INSTITA, (peripodion), a flounce; a fillet. The Roman matrons sometimes wore a broad fillet with ample folds, sewed to the bottom of the tunic and reaching to the instep. The use of it indicated a superior regard to decency and propriety of manners (Hor. Sat. 1.2.29; Ovid, Ars Amat. i.32). It must have resembled a modern flouce. By the addition of gold and jewellery it took the form of the more splendid and expensive Cyclas.

When this term denoted a fillet, which was used by itself, as in the decoration of a Thyrsus (Stat. Theb. vii.654), it was equivalent to Vitta or Fascia. [Tunica.]

William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (London: John Murray, 1875), 639.