Hair and the Artifice of Roman Female Adornment

Author(s): Elizabeth Bartman

Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 1-25
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
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Hair and the Artifice of
Roman Female Adornment
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
Abstract
Roman female
hairstyles
were
highly
individualized,
gendered
cultural markers,
in
many
cases
having
a
physi-
ognomic
role in a
portrait
like the face itself. The
paucity
of
surviving organic
remains
requires
that we consult ar-
tistic
representations
in
painting
and
sculpture
to assess
the forms of these
hairstyles.
Despite
their often fanci-
ful
conceptions, they
do not
represent
artistic inven-
tions,
but rather elaborate coiffures made with real hu-
man
hair,
usually
the sitter's own. Thus
wig wearing
may
not have been as common as has been
imagined;
the
practice
of
supplying
marble statues with removable
wigs
in
contrasting
stone is not in itself evidence for the
wearing
of
wigs
in
antiquity.
Modern
commentary
on the
hairstyles worn
by
Roman women assumes
frequent
changes
of
hairstyle,
an
interpretation
based on a mis-
reading
of the ancient evidence and essentialist views of
women.*
She knows her
man,
and when
you
rant and
swear,
can draw
you
to her with a
single
hair.
Persius Satyrica 5.246
(trans.John Dryden)
In ancient Rome hair was a
major
determinant of
a woman's
physical
attractiveness and was thus
deemed
worthy
of considerable exertions to create
a
flattering appearance. Just
as
every
face had its
own
physiognomy,
so did female
hairstyles
vary-
along
with
looks,
a woman's
age,
social
status,
and
public
role influenced her choice of coiffure. This
variety
has
proved
invaluable in
identifying
histori-
cal
individuals,
thereby enabling
scholars to con-
struct a
chronology
of Roman
portraiture
and,
by
extension,
Roman art.
Yet
notwithstanding
their
pivotal
role in the his-
toriography
of Roman
portraiture,
ancient
hairstyles
remain
poorly
understood. Like all
organic remains,
human hair
rarely
survives in
archaeological
sites;
in lieu of direct material
evidence,
we must turn to
artistic
representations
in
painting
and
sculpture
in order to reconstruct Roman coiffures. Freestand-
ing sculpted portrait
statues and busts
provide
the
*
I thank Bettina
Bergmann, Jane Fejfer,
and Miranda Mar-
vin for their close
readings
of this text in its earlier
drafts,
and
also
AJA's
two
anonymous
readers for astute criticism. Barbara
Borg, Corey
Brennan, John Collis, Elizabeth
Hartley, Antoni-
richest source of
information;
because of their
large
numbers and detailed
execution,
sculpted portraits
from the second to third centuries C.E. will be the
focus of this
article,
while the
parallel
evidence of
painting,
coins,
and
gems
will be admitted
only
occasionally.
This article does not intend to
survey
the
development
of Roman female
hairstyles'
but
rather seeks to illuminate their social and cultural
implications
in the
portrait:
as
gender
marker, man-
ifestation of cultus
(culture),
and
physiognomic sign
no less
expressive
of
personal identity
than the face
itself. Whether crafted
by
household slaves or the
wearer
herself,
a woman's
hairstyle conveyed
her
individuality.
Except
for some
overtly divinizing
el-
ements,
the female coiffures that are recorded in
sculpted portraits reproduce
real
styles
that could
be made with human hair. That
many
female hair-
styles
toy
with that
reality
by
a
physical
size or elabo-
ration that
implies
artificiality
is a
paradox;
the illu-
sion of artifice
reflects,
and also contributes
to,
the
long-standing
association in
antiquity
of ornament
with the feminine realm.
Typically
commissioned as honorific
works,
life-
size
public portraits
aimed to
depict
the sitter in a
positive
mode,
as a virtuous individual as well as an
example
of the best of her sex. Hence we can use
the
portrait
and one of its
primary
features, hair,
in
order to reconstruct ancient attitudes about
gender.
While men's hair
may
have
required
no less
daily
attention than
women's,
the
styling
as well as the so-
cial
response
it
engendered
were
radically
differ-
ent. For
example, lengthy grooming
sessions that
were tolerated and even
encouraged
for women were
taboo for
men,
and
throughout
most of the
period
under consideration women's hair was carved ac-
cording
to different
techniques
than Roman
sculp-
tors used for men's. One
thing
both sexes had in
common, however,
was the use of false
hair,
whether
"extender" tresses or full
wigs.
Hair came to be im-
etta
Viacava,
and
Greg
Woolf assisted on
specific points.
For such
treatments,
see
Virgili
1989, 37-62;
Mannsperg-
er
1998; Steininger 1912,
2135-50.
1
American
Journal ofArchaeology
105
(2001)
1-25
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
Fig.
1. Head of
Elabagalus,
restored as a
woman,
Ripon,
Newby
Hall
20,
front.
(Forschungsarchiv
fir Antike
Plastik,
Universitat zu
K6ln,
neg.
no.
1302/5)
ported
from the far corners of the
Mediterranean,
its trade
representing
a commodification of
body
parts
that
symbolized
Rome's dominance.
Despite
the intrinsic
flattery
of the
portrait (a
kind
of doubled
flattery,
first in the
hairstyle
itself and
then in the
portrait representation
as a
whole),
mod-
ern scholars have often
imputed negative
connota-
tions to female hair. Whether
taking
at face value
satirical and
moralizing
texts about women's coif-
fures or
imposing
a
contemporary
and anachronis-
tic
perspective
onto the
imagery, they
have misin-
terpreted
the evidence and thus
impeded
our un-
derstanding
of the
many meanings
women's hair
held for the Romans. This article offers a corrective.
2
Ripon,
Newby
Hall
20;
EA 3121
(F. Poulsen).
The 1974
edition of the
guidebook (p. 16)
sold at the house
simply
states,
"Bust of a Roman
lady.
Roman
Imperial period."
3The crown, neck,
and bust have been
restored,
as has the
nose. A lateral break
splits
the ancient face into two
parts.
4 Frederick Poulsen
(supra
n.
2)
first
suggested Elagabalus
as the
possible subject
of the
face,
although
he
rightly pointed
out the deviations from the
emperor's single
known
portrait
type.
Since then an unfinished
portrait
in
Oslo,
closer icono-
graphically
to the
Newby
head and
conjectured
to
represent
Elagabalus,
has come to
light.
See Sande
1991, 78,
no.
64,
pl.
63;
Fittschen and Zanker
1985,
116 Beil. 83.
5Because
they
are
fairly
thick,
Elagabalus's
forehead curls
THE "GENDERED GRAMMAR" OF HAIR
At its most basic
level,
a woman's
hairstyle sig-
naled her female sex. How hair functioned as a
gender
marker in Roman
portraiture
can be seen
in the
complicated history
of a
draped
female bust
bought
in
Italy
for
Newby
Hall in the 18th
century
(fig. 1).2
Like most of the ancient marbles
acquired
by English
collectors at that
time,
the bust has been
heavily
restored. Crisscrossed
by
lines of breakage
and
repair,
it is
today
a
composite
of old and new:
the ancient
face,
really
a
mask,
is
completely
sur-
rounded
by
marble attachments added in modern
times.3
Accomplished
a carver as the restorer
was,
however, he erred in
bestowing
a female sex
upon
his
subject. Alongside
the
soft,
unstubbled chin and
the curvaceous
lips pressed together
in a demure
smile,
the
lady
has sideburns.
Leaving
this distinct-
ly
male feature intact (as if
hoping
it would be mis-
taken for
long
locks
falling
onto the
face),
while
adding
a woman's coiffure and
chiton,
the restorer
transformed a male
face-possibly
that of the third-
century emperor Elagabalus4-into
a female bust.
But was the restorer's mistake unintended? His
reworking
of the hairline instills doubt. If indeed
the
original
face
represented Elagabalus,
it had
short
comma-shaped
curls that fell in an
irregular
pattern
onto the forehead. In its female incarna-
tion, however,
the face
sports
short curls
arranged
quasi-symmetrically
and divided in the middle.5
Intuitively,
the restorer has
acknowleged
one of the
primary
features of female
appearance
in ancient
Rome:
long
hair divided
by
a center
part.
To be
sure,
the center
part
was not
popular among
all
women at all times in Rome's
history,
but it is readi-
ly apparent
that it is
rarely
worn
by
Roman men.6
Given that the hair of men and women has no
biological
difference-women have hair that is nei-
ther
intrinsically
thicker nor curlier than men's-
the
adoption
of the
center-part
coiffure
by
one sex
and not the other is a
practice
determined
solely by
culture.7 In the same
vein,
women's hair tends to
be more
neatly
and
symmetrically
coiffed than
men's; stray
wisps
of hair at the
nape
of the neck
could
easily
have been
reconfigured
into the
arrangement
presently
seen on the
Newby
head.
6The
exception, hairstyles
of some barbarian
men,
is tell-
ing. Caligula
has a
slightly
indented hairlock in his most
prev-
alent
portrait type (Boschung
1989,
pl. 4),
but no
proper
Ro-
man male wears a
deep
center
part
on the crown from which
long
locks flatten out
sideways
in
"barbershop quartet" style.
7
Seeing
the center
part
as a
vestige
of the archaic
practice
of
parting
the bride's hair with a
spear (Ov.
Fast.
2.560; Festus,
s.v. "caelibari
hasta"),
is
tempting
but
probably
erroneous,
as
even
Diana,
a
virgin goddesses,
wore her hair
parted
in the
middle.
2
[AJA
105
HAIR AND THE ARTIFICE OF ROMAN FEMALE ADORNMENT
occasionally escape
the hairdresser's
control, but
in real life
hairpins,
nets,
and snoods would have
kept
female locks
firmly
in
place.
Such accessories
ensured that women's coiffures had none of the
lively
movement that animated men's hair
(perhaps
in deliberate evocation of Alexander's leonine
locks).
Whereas a man's hair
implied
his active
role,
a woman's connoted
passivity.
With the addition of
costly
ornaments of
gold
or
ivory,
the female coif-
fure connoted wealth and
luxury.
Roman
sculptors
also used formal
style
and carv-
ing techniques
to
gender
the coiffures of men and
women. In the
Imperial period
under discussion
here,
the
physical appearance
of the hair itself dif-
fered in female and male
portraits.8 (Interestingly,
the
eyebrows
of both
sexes,
which also were
subject-
ed to intensive
grooming,
tended to be treated in
the same
manner.)'
In the Flavian
period
of the
late first
century
C.E.,
for
example,
most men have
hair trimmed short on the crown and
lacking strong
plasticity,
while their womenfolk
go
to the
opposite
extreme,
wearing
dramatic curls carved with
strong
chiaroscuro effects.
During
the next few
decades,
simple
straight
hair cut with forehead
bangs
is
pop-
ular with
Trajanic
men,
while women
sweep
their
locks off the face into
towering
mounds. From the
mid-second to the
early
third
century C.E.,
the
prac-
tice is reversed: male hair on both face and crown is
densely
textured
by deep drilling,
while the female
is
typically
rendered more
simply
with
superficial,
noninvasive chiselwork."' These
changes
are no
doubt linked to the different
types
of
arrangements
worn
by
men and women in real
life,
but neither
hairdressing
nor
genetics
offers a
satisfactory
ex-
planation
for the different treatments.
Rather,
we
must view these formal distinctions as the
perhaps
unconscious evocation of Roman notions of
gen-
der: however men
looked,
women had to look dif-
ferent,
even if that difference was achieved
by
a
deliberate falsification of visual
appearances.
That
these distinctions occurred
during
an extended
period
of
high
technical achievement in Roman
portrait production-that
is,
artistic
ineptness
can-
not bear the blame-underscores their
participa-
See the comments of Fittschen and Zanker
1983,84,
109.
Fittschen
(1978, 37)
makes the same
point
about different
technical modes.
"'The
options ranged
from a
cleanly plucked
brow to one
so
furry
that it makes a "V" over the
bridge
of the nose. Clear-
ly,
the brow's
appearance
reflected
fashion,
not
genetics.
Shaping
would have been achieved with a razor or
tweezers,
implements
attested
archaeologically (Virgili
et al.
1990, 101,
no.
163.)
"'Comparison
of the relevant sections of Fittschen and Zank-
er
(1985
and
1983)
will make these contrasts clear.
"
Zanker
1995, 198-266.
tion in a
process
of
gendering
male and female
imagery.
As a rule Roman women had
longer
hair than
men. In
metropolitan
Rome and the West, men
usually
wore their hair short on the crown
and,
when fashion or funeral ritual dictated, also on the
face.
(In
the Greek East a different ideal, that of
the
bearded,
long-haired philosopher,
whose in-
tellectual distractions led him to
ignore
his
groom-
ing, prevailed,
but even there male hair was
regu-
larly
shorter than
female.) "
The
relatively
short hair
of
men, however,
did not
necessarily
lessen the time
spent
on
grooming. Trimming
a head of hair and
shaving,
the rule in Rome since the second centu-
ry
B.C.E.,
were
daily occupations,
often
performed
at commercial
barbering
establishments. Later in
the Antonine and Severan
periods,
full beards and
longer
hair on the crown were standard
among
males,
but a
carefully
scissored contour avoided the
impression
of
extravagance. (Note
that the last An-
tonine
emperor,
Commodus, is condemned not for
his
longish
curls but for his habit of
sprinkling gold
dust on
them, a divine
pretension.)'2
Apart
from routine
upkeep,
however,
the
proper
Roman male was advised to avoid excessive atten-
tion to his
hair;
the man who curled and annointed
his locks risked scorn for
appearing
effeminate.13
Such
practices
had
long
been associated with East-
ern
luxury
and were
highly suspect
at
Rome;
thus a
supposedly womanly
interest in
grooming
was a stan-
dard accusation in
political invective.'4
Because of
these
sentiments,
baldness
posed
a delicate
prob-
lem for the
male,
who wished to
improve
his
ap-
pearance
but also
preserve
his
manliness-Julius
Caesar masked his
receding
hairline with a
wreath,
while Domitian and Otho wore
wigs.'5
Although
the use of cosmetics to enhance a wom-
an's face and
body triggered
vitriolic attacks from
male
writers,'6
female
hairdressing,
notwithstand-
ing
its
daily
execution,
roused scant criticism. Sati-
rists such
asJuvenal
do take aim at female
coiffures,
but their
quips
are
relatively
mild.17 In ancient
Rome,
as in
many
other
societies,
women
typically
had more
"symbolic capital"
invested in their hair
"2Herodian 1.7.5.
"'Ov. Ars am.
1.51; Gell. NA
6.12,
Sen. Controv.
2,
preface 2;
Mart.
10.65.8;
see Gleason
1995, 108-9.
4
Suetonius's comments about the
hairdressing
habits of
Julius Caesar (Iul. 45)
and Nero (Ner. 51)
intend such insinu-
ations. On the Eastern connotations of
luxury
in the
early
Imperial period,
see Griffin 1976. On the classical fifth-centu-
ry
manifestations of the
sentiment,
see Hall 1989.
'
Caesar: Suet.
lul. 45.2; Domitian: Suet. Dom.
18;
Morgan
1997;
Otho: Suet. Otho 11.
6
Chronicled
by
Richlin 1995.
'7Juv. 6.502; Stat. Silv. 1.2.113.
2001]
3
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
Fig.
2. Stucco
relief,
Carthage,
Musee Nationale de
Carthage. (Reproduced
from Fittschen
1993, pl. 25a)
than did
men,
and few
protested
the attention
paid
to it. For one
thing,
a woman
typically
dressed her
hair in the
privacy
of her home. For
another,
the
intrinsic eroticism of hair made it
appealing
to most
male observers and writers
(the
Christian moral-
ists,
discussed
below,
are an
important exception).
Hair's erotic
potential
is a recurrent theme of liter-
ature from the
period,
whether
explicit,
as in the
poetry
of the Latin love
elegists,
or
implicit,
as in
the advice for
styling
and
coloring proferred by
Ovid
and others.18
Hairdressing
and its
necessary accompaniment,
mirror
gazing,
were
regarded
as
distinctly
femi-
nine activities. In
fact,
hairdressing
scenes
appear
so
frequently
in the context of women's tomb re-
liefs
(see fig. 2),
an obvious site for emblematic
imagery,
that
they
may
be said to
represent
the
'8Love
elegies: Prop.
1.2.1, 1.15.5;
Hor. Carm.
1.5.4;
Epod.
11.28. Advice: Ov. Ars am.
3.133-55;
also Gal. On the Parts
of
Medicine
1;
Plin. HN
12.76, 28.191;
Mart.
3.43, 14.27. The
essence of female life
itself.'9 That
changes
in fe-
male
hairstyle
were markers of
major
Roman life-
cycle
events
(e.g.,
the seni crines of the bride and
the loosened hair of the funeral
mourner)
adds a
special poignancy
to the toilet scenes from the
tomb context. Because of its wide
resonances,
how-
ever,
hairdressing
is a far more
charged subject
than the
proferring
of the
jewelry
box to the seat-
ed matron on Classical Greek
grave stelae,
its clos-
est functional
analogy.20
When combined with self-
reflection in the
mirror,
hairdressing
evoked a web
of associations:
leisure, artifice,
female
behavior,
and,
as we shall
see,
cultus.
Ethnographers
and
anthropologists
have
long
recognized
hair's
key
role not
only
in
creating gen-
der but also in
symbolizing
the
relationship
between
individuals and the
society
to which
they belong.
emperor
Domitian authored a book about
hair,
which has not
survived
(Suet.
Dom.
18).
19
For a
catalogue
of these
scenes,
see
Kampen
1981, 149-52.
4
[AJA
105
HAIR AND THE ARTIFICE OF ROMAN FEMALE ADORNMENT
The
comment,
"Control of hair
by cutting, groom-
ing, braiding, enclosing
in a
turban,
or other means
indicates an individual's
participation
in social
structures within a
publicly
defined role and that
individual's submission to social
control,"21
while
observed about South Asian
cultures,
also
applies
to ancient Rome. Roland Smith has
recently
dis-
cussed the various
hairdressing options
available
to
second-century
C.E. men in the Greek East for
conveying
their cultural values.22
Compared
to
men,
ancient women's coiffures made few external ref-
erences,
largely
because of a lack of suitable icono-
graphic precedents
that could be
quoted.
In the
Roman
world, however,
hair's erotic
potential
made
it a
lightening
rod for anxieties about female sexu-
ality
and
public
behavior. Hence the ancient sourc-
es
preserve many
references to
veiling
and other
strictures
regarding
female headwear.23 We also see
a marked difference in the
hairstyling
deemed ac-
ceptible
for
preadolescent girls,
such as
long
hair
cascading loosely
onto the
back,
compared
to that
for
sexually
mature
women-equally long
hair but
controlled
through wrapping, tying,
and
braiding
(fig. 3).24
Hair on the
body
and
pubis,
one of a hu-
man
being's secondary
sex
characteristics,
is never
depicted
in statues of women and
may
have been
removed from real bodies
by depilation.
Hair on the head was considered a
major
deter-
minant of a woman's
physical
attractiveness,
but its
appearance
derived as much from culture
(cultus)
as from nature.25 From the circular "snail" curls worn
by Agrippina
the
Younger
to the
towering
mounds
crowning
Flavian- and
Trajanic-era
ladies,
Roman
female coiffures
bespeak
human intervention.26
When
looking
at
sculptural renderings today,
we
frame our discussion of cultus
largely
in terms of
the
shape
and construction of Roman
coiffures,
but
we should recall that artificial color
provided by
dye,
bleach,
or
powder,
and the sheen
acquired by
gel
or
pomade,
also advertised the hairdresser's ef-
fort.
By
contrast,
we
today
favor the so-called natural
look in female
hairdressing;
whether
styled
in an
Afro or Princess Diana
bob,
contemporary
women's
20
Schmaltz
1983; Reilly
1992.
Jewelry-proffering
scenes
appear
in late Roman monuments such as the
ceiling paint-
ings
from
Trier,
where
they
have a decorative rather than fu-
neral
purpose.
21 Olivelle 1998, 39;
Sieber and Herreman
(2000)
discuss
parallel practices
in Africa. See also
Hallpike
1987,
155.
22
Smith 1998.
23
Myerowitz
Levine
1995,109;
Kraemer
1992, 146-7;
Mac-
Mullen
1980, 208-18.
24Chatsworth,
Devonshire
Collection; Boschung
et al.
1997,
46-50, no. 45.
Fig.
3. Statue
group
of mother and
daughter,
Chatsworth,
front.
(Forschungsarchiv
ffir Antike Plastik, Universitat zu
Koln,
neg.
no.
1040/9)
hair
professes
to be close to its natural state.
(This
is
patently
untrue,
of
course,
for the waves and shine
of the "natural" hairdo often
require
the substan-
25
For discussion of these
paradoxes,
see
Myerowitz
Levine
1995. Some believe that hair never exists in a natural state but
is
always
a
product
of culture
(Hiltebeitel 1998, 7).
26In one of Roman
portraiture's exceptions, images
of Livia
made late in her lifetime
depict
her
wearing
a
center-parted,
waved coiffure that derives not from
any contemporary
style
but from the classical
imagery
of Greek
goddesses; although
crimped,
the hair has a texture and
arrangement
that looks
remarkably
lifelike and
"natural";
thus in the
portraits
that lik-
en Livia to the divine realm she
looks,
at least to our
eyes,
her
most human.
5
2001]
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
Fig.
4.
Figure
of
reclining
woman from a
sarcophagus lid, Rome, Galleria
Borghese 187, front. (Istituto Centrale
per
ii Catalogo
e la Documentazione)
tial ministrations of scissors, shampoo, combs, and
spray.)
To the ancients, however, "natural" was a term
of
opprobrium, suggesting
a lack of civilization and
social control-a state close to beasts and barbari-
ans. So Paola
Virgili
and others have
appropriately
linked the notion of cultus, implying
refinement
and civilization, to the elaborate coiffures of
imperi-
al Roman women.27 Two Hadrianic stucco reliefs
found in
Carthage28
illustrate the connection: in one
(fig. 2) a woman is
having
her hair dressed in a bee-
hive
style by
a servant, and in the other, the same
woman, her coiffure now finished, sits
holding
a
book.
Grooming goes
hand in hand with
literacy
in
expressing
female cultus. That this stucco and an-
other well-known relief from
Neumagen
showing
a
similar scene29 are both from
provincial
areas
brought
under Roman control in the
early Imperial
period
illustrates the connections of female cultus
to the Romanization
process.
Whereas
provincial
women (and men) are
represented
with
unkempt
"barbarian" hair when
depicted
on
triumphal
mon-
27 Virgili
et al. 1990; Wyke 1994, 143-6;
D'Ambra 1997.
28
Fittschen 1993, 203, n. 6, pl. 25; De Carthage a Kairouan
1982, 138-9, no. 194; Delattre 1899, 38-41, nos. 1, 2, pl.
8.
29Trier, Landesmuseum NM 184; Kampen 1981, 150, no.
32, fig.
50.
30 Cf. the barbarians on
sarcophagi
in Bianchi-Bandinelli
1971, figs. 2, 10, with the
carefully
coiffed
Spanish provincials
depicted
in
figs.
176-181.
uments, they adopt
Roman modes of
hairdressing
within a
generation
or so after Roman conquest.30
In view of this cultural context, the
public
pre-
sentation of a Roman woman as
deliberately
un-
coiffed is cause for discussion. A deceased woman
reclining atop
a late
second/early third-century
C.E.
sarcophagus
lid
(fig. 4)31 lets her hair flow free-
ly
onto her shoulders.
Although
the lid has been
much restored and the
figure's
face
possibly
re-
worked,
the hair itself is
largely original.32
In the
center
part
and the faint
pattern
of
crimping (rem-
iniscent of the fold lines chiseled
lightly
onto the
woven
garments
of
draped sculptures)
there remain
vestiges
of the mode in which the
subject
dressed
her hair while
living;
we
may imagine
a Severan
coiffure with
finger
waves.
Virtually unparalleled
in the
corpus
of Roman
funerary imagery,
the
Borgh-
ese woman seems to be
mourning
her own death.
Her loosened hair evokes a female mourner, ei-
ther the
praefica
hired for funeral
processions33
or
the
ordinary
woman who
responded
to the death of
31 Galleria
Borghese 187; Moreno 1980; Viacava (forthcom-
ing),
no. 199.
32Viacava
(forthcoming)
discerns "forti interveneti nella
testa." The hair does have a minor
repair
at the back.
33 On
praeficae,
see Serv. Ad Aen. 6.16; Flower 1996, 98. Two
well-known visual
representations
of
praeficae
are the Amiter-
num relief (Flower 1996, pl. 6) and the relief from the Tomb
of the Haterii (Flower 1996, 93-5, pl. 5).
6
[AJA
105
HAIR AND THE ARTIFICE OF ROMAN FEMALE ADORNMENT
loved ones
by letting
down her hair.34 (The use of
the verb
spargere
[to stream]
with hair in this con-
text underscores its
wild,
unleashed
quality.)35 By
analogy
with these familiar
images,
the
Borghese
woman
appears
not
only
as the deceased
subject
of
the funeral but also as one of its active
participants;
she infuses an otherwise traditional
funerary
im-
age
with extreme
pathos.
HAIR OR SCULPTURE?
Sculpting
a head of human
hair,
whose thousands
(on
average, 100,000)
of
infinitesimally
thin strands
react to both movement and
light, posed
a daunt-
ing
technical
challenge
to the ancient
sculptor. By
the time of the
mid-empire,
however, Roman
sculp-
tors
working
in both bronze and marble drew
upon
centuries of
experience
for the technical
mastery
by
which
they reproduced
the
texture,
arrangement,
and even the
light-reflecting
sheen of real hair.36
Success in
rendering
the
materiality
of hair and its
accoutrements
inevitably
raises the
question
of au-
thenticity:
are Roman
portraits
faithful translations
of the actual
hairstyles
worn
by
the sitters?
An answer is
problematic
for two reasons.
First,
the
paucity
of
surviving
hair leaves little basis for com-
parison. Owing
to a climate that is
generally
not con-
ducive to its
survival,
only
scattered discoveries of
human hair exist in
Britain,
Gaul
(fig.
5), Egypt,
and
Judaea.37
Although
no ancient coiffure has
yet
been
found in its
entirety, examples
of human hair from
Roman
burials,
such as
long
braids from Les Mar-
tres-de-Veyre
in central France or a bun excavated in
York,
England,
do confirm that the
styles portrayed
in Roman
portraits
were
actually
worn
by
ancient
women.38
Ranging
in color from blond
(Les
Martres-
de-Veyre, fig. 5)
to auburn
(York)
to chestnut
(Les
Martres-de-Veyre, fig. 5)
to near-black
(Masada),
these
finds document the
range
of colors that Roman hair
would have
naturally
had;
paint
would have enabled
the
sculptor
of white marble to match these hues.39
We find further confirmation in the evidence of
painted mummy portraits
from
Egypt. Long
dis-
missed as
provincial
anomalies,
these
images
recent-
34
See in
particular
the
mourning
women who attend Mele-
ager's corpse
on
sarcophagi (Koch 1975, 119-24)
and those
surrounding
the funeral bier in the conclamatio scenes from
biographical sarcophagi (Koch
and Sichtermann
1982, 112-
3).
Cf. Plut.
Quaest.
Rom. 14.267a-b.
35
OLD, s.v.
"spargo."
For a
good example
of this
usage,
see
the Consolatio ad Liviam 1.98.
Pioneers in
achieving
these effects were the Greek
sculp-
tors
Polykleitos (Quint.
Inst.
12.10.8)
and
Lysippos (Plut.
Alex.
4.1).
37Britain: bun fromYork
(Yorkshire Museum; Allason-Jones
1989, 133-4; 1996, 38);
Gaul:
scalp
hair with braids attached
from Gallo-Roman burials at Les Martres-de-Veyre (Audollent
III Li:: : : -- : : E : ::: E :::
Fig.
5. Human hair from tombs at Les
Martres-le-Veyre,
Clermont
Ferrand,
Musees de la Ville.
(Centre Regional
de
Documentation
Pedagogique, Clermont-Ferrand)
ly
have been shown to
depict
coiffures that are iden-
tical to those worn
by
the women
portrayed
in
sculpt-
ed
portraits
from
metropolitan
Rome.40
1923,275-328,
esp.
284,
pl. 8); Egypt: pile
of hair held in
place
with
pins
and
terminating
in a bun
(Walker
and Bierbrier
1997,
208-9,
no.
302);Judaea:
braid
dating
to the late first
century
C.E. found at Masada and now in the Israel
Museum,Jerusa-
lem
(Yadin 1966, 54,
col.
pl. p.
56,
pl. p.
196;
Zias
1998).
38 Cf. the Masada and Les
Martres-de-Veyre
braids cited
(su-
pra
n.
37)
to a head in the
Capitoline (Fittschen
and Zanker
1983, 68,
no.
89,
pl. 110)
and the York bun to
Capitoline
280
(Fittschen
and Zanker
1983, 96-7,
no.
140,
pl. 166).
39Rueterswird
1960, 210-27.
40 Parallelism between the
painted
and
sculpted image
lies
at the heart of
Borg's (1998) chronology
of
mummy portraits
from
Egypt.
Cf. her
figs.
28-29, 50-52,
and 51-53.
2001] 7
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
The second
difficulty
in
assessing
the realism of
the
sculpted
coiffure stems from the
larger ques-
tion of the
physical accuracy
of the Roman
portrait
itself. On the one
hand,
the
physiognomic variety
found in Roman
portraits suggests
that the ancient
sculptor
was a kind of
premodern photographer,
capturing
a
"snapshot"
of an individual's
appear-
ance. Yet
any
serious viewer of Roman
portraiture
recognizes
how both
artistry
and
political ideology
undercut the
physiognomic accuracy by
which a sit-
ter is rendered.
Throughout
her
decades-long por-
trait
career,
for
example,
the
empress
Livia re-
mained
youthful;
even
images
created when she
was an
octogenarian
did not
betray
her encroach-
ing age.
In the
portraiture
of a later
successor,
Faus-
tina the
Elder,
the lack of correlation between the
empress's
coin
portraits
and those
sculpted
in-the-
round leads to the conclusion that her
images
owed
as much to the
particular design principles
of the
portrait
medium as to her
appearance
in real life.41
So, too,
the nine
changes
of
hairstyle
shown in Faus-
tina the
Younger's
official
portraiture may
be at least
partially
fictive,
responses
to
dynastic politics
rath-
er than
changes
made in the actual coiffure she
wore.42
Notwithstanding
their
ideological
tint,
the female
hairstyles
recorded in
sculpted
(and
painted) por-
traits are
firmly
based in
hairdressing reality.
Ac-
cording
to the
contemporary hairstylists
and
wig
makers whom I have
consulted,
most of the Roman
coiffures documented in
imperial portraiture
could have been made
by
a skilled hairdresser us-
ing
the sitter's own hair. From braids to
buns,
pin
curls to marceled
"finger
sets,"43
the standard ele-
ments of
sculpted
coiffures could have been actu-
ally
made in
antiquity,
and indeed
they
can be re-
produced today44 by practiced stylists.
In Roman
times,
such skilled hands were
abundant,
and wom-
en of the leisured classes would have had both the
staff and the time for
lengthy hairdressing
ses-
sions.45 Even if we cannot
say positively
that the hair-
style
of
every portrait represents
the actual coiffure
worn
by
the sitter
herself,
we
may
at least conclude
4' Fittschen
1996,
44.
42
Indeed,
her seventh to
eighth portrait types
differ
only
in minor details. See Fittschen
1982, 55-62.
43
This term finds an ancient
analogy
in
pressopollice,
a
phrase
used
by Propertius (3.10.14)
when
exhorting
his lover to
press
her thumb onto her hairlocks in order to
style
it.
44
Bettina
Bergmann
and I have
produced
a
video,
"Does
She or Doesn't She?"
(1999)
in which a
contemporary
hair-
stylist reconstructs Faustina the Elder's coiffure.
45
For
epigraphic
testimonia
regarding
hairdressers,
see Kam-
pen
1981, 118-20.
Wealthy
women
employed multiple
hair-
dressers-the
empress
Livia is attested to have had five. Even
that the
designs
lie well within the realm of
groom-
ing possibility.46
At a fundamental level, of course,
hairdressing
was a
process
similar to
sculpture.
Most
female
hairstyles
of the late first
through
third cen-
turies C.E. were conceived as structures whose well-
articulated
shapes
and textures made a visual foil
to the face. The wide
gap
that we envision between
sculpture,
to the modern mind considered a form
of
high
art,
and
hairdressing,
which is often
regard-
ed as an elevated form of
grooming,
was not neces-
sarily
shared
by
the Romans.
The astute observer can discern the
workings,
and thus the fundamental
realism,
of
many sculpt-
ed coiffures. I will focus on
popular
female coif-
fures from the middle and
high empire,
for these
have
long triggered
accusations of invention. After
several
generations
ofJulio-Claudian styles,
in which
the relative
simplicity
of Livia's nodus and
off-swept
hair
gave way
to ever-fussier but still
relatively
tame
arrangements,47
female
hairdressing
at Rome un-
derwent a
major
stylistic
change.
Characterized
by
multiple components
and
towering height,
the new
styles
of the late first and
early
second centuries
C.E. were elaborate constructions whose
very
com-
plexity challenged
the
physical possibilities
of the
sitter's own locks. Their extremism occasioned sa-
tirical barbs such as
Juvenal's
famous
likening
of a
hairdo to a multistoried
building.4"
The
vocabulary
used
today
to describe the
popular styles-beehive,
turban,
pillbox,
helmet,44
hairbouquet (Locken-
bukett)-derives
from
nonhairdressing
contexts and
thus
aptly conveys
their artful construction. Al-
though
the
mockery
of
Juvenal
has
vanished,
a mor-
alizing
tone often
slips
into current discussion:
adjectives
like
"flamboyant"
and "frivolous" and
nouns like "confection" and "concoction" hint that
the women who wore these
styles
were slaves to their
appearances
and led shallow lives. Yet
many
of these
portraits
were made at a time of social conserva-
tism,
when the Flavian
dynasty
and then
Trajan
embraced a down-to-earth
public image
that con-
sciously rejected
the decadent
lifestyles
of the last
Julio-Claudians.
In
addition, they
were worn
by
im-
the most
complicated
coiffure would not have taken a team of
slaves more than an hour or so to execute.
46Artistry
does seem to take
precedence
over
realism,
how-
ever,
in the
aspect
of hairline. On this
question
see
below,
p.
15.
47 Livia's
clean,
classical look distanced her from the exces-
sively primped styles
associated with the Hellenistic East. On
Livia,
see Bartman
1999;
on the
Agrippinas,
see Wood 1988.
48
"Tot
premit
ordinibus,
tot adhuc
compagibus
altum aedifi-
cat
caput" (Juv. 6.502).
See also Stat. Silv.
1.2.113;
Mart. 9.37.
49
This term is also attested
inJuv. 6.120 and Tert. De cultu
feminarum 2.7.
8
[AJA
105
HAIR AND THE ARTIFICE OF ROMAN FEMALE ADORNMENT
Fig.
6. Fonseca
bust, Rome,
Museo
Capitolino
434,
right profile. (Deutsches Archaologisches
Institut, Rome)
perial
wives, sisters,
and
daughters,
whom we
may
presume
to have been
promoted
as
exempla
of con-
temporary
female
appearance
and behavior. Thus
we should see the elaborate coiffures and the
plain,
sometimes
grim
faces below as features
working
in
tandem to
project
a
positive
message
of
modesty
and control.
The most
striking
visual feature of these coiffures
is the
high-arching
forehead crown
(I
use the Ger-
man
toupet)
that was
composed
of drilled
pin
curls
during
the Flavian era and of
complex
combina-
tions of braids and curls at later times. In a meticu-
lously
carved head such as the
Capitoline's
famed
Fonseca bust
(fig. 6),50
the
sculptor
details a
part
that divides the hair on the crown into two sections:
in front the hair is combed forward into the
prodi-
gious
coils of the
toupet,
and in back it is combed
into braids that coil into a
generous
bun.
Suspend-
50Museo
Capitolino
434;
Fittschen and Zanker
1983, 53-4,
no.
69,
pls.
86-87.
2001] 9
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
Fig.
7. Bust of
Matidia, London,
The British
Muselum
1805.7-
3.96,
left
profile. (E. Bartman)
ed over the
face,
the
toupet might
be a
separate
hairpiece
made of curls
glued
or sewn to a
backing;
the
discovery
of a braid sewn to two
pieces
of leath-
er in a woman's tomb in Gaul is
tantalizing
evidence
of
precisely
this
technique.5'
Another
way
to make
the
toupet
was to
pull
the sitter's hair
through
the
holes of a
loosely
woven fabric that had been stiff-
51Audollent
1923,284.
For a modern
analogy,
see the 19th-
century
frisette
pad (Stevens
Cox
1984,
fig. 126).
52
Hair
stylists today
use cheesecloth or wire mesh to
help
shape
hair on the head.
5'British Museum GR
1805.7-3.96;
Smith
1904, 158,
no.
1898. A bust in Venice
(Museo Archeologico
208;
Traversari
1968, 51-2,
no.
33,
pl.
33a, b)
shows a series of twisted locks
that connect the beehive
toupet
to the
scalp.
54
Museo
Gregoriano
Profano
9481;
Ryberg
1955,
pl.
67, fig.
116b.
55
Galleria dei Candelabri
2708;
Amelung
1903-1908,
3.2:285-6,
no.
20,
pl.
129; Helbig4,
541.
5"For another
example,
see a veiled head in the Palazzo dei
ened with beeswax or resin to form a curved arma-
ture.52 Whether
using
the sitter's own hair or
not,
a
toupet
of the
height
we see in
many portraits
had to
be somehow secured on the
head;
a head of Tra-
jan's
niece Matidia in London
(fig.
7)
shows how
this could be
accomplished,
as it
preserves
a
tiny
braid combed in such a
way
as to anchor the tiered
toupet
in front.53 In an unusual case of cross-hair-
dressing,
a male camillus on a Flavian relief of a sac-
rifice wears a beehive
toupet;54
because camilli
typi-
cally
had hair
long enough
either to
compose
or
attach this
feature,
its
appearance
in this context
does not answer the
question
of real or fictive any
more
conclusively
than do the female
portraits.
The head of a
full-length draped
statue in the
Vatican
(fig.
8)
5
dissembles about the status of the
sitter's
toupet by depicting
hair combed
up
from
the forehead before
being
worked into the
tightly
massed
pin
curls of the
toupet.56
It is difficult to
know whether this
peek-a-boo exposure
is meant
to
suggest
that the
high-arching
crescent of the tou-
pet
is an addition or that it is formed from the sit-
ter's
own,
by necessity ample,
locks;
certainly
the
long
silky
strands of hair on the crown behind the
toupet convey
the
impression
of a
richly
endowed
head. In
many portraits
the hairline at the forehead
is more
emphatically
demarcated
by
a braidlike rib-
bon or band that forms the basis for the
typically
diverse elements stacked above.57
Although
its
reg-
ular striations recall
hair,
the band does not
appear
to have been
composed
of real hair
growing
from
the
scalp.
It
looks, rather,
as
though
it were an addi-
tion
glued
in
place (recall
the false
eyebrows ap-
plied
to the
Satyricon's Giton),58
as a
practical
means
of
absorbing dyes
and
gums
that were
applied
to
the
hair,
thus
preventing unsightly
streaks from
running
down the face.
While Flavian coiffures could
easily
have been
crafted from the sitter's own
hair,
those of later de-
cades often seem to have
required separate
attach-
ments.59 The stiff, thin
forms,
unhairlike
textures,
and awkward
perching
on the head
(especially
vis-
Conservatori
(2762;
Fittschen and Zanker
1983, 56,
no.
74,
pl. 92),
where a
layer
of
long curly
locks
(natural
or
artificial?)
is set several centimeters back from the sitter's natural hair-
line.
57Typical
examples
occur in the Flavian
portraits
discussed
by
Hausmann
1959,
and the various women of
Trajan's
circle
(see
Fittschen and Zanker
1983, 7-10,
nos.
6-8,
pls. 7-10).
58
Sat. 110.
59
Cf. the
empress
Plotina's fanlike crown
(Fittschen
and
Zanker
1983,8-9,
no.
7,
pl. 9)
to Matidia and Marciana's
styles
(Fittschen
and Zanker
1983,9-10,
no.
8,
pl.10
[a
posthumous
Matidia];
Fittschen
1996, 45,
figs. 3-6).
10
[AJA
105
HAIR AND THE ARTIFICE OF ROMAN FEMALE ADORNMENT
Fig.
8. Statue of a
woman,
Vatican
City,
Musei
Vaticani,
Galleria dei Candelabri
2708,
front.
(Musei Vaticani)
ible in the
profile
view,
as in
fig.
7 and
pl. 1)60 sug-
gest
that the vertical
components
of these later
stacked coiffures are
hairpieces.61
As
before,
what
are
(possibly)
fictive additions are
deliberately jux-
taposed
with the sitter's own hair. A bust in
Copen-
hagen (fig. 9),62
for
example,
wears a coiffure de-
60
Metropolitan
Museum of
Art,
Rogers
Fund
20.200;
Rich-
ter
1948,
no. 66.
61
In some heads the coiffure's
components
are
unnaturally
flattened: so the
ringlets
of a head in London
(The
British
fined at the hairline
by
two
glued
bands;
in the
middle, however,
emerges
a
jumble
of
pincurls
whose texture and looseness makes a
sharp
con-
trast-are we to
imagine
a
melange
of natural and
artificial?
Visually dynamic,
these
compositions
leave the viewer
impressed
with the artful
ingenu-
Museum
2006;
Walker
1995,
pl.
II
)
and Dresden
(Albertinum
ZV
3716;
Knoll et al.
1993, 55,
no.
30).
62Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek
1539;
Poulsen
1974, 91-3,
no.
72, pls.116-117.
20011
11
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
Fig.
9. Bust of a woman, Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg
Glyptothek 1539, front.
(Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek)
ity
of both
sculptor
and hairdresser. In the deliber-
ate artificiality of this and other
contemporary styles,
female
hairdressing
recalls the
preparation
of food
for the
imperial banquet
table. As the ancient sourc-
es tell us, Roman chefs found
appreciative
diners
when
they prepared
food that
completely
masked
its
origins.63
63
I thank Miranda Marvin for this observation. See
Apicius
4.2.12 ("ad mensam nemo
agnoscent quid manducet") and
Petron. Sat.15.33
(eggs
made
ofpastry dough),
15.36 (hare to
which
wings
are attached to simulate
Pegasus).
For discussion
of the broader issued raised
by food, see Gowers 1993.
64Donat. 1.26.
65 The curling
iron (calamistrum) is attested in text
(e.g.,
Plaut. Curc. 4.4.21), but its
appearance
is contested. Some schol-
ars identify it as the wandlike rod seen in the stele of P. Ferrar-
Fig.
10. Head of a woman, Rome, Palazzo Corsini 642, back.
(Istituto Centrale
per
il
Catalogo
e la Documentazione)
LAYERS OF ARTIFICE
Long
hair
extending
well below the shoulders
was
requisite
for the elaborate coiffures recorded
in second- and
third-century
C.E. female
portraits.
At least two
secondary images,
the
Carthage
relief
already
mentioned
(fig. 2) and the well-known im-
age
of the seated woman from the Villa of the
Mys-
teries frieze at
Pompeii,
show women with
long
locks
reaching
as low as the waist. When sectioned, their
tresses could be formed into braids whose com-
bined
length
was several meters, easily enough
to
surround the head in even the most lavish concen-
tric
arrangements. By applying henna, a
temporary
dye
well known to the ancients, hair could be thick-
ened and made more malleable.64
Ungents, waxes,
and
curling
irons all
helped
the transform a wom-
an's natural endowment into the desired
arrange-
ment.65
ius Hermes from Pisa (Florence, Galleria
degli Uffizi; Virgili
et
al. 1990, 87, no. 30), where it
appears
with other
objects
of
female adornment such as a comb and mirror. (There are
modern analogies
in the
19th-century curling stick, illustrated
in Stevens Cox 1984, fig. 232.) Others, on the basis of other
modern analogies, identify
metal
tongs
from
Pompeii
as the
calamistrum; for archaeological finds, see
Mannsperger 1998,
16-24; postantique tongs
in Stevens Cox 1984, figs. 87, 120.
12
HAIR AND THE ARTIFICE OF ROMAN FEMALE ADORNMENT
Fig.
11. Statue ofJulia Domna, Paris, Musee du Louvre Ma 1090, front. (Mus6e du Louvre)
Of course, only healthy
hair could be worked into
these fashions, because hair
typically
loses
strength
and abundance as it
ages. (The point
was not lost
on Ovid, who advised
supplemental hairpieces
for
older women or for those whose hair had thinned
because of overzealous
grooming.)
In
trying
to as-
sess Roman female
hairdressing, then, we face a
paradox:
while most
hairstyles depicted
in marble
portraits theoretically
could have been fashioned
from the sitter's own
hair,
we cannot be certain that
they actually
were. Roman
portraitists generally
re-
frained from
revealing
the mechanics of their sit-
ters' hairdos; two
exceptions
are therefore
worthy
of mention. The bust of a
Trajanic
lady
in the Palaz-
zo Corsini in Rome
(fig. 10) is
unique
in its
sculpt-
ed
representation
of a
hairpin,66
even
though
Ro-
661Inv. 642; De Luca 1976, 65, no. 28, pls.
55-56. For
pins
in
painted portraits,
see Walker and Bierbrier 1997, 58, no. 33.
2001]
13
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
man female
graves
have
yielded
this
accessory
in
impressive quantities,
and
they
were essential for
many hairstyles.
The second
exception,
a second-
century
bronze of a woman in Princeton
(pl. 2),
depicts
hair encased in a hairnet. In an extreme
manifestation of the
quest
for mimetic
realism,
the
bronze was cast with a real net.67
In view of the
portraitist's
reticence in this
area,
it is not
surprising
that the
wearing
of artificial
hair,
by
which I mean human hair not
belonging
to the
wearer,
is
rarely depicted.
This
may
reflect the
skilled
deception
of the ancient
wig,
but it also stems
from the artistic
process
itself. In
making
a
portrait
the skilled artist
imposes
a
unity
of
surface,
materi-
al,
and color that the sitter's
hairstyle may
not have
possessed
in real
life;
if all art is an
illusion,
then
the
sculpted
renditions of coiffures constructed
with artificial hair
represent
a doubled illusion.
Ample literary
sources document women's (as
well as
men's)
use of
wigs
and
hairpieces,
and the
extensive
vocabulary they employ suggests
a wide
range
of
options. Capillamentum, corymbium, galerum,
and
xpiXpoua
are
favorite,
but
by
no means the
only,
terms attested.68 Most
wigs
in
antiquity
were made
of human hair and fashioned with a level of
beauty
and
craftsmanship largely
unobtainable
today. (In
modern times
synthetic
hair has
replaced
natural
human hair in all but the most
expensive
wigs.)
Although
no Roman
wigs
have
survived,
evidence
from
pharaonic Egypt
attests to the
high quality
of
ancient
hairpieces.69
The blond hair of Germans
and
jet
black of Indians was
preferred
for artificial
attachments,70
but it is unclear whether their desir-
ability
stemmed from their color or texture. While
black Indian
hair,
documented in a late
source,
was
no doubt obtained
through
trade,
the blond hair of
Germans was one of the
spoils
of
war,
at least in the
early Imperial period.
Both Ovid and Martial refer
67
The head is now in the Art
Museum,
Princeton Universi-
ty
(80-10;Jenkins
and Williams
1987).
6
Reinach 1896
provides
a full
compilation.
For other an-
cient sources on
hairdressing,
see
Steininger
1912;
Virgili
et
al.
1990,
55-8.
Although
dated,
Evans 1906 has
many
useful
observations.
69 A
wig
made of linen tinted a chestnut color was
among
the
18th-century
finds from the tomb of a Christian woman
on the Via Ostiensis
(Boldetti 1720, 297);
its
present
where-
abouts are unknown.
Awell-preserved wig
of New
Kingdom
date
from Thebes
gives
a sense of the enormous labor involved in
making
a
top-quality hairpiece.
Both its
hanging
braids and the
mesh that
fits,
caplike,
over the cranium are made of human
hair, and each of the some 300 braids bundles
together
hun-
dreds of individual hairs
(Stevens
Cox
1977). Wigs
are also
extensively
documented at Deir el-Bahri
(Laskowska-Kusztal
1978).
to
"captured"
hair
(captivos crines), making
an ex-
plicit
link between the commodification of hair and
Roman
power.71
Notwithstanding
its
implications
of Roman con-
quest,
a blond braid interwoven into the dark tress-
es of a Mediterranean crown
presumably
announced
the fictive nature of the coiffure rather
emphatical-
ly.72
This unabashed
flaunting
of artificial locks con-
trasts with the
generally negative image
of
wig
wear-
ing conveyed by many
of the
literary
sources. Ac-
cording
to these
texts,
the
wig-wearer (of
both sex-
es)
wore artificial locks to hide baldness and for
disguise.
But in some instances the context of the
verbal
testimony
warns
against
too literal a
reading,
for
Juvenal
or Martial were satirists who
enjoyed
skewering
the Roman beau
monde,
and Tertullian
and Clement of Alexandria were Christian moral-
ists
opposed
to all female adornment.
Still,
even
neutral references such as Ovid's crines
empti (pur-
chased
tresses)
and Petronius's
description
of a
lady's wig
and false
eyebrows
in the
Satyricon,73
with
their
knowing
hints of the role that artificial hair
played
in the
grooming
of elite
Romans,
under-
score the
popular
connection between borrowed
locks and
deception.
Despite
the
negativism
of the
literary
tradition,
the
wig
is
acknowledged
in a number of female
portraits dating
to the
early
third
century, suggest-
ing
that
by
that time it had
acquired
cachet. The
wig's
most influential
patron
was
Julia
Domna,
wife
of the
emperor Septimius
Severus
(fig. 11).74
Throughout
a
public
career
spanning nearly
20
years, Julia
Domna wore a coiffure that encased her
head with a thick mass of hair worked into undulat-
ing finger
waves.75 While not so
explicitly
rendered
as that of a
private
woman in the Museo Nazionale
Romano in Rome
(fig. 12),76
her hair can be
recog-
nized as a
wig by
its
heavy, globular
character,
the
7"Blonde hair: Ov. Am.
1.14.45-6;
Mart.
5.68;Juv.
6.120
(confirmed by
the find of a male skull with hair from
Osterby;
Jedding-Gesterling
and Brustscher
1988,
fig. 85);
Indian hair:
Dig.
39,
4.16.7
(there
is no mention of the
import
of Indian
hair earlier in the
Periplus
Maris
Erythraei.)
71Ov.,
Am.
1.14.45-6;
Mart. 14.26. See Bartman
1999,
39.
72
Cf. the Renaissance woman who covers her brown hair
with a
curly
blond
wig (balzo)
in a
painting
of ca. 1530
by
Lorenzo
Lotto
(London,
The National
Gallery).
73 Ov. Ars Am. 3.165; Sat. 110.
74Musee du Louvre Ma
1090;
de Kersauson
1996, 370-1,
no. 170.
75 Schluter
1977;
Buchholz
1963;
Nodelman 1964. See also
Fittschen 1978.
76Rome,
Museo Nazionale Romano
564;
Giuliano 1979-
,
1.9
pt.
2, 342-4,
no. R 260. K. Fittschen
(Fittschen
and Zanker
1983, 106,
n.
26)
does not think that the
wig belongs
to the
14
[AJA
105
HAIR AND THE ARTIFICE OF ROMAN FEMALE ADORNMENT
Fig.
12. Head of a woman
wearing
a
wig, Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano 564,
front. (Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Rome)
unnatural hairline, and
stray
hairs
peeking
out in
front of the ears or
along
the hairline. Some of her
portraits
also have an
emphatic
line that demar-
cates the hair from the face, but because the fea-
ture is not universal, it should
perhaps
be inter-
preted
as an artistic device for
framing
the face with
shadow rather than as a literal
depiction
of the con-
tours of a
wig.77
In several ofJulia Domna's
portraits,
finally,
her
wig
is carved
separately,
but as we will
head, but a
comparable relationship
between the sitter's nat-
ural hairline and
wig
occurs in the bust of a deceased woman
depicted
on an
early third-century funerary
relief in Frankfurt
(Liebighaus 1502; Eckstein and Beck 1973, no. 74
pl. 74).
77 This line is found in
portraits
of both men and women
from a
variety
of
periods.
For
typical examples,
see the head of
see, this technical detail is not in itself
proof
of her
wig wearing
in real life.
Because she was born the
daughter
of a
high-
ranking Syrian priest, Julia
Domna's taste for
wigs
is
sometimes attributed to her non-Roman
origins.
Early
in this
century,
Paul Gauckler
argued
that the
sculptural piecing
found in the heads of several
statues excavated in the
Sanctuary
of the Syrian Gods
in Rome was connected to
religious
rites
practiced
a Hadrianic man identified
asJason
in the
Ny Carlsberg Glyp-
tothek (Poulsen 1974, 87, no. 65, pls. 104-105); the head of
a woman from Ostia (Giuliano 1957, 61, no. 70, pl. 43); and
the head of a woman in Cincinnati (Cincinnati Art Museum
1946.5; Vermeule 1981, 344, no. 296, col.
pl. 27).
2001]
15
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
P1. 1. Head of
Marciana,
New
York,
Metropolitan
Museum
of
Art,
Rogers
Fund
20.200,
oblique right. (Schecter Lee,
Metropolitan
Museum of
Art)
PI. 2. Bronze head of a
woman, Princeton,
The Art
Museum,
Princeton
University
80-10,
oblique right. (Bruce
M.
White,
The Art
Museum,
Princeton
University)
16
[AJA
105
HAIR AND THE ARTIFICE OF ROMAN FEMALE ADORNMENT
in
Syria.78
Yet while
towering
(and,
in the case of a
mosaic
panel
from
Edessa,79
even
outlandish)
head-
dresses are common
among
Eastern
women,
there
is little clearcut evidence for artificial
hairpieces.
Among
the hundreds of
surviving grave
reliefs from
the
prolific workshops
of
Palmyra,
for
example,
none
depicts
a woman who is
undeniably wearing
a
wig.80
Indeed,
Palmyrene
women
typically
wore their
hair waved in a
simple center-part style
that could
easily
have been achieved with their own
locks;81
jeweled
diadems and turbans
provided
luxurious
coverage
and
modesty
in accordance with local so-
cial mores.82
Rather than wear a
wig
to
convey
her
foreign
sta-
tus and
exoticism,Julia
Domna seems to have
adopt-
ed it to
project
a familiar Roman
guise. Specifically,
she donned artificial hair to look like her
prede-
cessor, Faustina the
Younger,
whose last
portrait
types
feature a
simple, finger-waved style
in which
the hair forms a
globular
cover for the cranium.83
Although
Faustina's
daughter Crispina
was
Julia
Domna's immediate
predecessor,84
Faustina clear-
ly
outshone her
daughter
and successor in
reputa-
tion and number of
public portraits.
The earlier
empress,
moreover,
was
consciously
evoked
by
the
Severans on at least one other
occasion;
Dio records
that one of the omens
accompanying Septimius's
rise to
power
was a dream he had on the eve of his
marriage
to
Julia.85
In the dream Faustina
prepares
the
nuptial
chamber for
Septimius
and
Julia,
and
thus sanctions the choice
ofJulia
as
empress;
evoked
continually
in the emulative
imagery
of her Seve-
ran
successor,
Faustina remained an
ongoing
sanc-
tioner.
Why Julia
needed a
wig
to
reproduce
Faustina's
coiffure is
unclear;
perhaps
her own hair was too
thin to be coiffed in this
mode,
or the
wig
was
deemed
necessary
to underscore the connection.
Her use of a
wig
to
project
a
specific
cultural iden-
tity
is
paralleled
in a
painted mummy portrait
from
Egypt
that
depicts
the same woman on its two sides:
on one she
appears wearing
a
simple center-part-
ed
style popular
in the
East,
and on the
other,
a
78Gauckler
1910, 378-408,
esp.
393-404;
Gauckler's thesis
was refuted
by
Crawford
(1917, 105)
and is now discredited.
79
The mosaic
depicts
the
family
of
Moqimu (Kraus 1967,
295,
no.
406).
80 This is not to
say
that the women are not
wearing wigs,
only
that
they
are not
depicted.
For recent
surveys
of the
material,
see Parlasca 1981; Tanabe 1986.
81As M.
Colledge (1976,143) writes,
"For females the clas-
sical Grecian mode is almost universal: the hair is brushed
back in waves from a central
parting
to a
(hidden)
knot at
the back."
82
Nor does
Egypt appear
to be a
pressing
source,
despite
Septimius's
devotion to the
Egyptian god Serapis.
Fig.
13. Bust of a
woman, London,
British Museum
2009,
oblique
left.
(British Museum)
fuller coiffure with a
fringe
of curls around the fore-
head.86 As Susan Walker has
pointed
out,
hair and
dress function in the
portrait
as
significant
cultural
markers,
instantly recognizable
but also
easily
mu-
table.87 We
may
conclude from these
examples
that
wig wearing
was as much a matter of cultural choice
as
necessity,
the female
equivalent,
we
might say,
of
the male's
growing
a beard.
Within a
generation
after
Julia,
however,
Roman
female
portrait
sitters
rejected
the
empress's
bla-
tant artifice for a
seemingly
more natural coiffure
with
long silky
hair strands
lying
close to the skull.
Portraits of the
empress
Plautilla,
Caracalla's
wife,
exemplify
this
hairstyle.88
But was it
any
less artifi-
cial?
Many
women wear coiffures that combine Plau-
tilla's
close-lying
locks with masses of curls clus-
tered on the neck or
along
the hairline
(fig.
13
83Fittschen and Zanker
1983, 22-3,
nos.
21-22,
pls.
29-31;
Fittschen
1982,
63-5.
84
Crispina
wears a related
hairstyle;
see Fittschen
1982,
82-8.
5 Dio Cass. 75.3.
86Oxford,Ashmolean
Museum
1966.1112;
Walker
1997,2.
87Walker
(1997)
contrasts the two
representational
modes
as
Egyptian
versus
Roman,
although
the second coiffure with
pendant
curls is not
typically
found in
metropolitan
Rome.
88Nodelman 1982;
Fittschen and Zanker
1983, 30,
no.
32,
pl.
40. See also a bust in
Ephesus (Selcuk
Museum
1566;
Inan
and Rosenbaum 1966, 134-5,
no.
163,
pls.
95, 101.1).
17
2001]
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
Fig.
14. Head of a
woman,
Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg
Glyptothek
825,
front.
(Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek)
provides
a fine
example).89 Contrasting texturally
with the smoother hair of the
crown,
the curls
would seem to be the sitter's own
hair,
pulled
out
from under the
flipped-up wig
that covers the
crown.
Although unwiglike
in both texture and
89British Museum 2009
(Smith 1904, 190-1,
no.
2009,
pl.
18;
Walker 1995,
fig. 73).
See also a head in the Palazzo Bar-
berini,
Rome
(EA 2932).
90
Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek
825;
Poulsen
1974, 146-8,
no.
145,
pls.
234-235 (Julia Paula?).
For
comparable examples,
see
Wood
1986,52
(argues forwigwearing); Wiggers
and
Wegner
1971, 115-29, 153-76, 200-22.
91
See also such
contemporary
heads as
Capitoline
380 and
Conservatori 1188
(Fittschen
and Zanker
1983, 108, no.161,
pls.
187-188, 113-114,
no.
171,
pis.
200-201,
respectively).
92In a
superb-quality
head in the Lateran
(Giuliano 1957,
arrangement,
the coiffure of the British Museum
woman nonetheless seems to
incorporate
a
wig.
It
demonstrates that a
wig
could be
extremely
thin
and
finely
textured-it is mistaken to
imagine
that
all ancient Roman
wigs
had the bulk of
Julia
Dom-
na's or the
dull,
leaden
appearance
of
wigs
made
today
from
synthetic
materials. With thick
curly
tresses
long enough
to reach her shoulder and a
hairline
showing
no
recession,
the sitter for the
British Museum bust
clearly
had no
physical
need
for artificial hair. Thus we conclude that she wore
a
wig by
choice.
At first
glance,
another
popular style
in which
the face is framed
by
short
pincurls
also seems to
make use of a
wig.
In a
representative example
in
Copenhagen (fig. 14),90
the sitter wears a
low-hang-
ing
coiffure
composed
of
parallel finger
waves and
tightly
wound
pincurls running along
the entire
hairline. The waves and curls have different tex-
tures,
but this is not de facto evidence for
wig
wear-
ing,
as the curls could
simply
be cut short and frizzed
into
ringlets.91
In this and numerous related
por-
traits,
naturalistic features such as the
growth
of the
hair from the forehead and the
tucking
of hair be-
hind the ears
strengthen
the case for the use of the
sitter's own hair.92
Paradoxically,
a
private portrait
known in several versions has
thick,
deeply
drilled
finger
waves on the crown that look
wiglike
but be-
have so
realistically, tucking up
under the bun at
the
back,
that
they
seem to
belong
to the sitter.93
That most of the
portrait subjects wearing
these
styles
are
youthful
and
presumably
in
possession
of
healthy
locks lends further credence to the view
that their hair has not been
artificially
enhanced.
A number of Severan
private portraits
make their
wig wearing
literal,
by combining
white marble heads
with coiffures carved
separately,
often in a contrast-
ing
dark stone that enhances their mimetic effect. Is
this a case of art
imitating
life,
in which the
sculptor
enhances the realism in his
depiction
of a
wig-wear-
ing
woman
by carving
her coiffure
literally
as a
wig?
The
theory
is
attractive,
especially
as
many
of the
portraits
executed in this manner
reproduce
the
coiffures and
wigs
worn
byJulia
Domna. Of the some
30
examples
known,94
more than half fall into this
78,
no.
96,
pl. 57)
hairs are combed both
up
and down from
the hairline over the forehead.
93The two versions are in the
Liverpool
Museum
(Ince 7;
Fejferand
Southworth
1991,41-4,
no.
9,
pls. 18-19)
and Museo
Capitolino (401;
Fittschen and Zanker
1983,109-10,
no.
163,
pls. 190-191).
94
The
antiquity
of some of the
hairpieces
carved in
onyx
and other colored stones is
disputed.
See the comments of S.
Sande
regarding
a
portrait
ofJulia
Domna in Oslo
(Sande 1991,
81-3,
no.
67, pl. 66);
and Fittschen 1989.
18
[AJA
105
HAIR AND THE ARTIFICE OF ROMAN FEMALE ADORNMENT
category;
in
addition,
many
of the
"orphan"
coif-
fures,
hairpieces
that have been
separated
from the
rest of the
portrait,
have the
empress's finger-waved
hairstyle.)95
Yet we have no evidence that the Ro-
mans conceived of the
separate hairpiece
in this
way.
Two different stones were a
dramatic,
and cost-
ly, way
of
attaining
chromatic contrasts between hair
and face
(paint
was
another). Essentially,
the tech-
niques
used for a
"bewigged" portrait
are no differ-
ent from those
employed
in acrolithic stone stat-
ues,
where the intent
clearly
was to
suggest
the sit-
ter's own hair.96
From the earliest discussions of
separately
carved
hairpieces,
however,
historians have advanced an-
other
explanation:
that it was
designed
to be
easily
removed and
replaced
when the sitter desired to
change
her coiffure.97 K. Fittschen has
already
re-
futed this
"prospective" theory by noting
that
many
portraits
with
separately
carved
hairpieces
were fu-
nerary
commissions and thus
represent
sitters who
could
hardly
have had
expectations
of future
por-
traits.98 In
addition,
fitting
an
existing
head with a
new
hairpiece
was not the
simple job
it is some-
times
implied
to have
been,
for hair
length,
rela-
tionship
of hair to
ears,
and
shape
and size of the
bun differed from one coiffure to another and
pre-
cluded a
simple
substitution of one
wig
for anoth-
er. Thus the
potential
for
change
that modern ob-
servers see in detachable
headpieces
is not
likely
to have motivated either the female
portrait
sitter
or her
sculptor.
Even without solid
empirical
evidence,
the ex-
planation
of the
wig
as a medium for
updating
has
long
found
scholarly
adherents because of its reso-
nance with
contemporary,
essentializing
assump-
tions about female behavior: that women are ob-
sessed with their
appearance
and
change
their
image
to
keep up
with fashion. When
men,
in con-
trast,
change
their
hairstyles,
it is said to show alle-
giance
to the
emperor
or
express
cultural values.99
In ancient
Rome, however,
unlike
today, changes
in dress and
hairstyle
were not dictated each sea-
son
by
a
powerful
fashion
industry.
And one of the
primary
means
by
which the
rapid change
of hair-
dressing styles
is
allegedly
demonstrated,
charts in
95Poulsen
1916; Crawford
1917;
Schauenburg
1967;
Fittschen and Zanker
1983, 105-6;
Kleiner and Matheson
1996,
nos.
120,
130
(P. Davies).
96
Cf. also the
techniques
of
pieced
bronzes. See Lattanzi
1987, 148;
Menzel
1986, 73,
nos.
170-171,
pls.
84-85.
97Reinach
1896, 1453;
Burns
1993;
Kleiner and Matheson
1996,
164.
98Fittschen and Zanker
1983,
105.
99
E.g.,
it is
implied
that men who
adopt
the
emperor's
hair-
style
do so to advance their careers. See also R. Smith 1998, 15.
which numerous coiffures are
neatly
collated,'0? is
misleading,
for these charts show the
variety
of con-
secutive
hairstyles
worn
by
different
women, not the
multiple changes
in
appearance
of a
single
indi-
vidual.
Indeed,
some
(quite famous)
Roman women vir-
tually
never
changed
their
hairstyle:
Livia's
por-
traits
depict
her in the
simple
nodus
style
of the
late
Republic
for the first three decades of em-
pire,
and Faustina the
Younger's image
shows
only
minor
changes
in the coiffure
during
the last 20
years
of her
career.'10
The recent
dating
of the
Fonseca head to the late
Trajanic
or
early
Hadrian-
ic
period'12
also demonstrates the
longevity
of
some
popular styles-that
a woman
possessing
the
beauty
and,
presumably,
wealth of the Fonseca sit-
ter would be
represented wearing
a
hairstyle
some
30
years
old strikes a
major
blow
against
the view
that
stylish
women transformed their hairdos ev-
ery
few
years.
While female fashions indeed shift-
ed over
time,
many
women
clung
to old
styles,
us-
ing
them in their
portraits
as
generational
mark-
ers or as
expressions
of cultural
identity.
Indeed,
hairstyles
were all the more
important
for identifi-
cation because so
many
women's faces were ideal-
ized.
By imagining
that an old-fashioned
hairstyle
required updating,
in
fact,
the modern historian
perhaps
endows hair with a
greater importance
than it
actually may
have had in the ancient
image.
Certainly
it assumes that other features of the
por-
trait,
such as the face
itself,
the
clothing
worn
by
the
subject,
or the bust
shape
did not themselves
change
over time and run the risk of
appearing
outdated.103
This is not to
say
that the coiffures of female
por-
traits were never
reworked;
in
fact,
there is scattered
evidence for the
recutting
of hair. A head in Boston
(fig. 15),1?4
for
example,
wears a tiered
toupet
coif-
fure
composed
of flat bands whose
arcing
hair-
strands terminate in a
spiral
curl at the center. At
various
places, especially along
the
hairline,
the
bands are
pierced by irregularly spaced
drill
holes,
vestiges
of the head's
prior
"beehive" coiffure. C.
Vermeule has identified the head as that of Tra-
jan's
niece
Matidia,
although
the face does not
'0?Typically
the coiffures are rendered as line
drawings, e.g.,
Furnee van Zwet
1956,
fig. p.
2;
Wegner
1938,
figs.
3-4;
Wes-
sel
1946-1947,
figs.
1-6.
10O Cf. her
portrait types
7, 8,
and 9 (in Fittschen's 1982
scheme).
102
Fittschen and Zanker
1983,
53-4.
103 It should be
noted, however,
that at least one famous
portrait subject,Julia
Domna,
combined a
young
face with "lat-
er" hair.
104
Museum of Fine Arts 1988.327; Herrmann 1991.
2001]
19
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
Fig.
15. Head of a
woman, Boston,
Museum of Fine Arts
1988.327,
front.
(Courtesy
Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston)
closely
resemble her other
portraits (nor
is there
evidence that Matidia ever wore the beehive hair-
style)."'5
Whoever she
is,
this sitter of late Flavian
date
may
have modernized her coiffure to
keep
current with
changing
fashions. But that is not the
only
scenario we
might
envision. It is also
possible
that the head was a stock Flavian
workshop
piece
whose beehive coiffure had been carved but whose
l05Vermeule 1989. Matidia's
portrait history probably
did not
begin
until
Trajan's reign
and continued into
Hadrian's,
when
her
daughter
Sabina married the
emperor.
See
Wegner
1956,
80-3.
"6ATrajanic
bust in the
Metropolitan
Museum in NewYork
(Rogers
Fund
14.130.7;
Richter
1948,
no.
63)
seems also to
face was left
roughed
out.
(The procedure
is attest-
ed for
portraits
on
sarcophagi.)
Not
finding
a
buyer
when the
hairstyle
was in
vogue,
the head would
have
required recutting
when it was
eventually pur-
chased.106
Remodeling
to
update
the coiffure is also said to
have occurred in two late Antonine
portraits
known
colloquially
as the
Ludwig
Curtius and Frank Brown
have been recut. Its
toupet,
now
missing,
was attached to the
crown
by dowels; although
there
may
be a technical
explana-
tion for the attachment
(e.g.,
the
discovery
of a flaw in the
marble),
it is
possible
that this section of the coiffure was
changed.
For
separately
attached beehive
toupets,
see Calza
1964, 109-10,
nos.
191-192,
pl.
106.
20
[AJA
105
HAIR AND THE ARTIFICE OF ROMAN FEMALE ADORNMENT
Fig.
16. Head of Julia
Mamaea, Paris,
Musee du Louvre Ma
3552,
left
profile.
(Musee
du
Louvre)
heads.'07 In
both,
the sitter's
straight
hair
clings
closely
to the
head,
projecting beyond
the cranium
so
minimally
that one can
easily imagine
it to be the
result of drastic
recutting
that reduced a once
great-
er mass. In the Brown
head,
deep grooves
located
behind the ears that
angle against
the
present
move-
ment of the hair also
point
toward
recutting;
there
is no clue as to when and
why
it occurred. Another
technical feature of the Curtius and Brown
heads,
107
Curtius head: ex Bertele collection, Rome;
now Lewis
Dubroff
Collection,
New York (on loan,
Metropolitan
Muse-
um
ofArt, NewYorkL1994.87;
Curtius
1957;
Inan andAlfoldi-
Rosenbaum
1979,341-3,
no.
342,
pl. 250);
Frank Brown head:
now a
private
collection, NewYork;
R. Brilliant
(1975)
identi-
fies the sitter as Manlia Scantilla.
108
Occasionally
stucco was used instead of marble. See a head
in the
Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek (790;
Poulsen
1974, 116,
no.
however,
casts doubt on the standard
interpreta-
tion of the coiffures as
updated.
As in a number of
Severan-date
portraits,
the Brown and Curtius heads
have sections of hair near the ears carved as
sepa-
rate marble attachments.'08 The Louvre's
Julia
Mamaea
(fig. 16)109
makes an instructive
compari-
son.
Today large, roughly triangular
cavities
gape
behind both ears. With their surfaces
picked
and
upper edges
smoothed,
the cavities
clearly
have
109,
pl. 183);
two heads in the Museo
Capitolino,
182 and 661
(respectively,
Fittschen and Zanker
1983, 94-5,
no.
137,
pl.
163; 95,
no.
138,
pl. 164),
and a bust in the Museo Profano
Lateranense 586
(Giuliano 1957, 65-6,
no.
76,
pl. 46).
The
Curtius head also has its
upper
crown and hair bun carved
sep-
arately.
09 Musee du Louvre
3552;
de Kersauson
1996, 424-5,
no.
196.
2001] 21
ELIZABETH BARTMAN
been worked to accommodate two
separate (but
matching)
attachments of hair."? It is hard to make
a case for
updating,
as Mamaea's current
hairstyle
follows close on the
heavy wig
worn
by Julia
Dom-
na;
to recut a Severan
style
characterized
by
broad
and
low-hanging
hair into what is now found on
the Louvre head would have
required
interven-
tions so substantial that we would
expect
to see
some trace.1"
Did
piecing represent
a
repair?
To be
sure,
the
zone behind the ear of
typical third-century
female
portraits
was
especially prone
to
breakage
because
the hair here
flipped up
and was carved
away
from
the neck. Fittschen has attributed at least one in-
stance of
piecing
to the
repair
of broken Venus-
like shoulder locks."' That we see the same
piec-
ing technique
in
portraits
of short-haired
men,
where there is no hair to
break,"3
casts doubt on
this
all-encompassing explanation.
At
present
all
that can be concluded is that
piecing
was an
expe-
dient
way
to
apply projecting
features such as hair
or
ears,
either when the
sculpture
was first carved
or later recut.
Recutting
could occur for various
motives,
including
a
complete
transformation of the
sitter's
identity.'4
Even the briefest
survey
of Roman
portraiture
demonstrates the wide
range,
or more
precisely,
the broad
interpretation
of the
prevailing style
of
woman's coiffures in a
particular period.
The stacked
coiffures
popular
in the
early
second
century
C.E.,
for
example,
share a similar overall
shape
but
vary
markedly
in the
components
such as
braids, coils,
or waves used to build that
shape."5
Individualized
in such a
way,
the coiffure
may
be likened to the
face itself rather than to the
stereotypical body
type."'
It follows that it also must have
played
an
important
role in a woman's
personal identity:
al-
though
there are
exceptions,
women seem to have
avoided
looking just
like their
neighbors.
"" Another
portrait
of
Julia
Mamaea in the
Capitoline
(Fittschen
and Zanker
1983, 33,
no.
35,
pl. 44) gives
an idea
ofwhat the hair
originally
looked
like;
note that the head shows
breakage
in
precisely
the same
place
as the Louvre statue.
''l The
subject's
ears,
previously
covered
by
hair,
would need
to be
carved,
as would the
flip
of hair that was worked
up
into
abun.
"11Fittschen and Zanker
1983, 95, no.138,
pls.
164-165.
"
The
portraits
are the colossal heads ofAlexander Severus
and Gordion found
together
in Ostia
(now
Museo Nazionale
Romano 329 and
326;
Giuliano
1979-,
1.9
pt.
2, 360-2,
no.
R273;
1979
1.1, 310-2,
no.
186,
respectively).
See also Calza
1977, 65-8,
nos.
82, 84,
pls.
60, 62.
Piecing
occurs here not in
the
coiffure,
but in the ears
projecting
from the head.
114
There are
ample parallels
for a
portrait's complete change
of
identity.
For this
period,
see Goette
1986;
for late first- and
early second-century reworkings,
see
Bergmann
and Zanker
By showing
how the
hairstyles depicted
in Ro-
man
portraits
can
actually
be made with human
hair,
I have
argued
that
sculpture reproduces
real life.
There remains a
powerful exception
to this
prac-
tice, however,
in the
long
tresses
hanging
onto the
shoulders,
the "shoulder locks" that are found in
female
portraits
from
many periods (e.g., fig. 11).
An attribute of
Venus,
shoulder locks are worn
by
Roman women to evoke the
goddess
and the
qual-
ities connected with her:
beauty, sexuality,
and fer-
tility."7
As divine
signifiers they
are no different in
their associative role from
nudity
or the
gesture
of
the hand
covering
the
pubis, yet
in their
juxtaposi-
tion with
patently
historical features such as the
face and its
coiffure,
they collapse
the boundaries
between real and fictive. Their
presence
makes
clear that Romans were accustomed to
seeing
"through" multiple
levels of visual
reality."8 They
are
powerful
reminders
that,
notwithstanding
their
physiognomic
realism,
Roman
portraits
were ideo-
logical
statements about social
status,
gender,
and
cultural values.
15
WEST 81 ST STREET
APARTMENT
5A
NEW
YORK,
NEW YORK
10024
EBARTMAN@AOL.COM
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