600 A Dissertation on Beards, [DEC. 



to propitiate his gods, he gave them a beard of gold an honour which 

 sometimes exposed their godships to very awkward accidents and predica- 

 ments. ^Esculapius had his beard twice torn up by the roots in Sicily ; 

 and, if we are to credit Lucian, the cloud-compelling Jupiter, in spite of 

 the thunder with which he was plentifully armed, was craven enough to 

 submit in quiet to a similar indignity. When beards were thus mixed up 

 with the religious feelings of the country, it does not appear strange that 

 a man without a beard, or with only a small one, should have been looked 

 upon almost as a curiosity. One of the ^Emilian family acquired the nick- 

 name of Little Beard, and figures away in Livy as Quinctus J& mill us 

 Barbula. It would have been fortunate for the senators, who witnessed 

 the sack of Rome by Brennus, had they deserved a similar appellation but, 

 unfortunately, they were so bountifully provided with beard, and so scantily 

 with brains, that they could not brook the unintentional insult offered to 

 the bearded dignity of their colleague Papirius by an admiring barbarian, 

 and so got themselves all murdered at one fell swoop in a hopeless attempt 

 to avenge it. The Roman, who first attempted to bring his countrymen 

 to a smoother state of chin, was P. Ticinius Mena, who, in the year of the 

 city 454, introduced into it a troop of barbers from Sicily. His efforts 

 were attended with partial success ; but no Roman, if Pliny's authority 

 is entitled to belief, dared to shave every day until Scipio Africanus, who 

 had no occasion to fear the charge of effeminacy, set them the example. 

 A remarkable revolution shortly afterwards ensued in the Roman face. 

 The reign of long beards passed away, and though Cato endeavoured to 

 restore it along with the republic, the fortune of the razor was triumphant, 

 and the whole Roman world by the time of Augustus consented to be 

 shaved. It must not, however, be concealed, that, even after shaving had 

 become the rule of fashion, and not the exception, the "lords of human 

 kind" suffered their beards to grow when they were suffering under severe 

 calamity. Julius Caesar, on hearing of the massacre of the legion which 

 he had placed under the command of Titurius, vowed not to shave his 

 beard until he had avenged it. Mark Antony, after the battle of Actium, 

 neglected his hair, and allowed a thick heavy beard, 1 translate the words 

 of Plutarch, to droop upon his bosom. It is recorded in the life of Cali- 

 gula, that, on learning the death of his sister Drusiila, with whom he had 

 been incestuously connected, he was so overwhelmed with sorrow, that he 

 retired suddenly from Rome in the night, and returned to it some days 

 afterwards with a long beard and dishevelled hair. Indeed these were the 

 symptoms of deep mourning even in the early ages of the iron rule of 

 Rome. They are mentioned as such by Livy, when he is describing the 

 mode in which the people expressed their grief for the fate of Manlius, 

 and again when he is noticing the very curious manner in which the cen- 

 sors treated an impatient fellow, who had taken in sad dudgeon a hasty 

 vote of censure, which the sovereign people had passed against him for his 

 conduct during his consulship. It appears that this coxcomb Marcus 

 Livius was his name gave up, in consequence of it, all interference in 

 public affairs for eight years, and almost banished himself from decent 

 society. In the consulship of the celebrated M. Marcellus, he was lured 

 back to Rome by that fortunate and victorious general. As he dressed, 

 himself in tattered clothes, and went about the streets with matted hair 

 and an enormous beard, and exhibited in his countenance and demeanour 

 a deep sense of the injury which he conceived himself to have received ; 

 the censors, to prevent mischief, compelled him not only to dress con- 



