64

When Caesar wears the purple toga and sits on a curule chair during the Lupercales of Feb. 44, the dictator breaks an ancient tradition implying that only the kings of the remote past would use both elements at the same time. Both elements belong to the diplomatic gifts that the Senate used to send to foreign kings allied to Rome; such gifts were possibly inspired by a royal apparatus that existed before republican times. Caesar resolves the incompatibility between purple and the sella. The witnesses did not comment upon it because of the diadem given by Antony on the same day, but Caesar was in fact adopting the old royal costume.