Greek and Roman's Use of Costumes

The Greeks and the Roman's use of costumes were very similar as you can see in the image below, the looks of the costumes look a like.  They both wore loose clothing that could change throughout the day and were very loose fitting.  The only difference in the two was the material they were made out of.  The Greek's cloth was made thicker and made of wool.  Another similarity between the two was that they both "had symbolism behind them that were automatically understood by the audience members (History of Theatre, pg 2)."  Certain colors would tell the audience whether the character was a male, female, young boy, wealthy, or poor.  According to The History of Theatre: Costumes, purple meant the character was wealthy. A striped rob meant that the character was a young boy.  A yellow robe signified a woman character and a red costume signified a poor character.  The length of a costume also had meaning to them as well.  A soldier would wear short cloaks and short tunic were for slaves.  If a character were a god, then they would wear a yellow tassel.  The Greeks and Romans  were creative and used costumes not just for looks, but to help the audience understand the character more.

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