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It appears in Mark 15:17 that the soldiers placed a purple robe on Jesus, in order to mock claims that he was king of the Jews, since purple was the colour of royalty.
Purple dye was immensely expensive, so only rich people could afford purple cloth, so it seems strange both that ordinary soldiers would have any purple cloth or that they would risk damaging it by placing it on Jesus before beating him. In the Roman Empire, only the emperor himself was permitted to wear a robe entirely purple ('taking the purple' meant becoming emperor), and even senators were only permitted purple borders on their robes. So, perhaps this passage was only meant symbolically, especially as (Mark 15:20) they put his own clothes back on him - a dignity hard to explain, as they soon removed these garments (Mark 15:24), crucifying him naked.
The author of Matthew's Gospel recognised these problems and changed the colour to scarlet (Matthew 27:28), still an expensive cloth and not so obviously associated with kingship, but not likely to result in charges of treason against the soldiers. The author of Luke's Gospel resolved the issue by redacting it as a 'gorgeous robe' (Luke 23:11), but the author of John's Gospel chose to follow Mark by having Jesus mocked in a purple robe that the soldiers put on him (John 19:2).
He was given a purple robe to wear because He called Himself the King of the Jews. The colour purple is usually associated with royalty.
The governor's soldiers. Pontius Pilate was the Roman Governor and the soldiers were Roman soldiers.