It has been already observed that the shops of the perfumers[[632]] were, for the most part, situated in the Agora or its neighbourhood, and much frequented by newsmongers and young men of distinction. From this it follows, that they must have been of spacious dimensions; and it is extremely probable that they were fitted up with every attention to show and elegance. They necessarily contained a number of seats and chairs for the accommodation of customers, and there can scarcely be a doubt, that the various unguents, perfumes, oils, and essences, were ranged on shelves, along the walls, in fine jars, vases of Cyprian marble, and boxes of alabaster,[[633]] sometimes of one piece, with vessels of glass and silver,[[634]] or fine earthenware, or porcelain, or beautiful sea-shells.[[635]] The counters were probably of marble or polished stone, as at Pompeii; and the shopman was supplied with the usual paraphernalia of scales and weights,[[636]] and measures, and ladles, and spoons, and spatulæ, as in modern times. Peron, an Egyptian, the owner of one of these shops, has been thought of sufficient consequence to have his name transmitted to posterity.[[637]]
From the richness and variety of odours made use of by the ancients we may infer, that the fragrance of such an establishment at Athens, exceeded that of Araby the Blest. For every land and every sweet flower that grew supplied some ingredient to the endless stock of the perfumer.[[638]] There was incense, and frankincense, and spikenard,[[639]] and myrrh, and oils of saffron and cinnamon,[[640]] and sweet marjoram,[[641]] and fenugreek,[[642]] and roses,[[643]] and hyoscyamos,[[644]] and maiden’s hair,[[645]] and iris,[[646]] and lilies,[[647]] and watermint, and rosemary, and eastern privet,[[648]] and baccharis,[[649]] and thyme. In truth the Athenians, who were esteemed the inventors of all good and useful things,[[650]] delighted exceedingly in the luxury of sweet smells, and therefore culled from Sicily, and Egypt, and Phœnicia, and Lydia, and Babylonia, and India, and Arabia, whatever could communicate a pleasing scent to their garments,[[651]] their apartments, or their beards. Even the doves and swallows that flew tame about the house had their feathers drenched with odoriferous essences, which they scattered with their waving wings through the air.[[652]] This excessive passion for perfumes rendered the favourite articles of it dear, so that of some kinds a cotyla sold for two or five minæ;[[653]] of others, for ten; while the balm of Gilead, even in the country where it was collected, was valued at double its weight in silver.[[654]] There were, however, inferior kinds of perfume, some of which were cheap enough, since we find that an alabaster boxful, brought from the East, sometimes sold for two drachmas.[[655]]
Great use was made of saffron as a perfume.[[656]] Halls, courts, and theatres were saturated with its odour,[[657]] and statues[[658]] were made to flow, like common fountains, with saffron-water. From a great number of other flowers, essences and unguents were likewise prepared; such as our lady’s rose, southernwood,[[659]] vine-flowers,[[660]] the narcissus,[[661]] anis-flower,[[662]] high taper, betel-leaf, and the jasmine, which, in Persia, was used at banquets and in the baths.[[663]]
In the preparation of unguents, numerous articles were made use of, either to give them consistency or to modify the scent: among these were the root of the anchusa,[[664]] palm spatha,[[665]] butter,[[666]] sweet-scented moss,[[667]] and the odoriferous reed.[[668]]
Several unguents received their names from the persons who invented them, or from the places whence they were imported, though others were distinguished by appellations which are no longer intelligible: thus, the Megalion or Megalesian derived its name from Megallos, a Sicilian perfumer;[[669]] the Plangonian from Plango, a female perfumer of Elis.[[670]] The black ointment, doubtless, received its name from its colour; but wherefore the Sagdas is so called is not known:[[671]] both these were of Egyptian manufacture. From Lydia was imported the Brenthion,[[672]] and from Babylonia the Nardon, which disputed the prize with the royal unguent. There was among the Egyptians a perfume called Cyphi,[[673]] entirely appropriated to the use of the gods, into the composition of which entered the following ingredients; the cyperus, a quantity of juniper-berries, raisins, odoriferous reeds and rushes, the aspalathos, myrrh, wine, resin, and honey, mixed in certain proportions, and reduced to a fine paste. Unguent of roses was preserved by an admixture of salt.[[674]]
But the perfumers dealt not in odours and essences only, their stock containing every variety of cosmetic for the use of the ladies, who made a complete business of beautifying their faces,[[675]] which at length became wholly artificial, rather a mask than a countenance.[[676]] They whitened their foreheads, dyed their eyebrows, and fashioned them like arches, painted black the edges of their eyelids,[[677]] rendered their eyes humid and bright by powder-of-lead ore, spread over their faces the hues of the lily intermingled with the bloom of the rose, adorned themselves with false ringlets, changed the yellow into black, the black into auburn,[[678]] gave a ruby tinge to their lips, and blanched their teeth into ivory. But the psimmythion,[[679]] (ceruse or white lead,) which rendered them fair, undermined their constitution, and poisoned their breath. On the subject of rouge, the Greeks had a very poetical and beautiful saying:—“She plants roses in her cheeks,” said they, “which, like those of Locris, will bloom in an hour and fade in less.”[[680]]
One sort of rouge[[681]] appears to have been obtained from a species of sea-moss or wrake,[[682]] which some have confounded with the anchusa,[[683]] though the grammarians enumerate them as things entirely different. One of the commentators supposes the purpurissa to be meant, by which the Romans understood a sort of cheek-varnish, vermilion, or Spanish paint. There was in use a pigment for the eyebrows, called Hypogramma,[[684]] and the edges of the eyelids were tinged black with Stimmis,[[685]] an oxyde of antimony, which still constitutes one of the articles of the female toilette in the East. Sometimes the eyebrows were blackened with resin soot,[[686]] and the eyelashes caused to lie regularly by naphtha,[[687]] and a sort of paste composed of glue and pounded marble.[[688]] Another curious cosmetic was, the Adarces,[[689]] a substance resembling congealed froth, found on reeds and the dry stalks of plants about the ponds and marshes of Cappadocia. It was said to remove freckles, and enjoyed, likewise, great credit in medicine. A preparation composed of the flour of turnip-seed, lupines, wheat, darnel, and chick-peas, was used for clearing the skin; so, likewise, were the Chian and Selinusian earths,[[690]] which removed wrinkles, and rendered the skin smooth and shining. They were in constant use in the baths. Cassia,[[691]] honey,[[692]] pepper,[[693]] and myrrh,[[694]] cured pimples and effaced spots; fenugreek[[695]] whitened the hands and removed sunburns; briony,[[696]] isinglass,[[697]] costos,[[698]] galbanum,[[699]] lupines, rainwater,[[700]] radishes,[[701]] and hare’s blood,[[702]] the biscutella didyma,[[703]] truffles,[[704]] cinnamon,[[705]] linseed,[[706]] ladanum,[[707]] iris-roots,[[708]] white hellebore,[[709]] Sardinian honey,[[710]] onion-juice,[[711]] and spring-wheat, moistened with oxymel,[[712]] were among the principal preparations for removing moles and freckles, and beautifying the skin. In some parts of Greece elm-juice,[[713]] expressed at the first putting forth of the leaves in spring, was employed to give clearness and resplendency to the complexion. Almond-paste,[[714]] also, with the roots of the bitter almond-tree, effaced spots from the skin. Others, for the same purpose, made use of the berries of the wild-vine,[[715]] and a paste was prepared from lilies which induced fairness, and rendered the face smooth and shining.[[716]] To protect the complexion from the sun, the whole countenance was varnished, as it were, with white of egg;[[717]] and some women, possibly rustics, used goose and hen’s grease as a cosmetic.[[718]] The roots of the spikenard, when imported from the East, usually retained about them a little of the soil in which the plant had grown:[[719]] this was carefully rubbed off, and having been passed through a fine sieve, was used for washing the hands, as it probably retained something of the fragrance of the plant. Rose leaves, reduced to powder, were sprinkled over persons as they issued from the bath, particularly about the eyes, to heighten the freshness of the face.[[720]] To communicate additional sweetness to their persons, Greek ladies sometimes wore about their necks carcanets of rose pastilles[[721]] instead of jewelled necklaces, into the composition of which, however, several other ingredients entered, as nard, myrrh, costos, Illyrian iris, honey, and Chian wine.
The dentifrices[[722]] of the Greeks consisted chiefly of the purple fish, burnt with salt, and reduced to powder;[[723]] the Arabic stone,[[724]] calcined in like manner; and pumice-stone.[[725]] Asses’ milk was used as a gargle to preserve the teeth.[[726]] The toothpicks[[727]] most commonly used were small slips of cane, or green branches of the lentiscus,[[728]] the ashes of which were likewise mingled with all kinds of tooth-powder. The citron,[[729]] eaten as a remedy for longing, was thought to render the breath sweet. There was a kind of ointment prepared of saffron, which, mingled with water, they employed to restore brilliance to eyes which had lost their colour.[[730]] A pomatum, composed of oil and the husks of filbert-nuts burnt and reduced to powder, was used in infancy to change blue eyes into black.[[731]]
The barbers, who, both in locality and repute, were next-door neighbours to the perfumers, enjoyed much the same sort of reputation as they do in modern times. In their shops scandal was fabricated, and news, good and bad, put into circulation. It was at a barber’s in the Peiræeus that some stranger first disclosed the intelligence of the defeat in Sicily, thereby bringing the longue-tongued shaver into the greatest trouble; for as he straightway ran up to the city and gave vent to the evil tidings, he was apprehended and put to the torture, in order to discover the real author of what was supposed to be an atrocious fabrication.[[732]] But that which sometimes thus brought them into straits, proved most commonly a source of profit, since to hear their laughable stories and anecdotes many more persons congregated under their roofs than stood in need of new wigs or curling-irons,[[733]] and probably got shaved by way of compliment to the master of the house. Such of them as were remarkably unskilful sought to make up for their awkwardness[[734]] by the number and elegance of their razors, and the large size of their mirrors.[[735]] But it was not, we are told, unfrequent for men to get shaved by some humble practitioner,[[736]] with one razor and a cunning hand, and afterwards to lounge into the more dashing shops, to put their curls in order before the large mirrors which adorned the walls.[[737]]
If we may judge by the works of art that have come down to us, however, the barbers of Hellas generally understood their business in great perfection, since nowhere do we find more shapely heads or finer curls than on the statues of antiquity.[[738]] Even here, however, we discover few traces of that variety in the manner of cutting and dressing the hair,[[739]] for which they were chiefly distinguished. While the beard[[740]] was worn, their principal occupation must have been the clipping, curling, and perfuming of it; but afterwards when persons shaved in order to appear young,[[741]] and had learned to cover their bald pates with wigs,[[742]] their business grew to be much the same as it is at present. Their arts were necessarily in great request among the ladies, for whom they contrived false eyebrows,[[743]] and innumerable dyes for giving whatever colour they desired to the hair, rendering it luxuriant and preventing it from turning grey. Hog’s lard and even bear’s grease mixed with powder of burnt filberts[[744]] were then in great request for strengthening and restoring the hair, together with onion-juice,[[745]] olives steeped in wine,[[746]] myrrh,[[747]] wild-olive oil[[748]] mingled with water, according to Aristotle,[[749]] the glutinous humour of snails obtained by passing a needle through them, and immediately applied to the roots of the hair,[[750]] a bruized cabbage-leaf,[[751]] a hare’s head reduced to ashes,[[752]] the ashes of the asphodel-root,[[753]] burnt frogs,[[754]] and goat’s hoof,[[755]] Naxian stone,[[756]] halcyonion,[[757]] burnt walnuts,[[758]] and oil of pitch.[[759]] The soot of pitch restored fallen eyelashes.[[760]] Among the depilatory preparations[[761]] used by ancient barbers may be enumerated the fumitory,[[762]] the scolopendra thalassia,[[763]] oak-fern,[[764]] juice of vine-leaves,[[765]] orpiment,[[766]] flour of salt,[[767]] sea-froth,[[768]] and the blood of the chamelion.[[769]]