The Philosopher and the King

The philosopher statues of the third century are thus the first true portraits of the intellectual in Greek art, for they are the first that attempt to render the thinking process itself, its goals and achievements. Whereas the portraits of thinkers and philosophers in the fifth and fourth centuries had depicted contemplation—when at all—as merely one element of the ideal citizen, within a rigidly structured art form, the purpose now is to convey exclusively and as concretely as possible, different conceptions of intellectual activity. The sharp differences in appearance between the representatives of the different philosophical schools show that the primary concern was still not with the individual thinker, but rather with depicting the intellectual process—however defined by the various schools—as a special achievement. The philosopher represented a challenge to pupil and fellow citizen alike, whether by the force of argumentation or through his ethical stance. The portraiture makes a specific claim, as does the philosophy itself. The fact that each of the different messages reached only a portion of the population is a concomitant of the changed social constraints.

For the Stoics, thinking means above all mental struggle, the triumph of the active mind over the frailty of the body. Ever since the Archaic kouroi, Greek artists had celebrated the male body as the outward manifestation of the subject's physical and spiritual perfection, his kalokagathia . In statues like that of Chrysippus, the body loses its preeminence and now functions only as a foil for expressing the triumph of mind over matter. But thinking and intellectual activity are not simply praised as an end in themselves. Rather, they stand in the service of a moral and rational way of life. As had always been the case, the body expresses one's ethical stance: in a negative sense for the Stoics and Cynics, in a positive sense for the Epicureans, whose "classical" bearing and regular physical features convey an inner calm and self-assurance based on a sense of intellectual superiority.

In the urge to instruct, these philosopher statues accord perfectly with the old traditions of the polis. But the way in which they heroize

their subjects is new: Chrysippus with his irresistible argumentation, the intellectual superiority of Epicurus and Zeno. They belong to an entirely different category from the monuments in honor of leading citizens of the past or present age. Rather, they demand a special position, just as their subjects, while alive, occupied a special position within the city. These statues set alongside the civilian magistrates, benefactors, and leading citizens a new, self-designated authority comparable only to the images of kings.

The painfully distorted posture of the Stoics should not obscure the fact that these portraits intended, in their own way, to stand alongside those of kings, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the apparently ludicrous nature of this claim. For example, the statue of Chrysippus stood near an equestrian monument, probably for one of the kings, behind which he must have seemed to be hiding. The peculiar conjunction of these two statues inspired Karneades to an ironic parody of Chrysippus' name: "He [Chrysippus] had an inconspicuous little body [somation euteles ], as one can see from his statue in the Kerameikos, which hides behind the nearby equestrian monument, which is why Karneades named him 'Kryphippos,' on account of his horse-hiding" (D. L. 7.182). Karneades is here making fun of his chief philosophical opponent, the man whose dialectics kept him occupied his entire life. But beyond that, the anecdote contains for us an important hint as to what effect such a statue had in the context of neighboring monuments. It shows how a philosopher statue was perceived alongside an equestrian statue of a king, probably over-life-size and certainly in a dramatic pose. The frailty of the bent-over old man achieved its full effect only when placed beside the monuments of the mighty. As Ernst Buschor put it, the "pathos of tranquility" was consciously set beside the "pathos of power." The intention was to cast a shadow on the brilliance of the royal epiphany, to expose it as transient and hence superficial. The philosopher's thoughts will in the end outlive kingdoms and imperial powers.

The Early Hellenistic age was evidently well aware of this special relationship between intellectuals and the men in power. It is reflected in a whole series of stories and anecdotes of the third century, starting

with the famous visit of Alexander the Great to Diogenes in his barrel.^[46] Karneades' joke does, admittedly, suggest that, after two or three generations, the proud claim of the philosopher with the feeble body was no longer fully understood. And the statue that was put up for Karneades himself is a different matter altogether (see p. 181).