Awesome History: Julius Caeser

 Our art project was dressing up as Romans.  I have to admit, this was super easy for us because I still had all the costumes from our Plutarch party, including the adult ones (which the teens needed to wear). But, really, Roman wear is simple.

Here are Leena and Klenda, each dressed in a pallium and stolla.

The pallium is a tube, pinned at the shoulders (the long sleeves are non historical undershirts).  In certain eras, the pallium is folded over at the top like the one Leena is wearing.

Either pallium can be wrapped with crisscrossing ribbons to give a belt and the top shape.

 The stolla is a shawl which can be worn like a regular shawl or elegantly draped over the back of the hair.

We only used color on the stolla (random sheets of extra fabric), but in real life, the palliums would have been colorful, too.  In fact, senators wore white with a purple stripe, and candidates wore all white (to show they were "candid" - "candida" is white in Latin).

Yeah, I know, all the classical statues are white, but that turns out to be because all the paint has worn off.  Romans liked bright colors!

Here we have Oob in a himation - a simplified toga.  Why yes, it is just a sheet wrapped around him!  True togas are easy to replicate (just sew two sheets end to end) and fiendishly difficult to put on.

The actual toga wearers were the senators, and they had slaves trained specifically for the task.

We also have a friend dressed as a praetorian guard!

Here is the same friend with Zorg (also in a himation), looking at a Lego Star Wars book (possibly not historically accurate).

The active activity was "When in Rome," kind of a Simon Says game where everyone has to imitate the Emperor player.

The food was a Roman feast!  We had dates, grapes, hard boiled eggs and flat round bread with honey.

Story of the World chapters 34-37.