HAIR-DRESSING OF ROMAN LADIES AS ILLUSTRATED ON COINS.

38                               NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE

British Museum, to fill up gaps by coins in the National Collection.

The dates are taken from Cohen's Medailles Imperiales, ed. 2. Where possible, reference is given to Cohen's numbers also.

It would appear that, during the earlier days of Rome, her great ladies treated their hair very simply. All adventitious aids, such as pomatums, curlings, and crispings, were not considered suitable to ladies of position. In the time of Plautus, who is said to have died about 184 B.C., they were thought proper only to courtesans and foreigners (Truculentus, ii. 32).

Ovid (flourished circa 1 A.D.) says that the hair of Roman girls was simply gathered into a knot (Met., viii, 319), in the Greek fashion, at the back of the neck, and thrust through with a pin, while the head was bound with fillets, also after the Greek mode. Some idea of this fashion may be gathered from the heads shewn on Roman family coins, Such heads are, usually, those of goddesses. Ovid (Ars Am., iii.) mentions the “Diana” knot.

On a coin of 77 B.C. Diana's hair is simply gathered to the back of her head and left in a loose knot. Illust. I.

On a coin of 89 B.C., also with a head of Diana, part of the hair is shown floating down the back, while the rest is rolled from the front and twisted round the head with a small diadem. Illust. II.

Sometimes a larger diadem appears, and a row of beads is carried up the back of the head from the knot of hair to the diadem; but this fashion is represented for a few years only. Illust. III.

In another instance the fillet goes several times round the head, while the hair is simply knotted, Illust. IV.