Sotto mentite spoglie: imperatori e abbigliamento tra ozio e politica

Clothing – which in ancient societies identifies the status and role of the individual within the group to which he belongs – assumes particular importance in the history of the Principate as an occasion and instrument of characterisation and distinction of the image and personality of the emperor, revealing his ethical and cultural values and, in a broader perspective, allegory of the principles of his ideological vision and political action. The article explores – with reference to the precedents of the republican age – the forms, times, contexts and meanings of the betrayal of the ‘rule of the toga’ that places the emperor outside the social paradigm through the subversion of the signs and values that it represents: in fact, the soughtafter and exhibited transgression of socially shared norms regards clothing, constitutes a conscious form of communication with a high ideological coefficient.