To start with, many elaborate hairstyles you see are wigs or hair pieces. If not attached to the head, it's very easy to set the curls and stitch the style together. I have a tall 1770s style wig I've done this way and it holds up quite well. Diderot has a great plate showing the elaborate hair piece method.

Dealing with ones own hair used a combination of pomade, hairpins, wires, and filling (very often wool or a wire cage). See this 1865 plate about braiding the hair. The straight hairpins are very difficult to deal with, but it just takes a lot of practice (and a lot of hair). Though, enough pomade and you could withstand a hurricane. Wet setting curls or even using a curling iron would usually be the first step for any curled hairstyle as well.

I don't know if you've seen this, but a hairdresser named Janet Stephens figured out how to make those fancy Roman styles without a wig.

Assuming by straight pins you mean U-shaped things with no crimp, I use them in my hair most days, and they work marvelously. Hair forks have also been around for a long while.

And don't forget hair-taping: sewing the hair to the head using a ribbon. I know you mentioned ribbon, but wrapping a ribbon around the end of a braid and using it to literally sew the braid all around one's head are rather a bit different. By which I mean I've had no luck getting a ribbon to stay when it was meant to take the place of a ponytail holder, but it works fine if it's taking the place of 40 bobby pins!

I have a single example for you, about the emperor Hadrian, who was in love with greek culture (and with a specific greek boy):

"His Greek beard and hairstyle were groomed with curling irons by specially trained slaves."

From "Jerusalem: The Biography", by Montefiore.