Laudator Temporis Acti

Petronius, Satyricon 126 (tr. Michael Heseltine):

Look at me; I know nothing of omens, and I never attend to the astrologer's sky, but I read character in a man's face, and when I see him walk I know his thoughts.

vides me: nec auguria novi nec mathematicorum caelum curare soleo, ex vultibus tamen hominum mores colligo, et cum spatiantem vidi, quid cogitet scio.

Gareth Schmeling, A Commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 474:

The art of metoposcopy seems to have taken its place with other means of fortune-telling popular in the Empire: Suetonius Tit. 2 aiunt metoposcopum a Narcisso Claudi liberto adhibitum, ut Britannicum inspiceret, constantissime affirmasse illum quidem nullo modo ... imperaturum; Pliny NH 35.88 quendam a facie hominum divinantem, quos metoposcopos vocant, ex iis dixisse aut futurae mortis annos aut praeteritae vitae; Plautus Pseud. 750 ubi te aspexerit, narrabit ultro quid sese velis. On ancient beliefs in physiognomy as a science, which were codified in Aristotle's time, see Förster (1893-4) passim; J. Schmidt, RE s.v. 'Physiognomik', 1064-75, for contemporary Roman beliefs; see E. C. Evans (1950) on Seneca; ead. (1969) for a masterful study on physiognomy in the ancient world (excellent index); see now Swain (2007).

A note is also needed concerning the analysis of a man's character from his gait. Start with Simon Goldhill, Who Needs Greek? Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; rpt. 2003), p. 83:

How you walk is a repeated topic of commentary by Lucian. You should hope to 'walk like a man' (which is linked to a body bronzed by the sun, a masculine glint in the eye, an alert appearance).⁸² You don't want to walk 'with an unsteady shimmy' (which is linked to a floppy neck, a woman's glance, a soft voice, the smell of perfume, scratching your head with one finger, and carefully coiffed curls).⁸³ The figure of Blame in one of Lucian's divine comedies attacks even the god Dionysus for his 'walk': 'you all know how female and girly he is in his nature ... '⁸⁴ In particular, however, it is philosophers who seem to have a specially noticeable style of walking (which you may think harder to spot these days around the university or on the street). Thrasycles' walk is 'orderly' (eye-brows high, fierce gaze, elegant turn out);⁸⁵ Diogenes' walk matches his intense expression.⁸⁶ The uncultured book-buyer is mocked for imitating the walk of a philosopher;⁸⁷ and a string of philosophers are immediately distinctive because of their gait. The longest description of what 'the walk' should be like is this:

I saw them walking in an orderly fashion, decently dressed, always in thought, masculine, mostly with close-cropped hair nothing degenerate, none of that hyper-indifference which marks the simply mad Cynic, but of middling constitution, which everyone says is best.⁸⁸

⁸² 41.9.
⁸³ 41.11.
⁸⁴ 52.4.
⁸⁵ 25.54.
⁸⁶ 27.10.
⁸⁷ 31.21.
⁸⁸ 70.18.