Last New Year's night saw me making a drunken resolution to grow an outrageous and over-the-top moustache.
The Ancient Romans knew a thing or two about moustaches and had very firm cultural opinions on the wider issue of facial hair.
In early Roman times the sources reveal that beards were probably common, if not fashionable among Romans. However, towards the later Republic it became almost universal fashion – at least amongst the elite - to be close-cropped and well-shaven. Scipio Africanus in the third century BC is reputed to be amongst the first prominent Roman to have taken up the new clean shaven fashion. This new attitude endured throughout the great expansionist period of the late Republic and the Early Imperial periods.
At the heart of this trend, it is no exaggeration to say that the well-kept and above all clean-shaven view that Romans held of themselves, was an important facet of their collective cultural psyche: informing a self-definition that viewed the absence of facial hair as synonymous with sophistication and indeed higher civilisation. It was partially this custom that most visibly set Romans apart from the sea of more ‘barbarous’ and commonly bearded peoples that threatened the fringes of empire. Amongst material Roman evidence it is most conspicuous across several centuries that the enemies of Rome – especially among the tribal peoples of the European North - were depicted as bearded or moustached.
In early Roman times the sources reveal that beards were probably common, if not fashionable among Romans. However, towards the later Republic it became almost universal fashion – at least amongst the elite - to be close-cropped and well-shaven. Scipio Africanus in the third century BC is reputed to be amongst the first prominent Roman to have taken up the new clean shaven fashion. This new attitude endured throughout the great expansionist period of the late Republic and the Early Imperial periods.
At the heart of this trend, it is no exaggeration to say that the well-kept and above all clean-shaven view that Romans held of themselves, was an important facet of their collective cultural psyche: informing a self-definition that viewed the absence of facial hair as synonymous with sophistication and indeed higher civilisation. It was partially this custom that most visibly set Romans apart from the sea of more ‘barbarous’ and commonly bearded peoples that threatened the fringes of empire. Amongst material Roman evidence it is most conspicuous across several centuries that the enemies of Rome – especially among the tribal peoples of the European North - were depicted as bearded or moustached.
The Famous Hellenic statue of the ‘Dying Gaul’ sports a modest yet distinctive lip-brush .
Informed by the earlier Greek tradition, there was a general view that facial hair –excepting philosophers who had long been accepted as ‘beardy wierdes’ - was synonymous with the wild and barbarous tribes from the fringes of civilised empire.
A close view of this 3rd century Roman relief leaves us in little doubt how to spot the enemies of Rome.
Caesar’s famous Gallic advisory Vercingetorix – albeit depicted on a modern statue - sports some serious lip fluff that’s not to be messed with.
Roman attitudes to beards did at times fluctuate with fashion, but it was not reportedly until the advent of the emperor Hadrian (117 – 138 AD) that beards received a fundamental and long standing imperial endorsement.
Perhaps I will be the first emperor to go specifically for the handle bar moustache look! :-)
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USEFUL LINKS TO THE STRANGE BUT VERY MANLY WORLD OF BEARDS, MOUSTACHES & FACIAL HAIR
World Beard & Moustache Championships:
http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/
Moustaches Are Us:
http://moustachesrus.co.uk/default.aspx
The Handlebar Moustache Club:
http://www.handlebarclub.co.uk/index.php
For the Ancient Roman view on facial hair see: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Barba.html
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