The daily life of the Greeks and Romans as illustrated in the classical collectionsMetropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
History
The daily life of the Greeks and Romans as illustrated in the classical collections
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
Art, Greek; Art, Roman; Greece -- Social life and customs; Rome -- Social life and customs
Requisites for the toilet do not differ greatly from one period to
another, since the purposes for which they were intended remain
practically the same; so we find much that seems familiar among those
of the Greeks and Romans. Probably the oldest article in this group is
a razor with a crescent-shaped blade, made in Italy in the early Iron
Age. The shape seems to have been a common one (fig. 73). Tweezers, of
which an example is shown in Case 5, were used for removing superfluous
hair. An article of daily use in ancient times, though we have no modern
utensil to correspond with it, is the strigil or flesh-scraper (Case
5, fig. 72). It was used especially by athletes after exercise, to
remove the dust and sand of the wrestling-ground, so that the strigil,
oil-flask, and sponge became in Greece a kind of symbol for the athlete’s
life, which was, practically speaking, the life of all well-to-do young
men. On a gravestone, No. 7 in the Sculpture Gallery, the dead youth is
represented with a strigil in his hand, while his little slave holds his
towel and oil-flask. Both men and women used strigils in the bath for
scraping off the fuller’s earth or lye powder used as soap. A silver
strigil was included in the tomb furniture of an Etruscan lady which is
exhibited in Case F in the Sixth Room. There is an example in glass of
Roman date in Case 5.
[Illustration: FIG. 79. SPATULA]
[Illustration: FIG. 80. DIPPING-ROD]
It was customary among the Greeks and Romans to rub the body with oil
after the bath. The small jar called aryballos (Case G in the Fifth
Room, fig. 75) and the taller alabastron (Case 2, and Case A in the
Fourth Room, fig. 74) were used for holding oil and perfumes for toilet
use. Some small glass toilet bottles in Case J in the Third Room are so
charming in shape and coloring as to make a modern woman envious (fig.
76). In the Gold Room are two crystal scent bottles from Cyprus, one of
which has a gold stopper. The toilet box or pyxis held ointment, rouge,
face or tooth powders, or small toilet articles or ornaments. These
charming boxes were made of metal, as the silver box in Case F in the
Sixth Room (fig. 77), or of painted terracotta. The latter are often
triumphs of the potter’s and vase painter’s art; for example, the white
pyxis in Case V in the Fourth Room (fig. 78) and the red-figured pyxis in
Case A in the same room, with its interesting drawings of women working
wool (compare fig. 39). Others of a variety of shapes and decoration will
be found in Cases C and G in the Fifth Room.
[Illustration: FIG. 81. GREEK MIRROR ON A STAND]
[Illustration: FIG. 82. ETRUSCAN MIRROR]
[Illustration: FIG. 83. GREEK MIRROR AND COVER]
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