Note 43 — Chapter V · COSTUME AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT

Even less profitable, it would seem, is to try to list the cosmetics wherewith many Roman ladies, like their sisters of all times, covered their faces. Rouge was used in great quantities, and effeminate young men were known to have employed it. Eyebrows were blackened with antimony; lips were reddened, and of course hair dye was a familiar article. Propertius suggests that some women went so far as to trace over the veins in their temples with blue. Other women indulged in small black patches somewhat as did English ladies in the days of Queen Anne:—“There is nothing new under the sun.”