CIRCA 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

Theophrastos (372-285 B.C.) was born at Eresos on Lesbos. He first studied with Alkippos in his homeland and later went to Athens, where he attended lectures by Plato. He would go on to become the pupil and friend of Aristotle, first in Assos and Mytilene, and later in Macedonia and Athens. When Aristotle left Athens, Theophrastos was his successor as head of the Peripatetic school. There he carried on in Aristotelian studies in logic, rhetoric, poetics, ethics, politics and science. The 3rd century Roman writer Diogenes Laertius described him as “a man of remarkable intelligence and industry.” While not much of his writing survives, he was probably best known for his Enquiry into Plants, considered the first systematic work on botany. He died shortly after retiring when he was 85 years old (see G.M.A. Richter, The Portraits of the Greeks, Vol. 2, p. 176-178).

While no ancient writers mention a statue commemorating him, Richter (op. cit.) assumed, given his prestige, that one must have been erected within the sacred precinct of the school after his death. Richter lists four surviving Roman copies, all presumably after a lost Greek original, to which the present example can now be added. The identification of the type is confirmed by the herm portrait now in the Villa Albani, Rome, which is inscribed ‘Theophrastos, son of Melantas, of Eresos.’ All represent him at the prime of his life, at about 50 years of age “with a high, rounded skull; a furrowed brow with two deep vertical grooves rising above the bridge of the nose; two deep grooves descending from the nostrils to the beard; a determined, rather thin-lipped mouth; a closely clipped beard; and hair marked by closely adhering, curling strands, going in different directions over the forehead” (Richter, op. cit.).