LGBT+ History Month – Roman Hair Pins

The earliest pins date from after the Roman conquest, around the middle of the first century AD, and they continued to be made and used into the fifth century. Over this time, their styles changed – they were fashion items, after all – and we can use them to help date archaeological sites. Those seen here, all made from bone, were found in excavations at Gravely Road in Great Wymondley during house building in 1937 and date from about AD 150 to after 400.

Why are they so common on archaeological sites? The simple answer is that there was no hairspray in the Roman period, but women’s hairdos were often very complex. They would see portraits of Empresses on coins and elsewhere and try to copy their styles. To keep both their own hair and hairpieces in place, women (or more likely their slaves) would stitch and pin long hair into position. Some pins even have heads with their own hairstyles, showing famous women or goddesses with the latest fashions.

So they are clearly women’s dress accessories (as archaeologists like to call such things). But not so fast. They also turn up on Roman military sites, places strongly associated with men. Before the end of the second, women were not allowed into forts. The historian Herodian recorded that Septimius Severus was the first to allow soldiers γυναιξί τε συνοικεῖν (‘to cohabit with their wives’) after he had executed Clodius Albinus in 197. Before that, we wouldn’t expect to find women’s objects inside forts, yet archaeologists (including the writer) have found second-century hair pins in such places.

What are they doing in supposedly all-male places? One likelihood is that soldiers kept hair pins as reminders of their wives and girlfriends who lived outside the fort. In the course of any relationship, it’s not unusual for partners to have rows and throw away little gifts: this could explain why hairpins turn up among rubbish in alleyways between barrack blocks. But there may be more to them than that.

Might it be that some soldiers wore drag for entertainment? It was usual during the chaotic week-long winter festival of Saturnalia for men and women to swap clothes and social roles. This was a way of making fun of the social order, a time when slaves could talk back to their owners, public gambling (usually illegal) was allowed, and each household would choose a Lord of Misrule to disrupt everyday life. Outside the festival, cross-dressing was not technically allowed, except on the stage, where men performed women’s roles. Is it going too far to imagine Roman soldiers entertaining their colleagues with drag shows?

However, we know from ancient literature that certain Roman men known as cinaedi behaved effeminately, wore women’s clothes and make-up, and had sex with other men. Some served in the army. In a short story by Phaedrus, a freedman of the Emperor Augustus, a tall and very effeminate cinaedus heroically defeated and decapitated a barbarian enemy after begging Pompey to allow him into battle. Although this is fiction, Phaedrus’s work shows that it was possible for cinaedi to serve in the army, even if they were not always respected by their commanding officers. Perhaps some hair pins are evidence for such men serving in the army in Britannia.

Another group of people who could wear women’s clothing were the galli, who served as priestesses of Cybele or Magna Mater. These people were born male but self-castrated in a religious frenzy to make themselves women: other priestesses of the goddess were born female. Galli lived on the margins of society, partly feared, partly despised but also partly respected for their ability to make contact with the spirit world in their moments of ecstasy. They led a nomadic lifestyle, depending on other people for their livelihood. The cemetery at Bainesse, near the Roman town of Catterick, contained a skeleton that archaeologists identified as a fourth-century gallus with her necklace and bracelets but with DNA showing that she had been born male.

Taking these ideas into account shows us that we should not automatically assume that we know how apparently gendered artefacts were used in the past. Although women were no doubt the main users of hair pins, there are situations when we know that men might have needed to use them. Hair pins could have been keepsakes of men’s partners or items of personal adornment in special circumstances. In the unique case of galli – people we would perhaps now think of as trans women – the people who owned or used the hair pins were treated socially as women by their contemporaries. Gender is a very complex phenomenon!