How Beauty Marks Told Your Future in Ancient Greece
Beauty marks are pretty common, and while most people aren’t born with them, as you get older you’ll develop a few here and there. Technically they’re benign tumors caused by a buildup of melanin and melanocytic nevus cells that spread out evenly into a small circle.
This means they’re not a big deal and they’re random, so it was pretty interesting to find out that the Ancient Greeks believed beauty marks, which they called olives, could tell your future.
Why talk to anyone when you can just stare at their face and know everything?
Moleomancy/Moleosophy and The Seer Melampus
The ancient Greeks were big fans of a pseudoscience called physiognomy, a branch of bullshit that taught how to tell someone’s character and personality based on their appearance. Possibly the first treatise (set of books) on this subject was written by Aristotle entitled Physiognomonics.
Although like most philosophers with schools at that time, in all likelihood the treatise was written by the students studying under Aristotle. It wasn’t uncommon for things written by students to be attributed to the teacher, which is like if a thousand years from now everyone thought all these research papers were written by some guy named Harvard.
“Look at me, I’m the author now.”
Physiognomy is widely thought to have originated with the Babylonian Empire around four thousand years ago but it maintained popularity for a long time. By that I mean, thousands of years “long time” since it regained some popularity in the 19th century.
As this was a common belief in Ancient Greek times; the seer, healer, possible ruler of the city of Argos, and eventual mythological figure Melampus was a believer of Moleomancy also known as Moleosophy. This is like a subdivision of physiognomy that teaches you how to read someone’s future by where the moles, beauty marks, and birthmarks are on their body.
We’re not entirely sure when this belief was spread and it doesn’t seem to have been as popular as physiognomy. We can guess Melampus was alive sometime between 1500 and 1300 BCE but we don’t really know the date of his birth or death.
I’m assuming this is because Melampus’s claim to fame was his supposed ability to talk with animals, and when someone introduces themselves with, “Hi, I’m Melampus and I can talk to animals”, your first question is never “Wait, when were you born?”
“We know when he was born but no one ever asks us.”
“On the Olives of the Body”
One of Melampus’s surviving treatises entitled Peri Palmon Mantikes which translates to On Divination by Twitches, yes fortune-telling based on twitches was also a thing, has a section of that details moleomancy.
This small section differs in the style which is why historians believe it wasn’t written by Melampus and instead by one of his students. It’s titled Peri Elaion you Somatos (On the Olives of the Body). Here are some highlights:
If The Mark is on The Forehead:
Men - he will grow to be the master of many men
Women - she will reign, or be the greatest… apparently, she can’t be both
If The Mark is Near The Eyebrow:
Men - if on the outside of the eyebrow; he’ll have a beautiful and good wife
Women - if on the outside of the eyebrow; she will have a rich and handsome husband
For both - if on the eyebrow; it’s a warning! Don’t marry because they will be husband/wife to five people
If The Mark is on The Nose
For both - they will never be satisfied with their amount of lovemaking. I wonder if Alexander Hamilton had one on his nose?
The above is also true if the birthmark is on their genitalia
Men - if the mark is on the side of the nose; he’ll travel a lot
Women - if the mark is on the side of the nose; she’ll have smelly feet
“Hey, hey, hey, let me see your nose first before you take those off!”
The Rest of The Face and Body
If on the cheek, chin, ear, tongue, front of the throat, armpit, thigh, or knee of a man, he’ll be rich
If near the spleen, on the thigh, front of the throat, ear, or armpit of a woman, she’ll be rich… was freaking everyone rich in Ancient Greece?
If on the lower portion of the jaw or stomach of a woman, she’ll be emotional
If on the lips of a man OR woman, they’ll be overeaters
If on the back of the throat, they’ll be beheaded
If on the shoulders they will be bound and oppressed
If on the hands, they’ll have many children
If on the chest, they’ll be poor and/or miserable
If on the genitalia, men will have male children and women will have female children. Melampus didn’t say what would happen if a man and woman with corresponding genital beauty marks had children
Finally, if the mark is on the left side of the body, they will be rich and good in all things. If on the right side, they will be emotional and poor.
Does anyone else feel like Melampus was just making this stuff up as he went? Like I said, this form of divination wasn’t as popular as its contemporaries but today you’ll still find websites that try to link your personality to where your beauty mark is. So even the weirdest forms of fortune-telling can have pretty long futures.
Quick Facts
A direct link between beauty marks and the cancerous version AKA melanoma hasn’t been found
In the 19th century, physiognomy was used to justify racism just like phrenology which measured the bumps on a skull to determine intelligence.
Between the 16th and 18th centuries fake beauty marks were used to cover up scars and syphilis sores
There is no scientific evidence that moleosophy or moleomancy is legitimate
