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HAIR-DRESSING OF ROMAN LADIES AS ILLUSTRATED ON COINS. |
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40 NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE to the custom of the country, unmarried women were not allowed to cover with any sort of cap, and which, alas! Effie dared no longer confine with the snood, or ribband which implied purity of maiden-fame, now hung unbound and obscured her face." It will be remembered that in Millais' picture of Effie Deans she has taken off the snood, which hangs from her fingers. The “vittae” used by the bridegroom in the Roman “Matrimonium” were differently disposed from those of the young girl. They seem to have been intertwined among the coils of hair massed at the top of the head into that high structure, the "tutulus," likened by Varro to a “meta," or conical boundary‑stone. It was obviously a monumental mode. At a certain period, comparatively early but not very clearly defined, these “vittae” came to be the special mark of the matron, and were the only remains of this method of hair-dressing in general use; the “tutulus" in its entirety only surviving as the special mark of the “Flaminica,” or wife of a flamen, who assisted at the sacrifices. Vestals had a similar head‑dress to that of brides (“Senis crinibus nubentes ornantur quod is ornatus vetustissimus fuit: quidam quod eo Vestales virgines ornentur quarum castitatem viris suis spondent: " Festus, ed. 1826, p.849). In the "Terme" Museum in Rome is preserved a collection of portrait statues of the chief vestals, excavated in the Roman forum (see Notizie degli Scavi, Dec., 1883). The house of the vestals from which these come was burned in 191 A.D., and, presumably, the statues belong to its restoration under Septimius Severus and Caracalla. Each of the statues wears a fillet, apparently of wool, which is wound over the hair many times round the head, falling in loops on either
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