Argh, that purple dye thing is one of my least favorite things! Um. Tyrian purple (from dead sea molluscs) was expensive and a big status thing. On the other hand, anyone can overdye blue and red and get purple, and you can also get purple/fuschia from orchil lichens, although it fades PDQ to pink.
It's more of an aesthetic thing. (And red dye at the time in Europe = mostly madder, which tends towards orange and is one of the trickier dyes to work with. So red-oranges for a random Gaulish warrior, sure, nice purples, less likely.)
One note on the braccae: all contemporary depictions show them narrow to the ankle, but NOT cross-gartered or loose at the ankle with a tie, as a lot of modern artists like to depict Celtic trousers (I blame Asterix, maybe).
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Date: 2011-06-01 10:54 pm (UTC)It's more of an aesthetic thing. (And red dye at the time in Europe = mostly madder, which tends towards orange and is one of the trickier dyes to work with. So red-oranges for a random Gaulish warrior, sure, nice purples, less likely.)
One note on the braccae: all contemporary depictions show them narrow to the ankle, but NOT cross-gartered or loose at the ankle with a tie, as a lot of modern artists like to depict Celtic trousers (I blame Asterix, maybe).