Requisites for the toilet do not differ greatly from one period to another, since the purposes for which they were intended remain practically the same; so we find much that seems familiar among those of the Greeks and Romans. Probably the oldest article in this group is a razor with a crescent-shaped blade, made in Italy in the early Iron Age. The shape seems to have been a common one ([fig. 73]). Tweezers, of which an example is shown in Case 5, were used for removing superfluous hair. An article of daily use in ancient times, though we have no modern utensil to correspond with it, is the strigil or flesh-scraper (Case 5, [fig. 72]). It was used especially by athletes after exercise, to remove the dust and sand of the wrestling-ground, so that the strigil, oil-flask, and sponge became in Greece a kind of symbol for the athlete’s life, which was, practically speaking, the life of all well-to-do young men. On a gravestone, No. 7 in the Sculpture Gallery, the dead youth is represented with a strigil in his hand, while his little slave holds his towel and oil-flask. Both men and women used strigils in the bath for scraping off the fuller’s earth or lye powder used as soap. A silver strigil was included in the tomb furniture of an Etruscan lady which is exhibited in Case F in the Sixth Room. There is an example in glass of Roman date in Case 5.
FIG. 79. SPATULA
FIG. 80. DIPPING-ROD
It was customary among the Greeks and Romans to rub the body with oil after the bath. The small jar called aryballos (Case G in the Fifth Room, [fig. 75]) and the taller alabastron (Case 2, and Case A in the Fourth Room, [fig. 74]) were used for holding oil and perfumes for toilet use. Some small glass toilet bottles in Case J in the Third Room are so charming in shape and coloring as to make a modern woman envious ([fig. 76]). In the Gold Room are two crystal scent bottles from Cyprus, one of which has a gold stopper. The toilet box or pyxis held ointment, rouge, face or tooth powders, or small toilet articles or ornaments. These charming boxes were made of metal, as the silver box in Case F in the Sixth Room ([fig. 77]), or of painted terracotta. The latter are often triumphs of the potter’s and vase painter’s art; for example, the white pyxis in Case V in the Fourth Room ([fig. 78]) and the red-figured pyxis in Case A in the same room, with its interesting drawings of women working wool (compare [fig. 39]). Others of a variety of shapes and decoration will be found in Cases C and G in the Fifth Room.
FIG. 81. GREEK MIRROR ON A STAND
