Purple may not be one of the most popular colors in the apparel of our age, but if you want it — as certain cultural figures have amply demonstrated — you can get as much of it as you like, even if you don’t belong to the aristocracy. That wasn’t the case in antiquity, as explained by ancient-history YouTuber Garrett Ryan in the new video from his channel Told in Stone above. Back then, long before the invention of synthetic dyes, humanity had to get all its colors from nature, and some of those natural sources were more abundant and accessible than others. To produce splendid “Tyrian purple” required the mucus of sea snails, and not just any sea snails: only three species, collectively referred to as murex, would do.
This particular purple, as Ryan explains, “was virtually immune to washing and weathering,” unlike the vegetable dyes commonly used in antiquity, and perhaps that strength inspired the legend that it was discovered by Hercules himself.
Though its recipe has never quite been replicated in modernity, it seems to have required a nearly Herculean labor to execute, with each batch of ten thousand snails producing a single gram of dye. Even ancient Roman senators got just one purple stripe each on their togas; full purple was reserved for triumphing generals and emperors. In some ages, under emperors like Nero, purple — at least in its most luxuriant shades — was forbidden to the common people.
Not that most of them could have afforded it anyway, in Rome or other ancient civilizations. “In classical Athens, a purple cloak cost three minas, or 300 drachmas, when a family of four could live comfortably for a year on 200,” Ryan explains. “The finest purple cloth was worth its weight in silver, and an especially rich garment could cost two talents: 12,000 drachmas.” During the reign of Augustus, when imperial legionaries earned 900 sestertii a year, “a cloak of second-rate purple” might sell for 10,000. Calculating from Diocletian’s Price Edict, you could theoretically trade a few pounds of purple silk for 75,000 pints of beer, 7,500 “succulent sow udders,” 750 pheasants, “a single first-class male lion,” and 150 lawsuits: the makings of quite a high time in Ancient Rome.
Related content:
How the Ancient Greeks & Romans Made Beautiful Purple Dye from Snail Glands
Behold Ancient Egyptian, Greek & Roman Sculptures in Their Original Color
