Was this really a law?

[Lost_Warrior]

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (I think it was) there is mention of a law that each person had to wear the clothing/equipment of their trade (for instance a blacksmith would have to wear his apron, etc). Was this really a law, or was it a fabrication of Shakespeare (and the writers of the school's textbooks)?

[M. Porcius Cato]

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (I think it was) there is mention of a law that each person had to wear the clothing/equipment of their trade (for instance a blacksmith would have to wear his apron, etc). Was this really a law, or was it a fabrication of Shakespeare (and the writers of the school's textbooks)?

 

Shakespeare had ancient Romans climbing clock-towers to see Caesar, too. This doesn't correspond to any laws that I know of, and it sounds fishy.

[Nephele]

FLAVIUS: Hence! Home, you idle creatures, get you home.

Is this a holiday? What! Know you not,

Being mechanical [workingmen], you ought not walk

Upon a laboring day without the sign [tools and working clothes]

Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?

-- Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene i.

 

I'm not certain if this was an actual law, but I'm inclined to think that Shakespeare was merely seizing an opportunity to get a few laughs from the audience by inventing a reason for a pair of overbearing public officials (the tribunes Flavius and Marullus) to confront a (typical) sassy member of the working class. And the obligatory puns (which appear to go over the heads of the tribunes) are pretty painful, as the cobbler describes himself as "a mender of bad soles", and "I meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's matters, but with awl." Ow.

 

Not that I'm anyone to criticize bad puns, mind you.

 

-- Nephele