Scipio Africanus first set the example of shaving. Persons of quality had their children shaved for the first time by a person of the same or greater quality, who, by this means, became godfather or adopted father of the children. The day was observed as one of rejoicing, and the hair of the beard made an offering to some god. The beard of Nero, we are told, was put into a golden box adorned with pearls, and consecrated in this way to Jupiter Capitolinus. Hadrian was the first emperor who wore a beard; Plutarch says he wore it to hide the scars in his face. Constantine was distinguished by the title of “Pogoniatos;” and we should do injustice to Julian’s beard to omit mention of it here. Gibbon says, “the Emperor had been insulted by satires and libels; and, in his turn, composed, under the title of the ‘Enemy of the Beard,’ an ironical confession of his own faults, and a severe satire on the licentious and effeminate manners of Antioch.” He descants with seeming complacency on his own “shaggy and _populous beard_”--a phrase which we may interpret literally or not, as we please. The historian adds, “This imperial reply was publicly exposed before the gates of the palace, and the MISOPOGON remains a singular monument of the resentment, the wit, the humanity, and the indiscretion of Julian.” Probably no nation ever patronized the tonsor with more assiduity than Rome in the decadence of the Empire. The young patrician exquisites of those days devoted hours daily to the barber and the bath; and no lady’s train of slaves was complete without the _ornatrix_, whose duty it was to attend the toilet of her mistress, for the special purpose of dressing her hair. An elegant simplicity at one time characterized the head-dress of the Roman ladies, who generally adopted the fashion of the Greeks, which usually, however, soon degenerated into extravagance and coarseness. They piled upon their heads imitations of castles and crowns, cumbrous wreaths, and other absurdities, and knotted the hair with tiresome minuteness. “With curls on curls they build their head before, And mount it with a formidable tower: A giantess she seems, but look behind; And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind.” The _calamistrum_ or curling irons, had a busy time of it, for the craving after novelty was intense, and any artificial arrangement of the hair welcomed as a change. “More leaves the forest yields not from the trees, Than there be fashions of attire in view, For each succeeding day brings something new.” Poppea, Nero’s wife, was so conspicuous for the beauty of her hair, that he composed a poem in honour of it.