[Illustration: FIGURE 102. STYLES OF DRESSING THE HAIR]
§263. Dressing of the Hair.--The Roman woman regularly wore no hat, but covered the head when necessary with the _stola_ or with a veil. Much attention was given to the arrangement of the hair, the fashions being as numerous and as inconstant as they are to-day. For young girls the favorite arrangement, perhaps, was to comb the hair back and gather it into a knot (_nodus_) on the back of the neck. For matrons it will be sufficient to call attention to the figures already given (§§77, 259, 261), and to show from statues five styles (Fig. 102) worn at different times under the Empire, all belonging to ladies of the court.
§264. For keeping the hair in position pins were used of ivory, silver, and gold, often mounted with jewels. Nets (_reticula_) and ribbons (_vittae_, _taeniae_, _fasciolae_) were also worn, but combs were not made a part of the head-dress. The Roman woman of fashion did not scruple to color her hair, the golden-red color of the Greek hair being especially admired, or to use false hair, which had become an article of commercial importance early in the Empire. Mention should also be made of the garlands (_coronae_) of flowers, or of flowers and foliage, and of the coronets of pearls and other precious stones that were used to supplement the natural or artificial beauty of the hair. These are illustrated in Fig. 102 above.
[Illustration: FIGURE 103. TOILET ARTICLES]
§265. The woman's hairdresser was a female slave (§150), and Juvenal tells us that she suffered cruelly from the impatience of her mistress (§158), who found the long hairpins shown in the figure a convenient instrument of punishment, The _ornatrix_ was an adept in all the tricks of the toilet already mentioned, and besides used all sorts of unguents, oils, and tonics to make the hair soft and lustrous and to cause it to grow abundantly. In Fig. 103 are shown a number of common toilet articles: _a_, _b_, _c_, _h_, _i_, and _k_ are hairpins, _d_ and _g_ are hand mirrors made of highly polished metal, _f_ is a comb, and _e_ a box for pomatum or powder.
[Illustration: FIGURE 105. FANS (See also Figure 73, §226)]
§266. Accessories.--The parasol (_umbraculum_, _umbella_) was commonly used by women at Rome at least as early as the close of the Republic, and was all the more necessary because they wore no hats or bonnets. The parasols were usually carried for them by attendants (§151). From vase paintings we learn that they were much like our own in shape (Fig. 104, see also Smith and Harper, s.v.; Baumeister, p. 1684; Schreiber XCV, 9), and could be closed when not in use. The fan (_flabellum_) was used from the earliest times and was made in various ways (Fig. 105); sometimes of wings of birds, sometimes of thin sheets of wood attached to a handle, sometimes of peacock's feathers artistically arranged, sometimes of linen stretched over a frame. These fans were not used by the woman herself, being always handled by an attendant who was charged with the task of keeping her cool and untroubled by flies (see Fig. 73 in §226). Handkerchiefs (_sudaria_), the finest made of linen, were used by both sexes, but only for wiping the perspiration from the face or hands. For keeping the palms cool and dry ladies seem also to have used glass balls, or balls of amber, the latter, perhaps, for the fragrance also.