounced repeatedly by Hannibal and his trouser-clad cavalrymen. Roman complaints about pants show up as early as Cicero. In a Letter to his Friends he wrote:

“I am marvellously fond of pleasantries, our native brand most of all, especially in view of its present decline; for adulterated as it had already become after the influx of the foreign element into our city, it is now with the accession of the trousered tribes from over the Alps so overwhelmed that no trace of the old gay charm is any more to be found.” 

Emperor Honorius more or less organized an anti-German pogrom and banned trousers in the 420s.

Roman Braccha

Barbarian Pants