Did the Greeks and Romans see a hairless body as ideal? If so, did they shave themselves? Does evidence suggest that pubic hair would be painted on?
For political leaders, it if fairly easy to track the trend of facial hair in depictions. Ancient Greek leaders are almost always depicted with facial hair until Alexander the Great, who was well known for shaving and was always depicted with a bare face. Alexander set a bit of a trend. After his death and the division of his empire into the Hellenistic Kingdoms, many of the Hellenistic kings shaved, in part to emphasize their relationship with Alexander. This trend of shaving continued for Roman political leaders until Emperor Hadrian. Hadrian sported a heck of a beard, and after him emperors began to sport their soup-catchers proudly. Eventually the trend of beards on political leaders faded away again, but I don't recall when.
As to pubic hair, many Greek statues did have it! Some examples are the "Tyrannicides" and the "Artemission Zeus". Note that for the tyrannicides statue, there are two figures: Harmodius and Aristogieton. They were lovers, and Aristogeiton was the older partner, and is shown in full adulthood with a beard. Harmodius was the younger partner and is thus shown cleanshaven. Both have pubic hair.
Romans did not work as often in original full body statues, so the question of 'pubic hair' is hard to respond to for their culture. Most full body statues from the Roman Era are copies or imitations of earlier Greek works. Romans did create original busts, but these of course do not answer any questions about body hair. Also Roman depictions of people tend not do be nudes.
This is my first submission to AskHistorians, and I apologize for the lack of citations. Hopefully most of what I've said is either common knowledge in the field or easily confirmed through image searches. I apologize if I broke any submission rules.
Add-on question: how hard would it have been for them to have sculpted body-hair, assuming that's not the answer?
not discouraging anyone from contributing more info, but you may be interested in this related post from a few months ago:
Related (sort of): I remember hearing in an art history class that the Roman statues were at one time brightly painted but the paint had worn off. True? I've never heard it anywhere else.
The Riace Bronzes, famous classical greek statues recovered underwater in Regio Calabria, Italy, feature pubic hair. http://www.italia.it/en/discover-italy/calabria/poi/riace-bronzes.html
I was told that some art didn't have pubic hair because it was considered too sexy. The same reason kid's dolls don't have pubic hair nor definition between the legs - pretend that sexy area doesn't exist. But, actually, many statues to have it, and when I think about how I love the ringlet's of pubic hair, it is images of these old statues that come to mind because they rendered the pubic area and curly hairs so beautifully.
Sort of related question, but how common was it to shave ones pubes during these times? Are there any sources on this?
