Figure 1.--This modern drawing depicts a domestic scene in the home of a wealthy Roman, presumably a patrician. A slave woman works in the background. Many modern illustrations like this are relatively accurate.

There are also many modern historical depictions of Ancient Rome. Here me care has to be taken. While they are often detailed, we are not always sure how accurate they are. We believe that many of the modern images are relatively accurate, in part because there are many surviving written records of Rome which provide us a fairly complete record of Roman clothing. The Renaissance paintings, however, are much more suspect. Renaissance painters often depicted people in contemporary clothing no matter what the historical era.