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Updated: June 13, 2025
Purple was the favorite color for this velamen, or veil; because, when the sun shone through it, it cast such beautiful rosy tints on the snowy arena and the white purple-edged togas of the Roman citizens. Long days were spent from morning till evening upon those galleries.
Better than all, you imagine you can watch the ravishing toilettes of the Faustinas, and Fulvias and Messalinas who flirt with the handsome, straight-nosed beaux so immensely classical in their togas; and when their thunder-browed husbands unexpectedly step in behind, it is so easy to conjecture the sudden change of theme, as they spread their fans to cover the message just written on their ivory tablets, and straightway fall to clawing the characters of all the Cornelias, and Calpurnias, and Octavias and Julia Domnas, and other respectable wives!
This was since our occupation of Lower Burmah. The priests in their yellow robes, draped like Roman Togas, come and go just like other people; they are greatly reverenced, they teach all the boys of the nation their faith, reading, writing and simple arithmetic, but they do not proselytise or assume spiritual powers, nor do they act in civil affairs, and they "judge not;" they live, or try to live a good life, and to work out each his own salvation, and you may follow their example if you please, but they won't burn you if you do differently or think differently.... If any one wants to have the wrinkles rolled out of his soul let him go and rest in the quiet, and sun, and simple beauty of the Shwey Dagon Pagoda, with its tapering golden spire and the blue sky above.
The fierce Moors, the negroes of infantile intelligence, the sullen Hindus, appeared to him more deserving of respect than all the ermine-bordered togas parading haughtily and aggressively through the cloisters of the German universities. What peacefulness for the world if their wearers should disappear forever!
The door opened twice each day, once for the men who brought us bread and water, and once for the Judges. Many Judges came to our cell, first the humblest and then the most honored Judges of the City. They stood before us in their white togas, and they asked: "Are you ready to speak?" But we shook our head, lying before them on the floor. And they departed.
I tried to convert the clustering mendicants into barbarian prisoners clanking by, chained at wrist and neck and ankle; I sought to imagine the pestersome flower venders as being vestal virgins; the two unkempt policemen who loafed nearby, as centurions of the guard; the passing populace as grave senators in snowy togas; the flaunting underwear on the many clotheslines as silken banners and gilded trappings.
It was crowded when we entered. I, endeavoring to conserve a natural demeanor, felt my sight blur. I saw, as we entered, only a row of backs of customers standing at the counter: three in noblemen's togas, one in the toga of a senator, their fulldress boots conspicuously red beneath their robes; four in the silken garments of wealthy ladies, all in pale soft hues of exquisite Coan dyes.
I could have anything I asked for in that apartment, but a guard at its outer door saw to it that I remained in it. There I was bathed, massaged, obsequiously asked what dainties and wines I preferred, supplied with all I suggested and clothed in garments to my liking; huge heaps of togas, mantles, wraps, tunics and shoes being brought in for me to choose from.
In the gilded podium sat Cæsar, wearing a diamond collar and a golden crown on his head; next to him sat the beautiful and gloomy Augusta, and on both sides were vestal virgins, great officials, senators with embroidered togas, officers of the army with glittering weapons, in a word, all that was powerful, brilliant, and wealthy in Rome.
Two of them, Africans, resembling noble statues of ebony, began to anoint their bodies with delicate perfumes from Arabia; others, Phrygians, skilled in hairdressing, held in their hands, which were bending and flexible as serpents, combs and mirrors of polished steel; two Grecian maidens from Kos, who were simply like deities, waited as vestiplicæ, till the moment should come to put statuesque folds in the togas of the lords.
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