An elegant simplicity at one time characterized the head-dress of the Roman ladies, who generally adopted the fashion of the Greeks, which usually, however, soon degenerated into extravagance and coarseness. They piled upon their heads imitations of castles and crowns, cumbrous wreaths, and other absurdities, and knotted the hair with tiresome minuteness.
“With curls on curls they build their head before,
And mount it with a formidable tower:
A giantess she seems, but look behind;
And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind.”
The calamistrum or curling irons, had a busy time of it, for the craving after novelty was intense, and any artificial arrangement of the hair welcomed as a change.
“More leaves the forest yields not from the trees,
Than there be fashions of attire in view,
For each succeeding day brings something new.”
Poppea, Nero’s wife, was so conspicuous for the beauty of her hair, that he composed a poem in honour of it.