Crowley’s Roman Look is Very Strange
I didn’t. I didn’t want to be this person. But Aziraphale is sitting RIGHT THERE looking like A TOTALLY RESPECTABLE Roman citizen circa 40 AD. Maybe the hair might be unusual, but the Romans LOVED blonde hair. They thought it was cool and foreign and exotic in sort of a sexy way.
But Crowley is so historically confused. And I think the production design is too good and Neil Gaiman is too on top of his game for this to be accidental. It must mean something.
I - HAIR
What is on your head Crowley. Are you the emperor? Are you a victorious general currently participating in a victory parade?
Sure, you sometimes see laurel wreathes in portraits. But FUNERAL portraits.
That crown is a symbolic thing, to celebrate your victories in life. It’s not STREET WEAR.
And okay. It’s 40-41 AD. Caligula is emperor. Military chic is in. If you’re a guy, you’re wearing your hair short and un-styled (LIKE AZIRAPHALE.) Those dramatic little spit curls wouldn’t show up until at least Nero.
But actually, pulling back for a second - are you appreciating the absurdity that is this hairstyle? Because it took me a second to notice that only the FRONT HALF is curled.
Which is a Roman hairstyle. But it’s a Roman LADY hairstyle.
(It tends to get called ‘Flavian Hair’ because the Flavian era ladies of the 70s-90s got pretty extreme about it, but you still had less… dramatic versions in the 40s.)
That’s you, Crowley. That’s your style reference. Honestly, if you had just kept your hair long everybody would have thought you were a cool barbarian chieftain or something.
II - CLOTHES
The black is fine. It’s eccentric, but fine. Romans wore black. Wearing black was Cato the Younger’s *thing.* It gets associated with mourning and/or protest, but it would have been really visually confusing to have Crowley wear some other color. This gets a pass.
Nope, my question is about his articles of clothing. There’s a charcoal grey garment that seems to be a toga + undershirt. It’s looped over Crowley’s arm, which is a classic toga give away.
That part’s fine. But over the top, he’s wearing a true black… short cape? Shawl? it’s really hard to tell, because whatever it is, he is NOT wearing it correctly (is it folded in half?) Also, that irregular red zigzag pattern is very strange and I do not recognize it from anywhere. Seriously, I can’t even decide on a continent for this garment.
III - JEWELRY
Emperor Nero usually gets credit for inventing the first sunglasses, after he started watching gladiators fight though a green gemstone. He won’t be emperor for about ten years. But hey, he probably got the idea from somewhere. And dark glasses are just a really sensible way to hide your snakey eyes. This is also the first time we see Crowley put up some proper emotional barriers, so it’s a good place for the glasses to be introduced. (@theladyzephyr has a wonderful meta that goes into a lot more detail here.)
So the sunglasses are good. BUT THAT BROOCH.
Okay. This is Aziraphale wearing a fibula plate brooch
It’s a really Roman style, and a really Roman shape (a “pelta”)
I’ve never seen one that looks like angel wings, but a Roman citizen is going to look at that and see a soppily patriotic Imperial Eagle. How nice that this lovely man from Germania/Greece has made some money and become such an exemplary citizen!
But Crowley is wearing a penannular (pin-and-ring) brooch
That’s not roman. That’s a style from the British Isles (Irish, Pictish, Scottish, Welsh.) It says barbarian, boonies, outskirts of the civilized world.
And nobody @ me with pictures of pin-and-ring brooches from Rome. Those are small, cheap, and undecorated. They’re the cultural equivalent of safety pins. This is patterned like a snake, and it’s the size of Crowley’s palm.
AND THAT’S ANOTHER THING. They didn’t do snake-themed jewelry in the British isles. Snakes didn’t have the best cultural associations there, and there weren’t too many of them there to begin with. This isn’t something Crowley picked up because “hey, a snake, cool,” and then got attached too. This must have been commissioned special.
But you know who LOVED snake jewelry?
Romans associated snakes with healing and rebirth - clinics sometimes had lil snakes crawling around on the ground to give the place good vibes.
You cannot tell me that Crowley could have existed in Rome for any length of time and not picked up some of this jewelry. Which leads me to my conclusion:
IV - CROWLEY IS EXTREMELY NEW IN TOWN
The unfashionable pin and hair? The clothing draped the wrong way? The cultural colorblindness of wearing a laurel crown when you’re not supposed to? Crowley looks like a tacky tourist because he is one. He’s not staying here long, he “just nipped in for a quick temptation.”
He’s in a bad mod because he’s had an awful day, everyone keeps looking at him funny, the temptation was a complete bust, he has culture shock, and now he’s just trying to get a drink. But they don’t have any PROPER drinks like ALE or MEAD here, so he just orders “whatever’s drinkable.” He’s even not sure what they drink in Rome.
But then Aziraphale shows up and invites him to lunch some place fashionable. So everything’s going to be okay.
