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HAIR-DRESSING OF ROMAN LADIES AS ILLUSTRATED ON COINS. |
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50 NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE most regular in its disposition (Juv., vi. 502), and very regular it certainly appears on coins and monuments. In height it often doubles the length of the face. It is impossible to believe that it was anything but artificial, resembling, as it does, the “transformations” thrust on our notice by the advertizing hair-dresser in our modern illustrated papers. Julia, daughter of Titus, who died in 81 A,D., affords a good example of this style. Illust. XXI. Julia's hair, assuming the curled “front” to be an addition, is gathered closely to the head, and ends in the usual “ catogan.” In the Montagu Catalogue, No. 220, a piece described as then “ unpublished, in gold,” the hair ends, not in a " club," but in a projecting knob about the middle of the back of the head, The effect in either fashion is very stiff. In a bust of the time of Nero, once in the collection of Edmund Burke, now in the British Museum (No. 1925), Claudia Olympias wears her hair in three “steps” in front with a fringe, and a curious turban of plaits at the back. Domitia, the wife of Domitian (circa 82 A.D.), dresses her hair almost exactly like Julia Titi. Illust. XXII. Sometimes (Illust. XXIII.) the “front” is more like a close roll round the face. In representations of her head in sculpture, as in the British Museum (No. 1892 of Roman portrait busts), the hair on the scalp is arranged in very fine plaits from the roots down to the neck, where they merge in larger plaits. On coins, this plaiting may be indicated by the fine lines which can be seen on the head in our last three illustrations. Sometimes on coins Domitia's hair is richly massed in plaits round the head. Illust. XXIV.
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