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HAIR-DRESSING OF ROMAN LADIES AS ILLUSTRATED ON COINS. |
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45 NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE l'Hist. de l'Art, p. 25). It does not seem quite clear whether this was a device of the sculptor to introduce a token of his skill and to get a marked contrast of different marbles, or whether the ladies of the period had the wigs changed from time to time; just as a modern beauty destroys her old photographs, lest the style of hair should give damaging evidence as to her age. Martial (xiv. 27) mentions the "pilae mattiacae," or soap balls for colouring the hair, made at Mattiacum, the modern Wiesbaden. But it is, perhaps, time for me to leave these general considerations in order to attempt to trace chronologically the elaborations of Roman hair-dressing, among women, as seen on the coins. No coins appear to exist, struck in Rome, of Cleopatra, the last Queen of Egypt, daughter of Ptolemy Auletes (67B.C.), with her head only. Of those struck out of Rome I have selected two in the British Museum, one issued at Ascalon (Illust. VI.), and one struck at Antioch (Illust. VII). On both these the hair is very simply done in a Greek knot with a fillet, or small diadem. There is also a bust of Cleopatra exhibited in the British Museum, near the entrance to the Reading Room, where the hair is shewn waved on the head, with small curls over the ear and on the neck, and a coronet of plaits on the back of the head (B. M., No. 1873). The most recent critic of this head, Mr, A. J, B. Wace, Fellow of our Society, in the Journal of Hellenic Studies) vol. xxv. pt. i. 1905, says of it, " This head has been called Cleopatra, chiefly because of the great likeness shown by the profile, especially the nose, to the coin-portraits. There is, however, no diadem, and the curious
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