Outdoors a Roman lady will wrap herself in her _palla_. This is merely a large shawl, although often with elaborate arrangement. Gratia’s maids usually throw one third of its length over her left shoulder, letting the end trail almost to her feet, while the remainder is carried behind the back and wound skilfully around the wearer, although if a head covering is needed, one can draw up some of the cloth and form a loose and convenient hood. Every woman in Rome possesses a palla; and the wealthy, of course, own whole arsenals of them in every possible size, weight, material, color, and embroidery, suitable for all purposes from winter travel to snaring susceptible youths beside one in the theater. =72. Materials for Garments. Wool and Silk.=--So much for the types of garments. Needless to say that their fabrics and details are infinite. _Wool_ is still the standard material. Even now “in these degenerate days” the best Roman matrons keep the spindles and distaffs working with their maids in the peristylia, and make up a large part of all the coarser garments needed by the household. Calvus takes pride in wearing and exhibiting a really handsome toga and in telling his friends “my Gratia made that”; but various other senators can utter like boasts, their wives merely imitating such empresses as Livia, who wove all Augustus’s everyday garments. On the great villa estates the slaves are kept from busy idleness in winter by weaving cloth, not merely for themselves, but for their masters’ families in the city. But such fabrics, ordinarily, are decidedly coarse. There are really fine woolens made in southern Italy, but the very best comes from the East. “Milesian wool” is a trade name in every market, though very likely much of it actually is from Tyre, Sidon, or Alexandria. A good deal of linen is woven up into comfortable house dresses. Enough cotton comes in from the Orient to make it no rarity for superior garments, but it is too scarce for any common use. What every Roman of fashion dotes upon, however, is _silk_. Far away in the East is a half-mythical land, _Serica_ or _Seres_. Hardly any European has ever penetrated there,[37] but caravan traders pass along small parcels of a wonderful material alleged to grow on trees. Garments made thereof are incomparably lovely; but the material is worth its full weight in gold or even more. As a result the stuff is spun up into the flimsiest and gauziest gala dresses imaginable, and these are often partly made of cotton. Seneca has written in disgust “We see silken garments, if indeed, they can be called ‘garments’ which neither afford protection to the body, nor concealment to modesty.” For all that women like Statilia and her mother will be miserable if they have not plenty of “Serician tissues” wherewith to float into the Amphitheater or Circus and dazzle their rivals in a city where, as complains Juvenal: “Everybody always dresses above his means.”