''Physiognomonics'' (; ) is an

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

pseudo-Aristotelian treatise on

physiognomy Physiognomy () or face reading is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. The term can also refer to the general appearance of a person, object, or terrain without referenc ...

attributed to

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

(and part of the ''

Corpus Aristotelicum The works of Aristotle, sometimes referred to by modern scholars with the Latin phrase ''Corpus Aristotelicum'', is the collection of Aristotle's works that have survived from antiquity. According to a distinction that originates with Aristotle ...

''). It is a Peripatetic work, dated to the 4th/3rd century BC.

Ancient physiognomy before the ''Physiognomonics''

Although ''Physiognomonics'' is the earliest work surviving in Greek devoted to the subject, texts preserved on clay tablets provide evidence of physiognomy manuals from the

First Babylonian dynasty The Old Babylonian Empire, or First Babylonian Empire, is dated to , and comes after the end of Sumerian power with the destruction of the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the subsequent Isin-Larsa period. The Chronology of the Ancient Near East, chrono ...

, containing divinatory case studies of the ominous significance of various bodily dispositions. At this point physiognomy is "a specific, already theorized, branch of knowledge" and the heir of a long-developed technical tradition.Raina, Introduction. While loosely physiognomic ways of thinking are present in Greek literature as early as

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

, physiognomy proper is not known before the classical period. The term ''physiognomonia'' first appears in the fifth-century BC

Hippocratic Hippocrates of Kos (; ; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician and philosopher of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is traditionally referred to as the "Fat ...

treatise ''Epidemics'' (II.5.1). Physiognomy was mentioned in a work by

Antisthenes Antisthenes (; , ; 446 366 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and a pupil of Socrates. Antisthenes first learned rhetoric under Gorgias before becoming an ardent disciple of Socrates. He adopted and developed the ethical side of Socrates' teachings, ...

on the

Sophists A sophist () was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics and mathematics. They taught ''arete'', "virtue" or "excellen ...

, which provides evidence of its recognition as an art (''

techne In Ancient Greek philosophy, techne (; , ) is a philosophical concept that refers to making or doing. Today, while the Ancient Greek definition of techne is similar to the modern definition and use of " practical knowledge", techne can include var ...

''). In Aristotle's time, physiognomics was acknowledged as an art (''techne'') with its own skilled practitioners (''technitai''), as we see from a reference in ''

Generation of Animals The ''Generation of Animals'' (or ''On the Generation of Animals''; Greek: ''Περὶ ζῴων γενέσεως'' (''Peri Zoion Geneseos''); Latin: ''De Generatione Animalium'') is one of the biological works of the Corpus Aristotelicum, the col ...

'' (IV.3):

Then people say that the child has the head of a ram or a bull, and so on with other animals, as that a calf has the head of a child or a sheep that of an ox. All these monsters result from the causes stated above, but they are none of the things they are said to be; there is only some similarity, such as may arise even where there is no defect of growth. Hence often jesters compare someone who is not beautiful to a goat breathing fire, or again to a ram butting, and a certain physiognomist reduced all faces to those of two or three animals, and his arguments often prevailed on people. (trans. Pratt rev. Barnes)

Already in antiquity, physiognomy's pretensions to a "scientific" foundation were questioned and debated. It had connections to

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

, but also to magic and

divination Divination () is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a should proceed by reading signs, ...

The treatise

Structure and content

The treatise is divided into sections on theory (805a1-808b10) and method (808b11-814b9). The connections between bodily features and character are treated in detail, cataloguing, for example, twelve kinds of nose, and the distinctive features of the ''

cinaedus Homosexuality in ancient Rome Societal attitudes toward homosexuality, differed markedly from the contemporary Western culture, West. Latin lacks words that would precisely Translation, translate "homosexual" and "heterosexual". The primary dich ...

''.Brennan.

Connections to Aristotle

The pseudo-Aristotelian treatise begins with an allusion to Aristotle's '' Prior Analytics'' (II.27, on the body-soul correlation), and many of the physiognomic connections discussed are mentioned specifically in the ''

History of Animals ''History of Animals'' (, ''Ton peri ta zoia historion'', "Inquiries on Animals"; , "History of Animals") is one of the major texts on biology by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. It was written in sometime between the mid-fourth centur ...

''.

Influence

The author's systematic scheme of physiognomic relationships was not adopted by later writers on the subject; the proliferation of incompatible teachings had "the cumulative effect of undermining the authority of the profession as a whole."

Notes

References

* T. Corey Brennan, "Review: ristotelesPhysiognomonica, edited by S. Vogt", ''Classical World'' 99.2 (2006), pp. 202-203. * Giampiera Raina (trans. and comm.), ''Pseudo Aristotele: Fisiognomica; Anonimo Latino: Il trattato di fisiognomica'', 2nd ed., Milan: Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, 1994.

External links

* * Greek texts:

Immanuel Bekker August Immanuel Bekker (21 May 17857 June 1871) was a German philologist and critic. Biography Born in Berlin, Bekker completed his classical education at the University of Halle under Friedrich August Wolf, who considered him as his most promi ...

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