What would happen if a commoner wore Toga Picta

[bigbrewster1914]

What would happen if a freedman or foreigner or someone else of a lower social rank were to don the Toga Picta if he had come across one somehow? Would he be punished somehow? How would the average Roman of the Empire view this?

[caldrail]

The Romans were intensely aware of social status and the privileges accrued. Sitting in the wrong seat at the theatre in the days of the Principate was seen as breaching this sort of thing. Wearing a toga you weren't entitled to was likely to end in something ridiculously harsh (Caligula executed a visiting foreign king because he wore an especially fine purple cloak to a public event). Much depended on who you were. A commoner, humiliores, would expect the most extreme punishments anyway. According to degree of offence, the guilty man (or rather ignorant victim) could be burned alive, set upon by wild beasts in the arena, required to fight over a dagger in the arena as a noxus, the winner required to pass the dagger to the next criminal ushered into the arena, or enslavement in manual labour (the least deadly option and even then not survivable for any length of time, and please note, galley oarsmen were professional sailors in ancient Rome, not slaves)

Edited March 23, 2019 by caldrail