Hadrian's Beard: Fashion and Mentalité
After the ultimate failure of Trajan's wars of conquest, the emperor Hadrian made cultural interests the focal point of his reign, and the Romans' new orientation in relation to Greek culture now found expression in the art of portraiture. At his accession to power in A.D. 117, the new emperor's official portraits presented him with artfully curled hair and a beard (fig. 114). The contrast with his straight-haired and
clean-shaven predecessor could hardly have been more striking.[26] The widespread amazement occasioned by the emperor's new fashion can be detected in the Historia Augusta, whose author claims that Hadrian wore a beard to cover facial warts (Hist. Aug., Spart. Hadr. 26). I would not rule out that such an imperfection did in fact impel Hadrian to let his beard grow. But this is hardly an explanation for the whole phenomenon, and especially its ramifications.
The Romans had been basically clean-shaven for centuries, although there had, of course, always been men who grew beards, especially soldiers. This is evident, for example, on the Column of Trajan. Yet in official portraiture, beards were generally avoided. This is probably in large part a reaction to the beards of the Greeks of old. To wear a beard was considered simply "un-Roman," even though Varro was aware that the ancient Romans had worn beards and that the first barbers came to Rome from Sicily about 300 B.C. (Rust. 2.11.10).
Hadrian's was not the long beard of the philosopher, to be sure, but it was full and carefully styled. He probably did not see himself as making a programmatic statement with his beard and hairstyle, and most likely he had worn the beard before becoming emperor. Wavy hair and a trimmed beard had emerged as a fashion under Domitian and later, under Trajan, became widespread, especially among younger men, as an alternative to the austere look of the emperor.
But by retaining the fashion as emperor, Hadrian consciously or unconsciously turned it into a "message." Inevitably it was adopted as the norm throughout the Empire by men both young and old. Since, however, the same emperor elevated philhellenism to the level of a political program, the beard's connotation of being Hellenized, or what I would call the "cultivated beard," was unavoidable. Unlike Trajan, Hadrian conspicuously surrounded himself with Greek intellectuals, dabbled in various learned pursuits, spoke a pure Attic dialect, and enjoyed appearing at both public and private occasions dressed in the Greek manner. Cyrene was surely not the only city that paid homage to him in this style (fig. 115). Furthermore, his philhellenism and dedication to the cause of high culture were regularly celebrated.[27]
I believe there are two principal phenomena that argue in favor of this often asserted, but occasionally questioned thesis, that the new
fashion for beards did indeed connote learning and Greek culture once the emperor had set it in motion. First, in this same period, at first in Athens and soon in other cities of the Greek East, members of the ruling aristocracy began not only to grow beards, but also in many other ways—hairstyle, dress, manners—consciously to model them-
selves after the statues and portraits of well-known Greeks of the past. And second, as we shall presently observe, beards became steadily longer, until by the Late Antonine period they had reached the length of any self-respecting philosopher's beard.
The best examples of the self-styled classicism of the Greeks themselves are the portraits of kosmetai in Athens, which happen to survive in large numbers.[28] These were annually chosen magistrates who were responsible for the city gymnasia. They came from prominent Athenian families and usually held other civic offices later in life. They are therefore by no means professional intellectuals. Yet this new fashion among the Athenian aristocracy is only one of many manifestations of a movement toward an all-embracing cultural renewal, whose impetus was in turn an economic revival in the Greek cities and the growing influence of the Greek élite in the running of the Empire.[29] The ostentatious acknowledgment of their own cultural traditions, combined with what was at first a departure from the Empire-wide fashion emanating from Rome, suggests that a new kind of self-consciousness was suddenly coming to the fore. In this way the Greeks asserted that the era of their cultural greatness was not past but lived on. This reversion to being "true Greeks" could also sometimes carry an anti-Roman connotation, as Dio of Prusa attests when he describes with admiration the Greeks of Borysthenes, or Olbia on the Black Sea, who have faithfully maintained the customs of their ancestors: "They all wore long hair and flowing beards, according to the ancient custom, as Homer describes the Greeks. Only a single man was shaven, and he was despised and scorned by the rest. They said he did this not for his own enjoyment, but to flatter the Romans and to proclaim his sympathy for them" (36.17). In actual fact the beards of these Borysthenians were probably those of Scythian barbarians, but that is of no consequence. What is important is the nostalgic search for ancient Greece that colors Dio's view. Among the kosmetai, who proudly identify with their famous ancestors, some have long beards, some shorter; some bear a general resemblance to the Greeks of old, while others seem to follow a specific model. Thus one contemporary of Hadrian looks like a latter-day Plato (fig. 116; cf. fig. 38), though he has severely trimmed his hair in comparison with Plato's (we shall see presently why he did this).
Socrates, Aeschylus, Theophrastus (fig. 117), and Demosthenes were all pressed into service as models. By the Antonine period, Antisthenes enjoyed a special popularity in Athens, which, as we shall see, also entailed the rigorous pursuit of a philosophical way of life. The same trend is evident in the nicknames and tags that became popular once again. Thus, for example, Arrian was celebrated as "the new Xenophon."[30]
Hadrian's new Hellenizing image is comparable to these Athenian "memorializing" portraits. His beard could be likened to those of such Late Classical portraits as Aeschines (fig. 26). When we consider that only six years before becoming emperor, Hadrian had held the office of archon in Athens, it is tempting to associate his beard with the classicizing fashion that was just taking hold there.[31] Perhaps the young
aristocrat had occasion during his stay in Athens to redefine what had been a beard connoting Roman luxiria into an Atticizing "cultivated beard."
Be that as it may, for our inquiry the most important question is, how did the public throughout the Empire react to Hadrian's new beard? First of all, we must make a distinction between the general spread of the new hair and beard style, on the one hand, and the assimilation to specific, earlier Greek portraits, as by the kosmetai, on the other. The fact that the emperor's beard was immediately imitated through the whole Empire, including the West, need not surprise us. The emperor and his family had long been the ultimate arbiters of popular style, their portraits the decisive inspiration for changes in fashion.[32] More important, however, in this case is the fact, as we have already noted, that in the course of the next two generations, beards became steadily longer, until by the late second century they reached the length of the extremely full philosopher's beard. The portrait of Hadrian (fig. 114) and the three later heads juxtaposed here (figs. 118–
20) will illustrate this process. Trends in fashion are always in some way a reflection of collective values, and there is good evidence that the lengthening beard over a period of more than two generations is tied directly to a widespread cult of learning in the Antonine age.
When an entire society, or at least those groups that shape its character, devote all their spiritual and intellectual energies to recreating a classical culture, when this is the standard for all approved entertainment, and the participants, dressed as Greeks, play "Classical Greece" on the public stage (we shall hear more about this later), then we can hardly escape the conclusion that these steadily lengthening beards must carry a reference to classical learning. This is not to say that each individual made such a personal commitment, as in the case of the kosmetai . Rather, this is a fashion that becomes an integral part of the social discourse. The individual who wears a beard need not even be aware of his role in all this.
The portraits of the kosmetai and that of Hadrian belong to the early
stages of this process of the ever-growing beard. In its latest phase, starting roughly with the later portraits of Marcus Aurelius (ca. 175; fig. 119), we find a whole series of distinguished bearded men, including the emperor Pertinax (fig. 120), with deeply furrowed brow and raised eyebrows.[33] In this context such traits can hardly mean anything other than introspection and an intellectual bent. Another element of the fashionable "Intellectual look" is the receding hairline or bald head, suddenly popular in the later second and early third centuries. Prior to this, baldness had been very rarely shown, though it can hardly have been any less common in real life. If in the Late Antonine period it first was thought worthy of representation, then it was probably because the evocation of Classical portraits of intellectuals conferred on these individuals a mark of spiritual distinction. Support for this interpretation can best be found in the Praise of Baldness (Phalakras enkomion ) of Synesius of Cyrene (370–413), who refers specifically to the portraits of such "ancient wise men" as Socrates and Diogenes in order to prove that the wisest men had been bald. Socrates, he claims, had identified with the silen's mask "to mark his skull as the seat of wisdom" (nou docheion ).[34]
Often baldness and the thinker's brow are combined in the same head and mutually reinforce one another (figs. 121, 122). One former athlete even had himself depicted in this manner, in a portrait whose intellectual forehead, with brows drawn up and tensed furrows, is especially pronounced (fig. 122c).[35] A well-known portrait type of Severan date with a highly spiritual effect, once identified as Plotinus by H. P. L'Orange, may also be mentioned in this context (fig. 122f).[36]
The plethora of examples over a relatively short span of time suggests that we are dealing here with the phenomenon of the Zeitgesicht, analogous to the assimilation of civilian portraits in fashion and physiognomy to the reigning emperor. But in this case it is not Imperial portraiture that set the trend, but the reverse. There are individual
replicas of the official portraiture of Marcus Aurelius and Pertinax that are assimilated to this popular Zeitgesicht of the intellectual.
Even more clearly than the general phenomenon of the ever-lengthening beard, this Zeitgesicht reflects a widespread consensus, at least among that class that commissioned marble portraits, on the central importance of all aspects of education and learning. Of course in some instances wrinkles or baldness could simply be a realistic rendering of an individual's appearance, and some scholars have rightly detected a stylistic tendency toward realism in Late Antonine art. This is not, however, at odds with what I like to call the "intellectual Zeitgesicht, " since what matters most is always which elements are realistically rendered.
There can be no doubt, however, about the meaning of what I would call the "learned busts": portrait busts wearing only the Greek himation and often leaving most of the chest bare. (These become popular in the same period when the beard is becoming longer). They are quite different from the completely nude busts of athletes and must rather be understood as a kind of abbreviated form of the Classical Greek draped statue, or perhaps of the ascetic Hellenistic philosopher type. It is difficult to decide from the busts alone whether a particular example is meant to celebrate the subject more generally for his classical learning or for specific philosophical pursuits. This is a question to which we shall return. These "learned busts" were equally popular in both East and West.[37] Their numbers and geographical distribution alone prove that a Greek education had become a crucial element in the self-definition and public image of the kind of men who could afford such a bust, in all parts of the Empire. To be sure, the Roman citizen bust or statue type in toga, the bust wearing cuirass or paludamentum, both embodying the ideal of virtus, have not been entirely replaced by the "learned bust," but at least we can say that this new symbol now takes its place among the others as a perfectly respectable alternative.
In those instances where a portrait head showing the features of the Classical intellectual is combined with a bust draped in the Greek himation, as is the case, for example, with two splendid Greek busts in Thessaloniki (fig. 123) and Budapest, as well as a whole series of others from Rome and the Western and Eastern provinces, most archaeologists have not hesitated to identify the subjects as professional philosophers or rhetoricians.[38] But the considerable number of these busts alone makes this unlikely. Rather, as with the kosmetai, we are probably dealing here with members of the urban élite who wished to advertise their classical education but, unlike the kosmetai, not necessarily with reference to a specific model.
In certain cases, especially among examples from Greece itself, the physiognomy is assimilated so closely to that of a famous Greek figure of the past that the subject's individuality is all but lost. This phenomenon should not overly disturb us, for other Romans had for some time adapted their own faces to that of the reigning emperor. Now, however, there is another authority, alongside the imperial family, as a role model after which to pattern oneself and one's image. In the Greek East, the effects of this can also be read in funerary and honorific inscriptions. The epithet philosophos is widely used and may even take precedence over the more expected philokaisar and philopatris .[39]
Nevertheless, I wish to emphasize that not every full beard signifies a passionate intellectual, nor was there any shortage of competing styles and values expressed in portraiture of the very period when the Antonine beard was at its height, and especially the period that followed. We need only think of the lush curly locks of a Lucius Verus, who was said to have sprinkled gold dust in his hair (Hist. Aug., Capitol. Verus 10.7), or of the crew cuts of the soldier-emperors. But amid this rivalry of symbolic statements, and perhaps because of it, the intellectual image remained for quite some time an influential standard in both East and West.
It was quite possible, for example, to combine the portrait type of the third-century soldier-emperor, projecting toughness and energy, with a bust clad in the philosopher's mantle or even a full statue in the pose of a classical philosopher. Such combinations indeed occur in two of four statues found recently in a wealthy house at Dion, adopting the pose of the seated Epicurus (figs. 124, 125).[40] The other two statues had portrait heads with long beards (in one instance only partially preserved) of the Late Antonine/Severan "intellectual" type. It is entirely possible that the group does not represent philosophers and their pupils, but rather a family of the Greek aristocracy who were devotees of philosophy and learning and wanted to show off their cultivated way of life in an ostentatious family portrait gallery. The older generation still wears the "philosopher's beard" fashionable in the Late Antonine period (fig. 125a), while the younger adopts the Zeitgesicht based on the portrait types of Caracalla and subsequent emperors (fig. 125b). The fact that all four had themselves shown in the pose of Epicurus
could imply that they wanted to acknowledge themselves as followers of Epicurean philosophy, but need not. As we shall see, the iconography of Hellenistic philosopher portraits was rather eclectically used, not always adhering strictly to the original connotations. The pose of the Epicurus statue was probably favored because it gives the appearance of the upstanding citizen with one arm enveloped and the mantle properly draped. This would appeal especially to would-be intellectuals of the bourgeoisie in the Greek East, where Classical drapery styles were still being worn.[41] If this proposition is correct, then we must consider whether other supposed philosopher statues of the same period, such as the so-called Aelius Aristides in the Vatican Library, might not also rather represent an intellectual layman. One could easily imagine a statue like this in the context of a portrait gallery in which the honorand was depicted in a variety of costumes, each projecting different virtues (cf. p. 279).[42]
Superficially, we are dealing here with the same phenomenon as the two reworked statues of poets in the Vatican of ca. 50 B.C. (cf. fig. 110): a Greek body type taken over to stand for the idea of intellectual activity. But now it is not a phenomenon limited to an aristocratic and exclusive culture of otium, conferring the notion of Greek learning on an élite stratum in the Late Republic. Rather, learning is now a gen-
erally recognized ideal in Rome itself, one that is publicly acknowledged and leads to the acquisition of high status and even political office.
As we would expect, under these conditions professional intellectuals of all types traded in their toga for a Greek himation as the public insigne of their career. At least this was true in the West; in the East, such differentiation was not possible, since everyone wore the himation. In Carthage around the year A.D. 210, if we may believe the testimony of Tertullian, "simple elementary schoolteachers, teachers of figures, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics, as well as doctors, poets, musicians, astrologers, augurs, in short, everyone who cares about scholarly pursuits, wears the Greek mantle" (De pallio 6). It was probably the new position of authority now accorded the leading orators and philosophers more than anything else that in the Late Antonine age induced ordinary teachers and doctors to identify with their image. A fine example from Rome itself is the under-life-size statue of the grammaticus graecus M. Mettius Epaphroditus, a freedman in Rome whose former slave Germanus set up the statue, most likely as a funerary monument. Epaphroditus sits on a raised teacher's chair, though he is not actually shown giving instruction, like the elementary schoolteacher on the famous relief in Trier. He holds in his left hand a book roll, in which he has been reading (or perhaps reading aloud), and now contemplates what he has just read, turning his head to the side and looking up (fig. 126).[43] The fact that Germanus had his patronus shown in this meditative pose suggests that he wanted to commemorate him not simply as a teacher, but as a man who cultivated a philosophical way of life.
Tertullian's inclusion of doctors in this group can also be corroborated by the archaeological evidence. A well-known strigilated sarcophagus of the late third or early fourth century, now in New York, shows a physician from Ostia. He, too, is a reader, sitting at home next to a cabinet in which we can make out more book rolls and a dish (perhaps for opening veins), and, above, a set of surgical instruments, propped up so that we can see them better. In other words, the wisdom and learning of the ancients are more important to this individual than
the tools of his trade.[44] Under the Early Empire, in contrast, physicians and teachers had modeled themselves on the general image of the Roman citizen, clad in the toga and wearing a hairstyle derived from that of Imperial portraiture.[45]