Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Sapo

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

SA'PO (σάπων). A Celtic or German word, containing the elements of the low German sepe, and our soap, but indicating an article of different character, both in quality and use, from what is now understood by that term; inasmuch as the ancient sapo was not made for washing, but as a pommade for tinging the hair of a light brown colour. It was composed with goat's tallow and beech wood ashes, the most approved quality being manufactered by its inventors the Germans, the next best in Gaul. It was made up into balls, and imported at Rome for the use of women and young fashionables, amongst whom light hair was considered extremely beautiful, as it is by their descendants of the present time. Plin. H. N. xxviii. 51. Compare Mart. viii. 33. 20. Id. xiv. 26. Beckman, History of Inventions, vol. ii. p. 92. Lond. 1846.