APPENDIX C΄ ON DEPILATION: BODY COSMETICS IN CLASSICAL ...

544 APPENDIX C΄
Firstly, then, to have the pubic hair removed was practised by men,
too, and this even in early times. The connotation is again of
wantonness and lewd abandon to sexual pleasures. See Aristophanes,
Nubes, 977-8: äÏ›ʷÙÔ ‰’ iÓ ÙÔéÌÊ·ÏÔÜ Ôé‰Âd˜ apple·Ö˜ ñapple¤ÓÂÚıÂÓ /
ÙfiÙ’ ôÓ, œÛÙ / ÙÔÖ˜ ·å‰Ô›ÔÈÛÈ ‰ÚfiÛÔ˜ ηd ¯ÓÔܘ œÛappleÂÚ Ì‹ÏÔÈÛÈ
âapple‹ÓıÂÈØ where the contrast implies the opposite practice in
Aristophanes’ time among boys. (The above- mentioned connotation
is testified by the context of the passage). This is, however, a general
statement, applicable to all boys and not especially to those
particularly prone to pleasure (äÏ›ʷÙÔ rather indicates gymnastic
exercises), and perhaps simply explainable by the repugnance which
ancient Greeks felt to exist between beauty, either in young woman or
young man, and hairiness in any part of the body other than the skull
(compare, e.g. for women, the descriptions of the lowermost part of
the female trunk in Rufinus’ epigrams, Anth. Graeca Book V, 35 and
36, implying as they do, immaculate hairlessness); though, even so,
the change of habits as reported by Aristophanes must be significant.
But we may add another conclusive testimony from Menander’s
\OÚÁ‹ apud Athenaeus IV 166A (Fr. I, Meineke IV p. 178): ηd
‚¿„ÔÌ·È, / ηd apple·Ú·ÙÈÏÔÜÌ·È Óc ¢›·, ηd ÁÂÓ‹ÛÔÌ·È / KÙ‹ÛÈappleappleÔ˜,
ÔéÎ ôÓıÚˆappleÔ˜, âÓ çÏ›Áˇˆ ¯ÚfiÓˇˆ - where even the rest of the fragment,
and, besides, what Athenaeus relates about Ctesippus, the son of the
famous general Chabrias, make it clear that we have here to do with
àÛˆÙ›· and ì‰˘apple¿ıÂÈ· in men.
It is instructive here to compare the same Aristophanian sentiment
as is found in Lucian, Cynicus §14. It is once more about the
perennial theme of the good old days when morality prevailed. The
men of old were real men, and they could move without shoes and
without clothes (the modern equivalent of Lucian would not, though,
praise nakedness equally fervently, I suppose!), and they wore the hair
and beard that God bestowed on them as an ornament, like the mane
of lions and horses. They were better than us, and no one of them
would suffer to be shaved no less than any lion would suffer this.
ñÁÚfiÙËÙ· ÁaÚ Î·d ÏÂÈfiÙËÙ· Û·ÚÎe˜ Á˘Ó·ÈÍd appleÚ¤appleÂÈÓ ìÁÔÜÓÙÔ, ·éÙÔd
‰’ œÛappleÂÚ qÛ·Ó, ηd Ê·›ÓÂÛı·È ôÓ‰Ú˜ õıÂÏÔÓ! ñÁÚfiÙ˘ (limpid
liquidity, this indefinable quality of moist voluptuousness which, for
the ancients, could characterise a body and a form of life, a glance and
a style) and smoothness are, as always, the signs of a body, and a
temperament, luxuriating in sensual gratification. And Lucian ends