Facial Hair

[John Conyard]

Guys grow beards on campaign.

Some without easy access to blades could even keep hair short by burning it.

[Titus Labienus]

I like this, especially since one of the characters I present is Gaius Crastinus, who, after serving as primus pilus of Caesar's tenth in Gaul went on to serve with him again at Pharsalus.

[Alanus]

Guys grow beards on campaign.

Some without easy access to blades could even keep hair short by burning it.

Really "neat," John

And they must have smelled good to the campaign "ladies." hock:

[Luca]

A friend of mine told me that he uses to make hair grow up in the summer as ancient greek did. And they did this because in summer they made wars.

I have now idea of the origin of this, but I found this news amazing because it could explain many things.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

While trying to find one image of a Republican Roman wit hfacial hair that i recall, I came across this unidentified bust, depicting a Roman in mourning, so the link says. Not Republican though.

http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/03/hm3_1_3a.html


Ahhh, here is the fellow.....called Brutus according to Wiki, but I seem to recall a different designation in a book somewhere, as a leading republican. The serious bronze bust.

http://ccit300-f06.wikispaces.com/Ancient+Roman+Art

[Theodosius the Great]

Here's another pre-Hadrianic example of a bearded soldier: note the standard bearer (aquilifer) in the background. And a Praetorian aquilifer no less!

I have been led to believe that around the time of Caesar that Roman society had a really negative attitude towards beards and it wasn't until Hadrian bucked the trend that it became acceptable

Having seen all the pre-Hadrianic evidence for beards on this thread I don't think we can say Hadrian made it acceptable but he certainly made it fashionable. A modern parallel would be Abraham Lincoln. If you look at this list of US Presidents you'll see that all of Lincoln's Republican successors sported a beard until McKinley. Though I think Lincoln did make it acceptable as well as fashionable.

Theo,

I think you have a good point. Always an unconventional character in every unit. I'm lucky-- I portray a barbarian. And as we all think we know (nuk, nuk, nuk), those barbarians were so backward they had not the where-with-all to shave.

Yep, and those backward barbarians only had animal skins to clothe themselves.

~Theo