Book
Open Access
Visualizing the invisible with the human body
Physiognomy and ekphrasis in the ancient world
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Edited by:
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2020
About this book
Open Access
Physiognomy and ekphrasis are two of the most important modes of description in antiquity and represent the necessary precursors of scientific description. The primary way of divining the characteristics and fate of an individual, whether inborn or acquired, was to observe the patient’s external characteristics and behaviour. This volume focuses initially on two types of descriptive literature in Mesopotamia: physiognomic omens and what we might call ekphrastic description. These modalities are traced through ancient India, Ugaritic and the Hebrew Bible, before arriving at the physiognomic features of famous historical figures such as Themistocles, Socrates or Augustus in the Graeco-Roman world, where physiognomic discussions become intertwined with typological analyses of human characters. The Arabic compendial culture absorbed and remade these different physiognomic and ekphrastic traditions, incorporating both Mesopotamian links between physiognomy and medicine and the interest in characterological ‘types’ that had emerged in the Hellenistic period.
This volume offer the first wide-ranging picture of these modalities of description in antiquity.
This volume offer the first wide-ranging picture of these modalities of description in antiquity.
Author / Editor information
J. Cale Johnson, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; Alessandro Stavru, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy.
Topics
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Frontmatter
I -
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Contents
V -
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Introduction to “Visualizing the invisible with the human body: Physiognomy and ekphrasis in the ancient world”
1 - Part I: Mesopotamia and India
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1. Demarcating ekphrasis in Mesopotamia
11 -
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2. Mesopotamian and Indian physiognomy
41 -
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3. Umṣatu in omen and medical texts: An overview
61 -
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4. The series Šumma Ea liballiṭka revisited
81 -
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5. Late Babylonian astrological physiognomy
119 - Part II: Classical Antiquity
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6. Pathos, physiognomy and ekphrasis from Aristotle to the Second Sophistic
143 -
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7. Iconism and characterism of Polybius Rhetor, Trypho and Publius Rutilius Lupus Rhetor
161 -
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8. Physiognomic roots in the rhetoric of Cicero and Quintilian: The application and transformation of traditional physiognomics
183 -
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9. Good emperors, bad emperors: The function of physiognomic representation in Suetonius’ De vita Caesarum and common sense physiognomics
203 -
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10. Physiognomy, ekphrasis, and the ‘ethnographicising’ register in the second sophistic
227 -
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11. Representing the insane
271 - Part III: Semitic traditions
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12. The question of ekphrasis in ancient Levantine narrative
285 -
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13. Physiognomy as a secret for the king. The chapter on physiognomy in the pseudo-Aristotelian “Secret of Secrets”
321 -
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14. Ekphrasis of a manuscript (MS London, British Library, Or. 12070). Is the “London Physiognomy” a fake or a “semi-fake,” and is it a witness to the Secret of Secrets (Sirr al-Asrār) or to one of its sources?
347 -
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15. A lost Greek text on physiognomy by Archelaos of Alexandria in Arabic translation transmitted by Ibn Abī Ṭālib al-Dimashqī: An edition and translation of the fragments with glossaries of the Greek, Syriac, and Arabic traditions
443 -
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Index
485
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
November 5, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9783110642698
Hardcover published on:
November 5, 2019
Hardcover ISBN:
9783110618266
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Front matter:
6
Main content:
501
Illustrations:
1
Tables:
4
Creative Commons
BY-NC-ND 4.0
Safety & product resources
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Manufacturer information:
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Genthiner Straße 13
10785 Berlin
productsafety@degruyterbrill.com
