Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-07-05
SOME ANCIENT WIGS.
Belief That Some Heads Were Destined TO
Wear False Thatch.
[Lippincott's Magazine.J

ILippincotts Magazine.l
In the Satyricon Of Petronium the
hero and his youthful companion take
ship and shave their heads for dis
guise; they are recognized and provided
by compassionate woman with two
elegant heads Of false hair. Apuleius de-
scribes a procession in honor Of Isis,
wherein a man perSonated a woman
and wore false hair on his head. One
of IIorace's satires ends with the
laughable flight Of two sorceresses, the
artificial teeth of one and the towering
tete of false hair of the other falling
TO the ground. Even divine head
was not above wearing wig, for Ovid
relates that the goddess Pallas, chang
ing herself into an old woman, put
false gray hair on her temples.
The earliest wigs may have been
merely the skin Of some animal with
the hair left on, and possibly the an
clients Of later day mounted their
false hair on kid, as the following cpl
gram OF Martial's gives reason to sup
pose "To Phebus 1t was not with
out wit, PhGbus, that a person said
Of you, when you covered your bald
pate and temples with kids skin,
that your head was well shod."
Not seldom were wigs subjected to
theridicule ofthe classic authors. Thus,
Juvenal satirizes the fashion Of forming
curls into tiers and building up the head
many stages in front, while from behind
the woman looks like dwarf; and
Ovid remarks: "The female walks
along thickly covered with purchased
hair; and for money she makes that Of
others her own. Nor is she ashamed
to buy it openly"
The wit of Martial was especially
exercised upon the perukes Of antiquity,
as few more of his epigrams will suf-
ficiently show:
ITO Lelia: You wear bought teeth
and bought hair, Lelis, without a
blush. What will you do for an eye?
You cannot buy that"
"TO PhGbus: manufacture. with
the aid of unguents, false head of hair,
and your bald and dirty skull is cover
ed with dyed locks. There is 10 need
to have hair-drcsser for your head. A
sponge, PhGbus, would do the bust
ness better"
Another epigram has been happily
paraphrased:
The golden hair that Gala wears
Is hers. Who would have thought IL,
She sweats It's hers and true she swears,
For know where she bought II.
In a poetical csble Avianus has re-
counted the mishap of bald Roman
who was wont to bind another's locks
upon bis denuded crown. One day he
appeared in the crowded campus on
horseback, when a gust of wind sud.
denly whisked off his wig and exposed
his glistening pate to the laughter Of
thousands. But his head-piece was
better furnished within than without,
and he averted ridicule by exclaimiug:
" What wonder that false hair flies
from him whose own hair has first de-
serted him :"
The ancients credulously imagined |
that some heads were predestined to
wigs, for -Manillus, the astrological |
poet, says the PleiadeS rise with the |
sixth degree of Taurus, and men born
then are very effeminate, and some
times " borrowed curls must raise their |
hea Is"
1t is very curious circumstance that !
some Roman statues were fitted with
marble wigs, but for what rea-
ION is not clear, unless the fastidious /
natrons Of antiquity desired to have
he hair on their sculptured portraits
Ilways arranged in the latest fashion. |
rhe statue Of Lucilla, wife OF the Em-
,eror Lucius Yerus, in the Mn-
cum Of the Capitol at Rome,
las a wig OF. black marble
hat can be taken off; and in the vati-
an Venus is believed to represent Ju-
ia Soemias, the mother Of Emperor
.lagabalus, with hair that may be re-
loyed. There was also bald bust of
{ a woman, with marble wig attached,
1 the palace Of Sans-Souci at Potsdam.