Crossword-Solution: ORARIA 6 letters, 2 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 6

The most ancient text wherein handkerchiefs are expressly mentioned, describes them as long cloths, called _oraria_, used and worn by senators “ad emungendum et exspuendum;” that use is said to have grown out of the convenience of the _orarium_, which is supposed to have been merely used at first to wave for applause in the public shows.

What, then, are these scarves? The answer to this question is supplied by Flavius Vopiscus in his Life of Aurelian, who, he says, 'was the first to grant _oraria_ to the Roman people, to be worn as favours.'[28] Now, the references which we have just made to Ambrose and Augustine—not to mention others which might equally well be quoted—show that the _oraria_, whatever may have been the method in which they were worn, must have been narrow strips of some kind of cloth.

These peculiar scarves, which are to be seen on certain monuments, do not appear on any effigy dating before the time of Aurelian; the natural inference, therefore, is that the scarves which we see thus represented are actually the _oraria_, granted to the Roman people by that emperor and his successors.

The fortieth act of this assembly restricts the number of _oraria_ to one, and enjoins that deacons should wear the _orarium_ over the left shoulder, leaving the right side free so as to facilitate the execution of their duties in Divine service.[29] This act also provides that the diaconal _orarium_ should be plain, not ornamented with gold or embroidery.

The second council of Braga (563 A.D.) decreed that 'since in some churches of this province the deacons wear their _oraria_ hidden under the tunic, so that they cannot be distinguished from the subdeacons, for the future they must be placed over their shoulders.'[30] The fourth council (675 A.D.) made an important decree regulating the wearing of the _orarium_ by priests, which has been since followed universally.