Human, All Too Human: Discourses of Disability in Classical Greece

Abstract

Ancient histories of the disabled body are often characterised by the extent to which disabled people were cast out, maltreated, and stigmatised. Modern examinations of disability have frequently designated ancient Greece as the origin of the stigma and discrimination that has carried into modern times. This stance is typically supported by two key assumptions about the ancient world. The first is the common assumption that the Greeks practiced infant exposure: that any child deemed not worth rearing would be hurled off cliffs or removed from the city and left as food for beasts. The second is that, because the Greeks prioritised the beautiful body seen throughout classical sculpture, any physical body that differed from the classical rippling musculature, near-nudity, and perfect symmetry, must have been discriminated against. Yet, there is ample evidence from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. that suggests that there were many different discourses of disability, not simply a collective rejection. This thesis conducts a versatile examination into the discursive and textual evidence for physical disabilities in classical Greece (480 – 323 B.C.) to show that ancient views of disability were more ambivalent and flexible than has hitherto been admitted by a modern scholarship. The evidence does show that ancient Greek peoples were prejudicial against disability, but prejudice is not the whole story. By overemphasising the prominence of the ideal body and neglecting bodies deemed variant, we permit and perpetuate a skewed vision of ancient discourses. As a reaction, this study seeks to restore physical disability to a more ambiguous position on the spectrum of ancient bodily perspectives, a position that is less fixed at the negative end than orthodox studies would suggest.