The ancient practice of wearing the hair long was adhered to for many centuries by the Spartans. The Spartan boys always had their hair cut quite short; but, as soon as they reached the age of puberty, they let it grow long. They prided themselves upon their hair, and called it the cheapest of ornaments. Before engaging in battle, they combed and dressed their hair with much care, as did Leonidas and his followers at Thermopylae. The custom of the Athenians was different. They wore their hair long in childhood; but the youths cut off their flowing locks at a certain age, and, as a religious ceremony, consecrated them to some god: on attaining the age of manhood, they again let the hair grow. In ancient times at Athens the hair was rolled up in a kind of knot on the crown of the head, and fastened with golden clasps in the shape of grasshoppers. The Athenian females, also, wore the hair much in the same fashion. It was usually confined in a net-work of silk or gold thread, or a cap or turban of close material, and, at times, by broad bands of cloth of different colours wound round the head. The Greek philosophers were distinguished by their majestic beards, and Socrates, it would seem, pre-eminently so. Homer’s description of the venerable beards of Nestor and Priam is doubtless familiar to most readers. The Greeks wore their beards till the time of Alexander; and Plutarch mentions that the beards of the Macedonian soldiers were cut off to prevent the enemy from seizing hold of them in battle. Pliny says that the Romans wore their hair long till the year 454 A.U.C., when P. Ticinius Mena first introduced a number of barbers from Sicily. Those bearded ancestors of the Romans, with their long hair, came, in after times, to be regarded with no little reverence, as the true type of manly virtue and integrity, “the fine old _Roman_ gentleman.” At the time of the invasion of the Gauls, Livy tells us, as the soldiers entered Rome, they were struck with awe and astonishment at the noble beards and venerable aspect of the old magnates seated at their thresholds; and, that a soldier venturing, out of mere curiosity, but to touch the beard of one of them, the affront was resented by a blow with his ivory sceptre, which was the signal for a general slaughter. The hair was usually worn short and crisp till the time of Commodus, who was particularly luxurious in the dressing and ornamenting of his hair, which was powdered with gold. Having, however, a somewhat uneasy conscience, he resorted to the singular practice of burning off the beard, “timore tonsoris,” says Lampridius.