Beauty in Ancient Greece

[Brian G Turner]

A couple of really interesting pointers from this piece:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30746985

not least:

Male beauty:

For the Greeks a beautiful body was considered direct evidence of a beautiful mind. They even had a word for it - kaloskagathos - which meant being gorgeous to look at, and hence being a good person. Not very politically correct, I know, but the horrible truth is that pretty Greek boys would have swaggered around convinced they were triply blessed - beautiful, brainy and god-beloved.

female beauty:

a Spartan queen 3,500 years ago would have sported fierce, kohl-rimmed eyes, red tattoos of suns on her chin and cheeks, her hair shaven as a teenager and then dressed to look like snakes. Her breasts would have been bare or covered in a diaphanous gauze.

 

[thaddeus6th]

In Philip Matyszak's Classical Compendium there's a lady, whose name I forget, put on trial in Greece. She took all her clothes off and her lawyer said that someone who was clearly Aphrodite's handmaiden must be innocent.

She was acquitted, and, in disgust, the prosecuting lawyer never took another case.

 

[HareBrain]

Seems "fragrant" Mary Archer was heir to a fine legal tradition.

 

[Nechtan]

So people were judged by their looks and not their personality. Men had to be all buff and obsessed with penis size and women both big buttocked and boobular. How little times have changed!

 

[BAYLOR]

In Philip Matyszak's Classical Compendium there's a lady, whose name I forget, put on trial in Greece. She took all her clothes off and her lawyer said that someone who was clearly Aphrodite's handmaiden must be innocent.

She was acquitted, and, in disgust, the prosecuting lawyer never took another case.

If id been that prosecuting Lawyer I would have quit too . That sort of vacuous stupidity happens even in the modern era.

 

[Anne Spackman]

This part is interesting:

'Hesiod - an 8th/7th Century BC author whose works were as close as the Greeks got to a bible - described the first created woman simply as kalon kakon - "the beautiful-evil thing". She was evil because she was beautiful, and beautiful because she was evil. Being a good-looking man was fundamentally good news. Being a handsome woman, by definition, spelt trouble.'

 

[Faisal Shamas]

This part is interesting:

'Hesiod - an 8th/7th Century BC author whose works were as close as the Greeks got to a bible - described the first created woman simply as kalon kakon - "the beautiful-evil thing". She was evil because she was beautiful, and beautiful because she was evil. Being a good-looking man was fundamentally good news. Being a handsome woman, by definition, spelt trouble.'

The point is raised by the essence of Homer's Illiad as well. Not just Helen, but Cassandra as well, Greek writers seem to have a particular love/hate idea of beautiful women.

 

[Brian G Turner]

She was evil because she was beautiful, and beautiful because she was evil. Being a good-looking man was fundamentally good news. Being a handsome woman, by definition, spelt trouble.'

I think this extended even beyond Ancient Greece.

 

[CTRandall]

Not everyone in ancient Greece was stupid enough to buy into the beauty=good (or evil) line. Socrates was far from a looker but few doubted his intelligence or charisma. Of course, his legal defence didn't meet with as much success as the aforementioned young woman...

 

[Venusian Broon]

Not everyone in ancient Greece was stupid enough to buy into the beauty=good (or evil) line. Socrates was far from a looker but few doubted his intelligence or charisma. Of course, his legal defence didn't meet with as much success as the aforementioned young woman...

Don't know about that. There were some who followed him and recognised what he was saying (note that he himself refused to be a teacher or to be rewarded for it, so it was the interpretations of his followers that made him known to us), but others did not and of course they in the end successfully charged him with 'corrupting the youth' amongst other 'offences'.

I think the point they were making about Socrates and his ugliness is that this was another specific aspect of the person that proved he was radically different from any other Athenian. He really was an outsider, refusing to conform to any norms.

But I do think that both supporters and detractors would have emphasised all his differences for their own ends, hence this almost caricature of person we have inherited.

 

[Brian G Turner]

It recently occurred to me that we still carry this idea that people who are "good" will also be traditionally beautiful or handsome. This is hammered home to us constantly in film and TV, where the overwhelming number of male and female heros are made to look traditionally beautiful or handsome, and villains are often old and/or ugly.

I presume it's because we might - as an audience - find it hard to relate to an ugly lead character, plus as a society we're quietly obsessed about youth and dismissive about old age. However, I see the same trend for heros and villains in foreign films as well.

So in a way, the Greek sense of beauty is still with us, I guess.

 

[Elckerlyc]

So, let me see if I understand this correctly:
As I am getting older and (sigh) uglier, the evil part in me gets more prominent? It would explain a lot...

 

[Venusian Broon]

It recently occurred to me that we still carry this idea that people who are "good" will also be traditionally beautiful or handsome. This is hammered home to us constantly in film and TV, where the overwhelming number of male and female heros are made to look traditionally beautiful or handsome, and villains are often old and/or ugly.

I presume it's because we might - as an audience - find it hard to relate to an ugly lead character, plus as a society we're quietly obsessed about youth and dismissive about old age. However, I see the same trend for heros and villains in foreign films as well.

So in a way, the Greek sense of beauty is still with us, I guess.

I had to chuckle after reading your post then listening to this - especially the number of times the word 'beautiful' comes up:

 

[Valtharius]

In Philip Matyszak's Classical Compendium there's a lady, whose name I forget, put on trial in Greece. She took all her clothes off and her lawyer said that someone who was clearly Aphrodite's handmaiden must be innocent.

She was acquitted, and, in disgust, the prosecuting lawyer never took another case.

Phryne - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I believe this is who you were thinking of.

 

[sknox]

Doesn't aristoi carry the connotations of "the good and the beautiful"?

In fiction, we regularly like to make the villain beautiful--cultured, good-looking, sophisticated; in a word, aristocratic. Conversely, the ugly and deformed noble is a social horror. Think Tyrion.

Such devices only work because the underlying values are nearly universal and timeless. Goes well beyond Western cultures.

 

[Swank]

A couple of things ought to be considered:

In Greece, overweight people were considered to be vain. Athletic looking people were thought to be modest and keeping up their ability to defend the State.

Small penises were admired, while large ones were considered ridiculous. For people that did a lot of work, sport and fighting in the buff, a big phallus was something to get in the way.


So it may not work to frame the Greek ideals of beauty in our terms. A beautiful man was arguably a fit and modest one.

 

[.matthew.]

So it may not work to frame the Greek ideals of beauty in our terms. A beautiful man was arguably a fit and modest one.

That still seems to fit today's standards, at least in terms of women looking for a long term commitment. Fitness shows that they take care of themselves and modesty implies that they are less attention seeking and thus more likely to be faithful.

 

[Swank]

That still seems to fit today's standards, at least in terms of women looking for a long term commitment. Fitness shows that they take care of themselves and modesty implies that they are less attention seeking and thus more likely to be faithful.

It also describes how animals mate. I think we sometimes forget that the standard of beauty largely comes from things indicative of good health and genes - symmetricality, muscle tone and low body fat. It isn't just an idea created to oppress, but a natural part of mate selection.