It must be assumed that to wear native dress rather than Roman/ltalian garments in the Roman period was a personal choice, and to be displayed on a stone monument wearing it was a statement of the adherence to traditional customs, an assertion of ethnic identity, a mark of status within the community, or all three. At any rate, the retention of national costume cannot simply be classed as mere conservatism. Information on native dress, both Celtic and Germanic, is provided by sculptural depictions of individuals. A group of midfirst-century grave statues and reliefs from Mainz-Weisenau and Nickenich on the middle Rhine and Ingelheim south of the Eifel represent the local Celtic population in both native and Roman dress. The men either wear the short Gallic hooded coat, which by then had become a typical article of Gallo-Roman clothing, or a toga, the symbol of Roman citizenship. The women, however, are consistently dressed in their native costume, complete with heavy Celtic neck torques, double fibulae and jewellery. On the grave monument of the shipper Blussus and his wife Menimane from Mainz-Weisenau, both wear native costume (25). Depictions of the Celtic costume of this type did not outlive the first century, although thereafter a longer version of the Gallic coat replaced the shon hooded one. Nevertheless, at least one characteristic element of Celtic costume, the paired fibulae used to pin the garment at the shoulder, is known from grave finds as late as the third century in Alpine valleys and eastern Switzerland, indicating that this type of dress had a greater longevity in more remote and peripheral regions.
Germanic dress, in particular that worn by the Ubii, continued to be depicted well into the third century, although images of Ubian women in purely Roman clothing outnumber those in traditional costume. Stone sculptures and reliefs depicting Ubian women wearing their costume and voluminous headdress are found on funerary and votive monuments in Cologne, Bonn and the Ubian countryside (51, 52). The clothing of the Matronae is modelled on that of the local, mortal population. The dress of the Germanic goddess Nehalennia, as depicted on second - and third-century reliefs from the coastal sanctuaries at Domburg and Colijnsplaat, differs somewhat from the Ubian costume in the addition of a shoulder cape and the use of a smaller headdress (47). This may represent the traditional costume of the Germanic peoples in the Rhine delta area.
There is no way of knowing to what degree native Celtic or Germanic costume continued to be worn on a daily basis, with the exception of the Gallic coat which was clearly commonly worn in all levels of society. Perhaps the traditional clothing was worn only on festive occasions and in religious contexts, for which there are numerous modern parallels. At any rate, native costume often appears to have been gender specific. It is interesting to compare the traditional costumes of the peoples in Noricum and Pannonia where, again, it is the women, and not the men, who are depicted in national dress.
World History
