Socrates

What it is

This marble bust, made in the 1st century CE, is a Roman copy of an older Greek portrait type of Socrates, possibly derived from a lost bronze statue by Lysippos. It is held today in the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities of the Louvre.

Why it matters

No portrait of Socrates was made during his own lifetime from life; what survives are later copies based on earlier types that drew on descriptions by his contemporaries, who called him unusually plain-looking, with a snub nose and bulging eyes, sometimes compared to the mythical Silenus. This bust shows how ancient societies built and preserved an image of a famous thinker long after his death, long before photography existed.

Look closer

• How reliable can a portrait be if it was made centuries after the person died?
• Why might sculptors have kept copying the same unflattering features instead of making Socrates look more conventionally attractive?
• What does the choice of marble and the formal bust format suggest about how later societies wanted to remember him?