As the article mentions, you had to crush alot of snails to get that dye. The story goes that Roman senators would wear a purple stripe across their toga as a

As the article mentions, you had to crush alot of snails to get that dye. The story goes that Roman senators would wear a purple stripe across their toga as a symbol of their status. Julius Caesar, not to be outdone, started wearing an all-purple toga. Which then became the mark of the emperor.