intelligence and serves a reminder about his ugliness. To be called, "ein
Weiser wie Sokrates" (Albrecht 1986), which was written on a bust of
Mendelssohn, can in a certain light be read as a consolation prize. In his
Physiognomische Fragmente, Lavater connects Mendelssohn's
physiognomy to Socrates' with the words: "In dieser Tiefe des Auges sitzt
eine Sokratische Seele" (Lavater 1775). There is also physical evidence of
a connection between the two. Figure 1 depicts Socrates' and
Mendelssohn's faces looking at each other in profile. The owl in the
picture is homage to their intelligence, but the picture also highlights a
similar physical attribute: they were both ugly.
There are numerous example of Socrates' ugliness. In Plato's
Theaetetus, Theodoras describes the similarities between Theaetetus and
Socrates as: "But as it is—and I hope you'll take this in good part—he
[Theaetetus] isn't good looking, but he looks like you! He's snub-nosed
and his eyes bulge, though not as much as yours" (Plato 1987). The body
of Socrates stands at odds with the Greek cult of beauty. He is likened to
statues of Silenus, a mythological creature, noted both for his
intelligence and for ugliness. Ultimately, Socrates' intellectual prowess
allowed people to overlook his physical appearance. In the Symposium,
Plato remarks that his exterior is ugly while Socrates' interior is, "utterly
godlike and golden and beautiful and wonderful" (Plato 1989). Johann
Caspar Lavater dismisses Socrates's ugliness as a mistake, "eine
Anomalie der Natur." Socrates's ugliness constituted a violation of
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