[a] The translation is not quite accurate in this place.  The original says, when I obtained the laticlave, and the English calls it the manly gown, which, it must be admitted, is not the exact sense.  The toga virilis, or the manly gown, was assumed, when the youth came to man’s estate, or the age of seventeen years.  On that occasion the friends of the young man conducted him to the forum (or sometimes to the capitol), and there invested him with the new gown.  This was called dies tirocinii; the day on which he commenced a tiro, or a candidate for preferment in the army.  The laticlave, was an additional honour often granted at the same time.  The sons of senators and patricians were entitled to that distinction, as a matter of right:  but the young men, descended from such as were not patricians, did not wear the laticlave, till they entered into the service of the commonwealth, and undertook the functions of the civil magistracy.  Augustus Caesar changed that custom.  He gave leave to the sons of senators, in general, to assume the laticlave presently after the time of putting on the toga virilis, though they were not capable of civil honours.  The emperors who succeeded, allowed the same privilege, as a favour to illustrious families. Ovid speaks of himself and his brother assuming the manly gown and the laticlave at the same time: 

     Interea, tacito passu labentibus annis,
       Liberior fratri sumpta mihique toga;
     Induiturque humeris cum lato purpura clavo.

Pliny the younger shews, that the laticlave was a favour granted by the emperor on particular occasions.  He says, he applied for his friend, and succeeded:  Ego Sexto latumclavum a Caesare nostro impetravi. Lib. ii. epist. 9.  The latusclavus was a robe worn by consuls, praetors, generals in triumph, and senators, who were called laticlavii.  Their sons were admitted to the same honour; but the emperors had a power to bestow this garment of distinction, and all privileges belonging to it, upon such as they thought worthy of that honour.  This is what Marcus Aper says, in the Dialogue, that he obtained; and, when the translation mentions the manly gown, the expression falls short of the speaker’s idea.  Dacier has given an account of the laticlave, which has been well received by the learned.  He tells us, that whatever was made to be put on another thing, was called clavus, not because it had any resemblance to a nail, but because it was made an adjunct to another subject.  In fact, the clavi were purple galloons, with which the Romans bordered the fore part of the tunic, on both sides, and when drawn close together, they formed an ornament in the middle of the vestment.  It was, for that reason, called by the Greeks, [Greek:  mesoporphuron].  The broad galloons made the laticlave, and the narrow the angusticlave.  The laticlave, Dacier adds, is not to be confounded with the praetexta.  The latter was, at first, appropriated to the magistrates, and the sacerdotal order; but, in time, was extended to the sons of eminent families, to be worn as a mark of distinction, till the age of seventeen, when it was laid aside for the manly gown.  See Dacier’s Horace, lib. i. sat. 5; and see Kennet’s Roman Antiquities, p. 306.