Why do the shirtless units shave their bodies?

[TWFanatic]

This strikes me as being of dubious historicity.

[Foot]

Celts shaved all their body hair. There are some Iberian units and Germanic units with body hair. However most likely reason is that body hair is bloody difficult to look good when doing a skinning job, probably.

Foot

[TWFanatic]

Celts shaved all their body hair.

Interesting, I have never heard this before. I would most appreciate it if you could direct me to a source so that I may educate myself.

[Recoil]

Celts shaved all their body hair.

As far as I know Foot's right here, although most Celts kept their facial hair as it was sign of masculinity (irony )

[Mediolanicus]

Interesting, I never heard before.

I can't help you with sources, but if you've never heard that before, you really must start to read your EB building descriptions more thoroughly. :p

[mucky305]

Yeah, it was called a Gaulish wax. It was a sign of manliness not to whine as it was done either, especially when the hair in the butt crack was ripped out. An old woman was charged with the duty and usually had too much eye makeup and teased hair. Her name would always be Lavernicus.

[Moros]

Any book, doesn't have to be an academic one, about celts will confirm the fact they shave. So if you are interested in celtic culture I'd say try one of the books posted in the EB bibliography.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Celts have always been dubious to me and now I know why.

[Maeran]

because they use soap and soap related products? (varying strengths of lye) yes, very dubious.

Even the hair on models' heads is difficult to get it to look good. Even at the resolutions of M2TW, I personally doubt that normal amounts of hair would show up as more than a slight darkening of the overall skin tone. Anything more would look like a comedy rug.

[Megas Methuselah]

Yeah, you're right. From far away, it would either look like a shirt, dirt, or nothing.

because they use soap and soap related products?

They sure knew how to impress their women, alright. In some ways, they were very modern in their outlook. Compare that to the Romans, who for a long time widely saw soap as immoral(right?), and avoided it. CA sure did a good job in completely portraying the Celts as something they were not...

[a completely inoffensive name]

Yeah, it was called a Gaulish wax. It was a sign of manliness not to whine as it was done either, especially when the hair in the butt crack was ripped out. An old woman was charged with the duty and usually had too much eye makeup and teased hair. Her name would always be Lavernicus.

Steve Carell in 40 Year Old Virgin would be a horrible Gaul then, lol.

[TWFanatic]

Any book, doesn't have to be an academic one, about celts will confirm the fact they shave. So if you are interested in celtic culture I'd say try one of the books posted in the EB bibliography.

Shaving is quite different from shaving your entire body. I will take your advice though and check out the Celtic section in the EB Bibliography.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

because they use soap and soap related products? (varying strengths of lye) yes, very dubious.

Because they shaved their body hair. That means they are almost as perverse as Egyptians.

Soap was first used by Germans. Soap is fantastic! Soap means you can keep a manly appearance and don't have to stink like a Roman at the same time.

[Bellum]

Romans weren't exactly against hygiene themselves. :P

[russia almighty]

Olive oil and scraping it off isn't as good of a cleaning agent as soap is.


Lye is nasty stuff that will kill bacteria no problem. It's not an anti-biotic, it's a pure disinfectant.

[Recoil]

I don't get why Romans didn't use soap themselves though, surely they wanted to live the high life, and that normally comes along with smelling good. Also, why is it that all Roman descriptions of barbarians seem to include the idea that they all had an awful stench and never washed, even though it was in reverse?

[L.C.Cinna]

Caesar's Gallic War is one of the sources. Caesar says that they shaved their bodyhair.

There is another source about the greeks but I don't remember right now (was it Xenophon, not sure) who said he'd rather rely on an old torn veteran than on the young men of his time which shaved their whole body...maybe someone knows which quote I mean.

[Megas Methuselah]

I don't get why Romans didn't use soap themselves though, surely they wanted to live the high life, and that normally comes along with smelling good. Also, why is it that all Roman descriptions of barbarians seem to include the idea that they all had an awful stench and never washed, even though it was in reverse?

It was considered immoral, I think. Probably because it was how the "Barbarians" kept clean. But I'm not an expert, so someone should confirm this.

[Bellum]

Basically it had to do with Romans wanting to scrape oil off of each other.

...

Well, probably not. :P

[konny]

I don't get why Romans didn't use soap themselves though, surely they wanted to live the high life, and that normally comes along with smelling good. Also, why is it that all Roman descriptions of barbarians seem to include the idea that they all had an awful stench and never washed, even though it was in reverse?

1.) "Civilized" people who didn't had any contact with Barbarians (others than slaves) expected them to stink like cattle. That's why people who actualy had contact with them reported that they do so to impress their audience.

2.) For most of the times Romans encountered Germans as soldiers only; and soldiers on campaign usually do have an awful stench in all armies and all times. Everyone who as at the army can confirm it that even after a two or three days field excerise where you can't change clothes or wash properly (leave alone a shower) the smell of your clothes becomes so awfull that trying to keep your body clean with a handfull of water becomes somewhat pointless. Pre-industrial armies on campaign often couldn't change clothes for months; one can easly guess how these must have smelled.

[TWFanatic]

Courtesy of Prometheus:

[Moros]

They did shave their bodies though. Prometheus is/was a great artist. But historically he's not correct here.

[O'ETAIPOS]

I don't get why Romans didn't use soap themselves though, surely they wanted to live the high life, and that normally comes along with smelling good. Also, why is it that all Roman descriptions of barbarians seem to include the idea that they all had an awful stench and never washed, even though it was in reverse?

There is one important factor - Italy and Greece is very hot. You would have to sit in air-conditioned room to prevent sweating. If you have to spend most of a day in the sun, and don't have air-conditioning there is no way to smell perfect, no matter if you use soap or not.

And it's completely wrong to assume that Greeks and Romans never washed. They did, and in fact quite a lot. Imperial Rome was consuming immense amount of water, delivered by network of aqueducts that covered whole city. Some scholars calculated that this amount of water was close to water usage in whole medieval Europe!

Both Greeks and Romans used steam baths, and in typical bath complex (public or private) there were pools with hot and cold water.

Scraping off dust was also practised, but it was heavily connected with athletic activities, not ordinary method of "washing".

[Tollheit]

Maybe some barbarian peoples ate lots of smelly things? Things like Allium ursinum, lutefisk and surströmming?

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Maybe some barbarian peoples ate lots of smelly things? Things like Allium ursinum, lutefisk and surströmming?

Like Garum?

[Tollheit]

According to these people, garum does not smell, quite unlike the production thereof. I did not try it, though.

[L.C.Cinna]

1.) "Civilized" people who didn't had any contact with Barbarians (others than slaves) expected them to stink like cattle. That's why people who actualy had contact with them reported that they do so to impress their audience.

2.) For most of the times Romans encountered Germans as soldiers only; and soldiers on campaign usually do have an awful stench in all armies and all times. Everyone who as at the army can confirm it that even after a two or three days field excerise where you can't change clothes or wash properly (leave alone a shower) the smell of your clothes becomes so awfull that trying to keep your body clean with a handfull of water becomes somewhat pointless. Pre-industrial armies on campaign often couldn't change clothes for months; one can easly guess how these must have smelled.

That's all complete nonsense. The Romans bathed a lot. They built bathhouses EVERYWHERE even next to most samller camps near Hadrian's wall. They were obsessed with bathing. Like someone said, they needed lots of water. Cologne (CCAA) for example had the same water consumption as today (with much less inhabitants!)


The process is the following:

oiling, scraping, then, hot bath or steam bath or both, then cold bath, normal bath, oiling with some nice smelling oils, done. Why do you think they built those huge baths in Rome and everywhere so that everyone could go?

"Of all the leisure activities, bathing was surely the most important for the greatest number of Romans, since it was part of the daily regimen for men of all classes, and many women as well."

check here, they even show Roman bikinis lol

[Tellos Athenaios]

As O' ETAIROS already mentioned the Greeks and Romans used different albeit similarly effective methods of washing themselves.

Now to get back to the bit about shaving:

a) Not every man develops body hair on the chest;
b) Not every man develops dark black body hair on the chest whilst having a very pale skin;
c) People who go out in the sun without a lot in the way of sun block tend to develop a distinctive tan. And incidentally, sun light tends to 'bleach' hair.

So if the Celts only shaved regularly; then even right in the middle between two 'shaving days' the body hair wouldn't be all that distinctive a feature. It doesn't grow quite as fast as a moustache, you know. (?) Anywho add the already outlined reasoning; plus that of others to the simple fact there's only 1 guy being cloned approximately 240 times the amount of units over on hughe unit sizes... Need one say more?

EDIT: Though I do have to say that in Italy one tends to sweat significantly less than say over here in the Netherlands doing the same work. Regardless of temperature differences (which aren't that significant anyways); since the air is a lot more dry in Italy than it is in the Netherlands.

[konny]

That's all complete nonsense. The Romans bathed a lot.

And what had this to do with soldiers on campaign smelling?

[General Appo]

Yeah, no matter how obsessed the Romans were with bathing it´s not like they built a bathhouse togheter with the daily camp. Near to permanent forts maybe, but do you really think Caesar´s soldiers stopped every day to build a bathhouse?