faces of men in bas-reliefs, be a beard, or
an artificial ornament. We think it must
have been a beard; for, setting aside the
inconvenience which would have attended
the wearing of a block of wood or leather
upon the chin, it is clear that this block
must have had a chin-strap to support it;
and we find nothing like chin-straps in the
Egyptian figures still extant.

Coming to Greece, we know for certain
that Socrates, Themistocles, Aristides,
Pericles, and all the great heroes of Athens
and Sparta, wore beards; we know, moreover,
that Alcibiades was in the habit of
perfuming his, and of dyeing or painting it:
as also his hair and eyebrows. It is noticeable,
however, that on the bas-reliefs of the
Parthenon, many of which are in the
British Museum, only the chiefs wear beards
—the soldiers, in almost every case, are
beardless and moustacheless. The same
thing is to be observed in well-nigh all the
specimens of Greek painting that have
been handed down to us; that is, upon
vases, cups, and the reproductions of Greek
frescoes found at Pompeii.

During the first centuries of the Roman
Republic, the Romans of all classes allowed
their beards to grow freely; shaving seems
to have been quite unknown. It was
not until the year 300 B.C. that anything
like a razor was seen in Rome; but at
that time a few Greek barbers had made
their appearance in the forum; and
although, like all innovators, they were at
first received with derision, yet after a
time they succeeded in getting customers;
few at first; then more; until at last the
barbers' shops in Rome became what the
clubs are in London or the cafés in Paris:
places of lounging and resort, where every
one with nothing to do spends a few hours
of his time each day. As the Romans
grew richer from the spoils of conquered
nations, and as they began to discard the
simple life of their ancestors for a mode of
living more in keeping with their wealth,
many had slaves whose sole business was
to shave them and cover their hair with
greases. At first this task was entrusted
to men, but Lucullus is said to have had
women trained to the work; and, as a
woman's hand is much lighter, and usually
more skilful, than that of a man, the change
was pronounced by connoisseurs to be for
the better. By Julius Cæsar's time, the
beard had fallen into thorough discredit
among all classes of society: slaves being
the only people who still wore it. Cæsar
himself was shaved with scrupulous
neatness every morning; Pompey, Virgil,
Horace, Cicero, Augustus, were all clean
shaven too; even Cato Uticensis, who had
but slight respect for the fashions, would
have thought it disreputable and unseemly
to appear in a public place with a beard.

It was Trajan who first had the courage
to shake off the barber's yoke. This king,
an excellent monarch in many respects,
discovered that his shaving occupied a
considerable portion of each day; and, as
he was the first emperor since Cæsar who
really felt that he was on the throne for
something more than eating and drinking,
he relinquished a habit that cost him
more minutes than he could afford to lose.
Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus
Aurelius, his immediate successors,
followed in his wake, and allowed their beards
to grow unclipped. After them, however,
came Commodus; as this exemplary
monarch found the time hang so heavily upon
his hands that he was obliged to kill flies
of an afternoon, it was not likely that he
would discard the precious means afforded
him by shaving of making half-hours go
by; barbers had a new time of it, and
thenceforth continued to have the Roman
emperors for patrons until Edoard
overturned Romulus-Augustulus, the last
imperator, and inaugurated the kingdom of
Italy, and with it the reign of moustaches.

Meanwhile, the realm of Britain had
started into being. The first Britons dyed
themselves blue, as school histories tell us,
and we have no positive reason to doubt the
fact; but blue or not, they wore no beards.
Cassibelaunus, King of Cassia, the adversary
of Julius Cæsar; and Caractacus, Chief
of the Silures, the last champion of British
independence; wore long and fierce
moustaches, and hair flowing over their
shoulders; but their chins and cheeks were
smooth, as were also those of the Gauls,
their contemporaries. The Franks, who
invaded Gaul in the early part of the fifth
century and destroyed the last remnants of
Roman civilisation: the Saxons who under
Cedric (Kerdric) soon after landed in
England; introduced into the two countries the
fashion of a bushy tuft at the end of the
chin, with short bristly moustaches. In a
painted miniature in a book of chivalry
written in the eleventh century, a copy
of which exists in the Bibliothèque
Impériale in Paris, there are represented King
Arthur and the Knights of his Round
Table. None have moustaches or whiskers,
but all have that long tuft at the end of
their chins.