In this passage he deprecates current physiognomical speculations, saying that he might criticize them but feared to waste time and become tedious over them.
The chief objection to this view is based upon two lines in the 9th eclogue of Virgil, supposed to have been written 41 or 40 B.C. Here reference is made to a certain Cinna, a poet of such importance that Virgil deprecates comparison with him; it is argued that the manner in which this Cinna, who could hardly have been any one but Helvius Cinna, is spoken of implies that he was then alive; if so, he could not have been killed in 44.
The practice is not a primitive one; Tertullian simply advises Christians to avoid vanity in dressing their hair, and Jerome deprecates both long and closely cropped hair.
