Making Manimals: School Fables and Physiognomy in the Roman Empire

Abstract: Physiognomy is the practice of assessing human character through bodily features, often in comparison with the physical attributes of animals. This article examines the role that non-human animals played in the evaluation of social behavior and human identity during the Second Sophistic. I focus on two cultural practices: scholastic training in fable exercises and physiognomic analysis. The article argues that the school fables provided students with a foundational "animal literacy" that informed the physiognomic practices of sophists like Marcus Polemo. By linking these traditions, I illustrate how animals served as moral and psychological avatars in elite intellectual circles, naturalizing the privileged status of the provincial Greek elite within the wider "manimal" kingdom.