Ancient and classical world Phoenicia Phoenicia, the ancient Semitic civilization centered on the coastline of the Eastern Mediterranean (modern-day
Syria,
Lebanon and
Israel), gave great attention to the hair and beard. It was arranged in three, four, or five rows of small tight curls, and extended from ear to ear around the cheeks and chin. Sometimes, however, in lieu of the many rows, we find one row only, the beard falling in tresses curled at the extremity. There is no indication of the Phoenicians having cultivated mustachios.
Israelites Israelite society placed a special importance on the beard. Many male religious figures mentioned in the
Tanakh are recorded to have had facial hair. According to biblical scholars, the shaving of hair, particularly of the
corners of the beard, was a mourning custom. The religious cultivation of beards by Israelites may have been done as a deliberate attempt to distinguish their behaviour in comparison to their neighbours, reducing the impact of foreign customs (and religion) as a result. The
Hittites and
Elamites were clean-shaven, and the
Sumerians were also frequently without a beard; conversely, the
Egyptians and Libyans shaved the beard into very stylised elongated
goatees.
Egypt While generally ancient Egyptian fashion called for men to be clean-shaven, during at least some periods the highest ranking Ancient Egyptians grew hair on their chins which was often dyed a reddish orange with
henna and sometimes plaited with an interwoven gold thread. A metal false beard, or
postiche, which was a sign of sovereignty, was worn by kings and by
queens regnant. This was held in place by a ribbon tied over the head and attached to a gold chin strap, a fashion existing from about . According to
William Smith in these ancient times the moustache was shaven, leaving clear the space around the lips. A smooth face was regarded as a sign of effeminacy. The
Spartans punished cowards by shaving off a portion of their beards. Greek beards were also frequently curled with
tongs. Youngsters usually did not grow a beard, moreover wearing a beard became optional for adults in the .
Macedon In Ancient Macedonia, during the time of
Alexander the Great (r. 336–323 BCE) the custom of smooth shaving was introduced. Alexander strongly promoted shaving during his reign because he believed it looked tidier. Reportedly, Alexander ordered his soldiers to be clean-shaven, fearing that their beards would serve as handles for their enemies to grab and hold onto. The practice of shaving spread from the Macedonians, whose kings are represented on coins, statues, etc. with smooth faces, throughout the whole known world of the Macedonian Empire. Laws were passed against it, without effect, at Rhodes and Byzantium; even
Aristotle conformed to the new custom, unlike the other philosophers, who retained the beard as a badge of their profession. Due to this, a man with a beard, after the Macedonian period, implied a philosopher; there are many allusions to this custom of the later philosophers in such proverbs as: "The beard does not make the sage." Due to this association with philosophers, who lost reputation over time, the beard acquired more and more a negative connotation, as in Theodore Prodromos, Lucian of Samosata and Julian the apostate (who wrote the Misopogon, i.e. "beard hater")
Rome Shaving seems to have not been known to the
Romans during their early history (under the kings of Rome and the early Republic). Pliny tells us that P. Ticinius was the first who brought a barber to Rome, which was in the 454th year from the founding of the city (that is, around ).
Scipio Africanus () was apparently the first among the Romans who shaved his beard. However, after that point, shaving seems to have caught on very quickly, and soon almost all Roman men were clean-shaven; being clean-shaven became a sign of being Roman and not Greek. Only in the later times of the Republic did the Roman youth begin shaving their beards only partially, trimming it into an ornamental form; prepubescent boys oiled their chins in hopes of forcing premature growth of a beard. Still, beards remained rare among the Romans throughout the Late Republic and the early Principate. In a general way, in Rome at this time, a long beard was considered a mark of slovenliness and squalor. The censors
L. Veturius and
P. Licinius compelled
M. Livius, who had been banished, on his restoration to the city, to be shaved, to lay aside his dirty appearance, and then, but not until then, to come into the
Senate. The first occasion of shaving was regarded as the beginning of manhood, and the day on which this took place was celebrated as a festival. Usually, this was done when the young Roman assumed the
toga virilis.
Augustus did it in his twenty-fourth year,
Caligula in his twentieth. The hair cut off on such occasions was consecrated to a god. Thus
Nero put his into a golden box set with pearls, and dedicated it to
Jupiter Capitolinus. The Romans, unlike the Greeks, let their beards grow in time of mourning; so did Augustus for the death of
Julius Caesar. Other occasions of mourning on which the beard was allowed to grow were appearance as a
reus, condemnation, or some public calamity. On the other hand, men of the country areas around Rome in the time of
Varro seem not to have shaved except when they came to market every eighth day, so that their usual appearance was most likely a short stubble. In the the Emperor
Hadrian (r. 117–138), according to
Dio Cassius, was the first emperor to grow a full beard;
Plutarch says that he did it to hide scars on his face. This was a period in Rome of widespread imitation of Greek culture, and many other men grew beards in imitation of Hadrian and the Greek fashion. After Hadrian until the reign of
Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) all adult emperors appear in busts and coins with beards; but Constantine and his successors until the reign of
Phocas (r. 602–610), with the exception of
Julian the Apostate (r. 361–363), are represented as beardless. While one may be tempted to think that
Socrates and
Plato sported "philosopher's beards", such is not the case. Shaving was not widespread in Athens during fifth and fourth-century BCE and so they would not be distinguished from the general populace for having a beard. The popularity of shaving did not rise in the region until the example of Alexander the Great near the end of the fourth century BCE. The popularity of shaving did not spread to Rome until the end of the third century BCE following its acceptance by
Scipio Africanus. In Rome shaving's popularity grew to the point that for a respectable Roman citizen, it was seen almost as compulsory. The idea of the philosopher's beard gained traction when in 155 BCE three philosophers arrived in Rome as Greek diplomats:
Carneades, head of the
Platonic Academy;
Critolaus of
Aristotle's
Lyceum; and the head of the
Stoics,
Diogenes of Babylon. "In contrast to their beautifully clean-shaven Italian audience, these three intellectuals all sported magnificent beards." Thus the connection of beards and philosophy caught hold of the Roman public imagination. stated he would embrace death before shaving. The importance of the beard to Roman
philosophers is best seen by the extreme value that the Stoic philosopher
Epictetus placed on it. As historian John Sellars puts it, Epictetus "affirmed the philosopher's beard as something almost sacred...to express the idea that philosophy is no mere intellectual hobby but rather a way of life that, by definition, transforms every aspect of one's behavior, including one's shaving habits. If someone continues to shave in order to look the part of a respectable Roman citizen, it is clear that they have not yet embraced philosophy conceived as a way of life and have not yet escaped the social customs of the majority...the true philosopher will only act according to reason or according to nature, rejecting the arbitrary conventions that guide the behavior of everyone else." portray them with long hair and mustaches but beardless.
Caesar reported the
Britons wore no beard except upon the upper lip. The
Anglo-Saxons on arrival in Great Britain wore beards and continued to do so for a considerable time after. Among the
Gaelic Celts of Scotland and Ireland, men typically let their facial hair grow into a full beard, and it was often seen as dishonourable for a Gaelic man to have no facial hair.
Tacitus states that among the Catti, a
Germanic tribe (perhaps the
Chatten), a young man was not allowed to shave or cut his hair until he had slain an enemy. The
Lombards derived their name from the great length of their beards (Longobards – Long Beards). When
Otto the Great said anything serious, he swore by his beard, which covered his breast.
Middle Ages In
Medieval Europe, a beard displayed a
knight's virility and honour. The Castilian knight
El Cid is described in
The Lay of the Cid as "the one with the flowery beard". Holding somebody else's beard was a serious offence that had to be righted in a duel. The punishment for pulling off someone else's beard was the same as for castrating him. While most noblemen and knights were bearded, the Catholic clergy were generally required to be clean-shaven. This was understood as a symbol of their celibacy. In pre-Islamic Arabia, Arabian men would apparently shorten their beards and keep big mustachios. Muhammad encouraged his followers to do the opposite, to grow their beards and trim their moustaches, to differ with the non-believers. This style of beard subsequently spread along with Islam during the Muslim expansion in the Middle Ages.
From the Renaissance to the present day Most Chinese emperors of the
Ming dynasty (1368–1644) appear with beards or mustaches in portraits. In the 15th century, most European men in both the church and the nobility were clean-shaven. In the 16th-century beards became fashionable, particularly following the
Reformation where many rulers, nobles and religious reformers grew long beards to distinguish themselves from the usually clean shaven Catholic clergy. By the mid 16th century most Catholic clergy also adopted beards.
Every pope from
Clement VII (pope 1523–1534) to
Innocent XII (pope 1691–1700) would also sport facial hair. Some other beards of this time were the Spanish spade beard, the English square cut beard, the forked beard, and the stiletto beard. In 1587
Francis Drake claimed, in a
figure of speech, to have
singed the King of Spain's beard. This trend can be recognised during this period for example amongst monarchs of leading European countries, where the shift can be seen between clean-shaven Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I as well as King of Aragon
Ferdinand II of Aragon and their bearded successor
Charles V, clean-shaven King of England
Henry VII and his bearded successor
Henry VIII and clean-shaven King of France
Louis XII and his bearded successor
Francis I. During the Chinese
Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the ruling
Manchu minority were either clean-shaven or at most wore mustaches, in contrast to the
Han majority who still wore beards in keeping with the Confucian ideal. In the beginning of the 17th century, the size of beards decreased in urban circles of Western Europe with the shape also becoming more pointed. By the middle of the century men usually wore a mustache or a pointed goatee. In the later part of the century, being clean-shaven gradually became more common again amongst the upper classes, so much so that in 1698
Peter the Great of Russia ordered men to shave off their beards, and in 1705 levied a
tax on beards in order to bring Russian society more in line with contemporary Western Europe. Throughout the 18th century essentially all upper class and most middle class European men would be clean shaven. At the end of the eighteenth century, after the
French Revolution, attitudes began to turn away from the upper-class fashions of the previous century particularly among the lower classes. During the early-nineteenth century, most men, particularly amongst the nobility and upper classes; went clean-shaven. However, the shifts which had begun during the revolutionary period began to creep their way into first the middle and then the upper classes and this included the gradual return of facial hair. This is seen in the 1810s and 1820s with many men adopting
sideburns or side whiskers which gradually grew in size in the ensuing decades. Facial hair also became more common amongst servicemen in Western armies during this period with the 'regimental mustache' becoming a common association with the soldiers of the time. This was followed by a dramatic shift in the beard's popularity following the
Revolutions of 1848, with it becoming markedly more popular. Consequently, beards were adopted by many monarchs, such as
Franz Joseph I of Austria (r. 1848 – 1916),
Napoleon III of France (r. 1852 – 1870),
Alexander II of Russia (r. 1855 – 1881), and
William I of Germany (r. 1861 – 1888), as well as many leading statesmen and cultural figures, such as
Benjamin Disraeli,
Charles Dickens,
Giuseppe Garibaldi,
Karl Marx, and
Giuseppe Verdi. This trend can be also recognised in the United States, where the shift can be seen amongst the
presidents during and after the Civil War in the period of 1861 – 1913. Before
Abraham Lincoln, no President had a beard; after Lincoln until
William Howard Taft, every President except
Andrew Johnson and
William McKinley had either a beard or a moustache. Since 1913, when
Woodrow Wilson became president, all presidents have been clean-shaven to the present day. In 2025,
JD Vance became the first U.S. Vice President with facial hair since the mustachioed
Charles Curtis, who left office in 1933. With Vance's beard forming a part of his image and defining the debate on facial hair in politics for the modern era. The beard became linked in this period with notions of masculinity and male courage. The 2010s decade also saw the full beard become fashionable again amongst young
hipster men and a huge increase in the sales of male grooming products. Members of the United States government have notably been historically clean-shaven. The last
President to wear any type of facial hair was
William Howard Taft (1909–13).
Vice President JD Vance wears a beard, but he is the first VP to have any since
Charles Curtis, (1929-33) who had a mustache. The last member of the
United States Supreme Court with a full beard was Chief Justice
Charles Evans Hughes, who served on the Court until 1941. Since 2015, a growing number of male political figures have worn beards in office, including Speaker of the House
Paul Ryan, and Senators
Ted Cruz and
Tom Cotton. JD Vance is also the first member of a presidential ticket to wear facial hair since
Thomas Dewey in 1948. However, unlike Dewey, Vance was successfully elected in 2024. File:Friedrich Engels portrait (cropped).jpg|
Friedrich Engels exhibiting a full moustache and beard that was a common style among Europeans of the 19th century File:Johann Strauss II (3).jpg|
Johann Strauss II with a large beard, moustache, and
sideburns File:Thomas Swann of Maryland - photo portrait seated.jpg|Maryland Governor
Thomas Swann with a long
goatee. Such beards were common around the time of the
American Civil War. File:Black and white portrait of emperor Meiji of Japan.jpg|
Emperor Meiji of Japan wore a full beard and moustache during most of his reign. File:Johannes Brahms portrait (cropped).jpg|alt=|
Johannes Brahms with a large beard and moustache File:Walt Whitman edit 2.jpg|
Walt Whitman with a large beard and moustache File:Tolstoy Leo port.jpg|
Leo Tolstoy with a large beard and moustache File:WG Grace c1902.jpg|English cricketer
W. G. Grace with his trademark beard File:CheyFidel.jpg|Cuban revolutionaries
Che Guevara (left) and
Fidel Castro (right) with patchy beards File:Ned Kelly in 1880.png|The
Ned Kelly beard was named after the bushranger,
Ned Kelly. File:March 2026 Official Vice Presidential Portrait of JD Vance (cropped).jpg|
JD Vance is the first bearded
Vice President of the United States in nearly 100 years. ==In religion==