Hairstyles in Roman society ‘trickled down’, with subjects across the empire adopting fashions ‘set’ by the imperial family, diffused far and wide by a carefully constructed imperial image in a variety of media. And for this particular catastrophe I blame Livia!
This coiffure is referred to by historians as the ‘nodus’ hair-style, which became popular in the Late Republic and early decades of the Roman Empire. The hall-mark is the lacquered together bangs, which are gathered together, doubled back over the tightly slicked scalp, and joined together and joined in a thin coil to a spiral bun in the rear.
The portrait shown is currently in the Palazzo Massimo in Rome. The woman shown is in advanced middle age, with ‘realistic’ aspects such as sagging skin and the odd wrinkle. And this seems (to my modern eyes, at least) a bit jarring in combination with her fashion hairdo – certainly the coiffure does little for her face.
This is all to say, self presentation had a different flavor in the ancient world and this portrait speaks volumes. Here the expensive format in marble shows a woman in her Sunday best (so to speak), proudly wearing the hairdo she likely adopted as a young woman, aligning herself with the imperial family and wearing her wisdom on her face.
