Today my seven-year-old asked me “Who were the first men not to have whiskers?”
I told him the Romans, thinking about the Latin root for barbarians being barbae, and the contrast between the barbae and the Roman soldiers.
However, on reflection I think I’m almost certainly wrong.
So, can anyone answer for my son: do we know who the first people were to shave? Why was the custon started? And what did they use?
It goes back further than you might think. Here is a time line of shaving history. It probably goes back through the entire history of modern man and even the Neanderthals (at least 100,000 years).
A book I had as a kid claimed that the Macedonians under Alexander the Great were, and that he had them do this to avoid having their beards grabbed in battle.
But it’s not true. The Egyptians and the Sumerians were doing it millenia before. The explanations I’ve heard are that they did it to eliminate hiding places for fleas and other vermin, and they wore wigs and artificial beards when required.
Wiki article and [sup]4[/sup] Footnote cite
Where the heck did you hear that? The word barbarian doesn’t even come from Latin, it’s Greek - bárbaros. I’ve never heard of any other origin for it than that it refers to those people who can’t speak Greek, and therefore sound like they go around saying “bar-bar-bar” all the time. That is, foreigners. Please clear this up with your son right away.
I may be showing my ignorance here, but aren’t there places in the world where the natives, as a rule, don’t have facial hair to speak of? I mean, it doesn’t grow on their faces in the first place?
Sorry, Peak… he’s right. Kind of
While barbaros was a Greek term, and was derived from those crazy Hellenes making fun of the speech of foreigners, the word barbarian in English is derived from a group of related terms in Latin that also referred to foreigners: Barbaria, meaning foreign land, barba, meaning beard, and barbarus, meaning… well, the same thing as barbaros.
The term barber, or course, derives specifically from barba, but it’s difficult to pin down which of the terms is the proper ‘ancestor’ of the English barbarian. It is amusing, however, to note that when the Romans coopted the Greek word, and evolved it into referring to another aspect of oddity about foreigners, they ended up including the Greeks (a beardy lot themselves) as ‘barbarians’.
OK, conceding that I’m no expert, I’m willing to have my ignorance fought here. However, I’ve now been googling a bit, and what I’m finding is this: Firstly, no signs of “barba” being related to or evolved from “barbaros”. “Barbaros” does appear to *predate *Greek, with “barbara” in Sanskrit meaning “stammering”. However, “barba” and related words apparently have also been referring to facial hair since at least PIE (when come back, bring…). Anyway, “barba” and “barbaros” just seem to be sort of homophonic, and that’s it.
Online Etymology Dictionary on barbarian and beard .
I suppose what you’re saying is that the Romans conflated the two homophonic terms and had them both refer to foreigners. However, I’m finding no signs that the Romans (who *were *beardless, at least between Scipio Africanus and the emperor Hadrian) referred to foreigners - barbarians - at especially hairy. Got a cite?
Secondly, I *am *finding a heap of results referring to the connection of “barbarian” and “bearded” as a popular and utterly bogus folk etymology, which is what I suspect is what may be going on in the OP (no disrespect intended and keep correcting me if I’m wrong).
Thanks for all the replies.
Peak Banana, I don’t have a cite for any link between barbarian and barbae, just one of those things I’ve read over the years.
However, having googled and wiki-ed it, looks like I’m mistaken. The consensus seems to be that it’s a fallacy.
I guess I’m just one of those folks who’s perpetuating that bogus folk etymology!
Yes. Some East Asians and some American Indians are naturally beardless. Not all of them, though.
I’ve never heard the barbarian/barbae thing before. Diomedes, do you have any citations for your interpretation? (Don’t worry about things inaccessible online - I can get journal articles, books, etc.)
And as an apology for continuing the hijack, I give you this (highly generalized) tidbit, which admittedly doesn’t answer your question, but tells you about the beards of Greek and Roman men:
“Men in early Greece and Rome wore beards and allowed the hear of the head to grow long. From the 5th cent. BC the Greeks cut the hear of their heads short, and from the time of Alexander the Great they shaved their chins. The Romans followed in the 3rd century BC, but from the time of Hadrian they again wore beards.” From the Oxford Classical Dictionary, entry on cosmetics.
I’m assuming their evidence is from vase paitings and portraiture.
Well throw out the Greeks and Romans altogether. The Egyptians were doing it much earlier.
Here’s a fresco from the tomb of Onsou (circa 1375 B.C.) Butchers and servants, cleanshaven all.
And the idea was more than a thousand years old even then.
Look at these beardless faces from the Old Kingdom of Egypt (2630 B.C. to 2150 B.C.)
I don’t really consider that evidence. It’s damn hard to draw or sculpt hair, especially facial hair. Considering that there is nary a hair to be found, it’s likely the artist just took a short cut.
But there are two-dimensional and bas relief depictions showing beardless men as well. Here, here, here, here, here and here.
Some sphinxes had beards, and some (including a rather famous one) didn’t.
Right, but as I said, facial hair is difficult to paint/sculpt. Goatees and head hair are easy, so they are included. If we accept your pictures as evidence then we’d have to conclude that all body and pubic hair was shaved, which seems very unlikely absent other supporting evidence.
Oh come on, treis. Facial hair is difficult to draw? Millions of graffitied moustaches on public posters all over the country would seem to present a fair argument to the contrary. 
