Ancient Roman Female Beauty Standards
When I look at old statues and paintings of women, I often fail to see the attraction. While males are depicted with lean, muscular bodies similar to modern ideals, the Venuses of Rome differ from 21st-century divas. It makes me wonder about the ancient Roman female beauty standards.
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Ancient Roman Female Beauty Standards
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and no two women are alike. Yet, the popularity of some aesthetic treatments can give us a hint about what Western people appreciate concerning female beauty: sensual lips, large breasts, and shapely buttocks.
Having lived in East Asia, I can tell you that some standards differ. For instance, Westerners find tanned skin attractive, while East Asians prefer snow-white skin. I remember asking colleagues in Hong Kong why they were wearing gloves in tropical weather. The answer was that they didn’t want the skin on their hands to get tanned.
Curious, I looked it up on the internet, trying to understand the root of this preference. It turns out it is cultural: tanned skin was historically associated with those working the fields, meaning the lower classes. In contrast, the aristocrats had whiter skin since they didn’t toil in the sun.
Provided beauty standards have more to do with cultural aspects than biological ones, what lies behind the Ancient Roman ones?
Female Beauty and Nature
As opposed to many modern city dwellers, the Romans were in touch with nature. They had a deep appreciation for bucolic nature, fertile plains, and curvy coasts. These preferences shouldn’t be surprising given Italian geography. For some reason, though, Romans weren’t big fans of mountains despite the amazing alpine landscapes of their homelands—I should know as we currently live in a mountainous part of Tuscany.
They looked for the same characteristics in women as in nature: fertility, curviness, and delicacy.
Unsurprisingly, the goddess of beauty was often depicted as being voluptuous rather than skinny, with a sturdy body and wide hips. She was of average height, and her legs were less skinny than today’s standards. Also, the statues of Venus usually had petite breasts—perhaps because Romans didn’t like mountains. J
Apart from cultural stereotypes, Romans had practical reasons for their tastes in women. A healthy, well-built body and broad hips minimized the risks of dying in childbirth.
Facial Beauty
Judging by the different frescoes and wall paintings, Romans appreciated women with large eyes, long eyelashes, pronounced eyebrows, and straight noses. However, prominent lips are not evident in ancient imagery.
Hair and Skin
As it often happens with our better halves, Roman women set themselves against unreasonable expectations. Despite most of them having dark hair and an olive complexion, as expected from Mediterranean people, they desired fair hair and pale skin. Blondes always had more fun, apparently.
The most sought-after hair colors were blond and auburn, obtained by dying. Hairdressers must have made a fortune in those days.
As for the skin, Roman women used different chemicals to whiten it, some of them highly toxic, such as lead powder. A beauty to die for. Literally.
Also, Roman women were expected to have little or no body hair. Lacking modern hair removal machines, they had to scrape it off using rudimentary tools.
Erotic Depictions of Women
Another source of understanding ancient Roman female beauty standards is the erotic art uncovered in private residences and brothels. In most cases, women are depicted as having broad hips, small breasts, and pale skin, as far as we can tell.
Interestingly, though, erotic imagery depicted realistic-looking women, while the representations of divine figures were more idealized. Always the pragmatists, Romans knew mortals couldn’t rival in beauty with goddesses, so they adjusted their fantasies to reality. Little did they know that one day, women would compete with artificially generated images of unattainable “perfection.”
Parting Thoughts
Like most people, I am appalled by the practice of slavery or the cruelty of the Romans. Yet, the more I study them, the more I appreciate their practical approach to many other aspects, including ancient Roman female beauty standards.
As a nature lover myself, I can relate to the Romans’ cultural affinity with serene landscapes and an idealized rural existence. It makes more sense to me to associate female beauty with nature than with class or social standing.
Since we are on the subject of class-related beauty standards, in parts of Medieval Europe, having visibly bad teeth was considered desirable since only prosperous individuals could afford sugar. Yuck! Call me a revolutionary socialist, but I am with the Romans on this. Nature is universally beautiful, unlike other things.
Also, Roman gods were expected to embody physical perfection, both male and female. Still, Romans had a clear-eyed view regarding what is realistic in the mortal realm.
They didn’t expect real-life women to resemble divinity or possess gravity-defying body parts. Apparently, the Romans understood one of the fundamental laws of physics many centuries before Newton formulated his law of universal gravitation.
The only part I find contradictory is Roman’s preference for pale skin. As my Asian friends pointed out, one can’t have pale skin if one spends time in the fields or the coasts. Moreover, paleness doesn’t indicate health and fertility. Perhaps they weren’t as smart after all.
