About History: Was underwear worn by ancient Romans?

In a previous Tastes Of History post on How To: Dress as an ancient Roman brief mention was made of underwear. A letter discovered at Vindolanda Roman Fort, tablet 346, sent to a soldier probably from his home in Batavia [1] refers to socks (udones), underpants (subligaria) and sandals (soleae) being dispatched to him. Other tablets preserved from the excavations at the fort also reference underwear so we can be fairly confident that, just like us, Romans wore such clothing. What form this took is a little harder to discern, however. Roman writers left descriptions of clothing, hairstyles, jewellery and the fashion of the wealthy elites but almost nothing about underwear. So, it is uncertain whether Roman underwear was a tailored garment or a more straightforward loin- or breechcloth. Predictably most organic textiles have vanished from the archaeological record, and the few garments and images that do survive present inconclusive evidence. This lack of proof has led to competing interpretations of Roman underwear.

We can be relatively certain that Roman women had something akin to a bra known as a strophium. This was a simple band of cloth wrapped about the bust to provide support. Interestingly Ursula Rothe, professor of Roman archaeology and history at the Open University, suggests that garment speaks volumes about Roman beauty ideals. According to Rothe: “A big bust was considered a bit coarse and barbaric.” It appears that the fuller chest was associated with lower status since elite Roman women typically did not breast feed their own children relying instead on wet nurses. In Roman society it was assumed that a woman with a large bust was breastfeeding her own children. Thus, a tightly wrapped strophium formed part of a wider system of visual cues signalling one’s refinement and social status.

A 4th-century mosaic in the Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily (pictured right) depicts young women exercising wearing subligacula (loincloths) and strophia (breastbands). Yet it is difficult to draw any conclusions about underwear from this one image. It is a late-antique mosaic belonging to a specific decorative tradition which may not represent the underwear worn through the Roman empire’s many centuries of existence or across its geographical expanse. Moreover, from the available evidence it seems these garments may only have been worn in contexts where clothing was shed to undertake strenuous physical activity or, as shown, exercise.

As stated, no identifiable fabric subligacula have survived, but archaeologists have found versions made of more durable leather. One such, identified as belonging to a woman, was excavated from a Roman well discovered in Queen Victoria Street, London. Now in the Museum of London, it consists of thin leather briefs tied at the sides with laces as shown right. This subligaculum remained a unique archaeological discovery for many years until others were found, some of which are richly decorated. Most of these later discoveries have been made in Roman London, with one found in Mainz, Germany. Such garments were likely worn by young female dancers or gymnasts, such as those shown in the Villa Romana del Casale mosaic, and not as daily underwear.

As for Roman men, we have evidence for loincloths from literary sources as described above, but also from images of labourers, athletes and enslaved workers depicted without their outer layers. Gladiators, such as those in the Borghese Villa mosaic pictured above, are shown wearing a subligaculum. This style of garment was a functional and essential part of their attire, offering modesty and freedom of movement in combat. Even so, we cannot be certain that similar underwear was routinely worn beneath tunics. Some Roman literature describes men falling over and accidentally exposing themselves. Such tales imply the absence of underwear, but it is hardly conclusive.

Our lack of knowledge about Roman underwear seems counterintuitive given what we do understand about Roman society with its communal bathing, open latrines, shared sleeping arrangements and household hierarchies where the enslaved routinely witnessed their masters undressed. With such a lack of apparent privacy, perhaps underwear was just not as important to Romans as a marker of modesty or personal privacy as it is for many cultures today. So, did the average Roman wear underwear? It is not entirely clear. Some may have worn undergarments beneath their tunics, but equally many probably did not. Bon appétit!

Reference:

Osborne, J., (March 2026), “We still can’t be sure if the Romans wore underwear”, What we’ve learned this month, History Extra Magazine, London: Immediate Media, p. 18.

Endnote:

1. Batavia is a historical and geographical region in the Netherlands, forming large fertile islands in the river delta formed by the waters of the Rhine (Dutch: Rijn) and Meuse (Dutch: Maas) rivers.

A Brief History of Food: Eels

What’s in a name?

The name “eel” descends from the Old English word ǣl. Famously, the cathedral city of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England, derives its name from a time when eel fishing was a vital local activity in the surrounding fenland waters. Further afield, the large lake of Almere that existed in the early Mediæval Netherlands was also named after the eels that lived in its waters. The Dutch word for eel is aal or ael, so: “ael mere” translates into English as “eel lake”. More recently, the name has been preserved in the new city of Almere in Flevoland which was named in 1984 after the body of water on which the town was built.

Part of the order of Anguilliformes, the humble eel is one of more than 800 species of teleost fishes that are characterised by elongate wormlike bodies. In fact, the order consists of eight suborders, 20 families, 164 genera, and about 1,000 species. With such diversity, the focus of this article is on the common freshwater eel which has been an important food source for millennia.

Eels have a remarkable life cycle. Broadly, it consists of development and early growth in the open ocean through the stages of the planktonic (free-floating) dispersal of eggs and larvae, metamorphosis, juvenile and adult growth, and the migration of maturing adults to an oceanic spawning area. During their juvenile and adult life, most eels are solitary fishes, swimming slowly by means of sinuous lateral movements of the body and median fins. Essentially carnivores, during the several years of growth to maturity, eels feed diversely on free-floating planktonic or bottom-dwelling (benthic) animals. Maturity is reached after about 10 years in the European freshwater eel (Anguilla anguilla) but possibly much earlier in tropical marine species. The process of growth and maturation has been most closely studied in the European freshwater eel. In this species, both sexes pass through successive phases of neutrality, early onset feminization and juvenile hermaphroditism before environmental factors determine whether the eel will be definitively male or female.

All eels apparently undertake either a short or long distance migration at maturity to a spawning area. These are generally located over the continental slope or in ocean basins some distance offshore. Working on massive collections of larvae from 1905 to 1930, a Danish biologist, Johannes Schmidt, established the early life history of the European and American freshwater eels (Anguilla rostrata). He claimed that both species reproduced within the Sargasso Sea before using ocean currents to disperse to their respective freshwater habitats in Europe and North America. Although parts of his work have been questioned, especially the process by which these eels returned to their spawning areas, his description of a western Atlantic spawning and a trans-Atlantic dispersal of the larvae of these eels is still largely accepted. Contemporary studies suggest, however, that adult American and European eels use a combination of chemical, geomagnetic, and geographic cues to return to separate spawning areas east of the Sargasso Sea near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Eels as food

Eel blood is toxic to humans and other mammals so eating eels seems somewhat counterintuitive, but both cooking and the digestive process destroy the toxic protein. This simple expedient means common freshwater eels continue to be mostly eaten in Europe and the United States. Yet high consumption, especially in European countries, has resulted in those eel species becoming critically endangered. 

Up to World War Two jellied eels were a traditional and popular East London food, but post-war demand has significantly declined. Elvers, often fried, were once a cheap dish in the United Kingdom until, during the 1990s, their numbers collapsed across Europe. Since then they have become a delicacy, and the UK’s most expensive fish species.

Eels as currency?

Throughout the Mediæval period and up to the early modern era, eels were used as currency. People in England paid their rent, and sometimes other debts, using eels. With very little hard currency in circulation peasants often had no money and thus landlords collected in-kind rents. Indeed, Domesday Book records numerous instances of rents being paid in grain, honey, eggs and other produce. Eel rents, however, were by far the most common.

At the turn of the 12th-century more than 500,000 eels were due in rent in England each year. Over the course of the century hard currency became more available and in-kind rents disappeared. Eel rents, however, continued in popularity up to the Black Death in the mid-14th-century before slowly disappearing thereafter. The last recorded eel rent was paid from a Norfolk mill in the 1680s.

Most eels paid to landlords were eaten by them, but some were used to pay for other things. For example, in the 11th-century Ramsey Abbey paid Peterborough Abbey 4,000 eels per year for the rights to quarry building stone from Barnack in Cambridgeshire. Payment was to be made to the monks in Peterborough at the beginning of Lent, an ideal time as the eating of meat was prohibited on religious grounds. Unsurprisingly agreements and charters establishing eel rents often demanded they be paid in the spring. Most of these eels were sexually mature adults that were caught in the autumn during their downstream migration to the sea to spawn. Over the winter months these “silver eels”, as they were known, would be salted and then cold-smoked to preserve them for storage. Eventually, the autumn catch would provide landlords with a spring’s worth of church-approved food.

A couple of recipes

Elus Bakyn in Dyshes (“Eels baked in dishes”) is a 15th-century English recipe found in MS Harley 5401 housed in the British Library (Hieatt, 1996, 54-71):

Eles & cowche þam in a dysh, & cast on salt & saferon & powdyre of pepyr, & couer þat dysh with anoþer dysh & set it on þe coles, & turn þe dysh aboute and put in a lityll wyne in þe fyrst tyrne for savyng of þe vessell, & put þe hot coles in a hole in þe erth & so lat it bolyle, & serof it forth.

Eels & lay them in a dish, & cast on salt & saffron & powder of pepper, & cover that dish with another dish & set it on the coals, & turn the dish about and put in a little wine in the first turn for saving of the vessel, & put the hot coals in a hole in the earth & let it boil, & serve it forth.

A modern take on the recipe is reproduced below from the website “Gode Cookery”, a superb resource for anyone wishing to recreate dishes from the Mediæval and Renaissance periods.

From website Fabulous Fusion Food is a classic dish of Elys in Brewet (Eels in Broth). Taken from the 14th-century collection of Mediæval English recipes known as the Forme of Cury, the eels are prepared, sliced and cooked in a wine-based sauce, which is flavoured with spices and thickened with breadcrumbs:

ELYS IN BREWET: Take Crustes of brede and wyne and make a lyour, do þerto oynouns ymynced, powdour. & canel. & a litel water and wyne. loke þat it be stepid, do þerto salt, kerue þin Eelis & seeþ hem wel and serue hem forth.

Eels in Broth: Take breadcrumbs and wine and mix together, then add diced onions, powdered ginger and cinnamon and a little water and wine. Ensure that it is steeped then season with salt. Slice your eels and boil them thoroughly and serve them forth.

Bon appétit!

References:

Hieatt, C.B., (1996), “The Middle English Culinary Recipes in MS Harley 5401: An Edition and Commentary”, Medium Ævum vol. 65, no. 1, pp. 54-71.

Matterer, J. L., (2000) “Elus Bakyn in Dyshes”, from A Boke of Gode Cookery, available online (accessed 19th May 2026). 

Wyatt Green, J, (March 2026), “Is it true that eels were used as currency?”, Q&A, History Extra Magazine, London: Immediate Media, p.63.