Caps of all shapes, more or less richly ornamented, were common amongst the Etruscans; but the Roman citizens (at least the upper ten thousand) seem to have had nothing to protect the head from the sun’s rays. We all know that habit will do a great deal; our Bluecoat boys do not suffer by going about bareheaded; but I cannot help thinking that an elderly Roman senator must occasionally have found the want of a hat on his way to the forum.
You will not often have to paint pictures of the ancient Etruscans. I need not therefore say much about their rich and varied dresses. I may, however, mention that their wardrobe bore about the same relation to the Roman costume that the Asia Minor dresses did to the Greek. There was an Oriental and sometimes an Egyptian tendency about the cut and ornamentation of their garments. Instead of the classical sandal of the Romans they wore shoes, and even boots, made of some soft material. In short, they were more effeminate in their tastes. The more wealthy an Etruscan was, the richer would be his garments. He resembled in this respect many modern Orientals, whereas his neighbor of ancient Rome would (at least in the Augustan age) affect the greatest simplicity.
A Roman patrician would as soon think of decking himself out in an embroidered and spangle tunic, as an English gentleman would of assuming the plush and gorgeous livery of a Belgravian footman.
Luxury and effeminacy of dress began to creep into fashion in Rome as early as the time of Tiberius, who (probably because he did not wish to have any imitation of the finery of his own court) promulgated very strict sumptuary laws as to dress.
These laws were enforced and even made more stringent by some of his successors, but fashion was too strong even for Roman emperors; and under such sovereigns as Heliogabalus, but little was left of the ancient Roman simplicity. In one particular alone did the Romans of the Decadence contrast favorably with their neighbors the Etruscans—I mean in the matter of jewelry. The Roman noble, even of the most degraded period, never decked himself out with necklaces, armlets, and breast ornaments of gold like the Etruscan. The only jewelry he wore was a signet ring.
The Roman ladies were less sparing of ornament, but even they did not load themselves with gold trinkets of every description after the Oriental and Etruscan fashion. Much of this Roman jewelry was of very beautiful design, and has been most conscientiously imitated by Castellani.
With regard to the fashion of wearing the hair and beard, it is certain that up to the third century B.C., the Romans wore their hair long and did not shave.
If, therefore, you have to paint any subject of the time of the kings, it would be incorrect to represent your personages with cropped hair and clean shaven, as though they were Romans of the later Consulate and Augustan age.
Some Sicilian barbers, who came over to Rome about the beginning of the third century B.C., introduced the custom of shaving and having the hair cut short, and this custom continued without intermission until the time of Hadrian or Trajan, when beards came into fashion again. The Sybarites, of a later period than this, used to oil their hair and sprinkle it with gold-dust. Wigs were also worn, by men as well as by women. If the emperor of the time happened to have a crop of thick curly hair, it was astonishing what a number of curly crops of hair suddenly appeared in Rome. Perhaps we need not go as far back as ancient Rome for phenomena of this kind. It is needless for me to describe the stiff, tasteless style of hair-dressing which prevailed amongst the ladies of the later Empire. It was their uncouth artificial coiffures which were imitated in France and England about the beginning of the century. It was this pseudo-classical style both of hair-dressing and apparel which made our grandmothers and great-grandmothers such unlovable objects.
A real classical revival after the puff and powder of the preceding generation, a return to the best Greek and Roman fashions, would have been a great blessing both to society in general and to the arts especially; but such classicism as prevailed under the first Napoleon was hardly an improvement on the perruques and pig-tails that preceded it.