Dictionary
SPHENDONE	100.00%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A fastening for the hair of the Greek women. (See HAIR.)
HAIR	100.00%
mode of wearing. The Greeks of the oldest times regarded long hair in a man as an ornament, and only out it as a sign of mourning. Among the Spartans it was usual for boys to wear their hair short, and to let it grow when they attained the age of ephibi. At Athens, down to the Persian Wars, the hair was worn long, and fastened up into a knot (krobylos) by a needle in the form of a grasshopper. In later times, however, the Athenian boys had their hair cut when they became ephebi, and dedicated it to some deity, generally to Apollo, or the gods of their rivers, or the Nymphs, who were regarded as the protectresses of youth. But a free Athenian citizen did not wear his hair very short, or he would have been mistaken for a slave, who would be obliged to do so. Down to the time of Alexander the Great a full beard was regarded as a mark of manly dignity. After this it became fashionable to shave the face quite smooth, and only philosophers wore beards, to mark their antagonism to the general custom. The Romans too, in ancient times, wore long hair and beards. It was not till 300 B.C., when the first hair-cutter (tonsor) came to Rome from Sicily, that they began to cut both. The younger Scipio is said to have been the first Roman who shaved every day. In course of time it became the fashion to make a festival of the day when the beard was first shaved. Young men, however, would sometimes wear a neatly cut beard, and only men over forty would shave. To let the beard grow was a sign of mourning. In the first half of the 2nd century A.D. the emperor Hadrian brought full beards into fashion again; and if we may trust the coins, it continued among his successors, with few exceptions, until Constantine. From his time, however, the emperors appear almost without exception without a beard. The beard was removed not only with razors and scissors, but with tweezers and hair-destroying compositions. The hair of the head was artificially treated with oils and hot irons. From the middle of the 2nd century A.D. to the time of Constantine it was the established custom to cut the hair quite short, after the fashion of athletes and Stoic philosophers. As Greeks and Romans usually went bareheaded, good manners required particular attention to be paid to the hair and beard. Hence a great demand arose for barbers, part of whose business it was to trim the nails, remove warts, and so on. The barbers' shops were much frequented, and became the favourite resort for people in quest of news and gossip. The Greek women, to judge by existing monuments, followed an extraordinary variety of fashions (fig. 1, a-h). The point seems generally to have been to cover the forehead as much as possible. One of the commonest modes of wearing the hair was to draw it back over the head and ears, and let it simply bang down, or fasten it in a knot with a band and a needle. The bands of cloth or leather, wound round the front of the head to fasten the front and back hair, were often made to support a pointed metal plate called stephane. This was a broad strip of metal resembling a diadem. and richly ornamented. It sometimes appears as an independent ornament, especially on the images of goddesses (fig. 1, c, d, f, g). There were several kinds of fastenings, by which the hair was artistically arranged; for instance, the sphendone, so called from its likeness to a sling, being broad in the middle and narrow at the end. The hair was often worn in nets (kekryphalos), bags (sakkos), and handkerchiefs wrapped round it in the shape of a cap. Greek ladies were early acquainted with the use of artificial appliances, such as fragrant oils, curling irons, and the like. The Roman matrons, in ancient times, tied up their hair with a fillet ( vitta) in a tower-shaped top-knot (tutulus); but unmarried women wore their hair in as simple a style as possible. It was, in general, merely parted, or fastened up in a knot on the neck, or woven in tresses arranged round the front of the head. Brides wore their hair in a peculiar fashion, arranged in six braids, and wrapped in a red handkerchief. To attract attention by an unusual coiffure was thought to be in bad taste. But, towards the end of the republican age, the old-fashioned simplicity in dressing the hair disappeared, as it did in other matters of dress. Foreign arts, especially those of Greece and Asia, found more and more acceptance. During the imperiiael period, when the arrangement of the hair formed a most important part of a lady's toilet, no rule was observed but what individual caprice and varying fashion dictated, and the wildest and most tasteless fashions were introduced. False hair came into use, as well as ointment and curling irons. False hair was used sometimes in making up the high coiffures at one time in fashion, and sometimes for perruques. Light colours were the favourite ones for perruques, and hence a regular trade was set up in the hair of German women. Sometimes, following a Greek fashion, Roman ladies tried, by artificial means, to give their own dark hair a fair or a ruddy complexion. A corrosive soap, imported from Gaul, was specially used for this purpose. Besides ribbons and fillets, needles, often richly ornamented, of ivory, bone, bronze, silver, and gold, were used to fasten the hair. To protect the hair, Roman ladies wore nets (reticulum), often of gold thread, kerchiefs (mitra), and caps (calantica), made of various materials, sometimes of bladders. In wealthy houses male and female slaves, trained by special masters, were kept for dressing the hair. (See the engravings.)
TOILET	53.73%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 See HAIR, MODES OF DRESSING; and CLOTHING.
TUTULUS	48.88%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A kind of Roman head-dress, formed by plaiting the hair high above the forehead. It was characteristic of the flamon and his wife. (See HAIR, MODES OF DRESSING.)
MITRA	45.19%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A kerchief which women wore round the head. See HAIR.
PALLOR AND PAVOR	34.37%
The Roman personifications of terror, and companions of the war-god Mars. As early as the time of king Tullus Hostilius sanctuaries are said to have been erected in their honour. On coins Pallor was represented as a boy with dishevelled hair and perturbed bearing, and Pavor as a man with an expression of horror and with bristling hair.
STEPHANOS	30.52%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The garland (see CORONA), also a metal hand for the forehead, like a diadem. (See HAIR, MODE OF WEARING.)
GORGO	23.46%
PTERELAUS	23.36%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 King of the Taphii and Teleboae in Acarnania. He was killed by his daughter Comaetho, who pulled out the golden hair, on the possession of which depended the immortality accorded him by Poseidon. (See AMPHITRYON.)
COMAETHO	20.95%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 In Greek mythology, the daughter of Pterelaus, king of the Teleboi. Her father had a golden look in his hair, given him by Poseidon, and conferring immortality. Of this he was deprived by his daughter, who was slain for her treachery by Amphitryon, the enemy of her race. (See AMPMTRYON.)
MATRONA	16.40%
A name applied by the Romans to every honourable married woman. She enjoyed the highest esteem; the way was cleared for her in the street, in which she might not appear unaccompanied, and she was not allowed to be touched even when cited before a law court. She was distinguished by the long white stola, the cloak called palla, and her hair divided into six plain plaits, with woollen ribbons (vittoe) wound round it.
CERBERUS	16.36%
In Greek mythology, the three-headed dog, with hair of snakes, son of Typhaon and Echidna, who watches the entrance of the lower world. He gives a friendly greeting to all who enter, but if any one attempts to go out, he seizes him and holds him fast. When Heracles, at the command of Eurystheus, brought him from below to the upper world, the poisonous aconite sprang up from the foam of his mouth, (See the cuts to the article HADES.)
PYTHAGORAS	15.66%
SATYRS	13.78%
LYSIPPUS, OF SICYON	12.88%
GRAIAE	12.36%
i.e. the gray-haired women, were in Greek mythology, the protectresses of the Gorgons, and, like them, the daughters of Keto and Phorcys, the aged god of the seas. Hesiod knows of only two, Pephredo and Enyo; the later story adds a third, Deino. Their very names suggest panic and terror, Born with gray hair, and having only one eye and tooth between them, which they pass from one to the other, they are the very personifications of old age. Perseus found it easy to rob them of their tooth. Their dwelling-place was in the boundary of the Gorgonian plain at the farthest end of Libya, where no sun or moon ever shone.
REUS	12.35%
The term used by the Romans for the person accused, especially in a criminal trial. In such a case custom required the accused to appear in public in the garb of mourning, with beard and hair in an unkempt condition, in neglected attire, and stripped of every sign of rank. The mere accusation involved some suspense of legal rights, preventing the reus from standing for any office and from exercising the functions of a judge. The higher officials were exempt from criminal accusation while in office and when engaged in the discharge of public business. Lastly, lawsuits between two persons connected by ties of family or office, such as parents and children, patrons and clients, were regarded as inadmissible.
COTHURNUS	12.31%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 or more correctly Coturnus (Gr. Kothornos). A Greek name for a high shoe or buskin with several soles. It covered the whole foot, and rose as high as the middle of the lea. It was made so as to fit either foot, Ld was generally fastened in front with red straps. The cothurnus was properly a hunling boot, but Aeschylus made it part of the costume of his tragic actors to give them a stature above the average. At the same time the hair was dress6d high in order to maintain the proportion of the figure. The cothurnus was also used in the Roman tragedy. (See SOCCUS.)
FERONIA	12.01%
An old Italian goddess, of Sabine origin, but also much worshipped in Etruria. She seems originally to have been regarded in the same light as Flora, Libera, and Venus. The Greeks called her a goddess of flowers; on coins she is represented as a girl in the bloom of youth, with flowers in her hair. She was also worshipped as the goddess of emancipation from slavery. She had a very celebrated shrine at the foot of Mount Soracte in Etruria, where the whole neighbourbood used to bring her rich votive offerings and the firstfruits of the field. The annual festivals served as fairs, such was the crowd of people who flocked to them. The mythical king Erulus of Praeneste was regarded as her son. He had three lives, and had to be slain three times by Evander in consequence.
ERINYES	11.75%
The goddesses of vengeance. Homer speaks sometimes of one, sometimes of several, but without any definite statement about either number, name, or descent. Hesiod makes them the daughters of Gaia (Earth), sprung from the blood of the mutilated Uranus. According to others they were the daughters of Night (Nyx) or of the Earth, and Darkness (Skotos). Euripides is the earliest writer who fixes their number at three, and considerably later we find them with the names Allecto ("She who rests not"), Tisiphone ("Avenger of murder"), and Magaera ("The jealous one.") They are the avengers of every transgression of natural order, and especially of offences which touch the foundation of human society. They punish, without mercy, all violations of filial duty, or the claims of kinship, or the rites of hospitality ; murder, perjury, and like offences; in Homer even beggars have their Erinys. The punishment begins on earth and is continued after death. Thus they pursue Orestes and Alemaeon, who slew their mothers, and CEdipus for the murder of his father and marriage with his mother, without regard to the circumstances by which their offences were excused. Their principle is a simple one, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." In spite of their terrible attributes as goddesses of vengeance they were called Semnai (the honourable) and Euminedes(the kindly). For the punishment of the evil secures the well-being of the good, and by pursuing and destroying transgressors the Erinyes prove themselves benevolent and beneficent. They were worshipped in Athens under the name of Semnai, and had a shrine on the Areopagus, and the hill of Colonus. Fresh water and black sheep were offered to them in sacrifice. The terrible picture drawn of them by Aeschylus in his Eumenides, as women like Gorgons, with snakes for hair, bloodshot eyes, grinding teeth, and long black robes with blood-red girdles, was softened down in later times. They appear as maidens of stern aspect, with snakes in their hair or round their girdles and arms, torches, scourges, or sickles in their hands, generally in the costume of huntresses, and sometimes with wings as a sign of the swiftness of their vengeance (see cut). The Furies (Furiae or Dirae) of the Roman poets are a mere adaptation of the Greek Erinyes. They are generally represented as torturing the guilty in the world below, but as sometimes appearing on earth, to excite to crime and throw men into madness.