A mad yearning for solitude: Timon the Misanthrope and his relevance to the study of ancient psychopathology

Abstract

Ancient Greek and Latin medical authors considered a flight into solitude a compelling sign of mental disturbance, frequently described as misanthropia, a word fraught with meaning beyond the medical discourse. The fictionalised character Timon of Athens, the quintessential misanthrope, can shed light on ancient cultural concepts of self-imposed isolation from human contact. To cope with the sense of unease this deviant behaviour induced, misanthropia was explained as ‘madness’, ridiculed in various genres of humour, morally condemned in philosophy, and ultimately demonized in Christian cosmology. These various attempts at containment echo in the medical works of the age, making it impossible to comprehend the concept of misanthropia in ancient medicine without taking full account of the cultural context.

Introduction

Misanthropy, literally translated as ‘hatred of people’, is a psychopathological symptom frequently referenced in ancient medicine. From the first century BCE onwards, virtually every medical textbook uses the term or its description to characterise aberrant behaviour. The Greek and (in one case) Latin authors of these texts use the word misanthropia without further explanation, clearly expecting their readers to comprehend its meaning; a definition may have appeared superfluous because ancient psychopathology mostly relied on lay terms to describe patients’ behaviours. This said, the meaning of misanthropy underwent significant change during the Graeco-Roman millennium (c.500 BCE–500 CE), likewise affecting the conception of misanthropia in medicine. Therefore, if we wish to determine the medical concept’s meaning to the ancient Graeco-Roman world, including any shifts and changes, we have to turn to texts outside the discipline of medicine, including sources written by philosophers, historians and, most importantly, comic poets and playwrights.

We may aptly illustrate both the term’s original meaning and its semantic shift by turning to one figure that was especially prominent in the ancient discourse on misanthropy: Timon of Athens. Commencing in the late fifth century BCE, Timon has continued to be the literary misanthrope of choice. In the European tradition, he appears in works by poets and writers, including Aristophanes, Lucian of Samosata, Shakespeare and Henry Purcell. In Greek and Roman antiquity alone, a variety of textual genres embellished his persona in great detail: comedies, satirical dialogues, doxographical anecdotes, and even fictional auto-epitaphs feature Timon the Misanthrope. For centuries, the figure has lent itself to a humorous treatment built upon its potential for witty utterances and lively anecdotes.

In all likelihood, Timon was based on a historical individual of late fifth-century BCE Athens; he was first mentioned by Aristophanes as a recluse who despised his fellow human beings. From there, his character, and the quotations ascribed to him, grew exponentially. He was depicted as an antisocial fellow, avoiding all contact with people and surrounding himself with prickles and thorns of the actual and metaphorical kind; accordingly, he lived alone in seclusion from society. This self-isolation is said to have gone so far as to have ultimately caused his death: The Hellenistic writer Neanthes reports (apud Suidam a.3508) that, after falling from a wild pear tree – a symbol of an uncivilised wilderness (Ceccarelli, 2000: 457–8, 462; Schmid, 1959: 161–2) – Timon would allow no physician to examine his infected leg, subsequently dying of gangrene. The Misanthrope killed by his own misanthropy? Too good a story to be true, but a perfect illustration of the ancient view around the supposed aberrant irrationality of a rejection of society and human company.

Timon’s deviant behaviour might have had attention from the local physician, who would have diagnosed either mania or a form of melancholia and treated the patient accordingly. Ancient medical handbooks list misanthropy as an important and noteworthy symptom of mental illness. One of the earliest surviving sources mentioning misanthropy in this manner is the treatise On Acute and Chronic Diseases by an anonymous author of the first century CE, who wrote: ‘Signs of melancholy: Melancholics are more misanthropic and refuse nourishment, their extremities become cold’ (Anonymus Parisinus 19.2.1: μελαγχολίας σημεῖα· οἱ δὲ μελαγχολικοὶ σφοδρότερον μισανθρωποῦσι καὶ ἀποστρέφονται τὰ σιτία, ψύχονταί τε τὰ ἄκρα). In mentioning it first, the author obviously considered misanthropy a highly significant symptom, and clearly did not feel the need to explain its meaning. It is of note that authors link the symptom not only with melancholia, but also with mania, and sometimes even refer to it as a condition in its own right. In the first century CE, Rufus of Ephesus recommended sexual intercourse as treatment for ‘melancholics, the downcast and misanthropes’ (τῷ μελαγχολικῷ καὶ κατηφεῖ καὶ μισανθρώπῳ; Ruf. Eph. apud Aetium Amidenum 3.8). Here, again, the author evidently expects the reader to know what misanthropy entails.

In our modern age, however, we have to diligently determine its historical meaning: Does misanthropia signify the simple self-isolation of an individual from others? Or does it include an aggressive streak, as its literal rendering ‘hatred of people’ implies? Perhaps it may even go as far as a raging madness which endangers others? This article will demonstrate that misanthropia, as used in medical texts, references a cultural concept mostly disseminated and embellished by humorous fictional literature, later likewise employed in serious (philosophical and Christian) discourse. The significant semantic change to which the concept was subject during late antiquity and the rise of Christianity culminated in the work of the Byzantine physician Paulus Nicaeus (c. seventh or ninth century CE), whose medical compilation devotes a whole chapter to misanthropia, characterising it in more detail and promoting it to the status of a distinct diagnostic entity.

The devotion of substantial scholarly attention to the themes of isolation, solitude and misanthropy is a relatively recent development. ¹ A scattering of studies over the last century explored the figure of Timon the Misanthrope (Barataud, 2007: 15–84; Bertram, 1906; Demandt, 2012; Graßl, 2021; Irmscher, 1995; Photiadès, 1959; Tomassi, 2011). In an instance of supreme irony, a conference on ‘Ancient Ideas and Experiences of Misanthropy, Isolation, and Solitude’ scheduled to take place in Salzburg in early 2020 found itself cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which demanded heavy restrictions on interpersonal interaction and raised an interdisciplinary interest in the phenomenon of social isolation. ² This new momentum around the topic is long overdue, particularly from a medical historian’s point of view, because of the strong influence of underlying cultural mentalities on ancient definitions of mental illness and their demarcations from the healthy state. The concept of the self on which the modern individual rests is fundamentally different from that of the ‘social animal’ of antiquity, a divergence which affects definitions of mental disease on a very deep level. Informed by an approach drawing on histoire des mentalités, medical historiography may therefore gain novel insights into ancient psychopathology by turning to the severely under-studied phenomena of misanthropy and self-seclusion interpreted as serious signs of mental illness. We will first, as indicated above, seek to approach an understanding of misanthropia’s meaning in psychopathological writings and its notable rise in later ancient medicine via its conception outside that discipline, turning specifically to the figure of Timon the Misanthrope.

Timon, the quintessential misanthrope

Once, on the occasion of a festival, Timon and his barely-tolerated only companion Apemantus are feasting by themselves, and Apemantus exclaims: ‘Timon, what a fine symposium ours is!’ – ‘It would be,’ answers Timon, ‘if you were not here.’ (Plutarch, Antonius 70.3: τοῦ δ’ Ἀπημάντου φήσαντος “ὡς καλὸν ὦ Τίμων τὸ συμπόσιον ἡμῶν” – “εἴγε σύ” ἔφη “μὴ παρῆς”). This short anecdote, or chreia told by Plutarch in the first century CE encapsulates the principal characteristic of the misanthrope, that is, the desire for solitude. We find further insights into the quality of this solitude by examining the multitude of sources, across many different genres, which use the Timon figure as their quintessential misanthrope.

Timon’s name makes its first appearance in classical Attic comedy (late fifth century BCE). ³ Aristophanes mentions him twice in his works (Aristophanes, The Birds 1547–49; Lysistrata 808–820). ⁴ From his lines we can gather that Timon hates all men (not necessarily women), avoids contact with people, lives outside the city and hides behind a thistly exterior repellent to his fellow citizens. The joking reference to him as a ‘child of the Furies’ perhaps describes his forbidding appearance and expression. ⁵ The structure of these jokes indicates that the audience is supposed to know Timon personally; this would make him a historical figure alive in late fifth-century Athens (Armstrong, 1987; Ceccarelli, 2000: 468 n. 37; Görler, 1963: 273; Graßl, 2021: 139; Tomassi, 2011: 17; cf. Pelling, 1988: 291–3).

Aristophanes’ contemporary Phrynichus underscores Timon’s then local, and later universal, fame as a prototypical misanthrope in his comedy Monotropos, written for the Dionysiaca in 414 BCE. ⁶ Its principal character Knemon, a dedicated misanthrope, models his lifestyle on Timon: ‘I live the life of Timon / without a wife, without servants, irascible, without approach, / without laughter, without conversation, peculiar.’ (ζῶ δὲ Τίμωνος βίον, / ἄγαμον, ἄδουλον, ὀξύθυμον, ἀπρόσοδον, / ἀγέλαστον, ἀδιάλεκτον, ἰδιογνώμονα. Phrynichus, Fragment 18 [Kock]). Using the repetitive prefix ‘a-’ (‘without’), the passage primarily characterises Timon by what he lacks or rejects, each of which is a key element of human life: a spouse and family, a comfortable life befitting his station, social interaction and discourse. The suggestion here is that he rejects everything his contemporaries consider fundamental human needs and desires, which would make him peculiar indeed. Ancient thought conceives of people as social beings, each one integrated into a community, a polis; being a stranger without citizen rights was, or would be, a precarious and highly undesirable existence. Social standing, preferably established over many generations, was a crucial component of polis life. The society Phrynichus’ audiences knew was one based on family ties and mutually supportive relationships, where inter-family feuds were common and a general acceptance reigned that people’s loyalty was first and foremost to their family (Blanshard, 2018; Hatzilambrou, 2021; Procopé, 1986: 678–87). The rejection of all these ties, each fundamental to life in ancient Greek society, was radical at least; in the eyes of Phrynichus’ contemporaries, it is likely to have been an incomprehensible transgression of basic social norms and values.

By dint of his chosen lifestyle’s capacity to arouse strong feelings, Timon was a very successful character of Attic comedy who often found his way into works by later comic playwrights; in the fourth century BCE alone, Antiphanes shaped his lost play Timon around him, while Menander’s Dyskolos likewise referenced the figure. ⁷ He also crossed genre boundaries, soon finding himself at the centre of his own sub-genre of fictitious auto-epitaphs, purporting to be inscriptions on Timon’s gravestone written in his own hand and declaring his aversion to fellow humans even unto death. ⁸ Their supposed provenance is inconsistent with the notion that his burial place was inaccessible, either surrounded by thorny bushes or by the sea (see, for example, Anthologia Palatina 7.315 u. 320; Plutarch, Antonius 70.6). These epigrams are attributable to the Alexandrine tradition of epigrammatic poetry in Hellenistic times; some of them are accredited to Callimachus of the early third century BCE. Two of them read as follows:

Wish me not well, evil-hearted one, but pass on. It will be well with me if I get rid of your presence. (Μὴ χαίρειν εἴπῃς με, κακὸν κέαρ, ἀλλὰ πάρελθε· ἶσον ἐμοὶ χαίρειν ἐστὶ τὸ μὴ σὲ πελᾶν; Anthologia Palatina 7.318; transl. Fantuzzi and Hunter, 2004: 303)

I, Timon the misanthrope, dwell here. Be on your way after heaping curses on my head – just be on your way. (Τίμων μισάνθρωπος ἐνοικέω. Ἀλλὰ πάρελθε οἰμώζειν εἴπας πολλά, πάρελθε μόνον; Anthologia Palatina 7.320; transl. Fantuzzi and Hunter, 2004: 394)

In emphasising Timon’s wish to avoid contact with his fellow men, both epigrams draw their comical quality from the harsh contrast between this desire and the frequently observed wish of people to be remembered and lovingly commemorated by the living after death. The second epigram plays with the protective formulas usually inscribed on gravestones, which were supposed to shield the deceased from curses. Timon is indifferent to curses. He only wishes to be left alone.

Timon and the chreia tradition

At the same time, the Timon character crossed over into prose. Hellenistic authors such as Neanthes of Cyzicus seem to have drawn embellished anecdotes about Timon’s life from extant plays and poems and also added new material to the tradition. In his Lives of Illustrious Men, Neanthes included a ‘biography’ of Timon. It is vital to note here that this literary genre did not aspire to factuality in the slightest. It set out to entertain and educate, focusing on building a character out of their chreiai (Hock, 1986: 3–9, 23–47; Kindstrand, 1986; Searby, 2019), that is, short anecdotes or pithy sayings about or attributed to the person in question, sometimes wise, sometimes solemn, witty or even silly. These chreiai often have a surprising effect and seek to open up new vistas on the world. Notably, a chreia, by definition, always refers to a famed person of the rather distant past; it is evident, then, that by Hellenistic times, Timon had gained the status of a noteworthy individual in his own right. The only surviving chreia of Timon attributed to Neanthes is the anecdotal story of his death related above (apud Suidam a.3508). The narrative is far too much of a topos to be true; as well as its heavy use of symbolism and poetic justice, it follows a known trope of philosophers meeting their deaths by preferring their own doctrine over sound medical advice (other examples relate to Democritus and Heraclitus; Tomassi, 2011: 47–8; cf. Chitwood, 2004).

Other examples of chreiai about Timon’s acts and utterings – such as Plutarch’s description of Timon and Apemantus feasting, at the start of previous section – read more like modern jokes ending on a witty punchline. The earliest surviving examples are from the first century CE, but clearly use older material. They are often incorporated into works of other genres, as is the case in Plutarch’s biographies. I concur with Tomassi in emphatically acknowledging the transformative power of this genre, enriching as it does the Timon tradition with multitudinous new motifs, creative embellishments and even additional minor characters, such as Apemantus in Plutarch’s chreia (Tomassi, 2011: 44).

One of these additions to the Timon character is the question of why he became a misanthrope in the first place (Barataud, 2007: 19–20; Bertram, 1906: 46–9; Graßl, 2021: 144–6; Schmid, 1959: 167–9). The most frequent explanation revolves around Timon’s severe disappointment in his friends, who flattered him while he had money to spend and deserted him after he had lost his fortune. In the second century CE, Lucian of Samosata expanded upon this motif in his dialogue Timon (Tomassi, 2011: esp. 66–97; see also Barataud, 2007: 30–52; Sallmann, 1977). This explanation of Timon’s misanthropy seems to originate in the philosophical tradition, in this case a passage in Plato’s Phaedo, which described the cause of misanthropy as repeated disappointment in one’s supposed friends (Plato, Phaedo 89d). Incidentally, this passage appears to contain the oldest use of the term misanthropia in Greek literature (Demandt, 2021: 24). There are other instances in which Timon and philosophy co-occur. In Imperial Roman times, some doxographical authors name Timon as a genuine philosopher and cite his lifestyle as a demonstration of Cynic philosophy; an example is in Pliny Natural History 7.19 (Barataud, 2007: 72–6; Bertram, 1906: 37–42; Photiadès, 1959: 320–5; Tomassi, 2011: 48–52). There are obvious parallels between the two which make this connection understandable, particularly because the chreia genre, due to its form and textual tradition, lent itself to the repeated switching of attributions of anecdotes and sayings between vaguely similar protagonists (Hock, 1986: 42–6; Kindstrand, 1986: 232). We are not surprised, therefore, to observe that the supposed manner of Timon’s death is very similar to a chreia told about the death of Diogenes, the most famous Cynic (Tomassi, 2011: 49–50).

It appears that the impact of the chreia tradition on the Timon character went even deeper than this. I would argue that the creative additions and new interconnections the genre imparted to the figure of Timon engendered a fundamental shift in its overall depiction, changing the misanthropy attributed to him from an excessive, exaggerated reclusiveness to a misanthropia with a dark and destructive quality of active hatred towards all human beings. A chreia told by Plutarch might typify this malevolence. Timon rises to address the Athenian assembly, causing something of a stir due to the extraordinary nature of the occurrence. He says:

My dear Athenians, you may know that I own a piece of land with a fig-tree on it from which quite some of our fellow citizens have hanged themselves. As I intend to build a house there and therefore plan to cut down the fig-tree, please take note that all those among you who desire to hang themselves should do so in the coming days. (Plutarch, Antonius 70.4–5, retold in my own words)

There is similar menace in the anecdote in which Timon affectionately embraced the young Alcibiades, explaining his action by his joy in all the harm Alcibiades will do to his fellow Athenians (Plutarch, Antonius 70.2). Contrasting with the earlier comedies and epigrams, this focus on Timon’s delight in others suffering injury is a new variation on the misanthropy motif. It seems to have arisen in Hellenistic times, but the dearth of surviving sources makes the particular century hard to pinpoint. Plutarch, writing in the late first century CE, certainly drew upon older sources. In the earliest sources, the classical and early Hellenistic comedies and epigrams, Timon’s only overtly aggressive act is to attempt to chase unsuspecting visitors away by throwing clots of clay, pears or sometimes stones at them while roaring expletives – a scene regularly staged to great effect in comedies such as Menander’s Dyskolos (fourth century BCE). Aristophanes’ likening of Timon to a Fury (Lysistrata 807) seems to be more a hyperbolic commentary on his looks than an ascription of raging vengefulness to him (cf. Tomassi, 2011: 23). In depicting more disturbing incidents, the chreia genre significantly added to the character of Timon, giving him a darkly malevolent aspect and, in doing so, broadened the semantic range of the term ‘misanthrope’ itself.

Timon in education, rhetoric and philosophy

In the first century BCE and the first and second centuries CE – the period of most frequent references to misanthropia by medical writers – Timon was a very well-known character. We may safely assume that every educated person had read several chreiai about him because this genre was central to all stages of education, from early literacy to advanced training in sophistry. ⁹ Children learned to read and write with the help of short chreiai: They copied out names of philosophers, illustrious men of history or protagonists of fictional works; we may assume that their teachers told them stories about these personages. After this, they progressed to short maxims or statements and then longer chreiai. In this way, people became acquainted from the outset of their education with the rich cultural tradition that included Timon the Misanthrope. An Egyptian papyrus showing a comprehensive range of reading and writing exercises for beginners bears witness to this early encounter of young students with the figure; its content includes a list of names for copying out in early literacy education, featuring characters from plays by Menander including the Dyskolos (Hock and O’Neil, 2002: 15).

After acquiring basic literacy skills, pupils turned to grammar, literature and the composition of simple texts. While Homer was a dominant subject matter in the study of literature, chreiai served as examples in grammar. A frequently employed exercise provided a short chreia, and students were required to put designated words through all their different forms; at an advanced level, all of the words were to be inflected at the same time while the text retained grammatical and semantic coherence. Having reached this stage of their education and now aged roughly 15 years, students who aspired to higher education would study with a sophist and train in rhetoric, including text composition. Here, at all levels of skill, chreiai served as subjects of argumentative exercises, numerous examples of which have survived. Due to this prominence of chreiai in rhetoric, all teachers and a number of intellectuals would have created their own collections, particularly if they incorporated them into their writings, as we know Plutarch did (Hock, 1986: 8). Of course, chreiai on Timon would have featured in these; indeed, several speeches and similar exercises on misanthropy have been preserved for posterity. ¹⁰ An example is Declamation 26 of the 51 orational exercises or ‘imaginary speeches’ by the renowned rhetor Libanius (fourth century CE), which centres around Timon and his effusion for Alcibiades, as in the chreia related by Plutarch to which I referred above.

The certain and easy familiarity with Timon the Misanthrope provided to educated Greeks through chreiai as staples of ancient learning and intellectualism was likewise the case for educated Romans who acquired Greek language skills by the same means. Cicero used the figure of Timon to exemplify or indeed explain the term and concept of misanthropy (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.25 and 4.27; similarly in Seneca, Letters 18.7, and Pliny, Natural History 7.18.80). While Cicero appeared to be aware that his readers might not know the Greek word misanthropia or its Latin translation odium generis humani, he could be sure that they would be thoroughly familiar with Timon of Athens, evidently a character of fame and prominence in the Graeco-Roman world.

Whereas philosophical discourse largely considered misanthropy a serious moral defect, its principal characteristics, as outlined in this discourse, do not seem to differ much from misanthropy as embodied in the figure of Timon. Cicero elaborates as follows on the reasons why misanthropy is so reprehensible: it rejects social life (deserunt enim vitae societatem; Cicero, On Duties 1.29) and should in fact be impossible because being alone is contrary to human nature (sic natura solitarium nihil amat; Cicero, Laelius on Friendship 87–88). Cicero appears fundamentally unable to imagine a completely solitary life, as led by Timon. In his treatise on friendship Cicero emphasises that even a misanthrope needs another human being to whom he may vent all his venomous bitterness (apud quem evomat virus acerbitatis suae; Laelius on Friendship 23.87; see Tomassi, 2011: 56). It is evident that in this discourse, strong emotions require a counterpart if they are to become meaningful. This passage underscores the extent to which ancient thought perceived people as part of a social community. Earlier, in the fourth century BCE, Aristotle had clearly defined belonging to a community as what makes a person human; his Politics (1253a) asserts that those incapable of living in a community or without a need to do so are not part of human society, but are either animals or gods. As Rosalia Hatzilambrou rightly notes, Aristotle does not even raise the possibility that someone would voluntarily choose not to be part of human society (Hatzilambrou, 2021: 150, n. 10). He regards humans as social beings by nature, an idea encapsulated in his concept of man as zoon politikon, picked up by Cicero as cited above and reiterated by authors including Xenophon (Memorabilia 2.6.21) and Plutarch (Moralia 479c). ¹¹ Exploring the detail of the complex, multi-faceted discourse on misanthropy brought forth by ancient philosophy in its many variants and prominently furthered by Stoic thought would exceed the focus and frame of this article (Barataud, 2007: 25–8; Bertram, 1906: 36–43; Bloch, 2012: 828–32; Huning, 1980: 1402–3). I will limit myself to remarking upon the concurrence of this discourse with the general contemporary cultural conviction that misanthropy is an undesirable and unhealthy state of mind. The Cynics, whose preferred lifestyle resembles that of Timon in certain respects, broke numerous social norms, which supports our hypothesis of the deviant quality conferred on misanthropy by the discourse of the time (Bertram, 1906: 38–42; Tomassi, 2011: 49–53).

Misanthropy in medical sources

As educated men of their era, medical authors of Roman Imperial times shared the pool of literary and cultural knowledge available to any educated reader, regardless of the complete absence of references to Timon in surviving medical texts of this age. It may explain the lack of perceived need for explanation of the term ‘misanthropy’.

A rough dating of the first two mentions of misanthropy in medical writings places them in the Hellenistic era. Neither of them uses the term in a psychopathological context. The first of them occurs in a deontological treatise from the Corpus Hippokraticum, recommending physicians to avoid arrogant behaviour because it gives the impression of a misanthropic nature (Corpus Hippokraticum, The Physician 1). There is little here to indicate the specific qualities or actions associated with such a character. The second mention of misanthropy appears in the Hippocratic epistolary novel, a fictional narrative in which Hippocrates meets the famed philosopher Democritus who had withdrawn into the wilderness and solitude, to the great concern of his fellow citizens of Abdera. Although Democritus’ behaviour could very well earn the epithet ‘misanthropic’, the text uses the term in a very different sense: ‘Do you not see that even the cosmos is full of misanthropy?’ asks the philosopher (Οὐχ ὁρῇς ὅτι καὶ ὁ κόσμος μισανθρωπίης πεπλήρωται; Corpus Hippokraticum, Letters 17.9; transl. WD Smith). The meaning is easy to discern: the world is forbidding and cruel to its human inhabitants.

From the first century CE onwards, the medical authors who use the term employ it in diagnostic contexts. By this point, all references to misanthropy by medical authors are either in clinical descriptions of melancholic madness or in lists of symptoms calling for a particular treatment. Chronologically, these texts fall into two groups. The first set was mostly written in the first and second centuries CE (by Aretaeus, Rufus of Ephesus, Anonymus Parisinus, and somewhat later the Pseudo-Galenic Introductio sive Medicus); many more medical texts from this era have been preserved for posterity than have survived from the earlier age of Hellenistic medicine (Nutton, 2013: 207–21), which means the accumulation of references to misanthropy in this period may simply be an incidental phenomenon of source survival. The second group of sources mentioning misanthropy are encyclopaedic medical compilations of the fifth century CE and later (Aëtius of Amida, Paulus of Aegina, Paulus Nicaeus). This textual genre mostly entailed the compilation and reworking of older sources into concise textbooks; this process included the setting of priorities and the addition of particular emphases and ‘takes’ on the subject matter (Bouras-Vallianatos, 2019; Metzger, 2013; Van der Eijk, 2010).

Until Paulus of Aegina in the seventh century, no author saw a need to define misanthropy, but we may attempt to access the intended meaning via close analysis of context. Conspicuously, and frequently, the earlier authors in particular link misanthropy with a craving for solitude. Aretaeus (first century CE) writes of those suffering from melancholy: ‘Misanthropy prompts them to flee into solitude’ (ἢ ἐς ἐρημίην φεύγουσι μισανθρωπίῃ; Aretaeus 1.5.3). The Pseudo-Galenic Introductio (8.24) describes melancholics as ‘distrustful, misanthropic and welcoming of solitude’. ¹² The Anonymus Parisinus (first century CE) regards patients with melancholy as ‘more strongly misanthropic’ than sufferers from mania (σφοδρότερον μισανθρωποῦσι; Anonymus Parisinus 19.2.1); one sentence previously, he had ascribed ‘aversion to all things and to all people, with depression’ to mania (πάντων μετὰ δυσθυμίας ἀποστροφή; 18.2.3). As I have shown elsewhere, ancient medicine regarded a yearning for solitude as an alarming sign of mental illness, an outlook which reflects the grave concerns ancient societies shared about the behaviour of those who rejected the society and company of others (Metzger, 2021).

The notion of misanthropy as setting people apart from their fellow human beings appears in passages of medical texts which paraphrase the terminus technicus ‘misanthropy’ as ‘hatred of people’; one example is Galen’s lengthy characterisation of melancholy: ‘The melancholics differ from each other: While all have fear, are despondent, and find fault with life and hate people, not all of them want to die’ (τὸ μὲν φοβεῖσθαι καὶ δυσθυμεῖν καὶ μέμφεσθαι τῇ ζωῇ καὶ μισεῖν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἅπαντες ἔχοντες, ἀποθανεῖν δ’ ἐπιθυμοῦντες οὐ πάντες; Galen, On Affected Parts 3.10 [8.190 Kühn]; transl. Pormann and Van der Eijk). Detailing the symptoms of the condition, Galen notes: ‘In the case of such despondency, they hate all people they see, they are shy and afraid’ (ἐπί γέ τοι τῇ τοιαύτῃ δυσθυμίᾳ (191) μισοῦσιν πάντας, οὓς ἂν βλέπωσιν, καὶ σκυθρωποὶ διὰ παντός εἰσι, δειμαίνοντες. Galen, On Affected Parts 3.10 [8.190–191 Kühn], transl. Pormann and Van der Eijk). Similarly, Soranus of Ephesus (c. 100 CE) as preserved by Caelius Aurelianus depicts melancholia sufferers as follows:

Fear and troubles of the mind hold them captive, as attested to by despondency in combination with taciturnity and hatred towards the members of their household (animi anxietas atque difficultas tenet attestante maestitudine cum silentio et odio conuiuentium; Soranus apud Caelium Aurelianum, Chronic Diseases 181).

All these passages highlight ‘fear’ and ‘despondency’ as the overwhelming emotions governing the patient diagnosed with misanthropy; this wording sheds doubt on the level of aggression implicit both in the noun ‘hatred’ used here and in the term ‘misanthropy’ itself. I would therefore argue that ‘misanthropy’, in early Imperial medical texts, signifies a passive withdrawal from the society of other people.

This concept of misanthropy as passive withdrawal meets only part of the facets of misanthropy as typified by the Timon figure, whose complexity at this point reflected the emerging complexity of the condition. The misanthrope as a straightforward recluse omits the aggression and malevolence variously ascribed to Timon. However, it is highly likely that contemporary readers were aware of these connotations, which consequently infused the medical descriptions with a deeper and darker quality. It was indeed only a matter of time until this more malevolent quality of misanthropy likewise manifested in medical texts. From the fifth century CE onwards, medical compilers added irritability and irascibility (ἐπὶ μελαγχολικῶν, εὐπαροξύντων, ὀργίλων, μισανθρωπούντων ἢ ἀναχωρητικῶν, Paulus of Aegina 7.4.9; nearly verbatim Aëtius 3.28) to the ‘fear’ and ‘despondency’ their sources set out as traits of the misanthrope (Paulus of Aegina 3.12).

The compilatory process in later ancient times further appears to have given greater prominence to misanthropy than did the sources drawn upon. Paulus of Aegina’s outline of melancholy lists misanthropy third among its signs: ‘The common symptoms of them all are fear, despondency and misanthropy’ (σημεῖα δὲ κοινὰ μὲν ἁπάντων ὅ τε φόβος καὶ ἡ δυσθυμία καὶ ἡ μισανθρωπία, Paulus of Aegina 3.12). If we compare this description to Galen’s itemisation of symptoms of melancholy as cited above, we note that Paulus retains the ‘fear’ and ‘despondency’ of his sources, but adds ‘misanthropy’ as the condition’s third most important diagnostic sign. Paulus of Aegina’s medical handbook, in turn, served as the principal source for Paulus Nicaeus (seventh or ninth century CE), who condensed his material into one book as compared to Paulus of Aegina’s seven, yet still dedicated an entire chapter to misanthropy, classified as a form of melancholy. Around one-third of this chapter quotes from Paulus of Aegina, while the source of the other two-thirds remains unclear. ¹³

Paulus Nicaeus defines misanthropy thus:

What is misanthropy? Avoidance of and hatred towards all humans and especially the members of the person’s own household. [. . .] Suspicion towards the person’s own household as if they [were to] scheme against him, total rejection and repulsion of everyone. (Τί ἐστιν μισανθρωπία; ἀποστροφὴ καὶ μῖσος πρὸς πάντας ἀνθρώπους καὶ μάλιστα πρὸς τοὺς οἰκείους αὑτοῦ. [. . .] ὑποψία πρὸς τοὺς οἰκείους αὑτοῦ, ὡς ἐπιβουλευσαμένους αὐτῷ καὶ ὅλως ἀποστροφὴ καὶ δυσεντευξία πρὸς πάντας; Paulus Nicaeus 23.1)

What then follows is a description of possible delusions of being an animal or an object that misanthropy sufferers may experience, and of their unstable frame of mind. While this highly detailed description of misanthropy does not, of course, lack exploration of patients’ desire for solitude and of their avoidance of those who should be closest to them, the misanthrope, in Paulus Nicaeus’ definition, can go as far as rejecting their inborn humanity and thinking themselves an animal or inanimate thing – an ultimate sign of having stepped outside the social community of human beings.

Discussing possible treatments, Paulus Nicaeus notes a frequent tendency towards violent behaviour among misanthropy sufferers. Unlike those with other melancholic illnesses, misanthropes, he considers, can be a danger to their fellow human beings:

I will induce those who are misanthropic and seek to kill the members of their households to travel from town to town and, in general, I will not allow such sufferers to be with other men. (Τοὺς μὲν μισανθρωποῦντας καὶ φονεύοντας τοὺς οἰκείους ἀποδημῆσαι κελεύσω πόλιν ἐκ πόλεως ἀμείβοντα, καὶ καθ’ ὅλου σὺν ἀνθρώποις τοὺς τοιούτους οὐ κελεύσω γενέσθαι; Paulus Nicaeus 23.2)

We witness here a transformation of misanthropes from recluses into dangerous lunatics, marking the completion of a fundamental shift in their character by the end of the compilation processes that took place in later ancient times.

Turning evil

This turn towards malevolence in misanthropy as defined by later ancient medicine is linked to the profound semantic shift that the concept of misanthropy underwent, starting in the Imperial Roman period. This change sees the misanthrope growing increasingly aggressive, actively destructive towards both individuals and society as a whole, and, in the context of Christian morality, becoming subject to depiction as downright evil. This transmutation has some early roots in the religious polemics of the first century CE onwards, directed against the monotheistically exclusive communities of the Jews and the Christians. Tacitus, for example, in his famous narrative of Nero blaming the Christians for the burning of Rome (Tacitus, Annals 15.44), describes the reasoning behind this verdict thus: ‘An immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind’ (haud proinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt, Tacitus, Annals 15.44; transl. Church and Brodribb). The term used here, odium humani generis, had been firmly established as the Latin translation of the Greek misanthropia since Cicero. The pairing of this wording with the incident in question makes it evident that this form of misanthropy is more serious than an individual’s simple desire to keep to him- or herself.

Tacitus’ contemptuous description of the so-called ‘misanthropy of the Jews’ in the Histories (5.2–5) supports this judgement with practical examples: they did not mix with people not of their faith and acted towards them as towards enemies; they would not share a table or house with them and did not intermarry with them. They eschewed simple rules of morality and worship of the gods and held only abominable things sacred. They failed to do honour to the Emperors and were ungovernable; they would not take part in upholding the Empire’s inclusive society by participating in public festivals or rituals. ¹⁴ This last point is of particular import; the contemporary status of public communal religious practices as integral to the welfare of ancient polities meant that Jews’ and Christians’ refusal to take part in them crossed the line from eccentric custom to an act injurious to society as a whole, particularly in view of the effects of proselytism in boosting these groups’ numbers. ¹⁵ From this contemporary perspective, with its emphasis on the collective that contrasts with modern individualism, the religious rules and customs that command absence from communal ritual are misanthropic indeed. ¹⁶

The subsequent entry of Christian authors into the field of religious polemic saw the advent of depictions of misanthropy likewise as evil destructive behaviour, yet attributed to pagan beliefs and practices. Misanthropy thus found itself deployed on all fronts – in anti-Christian, anti-Jewish and Christian apologetic writings – to denigrate and condemn faith-based ‘outgroups’ (Bloch, 2012: 832–44; Fögen, 1997: 242–9).

These developments laid the foundations for the further career of misanthropy as a serious moral defect in Christian writings of late antiquity. As a counter-concept to the Christian precept of philanthropia, misanthropia came to signify a particularly comprehensive rejection of Christian values and an expression of great remoteness from God. Gregory of Nyssa considered the eternal fires of hell to await ‘the misanthropic and morally depraved’ (τοῖς δὲ μισανθρώποις καὶ πονηροῖς), while those who had led blameless lives would attain their reward in heaven (Gregory of Nyssa, De Beneficentia 1). Analogously, writers conceived of the misanthropia of Satan and his demons as diametrically opposed to divine philanthropy, lending misanthropia further potency as a state found in all ‘enemies of Christianity’ (Bloch, 2012: 842–4; Fögen, 1997: 247–9). Eusebius of Caesarea’s comments on ‘murderous, bloodthirsty, misanthropic and inhuman demons’ (τὰ φονικὰ καὶ φίλαιμα μισάνθρωπά τε καὶ ἀπάνθρωπα δαιμόνια; Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 5.1.8), who turn men into murderers or, in the past, induced them to commit human sacrifice, embody the connotations of the new quality of misanthropy as it appeared in Christian late antiquity. ¹⁷

It is evident from this survey that the profound cultural transformations which took place in late antiquity engendered change in the way medicine spoke about misanthropy as a psychopathological symptom. The relatively late occurrence of these changes, from the seventh century CE onwards, attests to the conservatism of later ancient medicine. By the time of Paulus Nicaeus, the core meaning of misanthropy had shifted so markedly towards the destructive that this conception prevailed even in the works of medical authors emulating their great classical forbears; clearly, in early Byzantine times, people based their cultural repertoire on different reading material from that used 500 or even 1000 years earlier.

Conclusion: a deep cultural unease

Misanthropy is first and foremost a social concept, at the core of which lie issues of belonging – or otherwise – to society. In choosing to shun human contact and basic societal rules of behaviour, the misanthrope attracts a label of deviance which precipitates his or her exclusion from society. It is the ‘in-group’ that ascribes misanthropy to members of the ‘out-group’ in purporting to characterise the fundamental norms and values presumed to attach to each community – a classic normative technique intended to promote social cohesion.

In this regard, the mechanisms surrounding misanthropy are very similar to those governing the label of ‘madness’: the mad, like the misanthropic, are excluded from the normative collective. In Greek and Roman antiquity, this exclusion was very frequently spatial as well as discursive; madness was conceptually associated with unpopulated and wild spaces, thought to induce mental instability, while at the same time sources provide indicators for the active expulsion of those deemed mad from human settlements to fend for themselves in the countryside (Kazantzidis, 2018; Padel, 1997: 102–19; Thumiger, 2017: 377–80). The ‘mad wanderer’ is a common motif in Greek tragedy, a rejected, lonely figure, tortured by madness and subsisting on meagre food such as wild pears (Padel, 1997: 102–14). One of these mad wanderers is the Homeric hero Bellerophon, singled out in medical texts as an example of both melancholy (Pseudo-Aristoteles, Problems 30.1) and misanthropy (Pseudo-Galen, Introductio 14.741; see: Bloch, 2012: 840; Kazantzidis, 2018: 233–4; Padel, 1997: 102, 112; Rütten, 1992: 55–61).

Indeed, ‘madness’ and misanthropy appear closely related, employing as they did the same dichotomy and symbolic repertoire of the societal ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. However, unlike madness, which was amenable to explanation as illness or as a divinely imposed affliction, misanthropy appears particularly unsettling to ancient thinking because it originates, or appears to originate, in a voluntary choice on the misanthrope’s part. In the eyes of the ancients, the misanthrope willingly steps outside society, spatially and in terms of values and norms, apparently doing so against all reason, social ties and indeed human nature itself. It is only in this cultural framework that the figure of Timon could have attained such a vibrant career across numerous different textual genres. Because misanthropy constituted such an extraordinary violation of the community-centred anthropology of the ancient world, these societies responded with various strategies aimed at containing this deeply disturbing behaviour. Comedy, comedic epigrams and chreiai ridiculed the misanthrope, seeking to tame the deviant by laughter. Philosophy brought moral censure to bear on these figures, while Christian cosmology ultimately demonised them. Medicine, in turn, pathologised misanthropic conduct as mental aberrance, thus setting this deviance within a manageable framework and maintaining both the normative foundations of society and its core belief in the zoon politicon.

From its inception, the ancient concept of misanthropy had two potential aspects: avid avoidance of human contact, and actively aggressive malevolence. But while the former remained a continuous component of the concept, the aggressive streak of the misanthrope emerged later and grew increasingly pronounced until, in late antiquity, it came to dominate the term’s semantic field, largely but not solely due to its Christian usage. The career of misanthropy as a medical diagnosis reflects this development, as the term adjusted to contemporaneous changes in meaning and evolved into the fully-fledged diagnostic entity misanthropia as set out by the Byzantine medical textbook author Paulus Nicaeus (seventh/ninth century CE). This obvious and evident intertwinement of medical concepts with their cultural context speaks both to societal notions of ‘madness’ and deviant behaviour and to fundamental conceptions of the self and the anthropological presumptions upon which they rested. Gaining a full picture of these influences requires us to look beyond the genre directly at hand. The widening of our focus from medical texts alone, and then from the ‘serious’ genres of ancient philosophy and scholarship to other categories of ancient writing, has provided us with a more rounded perspective on the thinking and mentality of the times than found from a study of specialised discourses only. In doing so, we have been guided by the figure of Timon, who, in his career from a butt of comedy to a hater of humanity, has pointed us to his links with sufferers of melancholic madness.