Exhibition notes for A Day in Pompeii - Museum Victoria

http://museumvictoria.com.au/Pompeii
Exhibition Notes
of favourite gladiators. These gladiators were often foreign slaves, and both men and
women idolised them; one graffito reads: "Celadus the Thracian makes all the girls sigh."
Theatrical performances were another, gentler form of popular entertainment. Pompeii’s
theatre was an old one, built in the second century BC in the Greek style and then
enlarged and modernised in the Augustan period to make it more like a Roman theatre.
Comedies and rustic farces were performed there, as well as mimed re-enactments of
mythological scenes. The dramas of ancient Greece must also have been popular,
judging from the wall paintings depicting the famous Greek playwright Menander. A
small roofed odeum, or concert hall, was built next to the theatre in about 75 BC to
provide an additional venue for musical entertainment.
FASHION
High fashion and heavenly adornment, Roman-style
Pompeii was a hub of trade and travel, and its wealthier residents were knowledgeable
about all the latest fashion and beauty trends from Rome and beyond. The standard
garment for women throughout the Roman Empire was the stola, a long pleated dress
that was draped around the body and pinned together with brooches (fibulae). The style
of this garment was traditional and didn’t vary much, which made make-up and
hairstyling even more important as a way to express a woman’s beauty and individuality.
The Roman beauty ideal was a white face, bright red lips and very dark eyes. To
achieve this look, women used foundation creams and face powder made from white
lead or powdered chalk and animal fat. Lipstick was made from ochre or molluscs, and
eyeliner from soot or antimony powder. Fashionable women washed in water perfumed
with cinnamon and balsam, and often used ass’s milk on the skin to prevent wrinkles.
Other oil-based scents were derived from spices and herbs like cardamom, saffron,
lavender, rose and orange, and were stored in small, tightly-stoppered glass bottles.
Mirrors made from highly polished bronze or silver were, of course, essential items in the
wealthy woman’s beauty kit.
The blond hair of Celtic women (usually slaves) was particularly prized for making wigs,
but when this was not available, many women dyed their hair blonde and used hairnets
of fine gold thread and hairpins of bone to hold their often elaborate hairstyles in place.
Fashions in hairdressing changed rapidly, much as they do today. In Pompeii’s early
years, women favoured simple chignons or buns at the back of the head, or plaits tied
back in a band, but in the last years of Pompeii built-up hairstyles became popular.
These were very complex and often required several slaves working at the same time,
manipulating hairpieces and false curls to produce a towering head of hair.
Both men and women wore rings for adornment, which could be made from plain gold,
bronze, copper or silver. More elaborate jewellery featured pearls or gemstones such as
cornelian, lapis lazuli or onyx, and the most detailed pieces featured delicately carved
cameo or intaglio stones. Hoop earrings and gold bracelets with a coiling snake design
were especially popular.
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