lime, and exposed in a public street to the rays of the noonday sun; food in plenty was within reach of the unfortunate wretches, but it was salt fish, or other salty foods, with all the water needed to satisfy the thirst this food was certain to excite, but in the very alleviation of which the poor criminals were only adding to the torments that would overtake them when by a more copious discharge from the kidneys the lime would ‘quicken’ and burn them to death.
THE SHORT, THE TALL AND THE UGLY
The deformed and disabled in the Graeco-Roman world were regarded as outsiders, made (according to Pliny, the first century AD naturalist) by Nature to amuse herself and create wonder in us. Some turned it to their advantage — in fact, major employment opportunities awaited those willing to perform at parties or in the theatre. Some were credited with magic powers (a large penis was a useful qualification — it was thought to attract the gaze of the Evil Eye away from an intended victim). Others might be ‘lucky’ enough to be collected by an emperor, a very popular hobby.
Aristocratic Roman names commonly denoted disability — Flaccus (Big ears), Naso (Big nose), Crassus (Fatso), Strabo (Cross-eyed), and Peditus (possibly Farter).
Cicero tells of a midget witness whom Lucius Philippus asked permission to question. ‘Be short’ said the judge; ‘I’ll be as short as the witness’ quipped Lucius.
At moments of crisis the ugly and deformed, like other marginal groups, often become subject to physical persecution which may result in their death. For example, in ancient Greek society they selected a victim known as a ‘ pharmakos ’ or ‘scapegoat’, upon whom the blame for any evils afflicting the community was laid. The victim, who was often but not invariably ugly and deformed, underwent a ritual expulsion or, far less often, execution. They chose the ugly or deformed because these people were believed to harbour a grudge against Nature or the gods for making them freaks, as well as against society as a whole for denying them their full human status.
One account, based on the sixth-century BC poems of Hipponax, tells:
The pharmakos was in ancient times the expiatory offering as follows. If a misfortune afflicted a city as the result of divine wrath, whether famine or plague or some other catastrophe, they led out the ugliest person of all for sacrifice, to be the expiation and pharmakos of the suffering city. When they had arranged for the sacrifice to take place at a suitable spot, they placed cheese, barley meal and dried figs in the hands of the victim. After beating the victim seven times on the penis with squills [onion bulbs] and branches of wild fig and other wild trees, they finally set light to him on a fire consisting of wild branches. Then they cast his ashes to the winds and to the sea, so that this should be an expiation for the suffering city.
Deformed slaves are often mentioned in Latin literature — they were very popular. In fact it seems no fashionable household was complete without a generous sprinkling of dwarfs, mutes, cretins, eunuchs and hunchbacks, whose chief duty seems to have been to undergo degrading and painful humiliation in order to provide amusement at dinner parties and other festive occasions ( 47 ). The pretentious Zoilus, ridiculed by Martial, was attended by a catamite who supplied him with red feathers to assist him to vomit, as well as by a eunuch who steadied his wavering penis over a chamber pot while he was urinating..…
In one of Martial’s epigrams, a guest observes how an adulterous pair use a cretinous slave to pass lascivious kisses slyly back and forth by proxy, under the eyes of the woman’s unsuspecting husband:
Labulla has discovered how to kiss her lover in the presence of her husband. She constantly slobbers over her diminutive cretin. The lover then straightaway grabs hold of him dripping with kisses, and, having filled him up with his own, returns
THE SHORT, THE TALL AND THE UGLY
The deformed and disabled in the Graeco-Roman world were regarded as outsiders, made (according to Pliny, the first century AD naturalist) by Nature to amuse herself and create wonder in us. Some turned it to their advantage — in fact, major employment opportunities awaited those willing to perform at parties or in the theatre. Some were credited with magic powers (a large penis was a useful qualification — it was thought to attract the gaze of the Evil Eye away from an intended victim). Others might be ‘lucky’ enough to be collected by an emperor, a very popular hobby.
Aristocratic Roman names commonly denoted disability — Flaccus (Big ears), Naso (Big nose), Crassus (Fatso), Strabo (Cross-eyed), and Peditus (possibly Farter).
Cicero tells of a midget witness whom Lucius Philippus asked permission to question. ‘Be short’ said the judge; ‘I’ll be as short as the witness’ quipped Lucius.
At moments of crisis the ugly and deformed, like other marginal groups, often become subject to physical persecution which may result in their death. For example, in ancient Greek society they selected a victim known as a ‘ pharmakos ’ or ‘scapegoat’, upon whom the blame for any evils afflicting the community was laid. The victim, who was often but not invariably ugly and deformed, underwent a ritual expulsion or, far less often, execution. They chose the ugly or deformed because these people were believed to harbour a grudge against Nature or the gods for making them freaks, as well as against society as a whole for denying them their full human status.
One account, based on the sixth-century BC poems of Hipponax, tells:
The pharmakos was in ancient times the expiatory offering as follows. If a misfortune afflicted a city as the result of divine wrath, whether famine or plague or some other catastrophe, they led out the ugliest person of all for sacrifice, to be the expiation and pharmakos of the suffering city. When they had arranged for the sacrifice to take place at a suitable spot, they placed cheese, barley meal and dried figs in the hands of the victim. After beating the victim seven times on the penis with squills [onion bulbs] and branches of wild fig and other wild trees, they finally set light to him on a fire consisting of wild branches. Then they cast his ashes to the winds and to the sea, so that this should be an expiation for the suffering city.
Deformed slaves are often mentioned in Latin literature — they were very popular. In fact it seems no fashionable household was complete without a generous sprinkling of dwarfs, mutes, cretins, eunuchs and hunchbacks, whose chief duty seems to have been to undergo degrading and painful humiliation in order to provide amusement at dinner parties and other festive occasions ( 47 ). The pretentious Zoilus, ridiculed by Martial, was attended by a catamite who supplied him with red feathers to assist him to vomit, as well as by a eunuch who steadied his wavering penis over a chamber pot while he was urinating..…
In one of Martial’s epigrams, a guest observes how an adulterous pair use a cretinous slave to pass lascivious kisses slyly back and forth by proxy, under the eyes of the woman’s unsuspecting husband:
Labulla has discovered how to kiss her lover in the presence of her husband. She constantly slobbers over her diminutive cretin. The lover then straightaway grabs hold of him dripping with kisses, and, having filled him up with his own, returns
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