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BARBERS, BARBERSHOPS AND SEARCHING FOR ROMAN POPULAR CULTURE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Jerry Toner
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Abstract

This paper looks at one particular group of non-élite tradesmen — barbers — to see what they can tell us about popular culture, primarily in the city of Rome in the early Empire. It begins by looking at the significance barbers had in wider cultural discourse. Grooming the hair sat under that difficult umbrella term, cultus, which related to all manner of adornment and refinement. A key question for the study of ancient popular culture is whether it is possible to see through this largely élite literary construction and discern something of the underlying realities of everyday life. The paper argues that some level of plausible reconstruction is possible, and outlines what characteristics can be discovered about non-élite life. But popular sociability in the barbershop raised concerns among élite writers, and the paper examines these as a way to understand the nature of the relationship between popular and élite cultures.

Questo saggio prende in considerazione un gruppo particolare di commercianti non appartenenti all‘élite: i barbieri. Intende indagare attraverso la loro figura parte della cultura popolare, soprattutto nella città di Roma nel primo Impero. Lo studio prende le mosse analizzando il significato che i barbieri avevano nel più ampio contesto sociale. La cura dei capelli rientra nel cultus, termine dall'ampio significato che ha a che vedere con tutti i tipi di ornamento e raffinatezza. La possibilità di vedere attraverso le maglie della costruzione letteraria, frutto soprattutto dell‘élite, comprendendo così in parte la vita quotidiana delle realtà socialmente inferiori, è una questione chiave per lo studio dell'antica cultura popolare. Nel saggio si sostiene come sia possibile giungere a qualche ricostruzione plausibile e si evidenzia quali caratteristiche possano essere poste in luce in merito alla vita della non-élite. La ‘socialità popolare’ nel negozio del barbiere creava preoccupazione tra gli scrittori dell‘élite e il saggio esamina queste preoccupazioni come un modo attraverso il quale comprendere la natura delle relazioni tra le culture popolare ed elitaria.

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Articles
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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 83 , October 2015 , pp. 91 - 109
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Copyright © British School at Rome 2015 

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References

1 The idea for this paper came out of the conference Locating Popular Culture in the Ancient World organized by Dr Lucy Grig at Edinburgh University in 2012. My thanks go to the participants of that conference who provided so much fertile discussion and thought-provoking debate, above all with respect to this piece Pavlos Avlamis for his paper ‘Élite and popular voices in Imperial Greek literature’, and Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira, for his paper ‘Communication and plebeian sociability in late antiquity’. Roman barbers have been the subject of two brief studies before but, dating from 1891 and 1932, these works reflect the generalizing and antiquarian interests of scholars from an earlier age. The focus was on trying to establish some of the factual details of real life, such as what kind of haircut was widely adopted and what kind of shears were used to deliver it. See Nicolson, F.W., ‘Greek and Roman barbers’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 2 (1891), 41–56 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Kaufman, D.B., ‘Roman barbers’, Classical Weekly 25.19 (1932), 145–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 On cultus, see L.J. Archer, S. Fischler and M. Wyke (eds), Women in Ancient Societies: an Illusion of the Night (Basingstoke, 1994), 143;  Ovid, Ars Amatoria Book 3, ed. R.K. Gibson (Cambridge, 2003), 128–30; K.A. Lefebvre, With You in That Dress: Cultus and Elegy in Rome (University of Wisconsin, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, 2013).

3 A recent development that is helpful here is the resurgence in interest in the study of ‘ordinary Romans’, often using the notion of ‘popular culture’: see N. Horsfall, The Culture of the Roman Plebs (London, 2003); T. Morgan, Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire (Cambridge, 2007); M. Beard, Pompeii: the Life of a Roman Town (London, 2008); J. Toner, Popular Culture in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 2009); L. Kurke, Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose (Princeton (NJ)/Oxford, 2010); Parker, H.N., ‘Toward a definition of popular culture’, History and Theory 50 (2011), 147–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; S. Forsdyke, Slaves Tell Tales: and Other Episodes in the Politics of Popular Culture in Ancient Greece (Princeton (NJ)/Woodstock, 2012). On particular topics, see J. Toner, Leisure and Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 1995), 65–88; Purcell, N., ‘Literate games: Roman urban society and the game of alea’, Past & Present 147 (1995), 3–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Habinek, T., ‘Singing, speaking, making, writing: classical alternatives to literature and literary studies’, Stanford Humanities Review 6 (1998), 65–76 Google Scholar; Ruffell, I.A., ‘Beyond satire: Horace, popular invective and the segregation of literature’, Journal of Roman Studies 93 (2003), 35–65 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marchesi, I., ‘Traces of a freed language: Horace, Petronius, and the rhetoric of fable’, Classical Antiquity 24 (2005), 307–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P. Avlamis, ‘Isis and the people in the life of Aesop’, in P. Townsend and M. Vidas (eds), Revelation, Literature, and Community in Late Antiquity (Tübingen, 2011), 65–101; J.C. Magalhães de Oliveira, ‘Popular justice and street theatre in late Roman cities’, in L. Grig (ed.), Popular Culture in the Ancient World (Cambridge, forthcoming); and M. Flohr, The World of the Fullo (Oxford, 2013).

4 Parker, ‘Toward a definition of popular culture’ (above, n. 3).

5 For a clear overview of the problems of using evidence in this way, see M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge (MA)/London, 2007), 37–41.

6 Discussion of the definitional problems relating to the concept can be found in Toner, Popular Culture in Ancient Rome (above, n. 3), 1–10, and Parker, ‘Toward a definition of popular culture’ (above, n. 3).

7 CIL IV 473.

8 One in Alexandria supposedly had a hydraulic mechanism that could raise or lower a large mirror at will; see Vitruvius 9.8.2 on the invention of Ctesibus the son of a barber, who was ‘marked out by his talent and great industry’.

9 See C. Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome: the Retail Trade in the Late Republic and the Principate (Oxford, 2012), 52; and on barbers more generally, pp. 125–7.

10 CIL VI 31900.

11 CIL XV 7172.

12 See K.A. Nilson, C.B. Persson, S. Sande and J. Zahle, The Temple of Castor and Pollux: the Augustan Temple (Rome, 2008).

13 Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome (above, n. 9), 53. See CIL II 5181 for the term circitores applied to barbers.

14 See A. Chaniotis, ‘Graffiti in Aphrodisias: images — texts — contexts’, in J.A. Baird and C. Taylor (eds), Ancient Graffiti in Context (New York/London, 2011), 191–207, at pp. 194–5 and 201–2.

15 Martial 7.61.7.

16 Digest 9.2.11.pr.

17 See Alciphron 3.66.1; Lucian,  The Ignorant Book-collector 29; Pliny, Natural History 35.112. Plutarch, Antony 1, suggests that soap was not always used, although other references imply it was more common: Palatine Anthology 6.307; Martial 7.83, ‘While the barber Eutrapelus moved round Lupercus’ face and painted his cheeks …’.

18 Plautus, The Weevil 577–8; Martial 2.36.1.

19 Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae 218–21. Further details of the tools can be found in Nicolson, ‘Greek and Roman barbers’ (above, n. 1).

20 Petronius, Satyricon 94.

21 The Laughter-lover 199.

22 Martial 6.52.

23 See Martial 11.84 on the perils and pain of having one's beard shaved; on spiderwebs, see Pliny, Natural History 29.114.

24 Martial 3.74.1–4; Pliny, Natural History 32.135; Martial 6.93.8–9.

25 R. Barthes, Système de la mode (Paris, 1967); P. Bourdieu, La distinction: critique sociale du jugement (Paris, 1979).

26 See A. Corbeill, Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome (Princeton (NJ)/Oxford, 2004); K. Bradley, ‘Appearing for the defence: Apuleius on display’, in J. Edmondson and A. Keith (eds), Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture (Toronto/London, 2008), 238–56; K. Olson, ‘The appearance of the young Roman girl’, in Edmondson and Keith, Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture (above), 139–57; and E. Fantham, ‘Covering the head at Rome: ritual and gender’, in Edmondson and Keith, Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture (above), 158–71.

27 On fullers, see Bradley, M., ‘‘It all comes out in the wash’: looking harder at the Roman fullonica ’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 15 (2002), 21–44 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Flohr, The World of the Fullo (above, n. 3). On attitudes to bathing, see F. Yegül, Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge (MA), 1992); and Toner, Leisure and Ancient Rome (above, n. 3), 53–64.

28 Pliny, Natural History 7.211; Varro 2.11.10.

29 Pliny, Natural History 7.211.

30 Suetonius, Augustus 23; cf. Julius Caesar 67.

31 Martial 2.26.3.

32 See Aristophanes, Birds 1282; Lucian, The Death of Peregrinus 15.

33 See Dio Chrysostom 72.2; Alciphron 3.55. On the ambiguity of meanings relating to beards, see C. Vout, ‘What's in a beard? Rethinking Hadrian's Hellenism’, in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (eds), Rethinking Revolutions through Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2006), 96–123.

34 See, especially, Ovid, Art of Love 3.135–68 (see above, n. 2); Ovid, Cosmetics for the Female Face 29; cf. Juvenal, Satires 6.58–9. See also M. Bradley, Colour and Meaning in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 2009), 174–8. On female adornment, see K. Olson, Dress and the Roman Woman: Self-presentation and Society (Abingdon/New York, 2008).

35 Petronius, Satyricon 29; Suetonius, Nero 12; Censorinus, On the Birthday 1.10. On the literary tradition of blond ‘down’ on male adolescent cheeks, see Bradley, Colour and Meaning in Ancient Rome (above, n. 34), 1–3.

36 Dio Cassius 48.34.

37 Petronius, Satyricon 75, although in this case it could have been motivated by an attempt to evade the sexual attentions of his master, whose ‘favourite’ Trimalchio was for fourteen years.

38 Ovid, Art of Love 1.517–20.

39 Seneca, Moral Letters 114.20–1.

40 Seneca, Letters 56.1–2.

41 Martial 8.47. See Artemidorus 5.67 for an interpretation of a dream that also seems to display connotations of a linkage between barbers and sex.

42 Seneca, Natural Questions 1.17.7–10.

43 Lucian, The Ignorant Book-collector 29.

44 Martial 3.74.

45 Martial 2.17.

46 Martial 11.58.

47 Martial 12.59; cf. 7.95.

48 Martial 9.27.

49 See M.W. Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton (NJ), 1995), 55–81, 131–58.

50 Horace, Letters 1.7.46–98.

51 Plautus, The Pot of Gold 312–13.

52 See, for example, Martial 6.52.1–4.

53 Horace, Satires 1.3.31; Letters 1.1.94; cf. Martial 7.95.7–13; 12.59.4–5.

54 Barbers are listed with vets and shearers, who were paid by animal, but are included in the section on both manual labourers and more skilled artisans, so it seems reasonable to assume that they would have earned at levels comparable with those with skills.

55 John Cassian, Conference of Abbot Abraham 13.

56 Martial 2.17.

57 CIL VI 37469; see also VI 9736.

58 See S. Lewis, ‘Barber's shops and perfume shops: symposia without wine’, in A. Powell (ed.), The Greek World (London, 1995), 432–41, and also S. Lewis, News and Society in the Greek Polis (London, 1996), 15–18. See Flohr, The World of the Fullo (above, n. 3), 242–87, on the social networks of fullers.

59 See, for example, Plautus, Asses 343–4; Epidicus 197–8; Plutarch, Timoleon 14; Morals 716.

60 Terence, The Parasite 89; see also Plutarch, Dinner Conversations 2.679a: ‘for this reason Theophrastus in jest used to call barbershops ‘wineless symposia’ on account of the chatter of those sitting around’.

61 For example, Plautus, Asses 394.

62 For example, Plutarch, Morals 508; Horace, Satires 1.7.1–3; Polybius 3.20.5; Plutarch, On Talkativeness 13; Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.153.

63 See Plutarch, Morals 509a; Plutarch, Nicias 30; Lucian, How to Write History 24;  Lucian, The Ignorant Book-collector 29; Alciphron 3.66; Petronius, Satyricon 64.

64 The Laughter-lover 148; cf. Plutarch, On Talkativeness 13, for the same joke but with King Archelaus of Macedon delivering the punch-line. The politician Enoch Powell also once used this witticism in the House of Commons barbershop, and it was subsequently widely attributed to him. As a classicist, Powell himself would, of course, have been well aware of its true origin.

65 The Laughter-lover 56; translation based on that from B. Baldwin, The Philogelos or Laughter-lover (Amsterdam, 1983); see also Alciphron 3.30.

66 The Laughter-lover 198. It is worth noting that he is charging half the rate suggested by Diocletian's Edict. Obviously there are great difficulties in assessing different prices from different periods, but it may be that part of the joke is that the customer has gone to a cut-price barber and so is getting what he deserves.

67 Martial 7.83.

68 Suda Phi 364; or it could conceivably mean that it was written for a man named Koureus.

69 Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator 3.11.74.4–75.1.

70 On ancient street life, see B. Kellum, ‘The spectacle of the street’, in B. Bergmann and C. Kondoleon (eds), The Art of Ancient Spectacle (Washington, 1999), 283–99; and C. Holleran, ‘Street life in ancient Rome’, in R. Laurence and D. Newsome (eds), Rome, Ostia, Pompeii: Movement and Space (Oxford, 2011), 245–61.

71 See, for example, the list of places in Plautus's Epidicus (198–9) when looking for someone known to like spending his time in such popular leisure.

72 Pliny, Natural History 19.24.

73 Cicero, Letters to Friends 8.1.4 on the subrostani.

74 See Toner, Leisure and Ancient Rome (above, n. 3), 75.

75 Cicero, On Duties 2.25; see also Tusculan Disputations 5.58; Plutarch, On Talkativeness 13; Jerome, On Illustrious Men 5.

76 Dio Cassius 68.15.

77 Petronius, Satyricon 46; see Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome (above, n. 9), 252  n. 113.

78 Juvenal, Satires 1.24–5; cf. 10.225–6 on the same barber's many villas. It is significant that in John Cassian's above-mentioned story he chose a barber to serve as the example of an aspirational and money-hungry member of the non-élite.

79 Ammianus Marcellinus 22.4.9; cf. Socrates, Church History 3.6.

80 Cf. Lewis, News and Society in the Greek Polis (above, n. 58), 17–18 on the Greek motif of shops as a centre for conspiracy and popular dissatisfaction.

81 Lucian, How to Write History 24.

82 Polybius 3.20.5.

83 Plutarch, On Talkativeness 13.

84 Tacitus's use of rumour in his texts shows that the élite too could find uses for rumour, particularly when trying to create an impression of cross-social unpopularity about a particular emperor. On this type of ‘polyphonic’ text, see J. Toner, Roman Disasters (Cambridge, 2013), 112–13.

85 Augustine, Dolbeau Sermons 30.7.

86 On élite concerns about circitores meeting up to talk about matters of interest or pass the time, see O'Neill, P., ‘Going round in circles: popular speech in ancient Rome’, Classical Antiquity 22 (2003), 135–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87 On sumptuary legislation relating to taverns, see Toner, Leisure and Ancient Rome (above, n. 3), 79–83.

88 On the reciprocal nature of élite and non-élite relations, see Ruffell, ‘Beyond satire’ (above, n. 3).