CIRCA 1ST CENTURY A.D.

Socrates is perhaps the best-known of all ancient Greek philosophers, despite not having left any of his own writings. What we know of his life, including the famous Socratic method of cross-questioning the people with whom he came in contact, comes from the accounts of later writers, including the work of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the playwright Aristophanes. About his appearance, these sources inform that he was stocky, broad-shouldered, and that he resembled a Silenus. His face had a broad nose with wide-open nostrils, a large mouth with thick lips, and he was bald, traits all accurately captured in the many surviving portraits, including the present example. Only one statue of Socrates is mentioned in ancient literature. According to Diogenes Laertios, the Athenians, feeling remorse for having had him executed, erected a bronze statue of him, the work of Lysippos. Scholars recognize two portrait types: Type A, an earlier one, perhaps set up by Socrates' friends not long after his death; and Type B, a later one, perhaps reproducing the version by Lysippos. The present head is closest to Type A (see Richter, The Portraits of the Greeks, pp. 198-204; and G.C. Field, "Socrates," in The Oxford Classical Dictionary).