Abstract of paper to be presented at the AAH Meeting, May 2005

Disabling Mythologies: Spartan Tradition in Imperial Rome

A confluence of anachronisms has led to a popular vision of a bleak and marginal life for people with physical disabilities within a hostile Graeco-Roman atmosphere, in which imperfect babies were routinely tossed off cliffs or into the Tiber.  The Emperor Claudius, especially in Suetonius’ enfreaked portrait, serves in the popular modern imagination as the exception to prove the rule.  Truman State University undergraduate participants in the research seminar “Physical Disability in Imperial Rome” will explore the Roman construct of physical disability, the meaning of which is socially constructed; that is, the significance of various disabilities shifts over time and between cultures.  There is no one set of Graeco-Roman attitudes toward disability.  A key to understanding Roman attitudes about people with disabilities lies in the Roman reception of Greek practices.  Plutarch’s tale of the Lycurgan practice of exterminating “deformed” infants is key, and we will focus on the transmission and reception of this tale in our presentation.  Against the background of the Roman heritage of (real or imagined) Greek attitudes toward disability, we will examine literary, artistic, and medical portrayals of disabled people in Rome during the imperial period.