| Abstract: | Augustus claimed that the moral decay of the Roman Republic was especially due to Roman women who had forsaken their traditional role of custos domi (‘preserver of the house/hold’). In reforming feminine morality, Augustus created a new pictorial language that troped the feminine body as a ‘moral sign’ of civic morality and authorized a distinctive costume for women. Sebesta investigates the relationship between women’s garments, the female body and the Roman concept of feminine civic morality. |
