Welcome to this, the second edition of the new weekly newsletter. A full and rather hectic week on from the first newsletter, I had promised the paying subscribers their monthly update at the same time as this one, which proved to be a rather excitable deadline to set myself, what with everything else on top. It shall be forthcoming in the next few days!
As some of you may be aware, I have decided to burn every available candle at every available end by dipping my toes into the world of YouTube. So I have a new channel which already has one video up (and some smaller ‘shorts’ aimed at catching the fleeting attentions of generations of people for whom YouTube and TikTok have been ever-present in their lives). I have already made two more videos, but, on reflection, have decided to hold back until I get a new microphone, which is currently winging its way on an inexplicably long four-day journey by mail from about 30 miles up the road. I should have gone and picked it up.
Listening to the sound of one’s own voice is, I’m sure everyone can agree, one of the most awful things a human can do to themselves, and I’m no different. It also doesn’t help when one has been recording everything via a $20 microphone. So I’ve invested $100 in something a bit more professional, all of which then has to be run through and edited in Adobe Audition before it can become bearable. Ultimately, for what I do at least, the audio quality is more important than flashy visuals, so I will be re-recording everything and uploading more videos once the new microphone has completed its epic journey across the county.
Where I would like you all to play your part is by going to YouTube and hitting the subscribe and like buttons. Subscribing here is a more involved process and necessarily leads to a more involved relationship between what you expect and what I provide. On YouTube, all you have to do is pop along and press the button for me. Doing so tickles the fancy of the YouTube algorithm, and in return, the channel gets more views; in turn, the algorithm promotes the video more. It’s a self-serving process, and you can help by simply pressing the button for me. What’s more, the funding of professional microphones, magicked across several fields by a grumpy woman in a tiny white truck, can be helped by monetising the channel, which requires 500 subscribers and a set number of watch-hours in total. There are nearly 900 subscribers here, so if everyone pushed the subscribe button on YouTube, that would be amazing!
Here’s the video. Please take a moment to hit the relevant buttons. Thank you!
Anyway, here’s an article about Romans, which, this week, is about shoes! Enjoy!
Roman Footwear: Sandals, Shoes, and Status in Ancient Rome
Why Roman Footwear Matters
Footwear is often overlooked in the study of Roman material culture, overshadowed by architecture, sculpture, or political institutions. Yet shoes were a practical necessity and a visible marker of social identity, gender, and status. In Roman society, clothing and accessories carried heavy symbolic weight, and footwear was no exception. Whether military boots on campaign, women’s sandals on a marble floor, or an emperor’s slippers in the palace, shoes expressed rank, lifestyle, and even personal eccentricity. Literary sources, archaeological finds, and epigraphy together allow us to reconstruct a nuanced picture of Roman footwear and its place in daily life.
Civilian Sandals and Daily Footwear
The sandal was the most iconic and widespread type of Roman footwear. Known as soleae, these open-toed shoes were typically made of leather straps fastened over the foot and secured around the ankle. They were practical in the Mediterranean climate and were worn indoors as well as in public. Reliefs and mosaics from Pompeii depict figures in simple sandals, suggesting their ubiquity across social classes.
Sandals were not merely functional. The quality of leather, the complexity of strap design, and the presence of dyed or gilded elements reflected the wearer’s means and taste. Inscriptions occasionally mention shoemakers (sutores), indicating a professional craft dedicated to supplying sandals and shoes to local markets (CIL VI 9408). The humble sandal, then, bridged the divide between necessity and social display.
Roman Shoes Beyond Sandals
Closed shoes, or calcei, were a key marker of Roman citizenship and social standing. Unlike sandals, they enclosed the foot fully and were tied with leather thongs. Senators wore distinctive red shoes, known as calcei senatorii, which distinguished them within the social hierarchy (Varro, De Lingua Latina 7.87). The colour and form of the calceus thus carried political meaning, reinforcing the visibility of status even in footwear.
Archaeological discoveries from Roman Britain, particularly the well-preserved leather shoes from Vindolanda, demonstrate the variety of styles. These range from sturdy hobnailed soles suitable for outdoor wear to more delicate, patterned shoes cut with decorative openwork, allowing glimpses of coloured socks beneath. Such finds illustrate how fashion, climate, and practicality interacted in the Roman world.
Military Footwear: The Caligae
No shoe is more strongly associated with Rome’s military might than the caliga. These heavy-duty boots, with thick soles reinforced by iron hobnails, were standard issue for legionaries. Designed for durability and long marches, they combined ventilation with protection. The distinctive sound of hobnails striking stone must have been an audible emblem of Roman order and discipline.
The caliga also entered political memory. Suetonius records that Gaius, better known as Caligula, received his nickname from the diminutive caligae he wore as a child while accompanying his father, Germanicus, on campaign (Suetonius, Caligula 9). A practical military boot thus became the basis for an imperial moniker, linking footwear with imperial identity and propaganda. The nickname ‘Caligula’ (which one wouldn’t have used in his presence if one valued one’s head) is often translated as ‘Little Boots’, which is fine as a broad translation, as it works nicely. But more accurately, ‘caligula’ is a singular diminutive, so it means ‘Little Boot’.
Women’s Shoes and Fashion
Women’s footwear, while sharing basic forms with men’s, displayed more variety in ornamentation. Sandals and slippers were often embellished with coloured leather, embroidery, or even precious stones. Suetonius notes that Caligula scandalised observers by appearing in public wearing women’s shoes (muliebres calcei) as part of his theatrical self-presentation (Suetonius, Caligula 52). The detail reveals not only imperial eccentricity but also how footwear was coded by gender and propriety.
Archaeological examples from Roman Egypt include fine leather sandals with intricate cutwork patterns, some dyed red or green. These finds suggest that footwear was an arena for fashion and expression, especially among the elite. In contrast, simple leather or woven footwear sufficed for women of lower social rank, underscoring again the link between shoes and social standing.
Slippers, Socks, and Imperial Intimacy
Indoor footwear also carried cultural meaning. Soft slippers (socci) were associated with comfort and informality. They were distinct from outdoor shoes and often linked to leisure or theatrical use. Suetonius reports that Augustus habitually wore socks (udones) with his sandals to protect himself from the cold (Suetonius, Augustus 82). The image of the first emperor padding about in socks and sandals offers a rare glimpse into the domestic intimacy of Roman footwear, while also showing how shoes served bodily needs as well as symbolic roles. Suetonius goes on to describe the layers of clothing Augustus would wear against the cold in winter, including several layers of wraps around his legs and whilst the socks and sandals he wore went some way to helping in this regard, it also indicates that they serve much the same psychological process of coming home, kicking off your work shoes, and slipping into something more comfortable to sit down and watch my YouTube channel in. How’s that for tying things together?!
Footwear as a Symbol of Status and Identity
Roman footwear was not merely functional. It served as a visible marker of one’s place in society. Senators and magistrates wore shoes that proclaimed their office, soldiers laced boots that embodied discipline, women displayed fashion and refinement in decorated sandals, and emperors could reinforce or subvert social expectations through their footwear choices. The humble shoe thus becomes a window into Roman hierarchies, values, and daily realities.
Shoes as Cultural Artefacts
Footwear in ancient Rome reveals much about the society that wore it. From sandals worn in the streets of Pompeii to hobnailed boots tramping along Hadrian’s Wall, Roman shoes were practical objects imbued with cultural meaning. They distinguished gender, class, and occupation; they offered comfort and display; and they could even carry political significance, as in the case of Caligula’s nickname or Augustus’s socks. Examining Roman footwear in detail not only enriches our understanding of daily life but also highlights how even the most ordinary objects can reflect the complexities of an ancient civilisation.
References and Further Reading
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) VI 9408. (n.d.). Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Suetonius. (2025). The Twelve Caesars (J. Coverley, Trans.). The Cych Press.
Varro. (1938). On the Latin Language (R. G. Kent, Trans.). Harvard University Press.
Other News
I’ve also recently been dabbling in things outside of Roman history. As a translator working with Latin, people often come to me with enquiries about medieval Latin, which is not really that different a beast from ancient Latin, particularly when it comes to translation, but still an area in which I do not consider myself particularly adept.
But, y’know, I thought to myself, some while ago now, that I should probably have a crack at it. I became particularly interested when I tried to find online an English translation of the 15th-century treatise on witchcraft, ‘De Lamiis et Phitonicis Mulieribus’, written in 1489 by Ulrich Molitor. Turns out that there isn’t one, or at least one that is readily available.
So I decided to have a go at it myself. Like an idiot.
It’s not long work, but I underestimated what devious sods medieval scribes were and how complicated the world of scribal abbreviation was. One of the ways they could produce text so beautifully laid out and justified, something that Adobe still struggles with today, was by the generous use of abbreviated forms of words, some of which are so complicated that it’s an art in itself to unravel their meaning.
Part of the art of translating is to take a whole passage in context and then rearrange it as a whole. Sometimes knowing the exact translation of words can be made easier once everything is in context, and this is fine until you realise that one doesn’t even know what half the words are even saying.
Luckily, once one has cracked most of the code, one can then follow along. The use of macrons simply replaces standard Latin endings such as -cum or -cus. Latin also has pretty standard forms, so once you get into the flow, it becomes much easier.
Still, it was a task I had greatly underestimated and one that nearly had me tearing at what little hair remains. The several hours I spent on one particular word are particularly galling, especially when I realised I had forgotten the basics of translation, one of which is to never stop at a word you are struggling to find context for and to keep reading beyond the passage. It will come to you later on! Turns out that ‘mystery word’ followed by stuff about Pharaoh and plagues was, of course, ‘Moses’.
The work itself is a little surprising as it takes a much more pragmatic view of witchcraft than one would think for the 15th century, concluding that most of it is down to excitable reactions to old ladies making exotic cups of tea, and hyperbolic reactions to what were otherwise easily explainable phenomena. I cobbled the thing together and, because why not, put it up on Amazon, where, for a few dollars, you can own what I believe to be the only available English translation of this amazing little work anywhere in the world. It would make a rather fun Halloween gift. Click below if you’d like to buy one!
Ancient Feasting Revealed: The 2,400-Year-Old Cauldrons of Glenfield
I came across a fascinating story this week about how archaeologists are literally recreating the past, one cauldron at a time.
A team of experts has forged a near-perfect replica of Iron Age cauldrons discovered near Leicester in 2013. According to the BBC, “A replica of a 2,400-year-old cauldron has been forged to help archaeologists shed light on how people lived during the Iron Age.” Replica of Glenfield cauldron sheds light on Iron Age life - BBC News
What makes this discovery remarkable isn’t just the 11 fragile cauldrons themselves, but what they reveal about ancient life. These weren’t everyday cooking pots—they were social centrepieces. With capacities ranging from 15 to 57 litres, they could have catered for several hundred people at grand feasts, marking the Glenfield settlement as an important ceremonial hub for Iron Age communities.
The recreation process uncovered something quite moving: these ancient vessels had been carefully repaired multiple times with patches, showing they were treasured possessions maintained over long periods. The Iron Age metalworkers who crafted them used sophisticated techniques that even impressed the modern specialist commissioned to recreate them.
You can now see the replica cauldron on display at Leicester’s Jewry Wall museum.
Read the full BBC article here: https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/articles/cdd36j64q8lo
The Twelve Caesars, quoted above and translated by yours truly, is available as an ebook by clicking the link below or online everywhere you expect to find books.
Just subscribed to your YouTube. It is a logical extension, and I understand how spooky it is to hear one's own voice. Good work already, you have the potential to be one of the quality history channels on YouTube, I will keep following what you do there.
That link doesn't seem to work outwith the UK, or if it does, it only works if you have a registered account with the Beeb. I had to read it here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdd36j64q8lo