National Costume of Rome.

The toga was the national costume of the Romans. The Roman people were the gens togata—the "people that wear the toga." In his epic poem, the Aeneid the Roman poet Vergil used the term with pride to refer to the populus Romanus, that is, the "Roman People." Aliens—persons who were not Roman citizens—and Roman exiles were forbidden to wear it. It seems, however, that the law which forbade non-Romans to wear the toga was not universally enforced, for the provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul were called, unofficially, Gallia togata—that is, "Gaul where the toga is worn"—which indicates that Romanized provincials sometimes wore the toga even before they received the citizenship. There was a tradition that the toga came to Rome from Etruria, the region of modern Tuscany in Italy which was inhabited by people the...