Theophrastus was an ancient Greek philosopher, successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic School. He wrote on many topics: biology, geology, physics, metaphysics, psychology, ethics, logic – and more. His book Characters… contains thirty brief, vigorous, and trenchant outlines of moral types, which form a most valuable picture of the life of his time, and in fact of human nature in general. They are the first recorded attempt at systematic character writing. “Apart from slight variations of local coloring and institutions, the descriptions of the old Greek philosopher might apply almost as well to the present inhabitants of London or Boston as to the Athenians of 300 B.C.” This edition contains an extensive and informative introduction to the man and his thought.
By : Theophrastus (c. 371 BCE - c. 287 BCE), translated by Charles E. Bennett (1858 - 1921) and William Alexander Hammond (1828 - 1900)
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“What stories are new?” asks Thackeray, subtle observer of men.
The Antiquity of Modern Character-TypesAccidental and Essential Types
“All types of all characters march through all fables: tremblers and boasters; victims and bullies: dupes and knaves; long-eared Neddies, giving themselves leonine airs; Tartuffes wearing virtuous clothing; lovers and their trials, their blindness, their folly and constancy. With the very first page of the human story do not love, and lies too, begin? So the tales were told ages before Æsop; and asses under lions’ manes roared in Hebrew; and sly foxes flattered in Etruscan; and wolves in sheep’s clothing gnashed their teeth in Sanscrit, no doubt. The sun shines to-day as he did when he first began shining; and the birds in the tree overhead, while I am writing, sing very much the same note they have sung ever since there were finches. There may be nothing new under and including the sun; but it looks fresh every morning, and we rise with it to toil, hope, scheme, laugh, struggle, love, suffer, until the night comes and quiet. And then will wake Morrow and the eyes that look on it; and so da capo.” All this is very true; the changes which may be observed in human nature are small, and the old types of Theophrastus are all about us nowadays and really look and act much the same as they did to the eyes of the ancient Peripatetic. Offices and institutions have somewhat changed, and many character-types due to new vocations have come into being since then, e.g. the newsboy, the bishop, the reporter, the hotel-clerk, and the jockey. But these are only accidents of civilization, and the peculiarities of office or the type or professional character do not touch the vital essence of human nature, although they may modify its expression.
When one speaks of a coward, one means an intrinsic quality in human kind which is essentially the same whether found in a hoplite or in a modern infantryman, but which may express itself differently in the two cases. The types described by Theophrastus are types of such intrinsic qualities, and his pictures of ancient vices and weaknesses show men much as we see them now. They are not merely types of professions or callings.
Similarity between Greek and Modern TypesThe FlattererThe Officious Man
Apart from slight variations of local coloring and institutions, the descriptions of the old Greek philosopher might apply almost as well to the present inhabitants of London or Boston as to the Athenians of 300 b.c. Then, as now, the flatterer plied his wily trade, indulging in smooth compliment of his hero’s person or actions. “As he walks with an acquaintance, he says: ‘Behold! How the eyes of all men are turned upon you! There is not a man in the city who enjoys so much notice as yourself. Yesterday your praises were the talk of the Porch. While above thirty men were sitting there together and the conversation fell upon the topic: “Who is our noblest citizen?” they all began and ended with your name.’” “If his friend essay a jest, the flatterer laughs and stuffs his sleeve into his mouth as though he could not contain himself.” But the flatterer of old could be subtle too. “He buys apples and pears, carries them to his hero’s house, and gives them to the children, and in the presence of their father he kisses them, exclaiming: ‘Chips of the old block!’” and “while his talk is directed to others in the company, his eye is ever fixed upon his hero.” Then as now there existed the officious man, always over-ready to undertake the impossible or to interfere in the affairs of others. “At a banquet, he forces the servants to mix more wine than the guests can drink. If he sees two men in a quarrel, he rushes in between, even though he knows neither one.” “If the doctor leave instructions that no wine be given the patient, he administers ‘just a little’ on the plea that he wants to set the sufferer right.”
The Tactless Man
There existed, of course, then as now, the tactless person, who “selects a man’s busiest hour for a lengthy conference, and who sings love ditties under his sweetheart’s window as she lies ill of a fever.” “At a wedding, he declaims against womankind, and when a friend has just finished a journey, he invites him to go for a walk.” “If he happens to be standing by when a slave is flogged, he tells the story of how he once flogged a slave of his, who then went and hanged himself.”
The Mean Man
There was the mean man, too, who, if his servant broke a pot or plate, deducted its value from the poor fellow’s rations. “He permits no one to take a fig from his garden or cross his field, or even to pick up windfalls under his fruit trees. He forbids his wife to lend salt or lamp-wicks or a pinch of cummin, marjoram, or meal, observing that these trifles make a large sum in a year.”
The Thankless Man
There was also the thankless man whose pessimism is so gloomy as to cloud all view of his blessings. “When a friend has sent him something from his table, he says to the servant who brings it: ‘He grudged me a dish of soup and a cup of wine, I suppose, and so couldn’t invite me to dinner.’” “If he secures a slave at a bargain after long dickering with the owner, he says: ‘I imagine I haven’t got much at this price.’ And to the person who brings him the glad tidings that a son is born to him, he retorts, ‘If you only add: “And half your fortune’s gone,” you’ll hit it.’”
Petty Vanity
Then we have the man who is ostentatious in trivial things. “When he has sacrificed an ox, he winds the head and horns with fillets, and nails them up, opposite the entrance of his house.” “When he parades with the cavalry he gives all his accoutrements to his squire to carry home, and throwing back his mantle stalks proudly about the market-place in his spurs.” When he is master of the prytany, he craves the privilege of announcing to the people the result of the sacrifice; and as soon as he has delivered to the people the momentous intelligence that the sacrifice has resulted well, he hies him home and recounts his triumph to his wife in an ecstasy of joy.
The foregoing are but illustrations of the happy skill with which Theophrastus has delineated a number of character-types which are as universal as human nature and know no limits of age or of country. Here and there we meet a type in the Greek for which we have no exact counterpart in our customary modern modes of thought. Such a type may be seen in Theophrastus’s “The Disagreeable Man,” a person who seems a sort of general nuisance with a touch of the bore and the braggart. As a rule, however, the types are singularly like those we know to-day, and it is not difficult at once to provide them with appropriate modern labels. The treatment, though almost invariably brief, is invariably vigorous and trenchant. With a few bold strokes the character is drawn. There is absolutely no pretense of style, as we ordinarily understand it; yet each type is in its way a gem. Through them all runs that fidelity to truth which was the unfailing inspiration of all Greek art. It is this which makes The Characters a unique creation and vindicates their position as a part of the world’s literature.
The Earliest Attempt at Character-writing
It is largely for this reason that these slight sketches are here produced in English, exhibiting as they do, when we compare them with what we see around us, the essential identity of human nature in ages widely separated from each other in time and manners.[2] There is, furthermore, an accidental interest in the work of Theophrastus, due to the fact that it is the first recorded attempt at systematic character-writing. Characters, to be sure, are portrayed in Homer and in the tragedians, but they are incidental to the narrative or to the dramatic plot, whereas in Theophrastus the business is with the delineation of a character as such.
The Influence of Theophrastus
He tells us what a man does, simply as an illustration of what he is, and this method of writing had a very intimate bearing on the evolution of the New Comedy under the leadership of Menander. There is a tradition, in fact, that Theophrastus was the teacher of Menander, who in turn furnished models for Terence in his delineation of conventional dramatic types. The influence of Theophrastus was further directly and potently exerted on the so-called character-writers of the seventeenth century in England and France. The simple methods of these character-writers and their uninvolved sketches were succeeded by the more elaborate art of the novelists, in whose works individuals rather than types are described by exhibiting their development in long periods of time and under great diversity of circumstances.
The Youth of TheophrastusTheophrastus and AristotleTheophrastus Chosen by Aristotle to be President of the LyceumDeath of TheophrastusHis Writings and GeniusHis Will
We have little information as to the personal history of Theophrastus, beyond what we learn from the extant fragments of his writings and from the meagre biography of Diogenes of Laërte. He was born at Eresus, a village on the island of Lesbos, in 371 b.c., and his father was one Melantas, a fuller by trade. He first went to school to Alcippus in his native island, but afterwards travelled to Athens, the intellectual metropolis, and became a pupil of Plato at the Academy, with whom he appears to have studied until the Master’s death. Theophrastus was then in his twenty-fifth year. At that time he attached himself to Aristotle, who was some twelve years his senior and who had also been a member of the Academy, until Plato died scribens. During the twelve years which elapsed from the death of Plato until Aristotle established the new school of the Lyceum (in 335 b.c.), Theophrastus was probably with his new leader, at least part of the time, in Stagira or at the Macedonian court, where the youthful Alexander was under the tutorial discipline of Aristotle. Theophrastus was an intimate friend of Callisthenes, the unfortunate fellow-student and companion of Alexander, and it is probable that the two studied together at Pella. The story is told that Aristotle, in speaking of these two pupils, said: “Callisthenes needs a spur, but Theophrastus,[3] a bridle.” Many years later, when Aristotle was dead and Cassander (see Character VII.) had gained control of Alexander’s throne, Theophrastus was invited to an office at the court where he had spent his student days, and Ptolemy Soter, Cassander’s political ally, sent him an invitation to the court of Egypt. But he declined these calls into the social and political world, and maintained steadfastly his devotion to philosophy. It was a fashion for the rectors or presidents of the great schools of Athens, such as the Cynosarges, the Academy, and the Lyceum, before their death to name their successors in office. And so when Aristotle was asked who should succeed him in the presidency of the Lyceum, tradition tells of the delicate way in which he left record of his wish. His two most distinguished pupils were Theophrastus of Lesbos and Eudemus of Rhodes. Aristotle replied to the question as to his successor by asking for two sorts of wine,—Lesbian and Rhodian. After tasting of them he said: “They are both excellent; but the Lesbian is the sweeter.” Thereby it was known that he had decided in favor of Theophrastus, who on the death of Aristotle (322 b.c.) succeeded to the presidency of the Lyceum, over which he continued to preside for thirty-five years. His administration was one of almost unparalleled success. Diogenes Laertius reports that two thousand students thronged to him. Although not born at Athens, he was one of the most popular and beloved members of that somewhat exclusive community. This is illustrated by the story of Agonides, who preferred against him a charge of atheism,—a charge similar to that which brought Socrates to martyrdom and drove Aristotle into exile and caused his early death; but instead of injuring Theophrastus, Agonides narrowly escaped paying a fine for his folly. Amongst his contemporaries Theophrastus was a great personal force by reason of his amiable character, his charities and lavish benefactions, the amenity of his manners, his great erudition, and gifts of oratory. He died in 287 b.c. in the eighty-fifth year of his age, and Diogenes Laertius says that “the whole population of Athens, honoring him greatly, followed him to the grave.” Theophrastus was one of the greatest polygraphs of antiquity. Two hundred and twenty-seven works[4] are attributed to him. The range of his learning is similar to that of Aristotle’s, with the emphasis laid rather more strongly on the side of natural science. His genius, however, is not marked by Aristotle’s profundity. He served his age rather as a great popularizer of science; he was not an originator of epoch-making ideas or theories. Yet as a local and popular force he surpassed Aristotle. His influence on subsequent ages, however, is less marked. Of the 227 works (containing 232,908 lines) attributed to Theophrastus, fragments of nine only are now extant, excluding certain insignificant remains.
It is doubtless true, however, that he influenced his own time as much by his administrative ability in the conduct of the Lyceum and by his oral utterances as by his written treatises. His prodigious industry was no doubt partially inspired by Aristotle as well as by the swift, stirring movement of the age immediately preceding and following the death of Alexander, in which his literary manhood was passed. “Time,” he says, “is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” He expressed his sense of the value of order in the apothegm: “Better trust a horse without bridle than a discourse without arrangement.” His estimate of oral converse at table is recorded in a rather brusque and un-Athenian remark said to have been made by him to a silent neighbor at dinner: “Sir, if you are an ignorant man, your conduct shows wisdom; but if you are a wise man, you act like a fool.” The genuinely kind character of Theophrastus, however, is amply illustrated by the provisions of his will, which evidences also his very considerable wealth. He had inherited from Aristotle the largest private library then known. This library, to which he had himself made notable additions, he bequeathed to Neleus, his nephew (Theophrastus never married), and by Neleus it was taken to Asia Minor, where it was hidden in a cellar to avoid the rapacity of the agents of the Attalid dynasty, who were seizing all available books for the Royal Library at Pergamon. And hereby hangs the curious old story of the loss of Aristotle’s works for one hundred and fifty years, until they were rediscovered, worm eaten, in the cellar of Neleus at Scepsis. A Museum,—temple of the muses,—had been built by Theophrastus as the home of the Lyceum. In his will he provided that this should be maintained and beautified, that statues of the illustrious dead (particularly of Aristotle) should be completed, for which commissions had already been given to the renowned sculptor Praxiteles; further, that tablets with maps of the world engraved on them should be erected in the lower colonnade. In acknowledgment of the claims of religion, he also directed that an altar should be placed there. He devised the garden, promenade, and houses adjoining the garden to the joint control of Hipparchus, Neleus, Strato, and their successors, as a trust, enjoining that a school of philosophy should be maintained in them, and that the property should never be alienated from this purpose nor claimed as private possession. After piously making provision for certain friends and the support of faithful attendants, he further directed that he should be buried in the school garden without unnecessary expense or ceremony.
The CharactersA Fragment from a Larger WorkMimetic Delineations of Moral and Social DefectsRealism
Theophrastus is more generally known for his character sketches than for his scientific work, although his treatises on botany represented the highest attainments made by science in that field during antiquity and the Middle Ages. The treatise here translated (ἠθικοὶ χαρακτῆρες) sets forth thirty types of character striking to the Greek mind. They are probably a fragment or extract made by some epitomator from a larger treatise which was suggested by the abstract ethical analyses of Aristotle, as exhibited in the Nicomachean Ethics, and by the concrete dramatic representations of the New Comedy. The stage suggests the form, and Aristotle’s treatise the content. They represent moral and social defects and weaknesses, though not revolting vices, but they do this in a mimetic way by exhibiting persons as acting or speaking. Theophrastus was a contemporary of Philemon and Menander, and his life was spent in the era of the revival of comedy and the elaboration of current moral types for humorous presentation on the stage. So the characters of Theophrastus are, as it were, dramatis personae of his time. He shows us how a given type of man speaks and acts; the dramatization of his characters would require scarcely anything more than stage setting. His portrayal is not satire, but imitation; not caricature, but realistic delineation from life. Moreover, this description of generic types rather than of individuals belongs to the literary fashion of his age. Looked at from this mimetic point of view, The Characters of Theophrastus are historically all the more important, because our knowledge of Menander, the “tenth muse,” is so meagre, resting, as it does, upon scanty Greek fragments and a few Latin adaptations.
Greek Notion of Vice
These thirty sketches at the beginning of the post-classical age do not represent, properly speaking, vices, and yet they were vices to the mind of the Greek, who measured his morality largely by the canons of good form. Any violation of good taste or breach of courtesy was morally vicious. The disposition was to maintain in close unity the natures of beauty and goodness (καλοκἀγαθία); moderns discriminate sharply between the æsthetic and the moral. The social virtues of gentle breeding and the graces of politeness toward their fellow men had for the classical Greeks an ethical nature, as is witnessed in Aristotle’s Ethics. Manners and morals were not sundered. What we call a social weakness, or defect, or boorish crudity, Theophrastus called a vice. It is necessary to bear this in mind when one reads the “moral characters,”[5] as they are called in the Greek title.
Virtues not DelineatedThe Subject-matter of the Sketches
Amongst these characters there are no virtues, and one may ask: Why is it that in his portrayal of types Theophrastus has altogether omitted any description of good men? The answer is not to be found in the supposition that such characters were originally included in the work, but have since perished. The real ground for the omission is probably to be discovered in the nature of the conditions under which Theophrastus wrote. These, as we have already indicated, were closely connected with the development of the New Comedy. The portrayal of a good character may be edifying, and may serve the conditions of tragedy, but it does not suit the purposes or surroundings of the comic stage, where the ludicrous elements of weak, eccentric, or faulty personalities are the materials employed. The aim of Theophrastus is both to amuse and to instruct, but his instruction is given by exposing to ridicule certain faults which he elevates into the striking tangibility of concrete character. The serious dignity and excellence of the good man, while it may suit the heroic conditions of the epic, the grave purpose of tragedy, or the aims of moral allegory, offers no material for such sketches as these. Theophrastus has no concern either with the grossly immoral or with the helplessly weak; the former awaken only disgust and hate, while the latter stir only feelings of pity, and neither of these emotions can be kept active in the true art of comedy. Rightly speaking, the art of Theophrastus has to do only with folly or with such eccentricities and weaknesses as have a humorous aspect. And it is only moral imperfections of this sort that we actually find in The Characters.
Ridicule as an Instrument of Instruction
As to the serious function of instruction which Theophrastus no doubt aims to combine with that of entertainment, there is no more skilful mode of inducing moral betterment than the discovery and exposure of the ludicrous. Most men would rather incur the charge of immorality than be exposed to the belittling laugh or derision of a community; they would rather be rogues than fools. The portrait-painter of moral life makes use of the ludicrous when he desires to catch the popular attention, and there is nothing, one may safely say, that makes society at large prick up its ears and fall to gossiping so much as a satire in which some well-known person is subjected to ridicule.
Moral Folly
Moral folly is much the same everywhere; it is only the fool’s costume that changes in different countries. The folly of the miser is seen in his cheating himself of the real goods of life and in robbing himself of the respect of his fellows; the folly of the coward, in gaining personal safety by losing reputation for manliness; the folly of the flatterer, in his shallow self-serving which men see through, while they nudge their fellows and laugh at his weakness; the folly of the vain man, in the way in which he assumes impressive proportions to his own magnifying eye, while to others his personality looks as small as it is; the folly of the tactless man, in consulting his own convenience rather than his neighbor’s, whereby he becomes a butt for his gaucherie; the folly of the boor, in his trampling awkwardly on the established usages of the polite world and thereby drawing upon himself the smilingly derisive attention of all observers. Throughout the list these characters represent some type of social foible or folly.
The Literary Art of TheophrastusThe Canons of his Art
In regard to the literary art of Theophrastus, as exhibited in these sketches, it must be looked at from the standpoint of an innovation in Greek letters; it is rare that any man both begins and perfects an art. There is nothing in the world so interesting as a character, but there is also nothing that is so difficult to portray briefly. Theophrastus was an acute observer and he was a plain realist. His art consists in the truthfulness of his vision and in the direct simplicity with which he gives it expression. He does not seek to create a laugh by exaggeration or by the trick of a ludicrous situation that has no moral significance. His art is not possible without wit, keenness, and fineness of feeling. There is no exhibition of the satirist’s lash, but his criticism is made with that geniality which is more telling than the severest invective. These are not individual portraits. They lack, therefore, the detailed finish of such a portrait as is given in the much-elaborated modern novel with its varied facilities for exhibiting the individuality of one or several persons. On the contrary, these are merely outline sketches, as Theophrastus himself calls them, and are descriptive of a class, not of an individual. A simple line, however, does not constitute a sketch; to exhibit a character, the sketch must not only be clear but complete. The coward, e.g., is sketched in his fear at sea, where his timid imagination invents dangers, and he wishes to be put ashore; he is sketched on the field of battle, where he tries to impress his comrades by a courage that he does not feel; but when he hears the shouts of war and sees the soldiers fall, he shrinks faint-hearted to his tent and there searches for the sword he has himself hid; and again when the danger is over he resumes his bold exterior and proclaims his daring rescue of a comrade. We have here a pictorial sketch which, with its life and action, appeals to the reader’s eye. The coward is shown from various points of view, always in new lights, but he is always the coward. The canons of this species of literary art may be summarized as follows: 1.—Faithfulness to reality: The character must be an accurate report of nature and not a caricature. It must be executed in the spirit of realism. 2.—Brevity: It must be slight and swift, essentially of the nature of a sketch. 3.—Humor: It must have the sprightliness of statement that amuses while it instructs. 4.—Type: It must be illustrative of a generic or typical fault. In other words, the character must give embodiment to some fault that touches human nature in an essential and universal way. 5.—Concreteness: The fault as an abstraction must be translated by the artist’s power into a concrete personal form. The foible must be revealed in a genre picture of a living personality.
Imitators of TheophrastusLa Bruyère
Since Theophrastus, this form of character-writing has been cultivated at various times, but it flourished most amongst the minor essayists of the seventeenth century. It is of too slight a nature in itself to make a serious impression on any literary epoch. It suited, however, the temper of the seventeenth century, as the sprightly essay possessing no serious depth and aiming to touch life at many points. The chief imitators of Theophrastus and exponents of character-writing at this time were Bishop Hall, Bishop Earle, Sir Thomas Overbury, Nicholas Breton, Samuel Butler, and La Bruyère. Bishop Hall, contrary to the example of Theophrastus, includes virtues as well as vices in his book entitled Characters of Vertues and Vices (London, 1608). In the general structure of his composition he follows the model of Theophrastus closely. In the description of vices, however, he is much more entertaining than in his sketches of virtues, which are rather homilies and, as the panegyrics of a tedious preacher, provoke one to yawn. Virtue is not fitting material for this species of writing. The brilliant but ill-starred Sir Thomas Overbury, in his Characters or Witty Descriptions of the Properties of Sundry Persons (London, 1614; went through eighteen editions), departs from the usage of Theophrastus in depicting for the most part amusing accidents of character and humorous peculiarities of trades and professions. Bishop Earle, on the other hand, in his Micro-cosmographie (London, 1628) confined his character delineation to mores hominum, to ethical types of men as such, in a spirit similar to that of his Greek model. The best known of all the imitators of Theophrastus, if he can be called an imitator at all, is La Bruyère, in his Les caractères ou les mœurs de ce siècle (Paris, 1688). The caractères of La Bruyère are really satires on certain thinly disguised contemporaries of his own and are executed in a spirited method totally different from that of Theophrastus, but to which a translation of The Characters of Theophrastus is added. La Bruyère was a lover of the ancient classics, although his translation or paraphrase was hardly more than a pretext for writing down his own description of the manners of his time. It furnished him, perhaps, the first suggestion and the first impulse to the portrayal of the vices and weaknesses of his contemporaries on a much larger scale than Theophrastus had attempted.
[2]“I gather, too, from the undeniable testimony of his [Aristotle’s] disciple, Theophrastus, that there were bores, ill-bred persons, and detractors even in Athens, of a species remarkably corresponding to the English, and not yet made endurable by being classic; and, altogether, with my present fastidious nostril, I feel that I am the better off for possessing Athenian life solely as an inodorous fragment of antiquity.” George Eliot in Theophrastus Such, p. 27, Cabinet Edition.
[3]The original name of Theophrastus, according to tradition, was Tyrtamus, but owing to his divine speech Aristotle gave him the name which has come down to us.
[4]The following treatises are extant, either entire or in considerable parts: On Sensation, 1 bk.; On Smells, 1 bk.; Moral Characters, 1 bk.; History of Plants, 2 bks.
[5]A character (χαράσσειν “to engrave”) is the individuality which is engraved by habits and temperament on a man or group of men, and in a literary sense (as used by Theophrastus) it is the verbal delineation of this individuality.
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