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AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)
Chapter 9
Section 1 Subsection 9
Faces as the Faces of Men
Another resemblance of the locusts was that "they had faces as faces of men." This distinguished them from the Goths and other kindred barbarian hordes; the faces of these being noticed by Jerome, who was contemporary with their earliest invasions, as having faces shaven and smooth, like women’s faces. The beard was not always worn by the Romans. From Nero to Hadrian, the imperatorial custom was to have the beard shaven; from Hadrian to Constantine, unshaven; afterwards (with the exception of Julian), down to Phocas, shaven. But the locusts did not shave. They wore beards, and so vindicated their relationship to the bearded race, and their antagonism to all shaven crowns.
Pliny, who was contemporary with John, speaks of the Arabs as
wearing the turban, having the hair long and uncut, with the
moustache on the upper lip, or the beard, that "venerable
sign of manhood," as Gibbon, in Arab phraseology, calls
it. In the age immediately preceding the great Saracen irruption,
in the poem, Antar, the Arabs are portrayed with moustache
and beard, long hair flowing on the shoulder ("hair as
the tresses of women," which the Greeks regarded as shameful),
and the turban also.