Disability in Antiquity

Christian Laes is Associate Professor of Latin and Ancient History at the University of Antwerp (Belgium), and Adjunct Professor of Ancient History at the University of Tampere (Finland). From 2014–16, he has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Social Research, University of Tampere. He has published five monographs, four edited volumes and over seventy international contributions on the human life course in Roman and Late Antiquity. Childhood, youth, old age, family, marriage and sexuality as well as disabilities are the main focuses of his scholarly work.

Preface and Acknowledgements

Note on the Bibliography

List of Contributors








Introduction: Disability History and the Ancient World. Past, Present and Future - Christian Laes



Disability and Infirmitas in the Ancient World: Demographic and Biological facts in the longue durée - April Pudsey


The Ancient (Near) East




Disabilities from Head to Toe in Hittite Civilisation - Richard Beal



Mesopotamia and Israel - Edgar Kellenberger



Ancient Persia and Silent Disability - Omar Coloru



Egyptian Medicine and Disabilities: from Pharaonic to Graeco-Roman Egypt - Rosalie David



India: Demystifying Disability in Antiquity - M. Miles



Disability in Ancient China - Olivia Milburn


The Greek World




The Greek vocabulary of disabilities - Evelyn Samama



Ability and Disability in Classical Athenian Oratory - Martha Lynn Rose



Disabilities in Comedy and Tragedy - Robert Garland



Legal (and Customary?) Approaches to the Disabled in Ancient Greece - Matthew Dillon



The Hellenistic Turn in Bodily Representations: Venting Anxiety in Terracotta Figurines - Alexandre Mitchell



Plutarch's 'Philosophy' of Disability: Human after All - Michiel Meeusen


The Roman World




Roman Perfect bodies. The Stoic View - Bert Gevaert



Foul and Fair Bodies, Minds, and Poetry in Roman Satire - Sarah Bond and T.H.M. Gellar-Goad



The 'Other' Romans: Deformed Bodies in the Visual Arts of Rome - Lisa Trentin



Mobility Impairment in the Sanctuaries of Early Roman Italy - Emma-Jayne Graham



Mental Disability? Galen on Mental Health - Chiara Thumiger



Madness and Mad Patients According to Caelius Aurelianus - Danielle Gourevitch



Disability in the Roman Digest - Peter Toohey


The Late Ancient World




Hysterical Women? Gender and Disability in Early Christian Narrative – Anna Rebecca Solevåg



Augustine's Sermons and Disabilities - Martin Claes and Anthony Dupont



Infirmitas in Monastic Rules - Jenni Kuuliala



The Coptic and Ethiopic Tradition on Disabilities - Carol Downer



The Disability Within: Sexual Desire as Disability in Syriac Christianity - John Martens



The Disabled in the Byzantine Empire - Stephanos Efthymiadis



What Difference did Islam Make? Disease and Disability in Early Medieval North Africa - Matthew Gaumer



Impotent Husbands, Eunuchs and Flawed Women in Early Islamic Law - Hocine Benkheira



Disability in Rabbinic Judaism - Lennart Lehmhaus and Julia Watts Belser


The endurance of tradition




Then and now. Canonical law on disabilities - Irina Metzler



The Imperfect body in Nazi Germany: Ancient Concepts, Modern Technologies - Toon Van Houdt



Bibliography

Index