[b] Zanker P. The Mask of Socrates- The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity (UClfP, mieszko.piast
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Preferred Citation: Zanker, Paul.
The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity.
Berkeley,
The Mask of Socrates
The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity
Paul Zanker
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley · Los Angeles · Oxford
© 1996 The Regents of the University of California
Preferred Citation: Zanker, Paul.
The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity.
Berkeley,
― ix ―
Acknowledgments
This book would never have come about if not for the invitation to deliver the Sather
Classical Lectures at Berkeley in the spring of 1991. As an archaeologist, I sought out a
topic that I hoped would attract the interest of an audience of philologists, historians, and
philosophers. Though this hook builds on earlier work developed in classes and seminars
in Munich, without the challenge of the Sathers, I would not have dared attempt this
synthetic account of a topic so broad and complex, which has already been the subject of
much specialized research. My first debt of thanks is therefore owed to all my colleagues
in the Department of Classics at Berkeley. The hospitality and friendship of these
colleagues, especially the then chairman, Mark Griffith, made the months in the Bay Area
a truly memorable experience for me and my family—one that we often look back on with
great nostalgia.
For the publication, it has seemed to me necessary to revise fully and in places to expand
the lecture texts. The basic structure and style of the presentation, however, retain the
essaylike character of the lectures, and I have tried to restrict most of the more technical
and scholarly discussion to the notes. The completion of the manuscript in this form would
not have been possible without an invitation to spend the 1993–94 academic year at the
Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. The remarkable intellectual atmosphere there, marked by
open and stimulating exchange of ideas in many areas, has, I hope, greatly benefited the
manuscript, even as it has, regrettably, enlarged it considerably.
Over the years I have received much help and encouragement from students, colleagues
and friends. Of those who have given a critical reading to all or parts of the manuscript or
helped in other ways, I
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would especially like to thank Marianne Bergmann, Glen W. Bowersock, Hans-Ulrich Cain,
Anthony Grafton, Nicola Hoesch, Rolf von den Hoff, Wolfgang Kemp, Ernst Peter
Wieckenberg, along with the members of the Sather Committee in Berkeley. Tatjana
Catsch, Derk W. von Moock, and Simone Wolf have rendered indispensable assistance in
the preparation of the final manuscript. Lastly, a special word of thanks to Alan Shapiro,
who not only sacrificed his own valuable time to make the English translation but also
helped me, through his pertinent questions and comments, to clarify a number of important
points.
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I.
Introduction: Image, Space, and Social Values
The image and appearance of the intellectual change along with his society and his
particular role in it, for every age creates the type of intellectuals that it needs. We
ourselves have witnessed such a change just since the late sixties. That era gave rise to a
type of politically and morally activist, left-wing intellectual, who had an impact on public
discourse and protest far beyond the borders of classroom and campus, a type that is now
dying out, along with his characteristic features, from the unconventional, working-class
clothes to his manner of speaking and general lifestyle. Our consumer- and leisure-
oriented society has spawned its own replacements for the sixties intellectual: the apolitical
"moderator"; the entertainer; the analyst and prognosticator, who spots new trends or may
even be employed to try to create them. The partisan critic and reformer is no longer in
demand, rather the commentator who is himself essentially conformist and unaffiliated.
This new breed of intellectual also looks very different from his predecessors, often
assimilating the clothes and manners of the dynamic and successful entrepreneur or
media mogul, with whom he in fact happily associates. Most, however, are
indistinguishable from the average businessman and probably share a similar income and
image of themselves as "specialists." In short, their image reflects, in equal measure, both
how they see themselves and the role they play in society.
But regardless of his specific role—the disaffected critic and provocateur, the educator, or
the sympathetic and popular entertainer—every society needs intellectuals and cannot do
without them. It gives
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rise to the particular type it needs most at any given time: prophets and priests, orators
and philosophers, scholars, monks, professors, scientists, commentators, media experts,
filmmakers, and museum curators. We need them to shape the mood and opinions of the
public, to invent the concepts, visual imagery, and styles that are the prerequisites for a
social dialogue. We need them as much to plan a party as a revolution, to dissent and
criticize but also at times to rule and govern.
I trust the reader will not expect from a humble archaeologist a precise definition of the
concept 'intellectual'. I use the word simply as a convenient shorthand, in order to avoid
having to repeat such cumbersome formulations as "poets and thinkers, philosophers and
orators." Neither the Greeks nor the Romans recognized "intellectuals" as a defined group
within society. Such a sense of group identity seems to have arisen for the first time within
the context of French intellectuals' involvement in the Dreyfus affair.[1] Nevertheless, as in
most other societies, prophets, wise men, poets, philosophers, Sophists, and orators in
Greco-Roman antiquity did consistently occupy a special position, both in their own self-
consciousness and the claims they made for themselves, and in the influence and
recognition they enjoyed. Of course, the roles they played were very different in the two
cultures. Even so, it seems to me legitimate to inquire into the image of the intellectual in a
given period, from the point of view of claims made and recognition accorded, as well as,
more broadly, that period's attitude toward intellectual activity.
As an archaeologist, my primary interest is in the specific visual images—votive and
honorific statues, grave monuments, and portrait busts—not with the far larger and more
complex problem of self-identity as conveyed in literary sources (for example, the
inspiration of the poet by the Muses or the ideal of the philosopher-king). My subject is the
intent and effect of the image within the parameters of, on the one hand, a given era's
collective norms and values and, on the other, the expectations of the subject and the
patron for whom the work was made. Instead of a long theoretical disquisition, a brief look
at some examples from more modern times may help clarify my purpose.
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Fig. 1
Voltaire by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1781).
Paris, Comédie Française.
The Modern Intellectual Hero
Jean-Antoine Houdon's portrait of Voltaire (fig. 1), from 1781,[2] is perhaps the most
celebrated monument of a European intellectual of the moderm era. It shows the subject,
who had died two years before, seated on an "ancient," thronelike seat, wearing a
philosopher's robe and the "wreath of immortality" in his hair. Thus did Houdon himself
characterize Voltaire, who had sat for his portrait shortly before his death. The statue
combines in extraordinary fashion the intellectual lucidity and physical frailty of the aged
Voltaire with his own apotheosis. The monument was originally intended to stand in the
Académie Française, not only to commemorate Voltaire himself, but as testimony to the
self-conscious pride of the Academy membership. The
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statue of Voltaire celebrates the Enlightenment as the highest moral and spiritual authority,
and the leaders of the Enlightenment here lay claim to a position of authority in the state
and society. They set the philosopher, in the guise of Voltaire, on a throne—not just any
throne, but an ancient one, as an ancient philosopher. In this way classical antiquity is
invoked to legitimate the self-conscious political claims of the intellectual élite. Needless to
say, no ancient philosopher ever sat on a throne.
It was, by contrast, an entirely different complex of values and necessities that inspired
nineteenth-century Germany to honor its culture heroes in a veritable cult of statuary. After
the wars of liberation in German lands had brought neither political freedom nor national
unity, the citizenry began to seek in cultural pursuits a substitute for what they still lacked.
For example, they erected monuments to intellectual giants, usually at the most
conspicuous location in the city, an honor that until then had been reserved for princes and
military men. These monumental statues were planned and executed by local and national
committees and associations, and their unveiling was accompanied by dedication
ceremonies and even popular festivals. There arose a true cult of the monument, which
included broadsheets, picture books, and luxury editions of "collected works." With all this
activity, the Germans began to see themselves, faute de mieux, as "the people of poets
and thinkers."
This is especially true of the period of the restoration and, in particular, the years after the
failed revolution of 1848, when monuments to famous Germans, above all Friedrich von
Schiller, sprouted everywhere. These statues were not just objects of veneration amid
national pride but served the populace as models of citizen virtues with which they could
identify. The great men were deliberately rendered not in ancient costume, and certainly
not nude, but in contemporary dress and exemplary pose.
Perhaps the most famous of these monuments—and the one considered most successful
by people of the time—was the group of Goethe and Schiller by Ernst Rietschel, set up in
1857 in front of the theater in Weimar (fig. 2). A fatherly Goethe gently lays his hand on the
shoulder of the restless young Schiller, as if to quiet the overzealous
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Fig. 2
Monument to Goethe and Schiller by Ernst
Rietschel (1857). In front of the theatre in Weimar.
passion for freedom of the younger generation. The relationship of the two poets (which in
reality was somewhat problematical) is thus stylized into a symbol of authentic German
male bonding, a classical paradigm and standard of conduct for the citizenry.[3]
It is, however, no accident that the statue bases on which the poets stand are just as high
as those of princes and rulers. We gaze up to them from the drudgery and confusion of
daily life. "There is something higher than the daily routine,"[4] namely, the everlasting
works of po-
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etry and art, in which we can find consolation and edification. Although born of political
disappointment, these monuments erected by the bourgeoisie in no way represent a call to
political action, not even the Schiller monuments of the postrevolutionary period. On the
contrary, they attest to an implicit attitude in which the political has been sublimated in
favor of pragmatic citizen virtues. This process was facilitated by the fact that the great
Weimar poets were in the service of the court and, like many other successful intellectuals
of the time, proudly displayed the honors and medals bestowed by the prince.[5]
In the late nineteenth century, the cult of the monument spread throughout Europe. But the
poets, musicians, and artists who are thus honored are turned into solitary, superhuman
figures before whom posterity can only kneel in awe and wonder. The earlier images of the
fellow citizen realistically depicted in contemporary dress give way to a new vision of
giants and titans, nude in the manner of the antique. Statues like Rodin's Victor Hugo or
Max Klinger's somewhat later Beethoven (fig. 3) render the apotheosis of the great mind in
such exaggerated form that, not just for modern taste, it verges on the ridiculous.
Contemporary reaction was also divided, unlike in the preceding period.[6] The French
poet in his exile resists the reactionary storm breaking over his country, depicted as mighty
waves threatening him in his rocky seat. The German composer, on the other hand, in his
heroic detachment, is utterly divorced from the present. This is a remarkably complex cult
statue that reflects more the feverish imagination of its creator than the beliefs of his
contemporaries.[7]
Beethoven is enthroned high up on a kind of rocky outcrop, solitary and half-naked. The
mighty eagle at his feet makes the allusion to Zeus obvious. But this hero, despite his
vigorous pose, determined expression, and clenched fist, is not a ruler. Originally Klinger
wanted a line fromn Goethe's
Faust
carved on the rock: "Der Einsamkeiten tiefste
schauend unter meinem Fuss." Scenes from classical and Christian mythology are
represented on the exterior sides of the throne, including the Crucifixion of Christ, the Birth
of Venus, Adam and Eve, and the family of Tantalus. The great genius sees the unity of the
world that is hidden from others. His music is a kind of religious revelation, and in this role
as prophet he becomes a god himself. That this is truly the
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Fig. 3
Max Klinger at work on his monument to
Beethoven (1902).
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