In a UC Press book published in 1982, UCLA Classics Professor Bernard Frischer proposed a daring restoration of the famous portrait-statue of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) was the founder of one of the most popular ancient philosophical schools. Located in Athens, the school was not so much a research institute, where scholars pursued the search for knowledge, as an alternative community of friends. According to Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to heal the soul's sickness and to enable people (including women and slaves) to live together in simple harmony.
Michele Blanchard-Lemee and Alain Blanchard, two Sorbonne professors, have just published a new ancient version of Epicurus' portrait-statue that, as they note, confirms the controversial part of Frischer's restoration. "The Greeks and Romans loved to make portraits of the important figures in their cultural history, and Epicurus was a particular favorite. Thus, we have many copies of the third-century B.C. original, which has unfortunately been lost," explains Frischer. "The problem is that none of these copies is intact. In 1982, we had many headless torsoes of the statue and many torsoless heads, but not one perfectly preserved ancient copy. It was easy enough to put the head back atop the torso. The more difficult part was restoring the right arm, which was missing on all the copies. Before me, everyone had put the arm into the 'thinker's pose,' angled back toward the chin. I found this unlikely for several reasons, of which the most important was that Epicurus' lips were slightly parted. To me, this implied that he was gazing forward and addressing an imaginary listener. The new find from France has the left arm clearly stretched forward in a gesture of teaching and thus offers welcome confirmation of my conjecture."
The distinguished American art historian Brunilde Ridgway notes that the new copy is from a floor mosaic in Autun, France, and that, despite the fragmentary state of the mosaic, its identification as Epicurus is ensured by two inscriptions, one with Epicurus' name, the other with a saying for which he was famous: "it is not possible to live with pleasure without living with intelligence, honesty, and justice; nor to live with intelligence, honesty, and justice without living with pleasure."
Frischer believes that the proper restoration of the portrait is important because "how we imagine the original is critical to understanding its real-life function. The portrait of a philosopher like Epicurus was not designed by the artist but by the patron, who was undoubtedly Epicurus himself or his immediate successor as head of the school. Thus, the message we get from the portrait is the one transmitted by the Epicureans themselves and tells us a great deal about how they viewed themselves and wanted others to view them. That Epicurus is shown as a teacher gesturing outward to a viewer imagined as standing in front of him and needing the 'psychotherapy' that his philosophy offered--and not as a 'thinker' who simply contemplates his own navel--is highly revealing. It tells us that the portrait was made to be seen in public and to be an important part of the way the Epicureans got their message of salvation across to the average man and woman in the street. It is interesting that the Autun mosaic even contains a quotation with a typical piece of Epicurean wisdom."
Before the new mosaic came to light Frischer's reconstruction had been accepted by some, but by no means all scholars in the field. Ridgway, who was one of those who thought Frischer was right all along, says about the new discovery, "the resemblance between Frischer's drawing of the statue in 1982 and the Autun mosaic is uncanny. It is rare to have one's hypotheses confirmed by later finds. Frischer must be beloved by the gods!"
REFERENCES:
-Bernard Frischer, The Sculpted Word. Epicureanism and Philosophical Recruitment in Ancient Greece (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982), especially pp. xix-xxi, 177-178.
-M. Blanchard-Lemee and M. A. Blanchard, "Epicure dans und anthologie sur mosaique à Autun," CRAI 1993, 969-984.
CONTACT:
Helle Girey, Director of Public Programs, Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, A148 Fowler Museum, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1510. Tel. (310) 825-4169, 206-8934