To Shave or Not to Shave?

If you flip through your family album, you’ll likely see your forefathers’ facial hair appear and vanish like leaves in one of those time-lapse nature documentaries. Flip-flops in facial-hair fashion date to 30,000 BCE, when our prehistoric ancestors first tried shaving with flint blades; little wonder many gave up and grew beards. Ancient Egyptians revived shaving with a vengeance, using copper razors to shave their faces as well as heads. In ancient Greece, however, beards signified virility.
Then came Alexander the Great, who reputedly feared that enemies could grasp beards in battle, the better to slay his soldiers. So Alexander banned beards, and set the example by shaving before battle. His clean-shaven visage on coins boosted barbering business throughout the ancient world. In Rome, Scipio Africanus, the beardless general who defeated Hannibal, set a fashion for shaving that persisted until Hadrian, who grew a beard to hide his scarred face.