Civilian dress (for men)

    One knows very little on how Dacian men dressed. Archaeological data on the topic is scarce but one Antique literary source can be used, as well as several sculptures and dress accessories found on archaeological sites or as stray finds, part of treasures.
    Writing about the harsh winters in Tomis, Ovid tells us that the populations north of the Danube „try to avoid the strong cold by wearing animal furs and sewed trousers.” He refers to a type of sheepskin coat with the wool on the outside. On their heads, the Dacians wore hats or hoods made of animal skins. The poet does not tell anything though on the usual summer clothes of those people, nor on what women wore, so the only sources one can use for the topic are the figurative representations from that era.
    According to the latter sources, men wore long shirts made of linen or other types of cloth, cut on the sides up to the waist and worn over the trousers. The shirt extended down to the knees and it could have either long or short sleeves. The trousers were made of coarse cloth, often not very tight, but sometimes stretched on the thigh or leg. As some scenes on Trajan’s Column indicate, there were also shirts cut on the sides and with folds at the sleeves and lower ends, made of lighter cloth. This latter type seems unique to the Dacians, since none of their neighbors are attested to have worn it. Around the waist the Dacians wore belts with rectangular, oval or (smaller) round buckles, or simple twisted girdles. The nobles wore over their armor a wide belt (with larger ornamental fasteners) and hung their swords by it.
    As seen on the Column and on several Dacians’ busts (mostly found in Rome, among which better known are those on Constantine the Great’s Triumphal Arch), these nobles also wore long mantles (some ending in tassels) without sleeves, held by a single fibula, on the side, on one of the shoulders. Considering the large dimensions of such fibulae, especially those made of silver and decorated with knobs, the most frequent type among all archaeological finds and the most typical, one can presume that they were worn by men. On the depictions on the Column in Rome and the Adamclisi monument in Dobrudja, numerous Dacians can be seen wearing a hood tied behind the neck with a thread and ending in tassels. On the latter monument, some Dacian men are dressed in a thick coat without collar, not too long, but fur-lined.
    When depicted without hats or hoods, the Dacians wear their hair cut short on the forehead and temples, and longer on the back. All have longer or shorter beards. The nobles wore a kind of bonnet with pointed and bent forward tip. Such head covers were called pileus and were made of thick felt or leather. All Dacians are shown wearing either a sort of boots made of felt or leather or a type of moccasins made of leather (but with rounded or flat tips), both tied over the trousers with long shoe laces. .