The ancient Romans went with their heads bare except at sacred rites, games, festivals, on journey or in war.--Hence, of all the honors decreed to Cæsar by the senate, he is said to have been chiefly pleased with that of always wearing a laurel crown, because it covered his baldness, which was reckoned a deformity. At games and festivals a woollen cap or bonnet was worn. The head-dress of women was at first very simple. They seldom went abroad, and when they did they almost always had their faces veiled. But when riches and luxury increased, dress became, with many, the chief object of attention. They anointed their hair with the richest perfumes, and sometimes gave it a bright yellow color, by means of a composition or wash. It was likewise adorned with gold and pearls and precious stones: sometimes with garlands and chaplets of flowers. CHAPTER XX. _Of the Fine Arts and Literature._ The Romans invented short or abridged writing, which enabled their secretaries to collect the speeches of orators, however rapidly delivered. The characters used by such writers were called notes. They did not consist in letters of the alphabet, but certain marks, one of which often expressed a whole word, and frequently a phrase. The same description of writing is known at the present day by the word _stenography_. From notes came the word _notary_, which was given to all who professed the art of quick writing. The system of note-writing was not suddenly brought to perfection: it only came into favor when the professors most accurately reported an excellent speech which Cato pronounced in the senate. The orators, the philosophers, the dignitaries, and nearly all the rich patricians then took for secretaries note-writers, to whom they allowed handsome pay. It was usual to take from their slaves all who had intellect to acquire a knowledge of that art. The fine arts were unknown at Rome, until their successful commanders brought from Syracuse, Asia, Macedonia and Corinth, the various specimens which those places afforded. So ignorant, indeed, were they of their real worth, that when the victories of Mummius had given him possession of some of the finest productions of Grecian art, he threatened the persons to whom he intrusted the carriage of some antique statues and rare pictures, "that if they lost those, they should give him new ones." A taste by degrees began to prevail, which they gratified at the expense of every liberal feeling of public justice and private right. The art of printing being unknown, books were sometimes written on parchment, but more generally on a paper made from the leaves of a plant called _papyrus_, which grew and was prepared in Egypt. This plant was about ten cubits high, and had several coats or skins, one above another, which they separated with a needle.