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Nikki Rollason
Research Student, Faculty of Arts
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Research Summary
My thesis focuses on the use of clothing by elite, Roman men to negotiate social and political relationships and will demonstrate that clothing is particularly important in establishing social and… read more
Current Research
My thesis focuses on the use of clothing by elite, Roman men to negotiate social and political relationships and will demonstrate that clothing is particularly important in establishing social and political ties because of its scope for adornment, its portability and visibility, and because of its symbolic function as a shelter for and protector of the body. I aim to capitalise on and further recent research which views clothing not simply as an inanimate item covering the body useful only to tell us what a Roman would have looked like, but as a canvas, as dynamic and culturally important as a monument or statue at conveying the wearer's ambitions, identity, status and wealth, and his relationships with his peers, his emperor, and society at large. My areas of study will mainly be concentrated on Late Antiquity from the fourth century AD, but in order to establish whether certain subjects I am researching (such as, for example, figural decoration on consular robes, or the gifting of such robes to the new consul by the emperor) were developments of earlier practices, my work often has a much broader timescale with research into the Early Empire and the Republic.