Strophia.

Time again for my favorite subject: historical underwear.

Question: What did the Romans wear as bras?
Internet's answer: Why they wore strophia, of course! The strophium is a band of fabric wrapped around the breasts to compress and support them!

This idea is based, as far as I can tell, entirely on this image:

Wikipedia

Seriously, I have seen nothing else to support the argument for strophia. If anyone has, please point me to it.

This mosaic shows women doing sports in underwear. Sports, in this culture, were generally done naked, but I know it's more comfortable to have the girls firmly strapped in place on such occasions.

Here's the problem I have with this:

Violent Metaphors

Do any of these women look like their breasts are bound down? The answer is no. So, one piece of art gives everyone this theory about underwear that's completely opposite all the other Roman art I've seen. I could certainly post more images.

My main annoyance is that people find one piece of evidence and glom onto it without regarding all the other evidence. I hate that in all aspects of life.

EDIT: (The next day)

I actually found another image of a strophium!

Leda and the Swan

  So I'm going to go ahead and say that... maybe it was a personal preference to wear one or not, maybe it was worn for certain reasons or certain occasions. Just don't have enough information to say anything exact, but I definitely do want to argue that they weren't worn all the time by all women. But since this image is not about sports, it may be not a sport thing.