Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul : Polemon's Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam

by: Swain, S. Boys-Stones, G. Elsner, J. Ghersetti, A. Hoyland, R. Repath, I.

Price: 198,00 EURO

1 copy in stock

Collects and translates the major surviving Greek, Latin, and Arabic versions of Polemon's Physiognomy
Explores key issues in the political and social culture of the High Roman Empire
Promotes awareness of the importance of Muslims in preserving and developing the Greek origins of Western culture

Description
Polemon of Laodicea (near modern Denizli, south-west Turkey) was a wealthy Greek aristocrat and a key member of the intellectual movement known as the Second Sophistic. Among his works was the Physiognomy, a manual on how to tell character from appearance, thus enabling its readers to choose friends and avoid enemies on sight. Its formula of detailed instruction and personal reminiscence proved so successful that the book was re-edited in the fourth century by Adamantius in Greek, translated and adapted by an unknown Latin author of the same era, and translated in the early Middle Ages into Syriac and Arabic. The surviving versions of Adamantius, Anonymus Latinus, and the Leiden Arabic more than make up for the loss of the original.

The present volume is the work of a team of leading Classicists and Arabists. The main surviving versions in Greek and Latin are translated into English for the first time. The Leiden Arabic translation is authoritatively re-edited and translated, as is a sample of the alternative Arabic Polemon. The texts and translations are introduced by a series of masterly studies that tell the story of the origins, function, and legacy of Polemon's work, a legacy especially rich in Islam. The story of the Physiognomy is the story of how one man's obsession with identifying enemies came to be taken up in the fascinating transmission of Greek thought into Arabic.

Table of Contents
1: Introduction, Simon Swain
I. Antiquity
2: Physiognomy and Ancient Psychological Theory, George Boys-Stones
3: Polemon's Physiognomy, Simon Swain
4: Physiognomics: Art and Text, Jas Elsner
II. Islam
5: The Islamic Background to Polemon's Treatise, Robert Hoyland
6: The Semiotic Paradigm: Physiognomy and Medicine in Islamic Culture, Antonella Ghersetti
7: Polemon's Physiognomy in the Arabic Tradition, Antonella Ghersetti with Simon Swain
III. Texts and Translations
8: A New Edition and Translation of the Leiden Polemon, Robert Hoyland
9: The Istanbul Polemon (TK Recension): Edition and Translation of the Introduction, Antonella Ghersetti
10: The Physiognomy of Adamantius the Sophist, Ian Repath
11: Anonymus Latinus, Book of Physiognomy, Ian Repath

Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul : Polemon's Physiognomy from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam

by: Swain, S. Boys-Stones, G. Elsner, J. Ghersetti, A. Hoyland, R. Repath, I.

• ISBN-13: 9780199291533 / 978-0-19-929153-3
• ISBN-03: 0199291535 / 0-19-929153-5
• Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007

Price: 198,00 EURO

1 copy in stock