Roman hairstyles

Hairstyle fashion in Rome was ever changing, and particularly in the Roman Imperial Period there were a number of different ways to style hair. As with clothes, there were several hairstyles that were limited to certain people in ancient society. Styles are so distinctive they allow scholars today to create a chronology of Roman portraiture and art; we are able to date pictures of the empresses on coins, or identify busts depending on their hairstyles.

Much like today, hair for the Romans was as much an expression of personal identity as clothes. Hairstyles were determined by a number of factors, namely gender, age, social status, wealth and profession. A woman's hairstyle expressed her individuality in the Ancient Roman World. How one dressed one's hair was an indication of who you were and what your role in society was.

Hair was a very erotic area of the female body for the Romans, and attractiveness of a woman was tied to the presentation of her hair. As a result, it was seen as appropriate for a woman to spend time on her hair in order to create a flattering appearance. Hairdressing and its necessary accompaniment, mirror gazing, were seen as distinctly feminine activities. Lengthy grooming sessions for women were tolerated, despite writers such as Tertullian and Pliny commenting on their abhorrence for time and energy women dedicate to their hair. However, the numerous depictions of women hairdressing and mirror-gazing in tomb reliefs and portraiture is a testament to how much hairdressing was seen as part of the female domain.

For more than just attractiveness, hairstyling was the leisure pursuit of the cultured, elegant female. Hair was seen as much as an indication of wealth and social status as it was of taste and fashion. But unlike modern-day hairstyles, comfort and naturalism for the Romans took a back-seat to hairstyles that displayed the wearer's wealth to a maximum. In other words, having a complex and unnatural hairstyle would be preferred to a simple one, because it would illustrate the wealth of the wearer in being able to afford to take the time to style their hair. For women to have a fashionable hairstyle showed they were part of the elegant Roman culture.

A 'natural' style was associated with barbarians, who the Romans believed had neither the money nor the culture to create these styles. "Natural" showed a lack of culture, and grooming of the hair went hand-in-hand with being part of a sophisticated civilization. Incidentally, the association with barbarians was why Roman men kept their hair cut short. It was the job of slave hairdressers, called Ornatrices, to create their master's hairstyle new each day, as well as pulling out any grey hairs.

Apart from society, hair was used symbolically to mark rites of passage; for instance, loosened hair was common at a funeral, and the seni crines was the hairstyle worn by brides and Vestal Virgins; divided and plaited into six braids, and in the case of the bride, it was parted with a spear. A bride’s hair was parted with a hasta recurva or hasta caelibaris, a bent iron spearhead and crowned with flowers. In addition to ceremonies hairstyle defined the age of a woman. There was a marked difference in hair acceptable for preadolescent girls and sexually mature women. Preadolescent girls would often have long hair cascading down the back where as women would have equally long hair but it would be controlled through wrapping and braiding.

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Wikipedia