HAIR-DRESSING OF ROMAN LADIES AS ILLUSTRATED ON COINS.

57                               NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE

Museum. Illust. LX. In Illust. LVIII, there may be a suggestion of pads as in the style of Lucilla, (Illust. XLV.).

A bust in the British Museum (No. 2009) of about 200 A.D,, to which the name of Julia Paula is now (perhaps not incontestably) given, shows the ends of her hair drawn through the deeply falling braids and hanging like tassels.

Aquilia Severa, who succeeded Paula in the love of Elagabalus, after a few months’ marriage, is so similar to Paula in her style of hair-dressing, that I need not illustrate it. An example of it may be studied in the British Museum cabinet (Coh., No. 8).

Orbiana (circa 230 A.D.), wife of Alexander Severus (Illust. LXI.), and her mother-in-law Julia Mamaea, who was a daughter of Julia Maesa, and niece of Julia Domna (Illust. LXII.), are almost identical in the disposition of their locks, remaining faithful to what may be called the "Syrian " tradition (see the bust in the British Museum, No. 1920).

The coins with the head of Paulina, wife of Maximinus, who died in 238 A.D., being all struck after her death, show the hair so covered by a veil that no details can be determined.

With Otacilia Severa (circa 244 A.D.) a variety is introduced. The “ondulation,” the braids, which leave the ear free, and the crescent are all depicted as before, but the plaits at the back, instead of being disposed " en tourteau," i.e. like a flat cake are carried up the back of the head to about the crown. Illust. LXIII.

The plaits are often some three to five inches wide. An example in the round can be studied in the British Museum portrait-gallery (No. 1923).