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ABOLLA

Volume 1 · 146 words · 1797 Edition

a warm kind of garment, lined or doubled, worn by the Greeks and Romans, chiefly out of the city, in following the camp.—Critics and antiquaries are greatly divided as to the form, use, kinds, &c., of this garment. Papias makes it a species of the toga, or gown; but Nonius, and the generality, a species of the pallium, or cloak. The abolla seems rather to have stood opposed to the toga, which was a garment of peace, as the abolla was of war; at least Varro and Martial place them in this opposite light. There seem to have been different kinds of Abollas, fitted to different occasions. Even kings appear to have used the abolla: "Caligula was affronted at king Ptolemy for appearing at the shows in a purple abolla, and by the eclat thereof turning the eyes of the spectators from the emperor upon himself."