Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-n9wrp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T04:34:42.657Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A New Portrait of Plato

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Frederik Poulsen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

From the Renaissance onwards efforts have been made to discover the portrait of the thinker whom even his contemporary Isocrates called the ‘prince of philosophers.’ At that period it was believed that it had been discovered in a venerable long-bearded male type, a view which Fulvius Ursinus thought to be supported by a gem inscription. According to this there was no longer anything to prevent the ascription of the name Plato to a whole series of Olympian heads, now acknowledged as being of the type of Dionysus or of Hermes. And when the bronze bust of the Indian Dionysus was found at Herculaneum in the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was greeted with enthusiasm as the most expressive portrait of the great intellectual hero, and passed as such in popular works right down to the end of the nineteenth century. Even in the beginning of this century an Italian archaeologist tried to save the name of Plato, and proposed to explain the bust as a combination of Plato and Dionysus.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , 1920 , pp. 190 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1920

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Antidosis, 261.

2 A survey in Bernoulli, , Griechische Ikonographie, ii. 18Google Scholar.

3 Brunn-Bruckmann, 382; Guida Ruesch, 857, with literature; cp. Bernoulli, op. cit. 25, n. 1. Cp. the replica, Röm. Mitt. xxv. 1910, 166, figs. 21, 22.

4 Bernoulli, op. cit. 21, f. 2.

5 Latest reproduction in Lippold, , Griechische Porträtstatuen, 55Google Scholar, f. 7. See also Bernoulli, op. cit. 21 and 25.

6 Helbig, , Arch. Jahrb. i. 1887, p. 71Google Scholar, Pl. VI. Arndt-Bruckmann, Porträts, Pl. V. Bernoulli, op. cit. 26, Pl. IV.

7 Tod, and Wace, , Catalogue of the Sparta Museum, 128Google Scholar, fig. 24.

8 Hekler, Greek and Roman Portraits, Pl. XXIII. Described by Lippold, op. cit. 56, ii. 1. Ny-Carlsberg Glyptothek, Appendix to Plates, Pl. VII. 415 b.

9 Bernoulli, op. cit. Pl. V. Arndt-Bruckmann, 776, 7. Hekler, op. cit. Pl. XXII. With respect to the other replicas in Bernoulli (p. 27), No. 2 is reproduced, Stuart Jones, Museo Capitolino, Pl. LVI. and LVIII.; No. 6 in Arndt-Bruckmann, 778 ; No. 9 in Arndt-Amelung, , Einzelaufnahmen, 1402Google Scholar, and in Espérandien, , Recueil général, ii. p. 452Google Scholar.

10 Athenaeus, xi. 506a. cp. 507a.

11 Winter, , in Museum in. 66Google Scholar, compares with the head of the old man on the tombstone of Proeles and Procleides, Corize, (Griech. Grabreliefs, Pl. CXLI. (= Arndt-Amelung, , Einzelaufnahmen, 681–2Google Scholar). It is reproduced by Hekler, op. cit. xiv. and by Collignon, , Statues funéraires, 152Google Scholar.

12 Conze, op. cit. Pl. CCLXV. 1298 a, CXXV. 634, LIX. 239 (Miltiades, cf. text, p. 54). Collignon, op. cit. 143.

13 One can form an idea of the beauty of the original by the help of a head from a grave relief at Trieste, Arndt-Anielung, 585; cp. heads on gems, e.g. Furtwangler, , Geschuittene Steine im Berliner Autiquarium, Pl. XXXVI. 5030Google Scholar. Even in Theophrastus' time (i.e. c. 320 B.C.) it is the highest flattery to tell a man that his portrait is a likeness (Char. ii. 12), i.e. that he is as handsome as his portrait.

14 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, , Platon, i. 703Google Scholar.

15 Michaelis', A.Ancient Marbles of Great Britain, 317Google Scholar, n. 48. Bernoulli, op. cit. ii. 2, who reports with incredulity the judgments of Conze and Michaelis that the head is really a portrait of Lysias. The Herm was bought by Brettingham in 1752 for 40 crowns.

16 There seems to me to be a little attempt at rendering passion in the Plato head of the Capitoline Museum; Jones, Stuart, Museo Capitolino, Pl. LVI. n. 58 (p. 242Google Scholar).

17 Last and comprehensively in Wilamowitz, , Platon, ii. 4Google Scholar.

18 Lippold, , Griech. Porträtstatueu, 56Google Scholar. Pliny, 34, 81.

19 Overbeck, , Schriftquellen, 1353Google Scholar. Brunn, , Geschichte der griech. Künstler, i. 396Google Scholar ff.

20 Arndt-Bruckmann, 975—6. Bernoulli, op. cit. i. 171, fig. 33. Hekler, , Greek and Roman Portraits, 96Google Scholarb.

21 Nachmannson, , Historische Attische Inschriften, 58Google Scholar, n. 60. Dittenberger, , Sylloge 3, 3666Google Scholar.

22 cp. S. Reinach, in Amer. Jour. Arch. iv 1888, p. 4Google Scholar. Wilamowitz, , Aristoteles und Athen, ii. p. 413Google Scholar.

23 Pausanias, i. 30, 3. cp. Collignon, , Statues funéraires, 242Google Scholar. How universal a practice it was to decorate a μρῆμα with a portrait statue appears, apart from actual finds, from Pausanias, iii. 24. 7 and 26. 7.

24 Kekulé, , Bildnisse des Sokrates, Abh. der Berl. Akad. 1908Google Scholar.

25 Lucian, , Nigrinos, 2Google Scholar.