Physiognomy (Greekfysiognōmonia), the art of determining a person’s character from his external features, was held in high esteem in the ancient world. The famous story of Socrates and Zopyrus, in which the physiognomist Zopyrus deems the philosopher to be of a naturally stupid and lustful disposition because of his crude facial features, suggests that physiognomy was well-established as a practical art at least from the fourth century BCE onwards. (See R. Foerster,Scriptores physiognomonici 1893, I, viii–xiii; this is the standard edition of ancient physiognomical treatises). Physiognomy was viewed favourably by many philosophical and medical authors, but there was no general agreement on its theoretical basis, and the extant physiognomical treatises are mostly practical handbooks containing relatively little discussion about the legitimacy of the art. Still, they all make reference to the close interrelationship between the body and the soul, which underlies the art: Bodily events cause changes in the soul, mental events affect the body, emotions take on a visible manifestation in facial expressions and gestures, and basic bodily qualities, such as the temperature and density of one’s blood, may even determine one’s mental characteristics. At the very least, these are found to invariably coincide with certain psychic characteristics in all animal kingdom. Evidently, ancient physiognomical authors felt no need to commit themselves to any exact psychophysical theory: the art of physiognomy was a respectable one, with a long tradition, and appreciated mostly for its practical applicability, as it helped one to gauge potential friends and enemies. Thus, the discussion on the methodology of physiognomy is often descriptive in kind, and various approaches to the application of the art are encouraged. Apart from establishing similarities between humans and non-human animals, the analysis of the psychophysical differences between the sexes and different ethnicities was among the most standard approaches to the art.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Classical Philology, University of Helsinki, 24, Unioninkatu 40A, FI-00014, Helsinki, Finland

   Marke Ahonen

Corresponding author

Correspondence toMarke Ahonen.

Editors and Affiliations

1. Department of Systematic Theology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

   Simo Knuuttila

2. Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

   Juha Sihvola

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