Platonic Hair: The Symbolism of Beard and Baldness in Emperor Julian’s Misopogon and Synesius’s Praise of Baldness

Abstract This paper discusses the role of hair and beard in fourth-century debates on the appearance of “public intellectuals”—a label I use to designate individuals combining a commitment to philosophy with political participation. I take as my starting points two writings articulating the philosopher’s relationship with hair grooming: Emperor Julian’s Misopogon and Synesius of Cyrene’s Praise of Baldness . In their playful but programmatic pieces, Julian and Synesius do not as much outline a consistent discourse—they are rhetorical, performative, and context-bound—as rather signal a desire to discuss self-grooming in the light of contemporary cultural concerns and philosophical theories of signification. Emperor Julian’s interrogation on how to tell apart the beard of a genuine philosopher from that of an impostor claims its place within his program of reform of pagan spirituality and his equally theological and iconographical attack on his predecessor Constantine’s allegiance to Christianity. Synesius’s subversive celebration of (his) hairlessness as proof of intellectual freedom from matter operates as an ironic assertion of control over the Greek cultural canon and reads in stark contrast with early Christian attempts at tying reflection on hair with the mysticism of the suffering body, such as the assimilation of baldness and crucifixion in Augustine’s Expositions on the Psalms .