Caustica Teutonicos accendit spuma capillos,
Captivis poteris cultior esse comis.—Mart. xiv. 26.
These lines are generally explained in this manner:—“Dye thy hair with soap, and it will become more beautiful than that of the Germans.” But in this case all the wit of the advice is lost; and the expression, “eris cultior quam comæ captivæ,” seems to me to be very improper. I should rather translate them as follows:—“Let the Germans dye their hair with pomade; as they are now subdued, thou mayst ornament thyself better with a peruke made of the hair of these captives.” This was a piece of delicate flattery to Domitian and the Roman pride. That prince thought he had conquered the Germans; and the most beautiful German hair, that which was not dyed, could be procured, therefore, at Rome, much easier than before. If the title of this epigram was written by Martial himself, it contains the first mention of the word sapo.
Fortior et tortos servat vesica capillos,
Et mutat Latias spuma Batava comas.—Mart. viii. 23, 19.
The first line of the above proves that people then covered their heads, in the night-time, with a bladder to keep their hair, after it was dressed, from being deranged; and a bladder was undoubtedly as fit for that use as the nets and cauls employed for the like purpose at present.
Femina canitiem Germanis inficit herbis.
Ovidius De Arte Amandi, iii. 163.
Valer. Max. i. 5, p. 135: Capillos cinere rutilarunt.
Ad rutilam speciem nigros flavescere crines,
Unguento cineris prædixit Plinius auctor.
Q. Serenus, De Medic. iv. 56.
Serenus seems to allude to a passage of Pliny, xxiii. 2, p. 306, where he speaks of an ointment made from the burnt lees of vinegar and oleum lentiscinum. The same thing is mentioned in Dioscorides, v. 132, p. 379. Servius, Æn. iv. quotes the following words from Cato: “Mulieres nostræ cinere capillum ungitabant, ut rutilus esset crinis.” Alex. Trallianus, 1, 3, gives directions how to make an ointment for gray hair from soap and the ashes of the white flowers of the Verbascum. The Cinerarii, however, of Tertullian, lib. ii. ad uxor. 8, p. 641, seem to have been only hair-dressers, who were so called because they warmed their curling-irons among the hot ashes.