Special Episodes Archives - The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies

One of the funniest pieces of theatre set in Ancient Rome has to be A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962). Now there is a book about murder in Ancient Rome that matches the title inspiration for comedy as well.

We sat down to talk to historian and author Dr Emma Southon about her new book A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Dr Southon is also one of the hosts of the podcast History is Sexy and author of Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore. We were excited to discover that not only does Emma share our affection for Julio-Claudian women, but she is a fellow murderino and lover of Drag Race at heart.

Special Episode – Murder in Ancient Rome with Dr Southon

Why is there so much DEATH in Ancient Rome?

Listeners of our podcast have probably already noticed just how many murders take place in Rome’s mythology and history. The foundation myth about the twins Romulus and Remus has fratricide at its very core. The overthrow of the kings and the beginning of the Republic was triggered by a rape and the suicide of Lucretia. These moments are probably mythological, but the fact that the Romans chose to tell such stories about themselves says a lot about their culture.

Oath of the Horatii (1784) by Jacques-Louis David.
The tale of the Horatii is probably mythological. The three brothers volunteered to fight three brothers from one of Rome’s enemy cities, one of whom happened to be engaged to their sister. All the combatants perished, except one of the Horatii, who thus secured victory for his city. Upon his return to Rome, his sister wept as she knew her betrothed was dead. Her brother promptly ran her through, and his father defended the murder as justified. You can learn more about this episode in Rome’s early history in our Episode 38 – Tullus Hostilius.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

To add to this rather blood-soaked mythology, the history of Rome is punctuated with murders that take place at what are now seen as pivotal historical moments. The rather graphic murder of the Gracchi brothers during disputes over land reform, the assassination of Julius Caesar, and then we get to the empire and there are almost too many to list! The assassination of Gaius (Caligula), the murder of the emperor Claudius by his wife (and niece!) Agrippina the Younger, the brutal end of the emperor Vitellius in the civil wars of 69 CE, and the memorable stabbing of the emperor Domitian (straight to the groin!).

These are just the highlights, so it is clear why someone like Dr Emma Southon needed to sit down and think about just what all of this murder can tell us about Roman society.

Homicide is the act of killing another person, but murder is a social construct. With murder, you need to take the circumstances of the killing into account. Was there intent? Was it planned? Each modern country has different ways of constructing the crime of murder, but one thing that unites most nations in our world is that they do have a law about murder. That was not actually the case in Ancient Rome. Even though they were very proud of their first law code, The Twelve Tables, there was no legislation included regarding the killing of another human being. And they weren’t in a rush to amend that either!

Dr Emma Southon takes us on a hair-curling journey through a variety of killings in the Roman world.

• Murder by and of the elite
• Murder in the imperial family
• Murdering emperors
• Murder in the family
• Murder in a marriage
• Murder by magic
• Murder by the state
• Murder of and by slaves

An view of the Flavian Amphitheatre (or Colosseum).
The Romans were big believers in capital punishment – who has the time or resources for rehabilitation? A criminal had done something to make Rome suffer, and so their death would also involve suffering. Executions were something that crowds of people would watch for amusement in theatres like this one, although they were often far less popular than beast hunts and gladiatorial shows… both of which also involved death and murder!
Image by Davi Pimentel from Pexels

What becomes disturbingly clear is just how much murder there must have been in the Roman world, some real and some imagined. Given how little material has survived from the ancient world, to have a picture like this emerge is quite shocking. Even more sickening is how clearly Roman society valued certain lives far above others. The study of murder highlights how little your death mattered without the ‘right’ connections and status. The fact that modern societies are still wrestling with these issues is perhaps the most sobering take-away.

We highly recommend picking up a copy of Emma’s book to get the full scoop on all of these topics. And if all of this doesn’t give you your true crime fix for the day, then you should probably consider seeking professional help!

If you have the chance, we recommend supporting independent booksellers:

• For readers in Australia
• For US readers
• For UK readers
• For readers in Spain

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There are many groups that are often overlooked in both ancient and modern societies. One of those are people with disabilities, and we were fortunate to talk to expert Dr Debby Sneed about her work on impairment in antiquity. Dr Sneed has examined a range of sources about this topic, including human remains, temples and textual evidence.

Her focus has mostly been on physical impairments that leave a trace in human remains. Sneed’s focus is ancient Greece, but we couldn’t resist bringing Rome into the conversation every now and then! 

In order to make this episode as accessible as possible, a full transcript will be provided for this episode.

Special Episode – Disability in Ancient Greece with Dr Debby Sneed

In this conversation we delve into a number of questions, including:

• How do you classify a disability in this line of research?
• How many people in the ancient world would have had a disability?
• What kinds of sources are available for studying disability in the ancient world?
• What would life have been like for people with disabilities in the ancient world?

Topics that come up in the conversation:

• Artistic representations of disability in Greece and Rome
• The Panhellenic Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidauros with its eleven ramps!
• The practice of infanticide in ancient Greece
• Disability and impairment among the elite including King Agesilaus II of Sparta, Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, and the Roman Emperor Claudius
• Welfare systems in ancient Athens, as highlighted by Lysias 24, For The Disabled Man.  

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out some of the suggested readings. This is a huge topic, and we did not get the chance to discuss issues that leave less of a physical trace, such as blindness or muteness, nor did we touch on disabilities that might have arisen from disease or mental illness.

You can also follow Dr Sneed on Twitter @debscavator and track her research at Academic.edu.

This vase by the ‘Clinic Painter’ is one of Dr Debby Sneed’s favourites.
It may show two men in a courtship pose, but this is still debated by scholars. One of the men is a dwarf or little person.
Photograph by Maria Daniels, courtesy of the Musée du Louvre, January 1992.

[00:00:00] 

Dr Rad 

Hello, there! You are in for a treat and you’re going to be hearing a special episode from The Partial Historians. Today we’re going to be talking to Dr. Debby Sneed. Dr. Debby Sneed is a lecturer in Classics at California State University. She has a PhD in Archaeology from UCLA. And a MA in Classics from the University of Colorado, at Boulder, as well as a BA in English and History from the University of Wyoming. She has worked on archaeological projects in Greece, Italy, Ethiopia, and the American Southwest.

[00:00:46] And she’s currently working on a monograph about disability accommodations in ancient Greece. She’s got some publications that are also forthcoming. So keep your eyes peeled for that. But in the meantime, here is our episode with Dr. Debby Sneed.

[00:01:09]

Welcome to a special edition of The Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr. Rad. 

Dr G

And I’m Dr. G. And we are super excited today to be sitting down with Dr. Debby Sneed. And we’re going to be looking at disability in ancient Greece, and potentially also, as a side note, a little bit of ancient Rome coming from us.

[00:01:31] 

Dr Rad

Absolutely. You know, we can’t resist that and I must admit, this is a topic that, I’m going to admit full disclosure. I apologize to both of you. I have never really thought that much about disability in the ancient world, which is actually doubly shameful because, on a personal note, I’m just going to throw it out there. I actually have a condition which means that I’m gradually losing my hearing. And I’ve actually lost quite a lot. I wear hearing aids now. And so, I suppose, I have a very mild disability, which, I’m really lucky, it doesn’t affect my life too much at this point in time. But it’s something that I suppose has been coming more and more into my life as I lose more hearing.

[00:02:08] So I’m really fascinated to get talking about disability in the ancient world and what that entails. 

Dr G

Yeah, so it’s fantastic to have you here, Debby, thank you so much for joining us.

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here to talk about this. 

Dr Rad

So like dive straight in with, uh, with one of our first questions, which is exactly how do you define or classify a disability in your research?

Dr Debby Sneed

[00:02:30] This is a really difficult question for a lot of reasons. And one of them has to do with a lot of the attitudes that people bring to the topic of disability in the modern period. Um, but for me, in my research, I focus specifically on physical disabilities. My work is primarily interdisciplinary, which means I look at material and evidence from a lot of different fields and reconcile them in various ways.

[00:02:52] So I look at not just literary evidence and artistic evidence, but also physical remains. So I studied human remains as well. And so in [00:03:00] order to do this correctly, I tried to look at things that could potentially be archaeologically recovered, uh, in that is specifically physical disabilities. So I look at things like cleft palate, missing limbs, short stature, stuff like that.

Dr Rad

[00:03:16] Maybe just building on that. Can you tell us a little bit about this, the sites that you’ve looked at in your research when you’ve been looking at the human remains or do you, or do they – the human remains – come to you?

Dr Debby Sneed

Well, the human remains come to me. I am not a bio-archaeologist, so I rely on the work and the reports that are filed by people who are skeletal archaeologists, osteoarchaeologist, bio-archaeologists.

[00:03:38] And so I am beholden to who’s doing work where. And so I have used things like, uh, there’s a lot of great work done from cemeteries in Northern Greece, specifically Pydna, for example, Amphipolis, um, a lot of great work being done from cemeteries and deposits in Athens. But also in places like, Thebes.

[00:03:58] Um, and so it just sort [00:04:00] of depends on what’s available and who’s doing the analysis. And if they’re asking the kinds of questions that will help me in identifying who is potentially disabled and what we can say about it. 

Dr Rad

Absolutely. And so roughly how many people do you think would have been classified as disabled in the ancient world?

Dr Debby Sneed

[00:04:20] It’s kind of an impossible question for a lot of reasons. Uh, first of all, there’s not really a category of the disabled in ancient Greece. So now we have sort of legal definitions as included, as well as societal definitions of what is disability, who is disabled, but that just didn’t exist in the ancient world.

[00:04:38] So even if the ancient Greeks did keep, sort of records of things like this, they wouldn’t have used disability as a category for keeping track of the population. Second of all, disability is, it’s really fluid as a concept, right? So you can be disabled for a period of time and then become cured or well, or something like that.

[00:04:57] Um, you could also be non-disabled for most of [00:05:00] your life and then become disabled. You could be involved in a battle, for example, where you become injured and it leads to a permanent disability, old age leads to disability. So right now, the World Health Organization estimates that about 15% of the world’s population is disabled. 

In the United States [00:05:18] the estimates are somewhere between 20 to 25% of the population. Uh, it’s actually the largest minority group in the United States. So these are modern statistics and it’s not possible to sort of import those to the ancient world. The reasons that people are disabled, how people become disabled, and how we classify disability would have been quite different.

[00:05:37] But we can probably guess, based on a variety of evidence, that a great number of people in the ancient world either lived with a disability from birth or became disabled or interacted on a very close basis, either as a family member or a close community member with somebody who was disabled. 

Dr Rad

Yeah, it’s actually something that I suddenly realized how horrifying it [00:06:00] really was. [00:06:00] How many people must have had to live in discomfort or just with constant inconvenience in the ancient world. Because when you think about it, when I was looking at the research, I really liked this idea that, you could really only classify someone as having a disability, if the society they live in doesn’t really help them out anyway. [00:06:20] And it doesn’t meet their needs in some ways. So for example, I wouldn’t classify myself as having a disability per se, because I have access to hearing aids because I live in a society and I have a job where I can afford them. But in a different context, I might be, I might be classified that way because I wouldn’t have access to an aid, which allows me to do my work.

[00:06:39] And when you think about the lack of technology and all that kind of stuff available in the ancient world, it is really quite staggering, isn’t it? 

Dr Debby Sneed

So, what you’re describing there is actually called the social model of disability. So people who are engaged in studies of disability in the past and present, people involved in disability activism, operate – at least tend to operate – according to different models of disability. [00:07:00] And the social model of disability is one that is very prevalent in disability studies, but it’s specifically organized against what’s called the medical model of disability. 

The medical model is something that situates the problem of disability in the body of the disabled person. It says you are the problem. [00:07:17] And in order to overcome your disability, you need to overcome your own body, right? And so this is where treatments and cures and rehabilitation specifically focus on correcting the person with the disability so that they can function in a quote unquote, “normal” society. Right. 

The social model of disability is kind of the opposite of that, right? [00:07:37] So what the social model of disability does is, sort of like what early feminist scholarship did with sex and gender where sex is considered sort of a biological fact and gender was something that was imposed on to sex, right? So the social model of disability does something like that with impairment and disability.

[00:07:56] Impairment being so the biological reality of a body [00:08:00], so missing limbs, loss of hearing, deafness, uh, vision impairments, things like that. And disability is something that’s imposed externally on the impaired body. So disability is then a problem of society and not a problem of the individual and correcting disability means disability accommodations.

[00:08:19] It means creating an environment that allows the impaired people to survive. Not just survive, but exist and thrive and participate in society. 

Dr G

If we’re thinking about ancient Greece and how these models might be playing out, because obviously even though ancient Greek people themselves might not be thinking in terms of these models, they might still be useful ways of looking and thinking about the evidence that’s left behind.

[00:08:45] How would you say that you see these kinds of models present in the evidence from the ancient world? 

Dr Debby Sneed

Well, some of these models are in my own research, keeping in mind that, for example, the social model of disability is not without its problems. So there’s [00:09:00] some really great work done by, for example, Tom Shakespeare, on the problems of the social model of disability, talking about how it kind of treats the impairment as if it’s irrelevant, right? [00:09:08] Um, but that’s actually not the reality for a lot of people with disabilities; that, while there are problems that are created by society, impairment in and of itself is not neutral, right? It is something that they live with. It is something that affects their experience of the world, their interactions with people.

[00:09:25] And so, um, there’s a lot of movement away from the social model, not just to amend the social model, but actually to take a completely different approach. One of the things that I really like about the social model of disability is its emphasis on contingency. And what that means is that, um, what is considered disabling, what impairments are considered disabling is going to change depending on the context.

[00:09:47] And so what I do in my research is I try to look at accommodations for disability, so ways that I can see that society changed to account for the fact of impairment, um, and [00:10:00] use that as a kind of metric for understanding how the ancient Greeks thought about people with disabilities. So, um, not just looking at the instances in myth or in tragedy, for example, where we might have comments about people who are disabled, but looking instead at the structures of society to see how they changed or didn’t change depending on the needs of the population.

[00:10:20] It’s specifically focused on, um, things that were intended or could have benefited people with disabilities. 

Dr Rad

It’s been really fascinating actually, to look at some of your work. I believe that you’ve done quite a lot of study on the use of, uh, ramps to try and help people access temples or sanctuaries and that sort of thing [00:10:39] in ancient Greece, if they had some sort of mobility impairment. 

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, definitely. So this is an article that, that I wrote on ramps specifically, focused on ramps and healing sanctuaries in ancient Greece. So ramps are a kind of feature that we’re really familiar with, especially in a type of Greek architecture called Doric architecture, [00:11:00] which we primarily situated in the Peloponnese, even though it’s not completely confined to the Peloponnese.

[00:11:06] So we don’t really see a lot of ramps. I think a recent study of – a sort of catalogue of ramps in the ancient Greek world – found fewer than twenty, like total ramps on temple buildings, specifically in the Greek world. So that is not a lot of ramps or a lot more temples than twenty. And so when I was looking at the distribution, however, of those ramps, um, and looking at not just temple buildings, but also secondary and subsidiary buildings at sanctuaries, the healing sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus has eleven built ramps.

[00:11:37] So if I consider the fact –

Dr G

Oh wow

Dr Debby Sneed

– yeah. If you consider that most sanctuaries have no ramps or one ramp, the fact that this one sanctuary has eleven ramps needs to be explained in some way. And so I moved to then to think, okay, how could we explain this? 

So the traditional explanations for ramps are having to do with animals. [00:11:57] You know, that this would be an easier way, uh, [00:12:00] for animals to enter the buildings. Except that animals didn’t enter the buildings. And so that doesn’t really work as an explanation. Animals that were sacrificed were sacrificed outside of the temple. And you can’t really imagine bringing a bowl, for example, into a temple with all of this, the furniture, all of the dedications that were housed in there.

[00:12:19] Uh, other explanations, um, include, uh, sort of wheeling dedications in and out. So if you imagine people dedicate stone statues, for example, or marble statues, those are very heavy. So maybe you would want to use a ramp so that you could wheel it in and out. 

However, there are specific treasury buildings in ancient Greek sanctuaries. [00:12:38] We can think of the treasuries at Delphi, for example, or at Olympia. And the explicit function of these very small buildings was to house really expensive and heavy dedications. And these buildings never have ramps. And so if ramps facilitated the movement of these heavy dedications, we would expect them to be on buildings whose only job was to hold these dedications.

Dr G

[00:13:00] Yeah, the last thing you’d want to do is, like, wheel something in there and then make it really easy for somebody to wheel it back out again. 

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, exactly. So possibly they had sort of temporary ramps for those purposes. I have no idea. And so when you look at the fact that most of the explanations that have been [00:13:17] put forth for ramps at sanctuaries just don’t work, right. And then also look at how many ramps there are at healing sanctuaries, which were specifically marketed to people with disabilities. It just sort of fits together into this really great picture of a sort of intentional purpose, an intentional building of these ramps to assist the pilgrims who came to the healing sanctuaries in search of healing.

Dr Rad

[00:13:40] So I’m really curious to ask, exactly what do you think – from your studies – life would have been like for people with the kind of disabilities that you study in the ancient world? because, I mean, I know that’s a massive question because there’s just a huge amount, as you mentioned before, of conditions and just, you know, [00:14:00] factors like age that could be what’s causing someone to have some sort of mobility impairment. But can you tell us anything about what you think life would’ve been like from what you’ve looked at?

Dr Debby Sneed

[00:14:10] Yeah, sure. I don’t think that it’s, it’s another kind of impossible question. Um, life in the ancient world for anybody disabled or not disabled was difficult, right? So we tend to think about ancient Greek life, we think about philosophers, Aristotle and Plato. We think about generals. Uh, we think about the names of people that we can think of. [00:14:31] And, uh, those were not the typical people who are living in ancient Greece. These are very privileged, very elite men. And so, for the most part, people are engaged in subsistence agriculture, right? They’re sort of living harvest to harvest. Life was just difficult in general. People worked all the time. They were constantly engaged in all sorts of things.

[00:14:51] Um, so this idea of a sort of easy life in the ancient world is based on a very small segment of the population. But even when you’re thinking about that, [00:15:00] we have evidence for people with disabilities in both classes of people. So among elite men, as well as among the more general population. 

And it’s impossible to say what life was like. [00:15:09] It really depended on somebody’s status on their gender, on their wealth, et cetera. But we have evidence for disabled slaves. We have evidence for disabled generals. We have evidence for disabled Kings, disabled women, women who sort of gave birth to Kings, right? Who were themselves, the women were themselves disabled.

[00:15:28] So you can’t really pinpoint a specific thing because there’s something that Martha Rose has talked a lot. She’s a big, big person in the study of disability in ancient Greece. One of the things that she’s really emphasized is what she calls the community model of disability. Where it didn’t really depend on the sort of functional limitations of your body, but instead on your functional ability within the community. [00:15:49] And so everything was negotiated on a sort of individual basis. What could you do? What couldn’t you do? Could that be accommodated? Who are you? Are you expected to be contributing in one way and you [00:16:00] can’t et cetera? It just depends on so many different factors that, um, it’s really not possible to say what life would have been like in the generic sense for somebody with a disability.

Dr G

[00:16:10] And that’s really interesting as well, if we’re thinking about just how many ramps are associated with that sanctuary to Asclepius as well, because it seems like that feeds into a bigger idea about, well, how do we go about looking after the people in our community who potentially are suffering from disabilities? [00:16:30] How do we negotiate that and how do we come together as a community to try and solve that problem? 

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, this is one of the, there was a lot of interesting feedback that I got about that article. And a lot of it was just incredulity at the idea that the ancient Greeks would have given conscious thought to people with disabilities.

[00:16:48] But I find that to be a very surprising reaction. Ancient Greeks had a God of healing. It’s not objectively true that every society will have a God of healing. So the Greeks [00:17:00] had a God, Asclepius, who was dedicated to healing other gods focused on healing as well, okay. So it’s not, it’s not a given that they’ll have a God of healing.

[00:17:07] It’s then not a given that they will build elaborate sanctuaries to that God. Okay, so this is another step of sort of cultural or societal choice that they’re making. And once you make the choice that you want to have a sanctuary, that people who are ill, people who are disabled, people who are injured, that they can come here to seek healing. [00:17:28] Once you’ve made that decision, it’s not a big leap to assume that the ancient Greeks would have considered what would make that effective to that purpose. 

So in much the same way that the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia, which hosted these huge athletic games every four years – and sort of original Olympics – had athletic facilities, right? [00:17:45] So it had gyms. It had places for people to stay who came for the games. It had all sorts of athletic facilities because they hosted the athletic games. Sanctuaries where they did ritual dining, where dining was a really important function of your ritual practice [00:18:00], they had dining rooms. Sanctuaries where water played an important element, were built near water sources, right?

[00:18:07] It’s not, it’s not sort of radical to think that if they built a sanctuary specifically intended to serve people with disabilities, that they would consider what would actually be effective for that purpose. It’s more of a practical decision, um, than an ideological one. 

So we tend to think about disability accommodations, ideologically, that we are this progressive society, that we care about people who are vulnerable, et cetera. [00:18:32] So we gray up to the privilege of accommodation, but for the Greeks, I think it was really just a practical choice. 

Dr Rad

Yeah. I think looking at the literature and thinking about, as we said before, how, how much people must have either experienced disability themselves in varying ways, or have had close contact with someone who had a disability. [00:18:54] It seems that they – people with disabilities – must have been fairly [00:19:00] integrated into society. It’s not like they were necessarily, you know, shunned or anything like that. And, as you say, I mean, you look at Philip the Second of Macedon, you look at the emperor Claudius, there were people of high status as well who had, um, various impairments. [00:19:13] Although we can’t always be sure with Claudius exactly what the, you know, what was going on there. But yeah, there’s definitely a level of integration and practicality to the fact that these people, they are still working and they are getting married and they still have families. Some of them need families in order to have someone to help look after them and to help them maneuver the world.

Dr G

[00:19:34] And this seems to run counter to, like, one of the big sort of assumptions that people make about ancient Greece, which is that they just abandoned children on the side of the road. And this is something that gets repeated a lot. And, and the assumption being that children who were born, who didn’t fit the criteria of normalcy in ancient Greece would have been left to die. [00:19:56] And this would have reduced the percentage of people potentially with disability [00:20:00] in society at large. 

I’m wondering if you could speak to that a little bit. 

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, I definitely can. I have an article coming out on this topic this year, actually in the journal Hesperia. Yeah. So it’s interesting because if you open any textbook, if you Google the topic, you’ll see very confidently stated that the ancient Greeks killed infants who were born with, [00:20:20] uh, noticeable physical deformities or disabilities. And this is based on, like almost no evidence, which is really interesting. It’s, it’s a myth, right? 

So I present this in my article that I think that this is just a false, a false thing. And not only do the evidence that people put forth, does it not work to support this argument, but we also have a lot of evidence that argues against this, right? [00:20:43] That demonstrates people giving extraordinary care to infants who had more needs than other infants. So infants already require a great deal of care, right? So this is already, they need a lot of attention. They already need more care than an adult does, for example. 

And [00:21:00] so. Um, you know, this is one of the things to keep in mind, right, this idea of sort of an intersectional approach to disability, that how old someone is really affects how they’re regarded in terms of disability, right? So we don’t expect adults to require a lot of care. And so somebody who does require a lot of care, deviates more from what’s expected or what’s typical, than an infant who already requires a lot of care and a disabled infant who might require a little bit more care.

[00:21:27] The gap between those things is much smaller than it would necessarily be for an adult, for example. Um, and so the evidence that people have for this practice of infanticide is, uh, primarily Plutarch, and Plutarch is a Roman author. And he says that the Spartan King Lycurgus instituted a law where parents brought their infants to a council of elders who evaluated the children and decided which ones should be raised and which ones should be killed.

[00:21:56] And it specifically mentioned that infants who are disabled are deformed as [00:22:00] specifically the word should be put out or exposed. Um, there’s no other evidence for this practice. So we have a bunch of other sources closer to the time of Lycurgus, if he was even real. People like Xenaphon, who were talking about the Spartans, were discussing Spartan law who were specifically talking about Lycurgus and no one else mentions this law.

[00:22:20] So Plutarch is the only one. It’s very weak evidence, especially because Plutarch’s starts his, his sort of biography of Lycurgus by saying, uh, something like concerning Lycurgus the law-giver there is, it’s not possible to say something that is undisputed, right? And so, um, it’s pretty shaky evidence to use.

[00:22:41] And then we also have a couple of prescriptions by Plato and Aristotle, the fourth century BCE philosophers, where they say that, um, they have these sort of utopian texts and they outline what their ideal society would look like. And both of them specifically mentioned disabled infants and about how they should either be sort of hidden away [00:23:00] or exposed.

[00:23:01] But these are utopian texts, right? Utopia is not real life. And so it just doesn’t really work to use that. So, there’s a modern philosopher named Peter Singer, who is probably one of the most famous philosophers and who is hated among the disability community, because he is similarly eugenicist in his thoughts, right.

[00:23:20] This idea that, um, we should just like, sort of erase disability if we could. Um, it would be like taking Peter Singer and using him as evidence for modern sort of American society, right. And saying like, “Oh look, this very famous philosopher thinks that this should happen. Therefore it was happening,” right. [00:23:38] When we know in reality, it’s not happening. 

Dr G

And indeed there’s a lot of systems in place in order to facilitate the support of people, uh, who have a disability or an impairment of some kind. And so the idea that somehow to erase that out of existence, um, it’s almost offensive at that point.

Dr Rad

And I think also looking at the [00:24:00] evidence, um, from the Roman world as well as the Greek world. And I think you kind of mentioned this as well, uh, in some of your other responses, uh, some of the disabilities that people suffered from were things that they didn’t necessarily have at birth. So obviously, as you say, life was really tough in the ancient world. And so people developed forms of disability because they didn’t have enough nutrition as children, or because they were forced to perform heavy labour from a very young age.

[00:24:29] People also get injured. People get hurt in battle. People age and, therefore, just develop disabilities. I mean, there, there are certain things that you couldn’t erase, even if you wanted to at birth. You know, lots of these children were probably born healthy and then became disabled or impaired later on.

Dr Debby Sneed

[00:24:48] Yeah, definitely. And we have plenty of evidence even for disabled infants. So there are medical texts, there’s one Hippocratic treatise, uh, data to the late fifth or fourth century BCE, it’s called On Joints. [00:25:00] And that author talks about a few things. He talks, for example, about infants who were born with clubfoot and, uh, this is a very common. [00:25:07] Very common. It’s not an uncommon disability or impairment, sort of congenital impairment in the modern period. Um, and he has lengthy treatments that he outlines for how to, and he says, you know, it’s not a problem, right. And he outlines the treatment for clubfoot, how you can sort of correct it. And regardless he says, there are special shoes that people with this can use that provide additional support to that foot.

[00:25:30] He talks about infants who were born with what he calls a weasel arms. Um, so I don’t know if you’ve seen a weasel, they’d have very short arms relative to their body size. And so this is infants who are born with something like a shrunken arm. It could be any number of conditions, right. And he says, it’s no problem.

[00:25:46] He said, he lists the tools that these people can use when they grow older. Um, he says they perform equally well sometimes. Almost as well with their sort of affected arm as they do with their unaffected arm. He [00:26:00] explicitly says, this is no problem whatsoever for people who are born with this congenital deformity.

[00:26:06] Um, we have things like these feeding models from the ancient Greek world. There are these really cute little cups that are sort of small. They’re kind of globular with a handle on one side and then a really narrow spout coming out of it. And there’s a lot of, um, a lot of speculation about what these cups are used for.

[00:26:23] And, in my article, I discuss what I think is convincingly that these cups were used to assist infants who were born with things like cleft palate, other oral facial deformities, um, or were just who were just so sick, um, or weak that they couldn’t suckle, right, at the breast. And so these are active accommodations for infants who required additional care. 

Breastfeeding was the norm. [00:26:49] And so I think that these cups provided additional levels of support for infants who needed it, right. 

Dr Rad

Yeah. Well, I think it’s, I think it is just so fascinating that [00:27:00] once you start looking, you just, you just find all these pieces of evidence that I had no idea until I started thinking about it, just how much there actually was.

[00:27:10] And, um, I was looking at some evidence for Rome about some four skeletons that were found near the Via Collatina. And the fact that these, uh, you know, three out of the four people in this particular burial site had had the care of a burial, and like not a flash one, and you know, it wasn’t amazing, but some of these people had extraordinary issues to deal with, you know, some spine curvatures. 

And one of the skeletons [00:27:36] was a woman who only had one tooth. And she must have had someone helping her or looking after her in some way. And then someone who saw to her burial. Um, and so it’s just, it’s just so fascinating that when you start looking for the evidence, these various pieces come out of the woodwork.

Dr Debby Sneed

[00:27:52] Yeah, it’s an interesting phenomenon, uh, even in the modern period. So I think it’s very difficult to find, for example, a novel, any [00:28:00] novel, just pick up something and read it and not find disability in there, right? So a lot of people, if you challenge them, they say, you know, well, disability just doesn’t show up in things.

[00:28:10] If you challenge them to think about their favourite movie or their favourite book, right, it starts to become apparent that there’s disability everywhere. And the same is true in the ancient world. I don’t think that I have come across a single genre of literature where disability does not feature – sometimes quite prominently – in the ancient world.

[00:28:27] There’s even a type of poetry that is disabled in the sense that, um, it’s called choliambic verse, and that’s a “limping” verse. So the word “choliambic” comes from the word χωλός in Greek, which means “lame” or “limping”. So where that’s often applied to Hephaestus, for example. And so it has to do with the type of meter.

[00:28:47] And it was actually referred to in the ancient world as this kind of “limping meter” because of the way that it was so heavy across the page, right. And so you see it everywhere and it’s in the archaeological evidence, it’s in the literary evidence, it’s in the iconographical evidence. It’s everywhere.

[00:29:01] And so, the next question becomes, well, if the evidence is everywhere, why hasn’t other – why haven’t other people – talked about this, right? And I think that that has to do with, just sort of the, the modern makeup of the field. So who are scholars? What is acceptable to study in the ancient world? 

This is why, sort of, as a part of sort of an adjunct of my work [00:29:23], um,  I tried to get more people with disabilities involved in the study of classics, in the study of archaeology. And part of that is doing things like this podcast, right? Trying to tell people: this is a thing. You’re allowed to study it. You’re allowed to ask questions about it. You’re allowed to look for evidence for it.

[00:29:40] Um, this is a perfectly acceptable field of study because, you’re right, the evidence is everywhere. 

Dr G

Yeah, and I think from the reading that I’ve been doing around this subject, in the lead up to this conversation, um, it seems that, like, part of what has been a real boon to this kind of study is the ability for us to use [00:30:00] searchable databases and being able to do keyword searches and [00:30:05] trying to draw out, um, the way in which ancient languages talk about disability and impairment, and then trying to filter that through the systems that we now have for being able to look at evidence. Because one of the things that tends to happen to students when you’re going through the standard model for being taught classics and ancient history is you’re given a text and you have to read it quite closely.

[00:30:29] But actually what we’re looking for is really broad – and maybe really quite slim – mentions of things about everyday life, which, for a lot of people, they’re not reading the right texts or they’re coming into contact with myth and higher literature, but they’re not coming into contact with things that might give them a sense of the every day.

[00:30:48] And, I think that element of the way that we study history is actually changing the nature of the sorts of things that we can get out of it as well. 

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, definitely. But even [00:31:00] that has limitations, right? So when you form a database, I think specifically, for example, if the Beasley Archive – the pottery database that you can find online and sort of search the corpus of Greek vase painting – one of the things that’s really difficult is the search terms that are available are the ones that the creators of the database decided were relevant.

[00:31:19] So, for example, you can’t search for crutches. “Crutch” is not an acceptable search term. And so you have to think of synonyms that other people might have used in order to categorize these objects. And so it makes it really difficult sometimes to use those databases because they’re created by people and it depends on what they thought was relevant in their creation of that database.

Dr Rad

[00:31:43] I actually think that’s quite interesting. Just thinking about the, as you said, the vase painting and the artistic representations, because when I was doing a bit of reading about Greece and Rome, it seems that that might be one of the areas of difference with these two societies. In that, whilst the Romans do certainly have, [00:32:00] obviously, you know, you can look at the bodies from Pompeii and Herculaneum and you know, there are skeletons, and you can also look at textual references to various types of impairments. [00:32:09] Uh, when it comes to artistic representation, the Romans tend to be quite realistic with someone’s face, but then have quite idealized bodies. Whereas, I believe, if you look at the Greek record, there are, I think it’s a bit more common to have artistic representations of disabilities due to the kind that you study with like the lower limbs and that kind of thing.

Dr Debby Sneed

[00:32:31] Um, I think it depends. So, um, there’s some really great studies on this. So Lisa Trentin, for example, has a book on hunchbacks and Hellenistic and Roman art. It’s really interesting. There is Véronique Dasen, who has a book on dwarves in Egypt and Greece, but she talks a little bit about what would be sort of more Hellenistic depictions of dwarves.

[00:32:51] And I guess you’re right.. But the Greeks have their own idealizations. So if you look at Greek statues, we have a very, idealized version. And a [00:33:00] lot of vase painting, um, is similarly idealized, but I think you’re right that the vase painting as a specific medium offers opportunities for visualization, that we just don’t see in Rome. [00:33:11] Um, so we do see a lot of depictions of things like that. 

One of my favourites is, uh, this little vase by what’s called the Clinic Painter. So I actually had a reproduction of this vase made when I finished my PhD – 

Dr Rad

Oh amazing!

Dr Debby Sneed

– Uh, yeah, it was in the ancient Corinth, there was an artist in who does sort of reproductions. [00:33:29] And so I commissioned him to make one. It shows what’s traditionally interpreted as a doctor’s clinic, which is why this artist is called the Clinic Painter, and it has a bunch of men on it. Some of them are being, uh, sort of, you know, given treatments by a doctor who’s seated. But then there’s also this really weird scene of a man, an adult man, he’s bearded, he’s standing, he’s clothed, he’s leaning on his staff and he’s in a sort of romantic pose with another figure [00:33:54] who’s a dwarf, a little person. He was also an adult man, and it’s in a sort of [00:34:00] courtship pose. But we have some issues. I don’t know how to interpret this vase at all. I just like looking at it because it just is so interesting the way that this gets depicted as a sort of courtship scene in this otherwise doctor’s office, right. [00:34:13] It’s just sort of a really weird scene.

Dr Rad 

That does sound very interesting and confusing. 

Dr G

It sounds like it’s got a lot of potential for interpretation. This might drive your research until you can find a way into what is the interpretation of the scene. 

Dr Rad

And well it actually, has actually raised one of my, one of my other questions that came up when I was looking at some research.

[00:34:33] So I know that in some of the Roman depictions that we do have of people with disabilities, it seems as though – although we can obviously never be sure with artistic representation – it seems as though some of the artwork we do have, which shows people with the kinds of impairments that might be intended to shock or even make people laugh.

[00:34:55] And certainly one of the most famous texts about someone with very well-known [00:35:00] disabilities is, of course, Seneca’s work about the emperor. Claudius. And how he’s made fun of when he tries to join the rest of the gods after his death. Can you speak at all to the way that people might be treated cruelly or might be made the butt of jokes [00:35:15] if they have some sort of impairment in the ancient world? 

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, definitely. And you will definitely see more of that in Rome. So the way that disability in Greece versus Rome is treated is very different. And I don’t think, um, I personally don’t think that it’s useful to discuss them together except comparatively. In Rome you see a lot of what I would call fetishization of disability.

[00:35:36] So it is treated, uh, with shock with awe, uh, I mean that sexually as well. So it was sort of sexual fetishization as well. Um, we have stories about, uh, Uh, what is it called? Like a monster market, right? Where slaves with physical disabilities would bring a higher price. Right, so we have all of this in Rome in a way that I just find, [00:36:00] so, um, I don’t know how to word it. So different than what we see in Greece. 

So in Greece, people get made fun of for things all the time, right. But disability doesn’t seem to be a category. So an individual might be made fun of, for aspects of his physical appearance. We can think of all this sympotic poetry where people are, uh, making fun of each other for being ugly or, you know, having sort of non-ideal bodies, et cetera.

[00:36:24] But in Rome, it’s just a completely different beast, where it’s just something that ends up being the focus. And then other things are sort of put on top of that, right. So the sort of physical disability is used in a way to explain other aspects of somebody’s personality or character, which is what I think you have going on in things like Seneca. That the disability is used almost metaphorically to refer to other aspects. This is why Claudius so difficult is because it’s hard to separate what is the real – whatever is actually real – um, with the sort of metaphoric uses of disability in Roman literature.

Dr Rad

[00:36:59] Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. There is an element, uh, that seems to be coming through, um, philosophical works like from the Stoics where you wouldn’t necessarily make fun of someone just because they have an impairment. But if that impairment is the result of “bad choices” and a “disreputable lifestyle”, then it’s open season.

[00:37:20] And Claudius, of course, with his wives and freedmen and his love of drink and food and all that kind of stuff. It’s his lifestyle, which they seem to be having a problem with. And so he’s kind of fair game. 

Dr G

But it’s certainly the case that in ancient Rome, they sort of see an intimate connection between the physicality of the person and the character of the person.

Dr Rad

[00:37:40] Definitely. 

Dr G

And that, and it sounds to me, Debby, that what you’re saying is that this union is less the case when we’re looking at ancient Greek evidence. 

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, of course it’s not absent entirely, but it is very different the way that disability is treated. We see a lot of different ways. So, you know, it’s not irrelevant that one of the twelve Olympian [00:38:00] gods, Hephaestus, is disabled in ancient Greece, so that when he gets to Rome, when he’s Vulcan, his disability is almost entirely erased.

[00:38:07] You know, I think Greece has just a very different situation. They’re treating things differently. Their culture is different, right. This is that sort of contingency of disability. And this is, this is why – so a lot of people will think about disability in the past, and they just sort of lump everything in the pre-modern period together. [00:38:22] That life was hard, therefore, it must’ve been harder for people with disabilities. There’s this kind of – we think that people with disabilities don’t have any inherent value. And that they’re only given value in a modern society, where we’re rich enough to afford, and we’ve got these high moral values that will grant, you know, rights to people with disabilities.

[00:38:42] So we just assume that if you were to rewind the clock, that that wouldn’t be the case in the past, but in fact, it’s not necessarily, not the case. It’s not necessarily the case. It’s just a different situation and deserves its own treatment. And so some of our earliest studies of disability in the ancient period in the ancient [00:39:00] Mediterranean sort of looked at sort of the Greco-Roman understanding of disability.

[00:39:04] But I think that if you were to distinguish them, I think it would be an excellent case study for how exactly the Greeks Romans are different. It would be a great way of explaining the differences in the cultures so that people stopped just eliding them into the same thing. 

Dr Rad

That’s true. I mean, I actually hadn’t, again, I’d never really stopped to think about this before, but the Roman naming system where they got, you know, the, the three barrel name, at least, sometimes more.

[00:39:28] I never stopped to think about the fact, even though we often talk about the meaning of some of those names, um, how many of them actually refer to some sort of physical defect. Apparently 44% of Roman cognominia refer to physical defects of some kind, which is just amazing. And it’s built right into, you know, their naming system.

[00:39:49] It just blew my mind when I saw exactly how high that was. 

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah. It’s really just such an interesting part of the Roman conception of disability, how it’s just sort of there [00:40:00] and ever present and can be used in this way. It’s one of the reasons that I actually really struggle to talk about disability in Rome is because I feel like [00:40:09], uh, it just requires such an intimate knowledge of Roman society. One that I just don’t have coming from the Greek, like studying the Greek world. That even though I know a lot about disability and how to study disability, um, just looking at statistics like that, looking at the stories that we have, looking at figures like Claudius, it just makes it so difficult to understand, unless you can situate it appropriately in the context of Roman history.

[00:40:34] I don’t think that the same person can do both, if that makes sense. 

Dr Rad

No, I completely hear you in terms of the level of expertise that must be required. So let’s bring it back to ancient Greece as we move towards the end. Just before we finish up, I’d love to hear about some of the particular bodies or cases that you have looked at in your career.

[00:40:53] Can you tell us about some of the most interesting cases that you’ve come across? 

Dr Debby Sneed

Definitely. The one that I love. You know, I [00:41:00] don’t have answers for a lot of these figures that I’d bring up. I’m still struggling with exactly how to situate them. But one of my favourites is the speaker. We don’t have his name, but he’s a speaker and a law court speech by the orator Lysius. Lysius is a very well-known logographer, I guess, from the fourth century BCE, he wrote speeches for people.

[00:41:20] He was a metic, so he was a sort of a resident of Athens, but not a citizen. And, so he wrote speeches for other people. And in one of them, it is for a man who has been accused of welfare fraud, essentially. So Athens had a pension system for people with disabilities. And what’s interesting about this pension system is that it wasn’t just for people with disabilities.

[00:41:44] It was for people who were so disabled that they couldn’t work, which does a couple of things. First of all, it presumes that there are people with disabilities who could work, right? Who could. Perform and, you know, perform within the sort of labour market bringing enough money. 

[00:42:00] And so we have this guy who has been accused of receiving it fraudulently. And so this speech is his defense and what’s interesting is that he’s disabled. He talks about how he walks with two crutches. And so the argument isn’t that he’s not disabled, it’s that he’s lying about his financial need. And so, you just get this really great characterization of somebody, sort of in his own words, quote unquote, it was written by Lysias, right.

[00:42:26] So it’s kind of hard to say whose words we have here. And there are a lot of open questions about this speech. But you get this great characterization of somebody who is disabled and we get a great understanding of what disability might have meant. He talks about how, you know, yes, he owns a shop.

[00:42:43] So he doesn’t tell us what kind of business this shop is, which is one of the big questions, right? It seems a little shady that he’s not telling us what his business is. But he says, you know, but it’s not enough money to bring anyone in. He says, I don’t have a slave to help me with my work. I don’t have children who can care for me in my old age.

[00:42:59] And I’m just getting older. So my disabilities are compounding. And he talks about all of this. He talks about how, you know, he has to borrow other people’s horses to get around. So when his distances are too great for his crutches to take him there, you know, he has to take a sort of equine transport in order to do it.

[00:43:16] Um, so it’s just this really great speech. And I think that it is Lysias 24, if anyone wants to read it. It’s such a great way to start thinking about this topic of disability in ancient Greece, because this is probably the closest that we get hearing the words of somebody who identifies as disabled.

Dr G

[00:43:34] Mmm, I think this is a fascinating piece of evidence actually. And the fact that we can glean from this, that there is, uh, a system set up of support, uh, for people who fall within a particular category of disability as well, I think is fascinating. And speaks to something really particular about the structure of ancient Greek society that, perhaps a lot of people coming to the ancient world [00:44:00] and haven’t considered at all.

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, and I mean, this is specifically Athens, right. We can’t say what anyone else would have thought about this exactly. And we have it in other evidence. So we know that at least this man was eligible for it. Uh, he has some sort of mobility impairment.

[00:44:14] We have another speech, um, by, I forget who right now, but we have another speech where somebody is blind. And receives the payments, right? So he’s an older man who is blind and the payment is also listed in The Athenian Constitution that sort of pseudo-Aristotelian text, uh, sometimes referred to as the AthPol, it’s a abbreviation, a reference to this pension.

[00:44:38] So it’s pretty secure, right, that this is a real thing, uh, that at least in the fourth century, there was this pension system. Not charity exactly. I mean, there’s some really great work by Matthew Dillon on this, I think, where he talks about how, you know, it’s not specifically, uh, it’s not charity, right. It’s an attempt to avoid patronage in Athens, [00:45:00] right. To prevent people with disabilities who couldn’t work from relying on the financial support of an individual and therefore developing a sort of allegiance to that individual instead feeling allied to the state. 

Dr Rad

Absolutely. So we’re getting towards the end of our time. [00:45:15] But before we finish up, I thought I would like to give you a chance to talk a little bit about some of the difficulties of this area of study. Obviously, I’m sure you face the usual problems, so, you know, not having enough source material, you know, you obviously love to have more always from the ancient world. But I imagine that looking at this particular area, there’s also issues with, um, you know, sensitive language and that sort of thing as well.

[00:45:40] So would you care to speak to some of the difficulties that you’ve encountered in this particular area? 

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, definitely. So, uh, in terms of source material, I actually think that there’s a lot. Especially relative to some of the other, uh, topics that you can study in the ancient world. I think that there’s a lot of evidence for disability. I, in fact, I find it almost too much to grapple with, and I hope that [00:46:00], sort of, future directions of this study, um, I sort of try to grapple with all of it together and try to reconcile the different pictures that we get from different kinds of evidence. Um, but what I would like is, what I prefer is, if people who are specialized in these different areas, in ancient warfare, in ancient children and childhood, et cetera, actually looked at disability in a theoretically engaged way, so that we have specialists [00:46:24] on these different topics, actually looking at the topic in a sensitive way. 

The use of language is a difficult one. Um, you know, even if you just look at my dissertation, two recent articles to the way I discuss now, right. My terminology has changed. And part of that is, as I learned more, but part of it is also just that language is constantly developing.

[00:46:45] So “able-bodied” was a term that I think was preferred, you know, even a few years ago, but now the term for somebody who is not disabled, the preferred term is “non-disabled”, right. And so, you know, you do want to be sensitive? Uh, you’ll find plenty of evidence in the [00:47:00] scholarship of people not being sensitive to terminology.

[00:47:03] So it can actually be very difficult to read some of the work on disability in the ancient Greek world. Um, because you could read a lot of, sort of ableist bias into the way that people discuss it. Um, but one of the most difficult things that I find about this subject has nothing to do with the ancient world, but actually all to do with the modern world.

[00:47:20] I get a lot of pushback on this topic. A lot of skepticism. And what’s interesting about it is that the skepticism that I receive is not based in evidence, it’s based on people’s impressions. They just don’t believe that people with disabilities in ancient Greece could have been treated with anything except disgust or disdain or pity.

[00:47:41] And so it’s really difficult to convince people even based directly in the evidence that that is not the case. So when people bring up Sparta, for example, and about how, you know, Spartans had no place in their society for somebody who is disabled. And I say, well, we have this fourth century BCE [00:48:00] King Agesilaus, the Second, who is disabled.

[00:48:03] And they just excuse that example. I’m like, okay, well, I mean, there’s a Spartan who was disabled, so, okay. And so the more that you bring up examples, they all get explained away as opposed to, uh, just sort of reconciling them and accepting that this is a feature and then questioning from there, what that means.

[00:48:23] So a good example is the ramps. You know, there are eleven at this healing sanctuary, whether it’s a regional phenomenon is irrelevant. You still have to explain why there are eleven ramps at this one sanctuary when other ones have no ramps or just one ramp. 

So you have to explain these things, but I find it really difficult to [00:48:44], sort of, get over people’s initial inclination to reject the idea. 

Dr Rad 

Yeah, no, look, I must admit doing reading for this, I’m very grateful to have had you on the show. Not just because you’ve been wonderful to talk to, but it encouraged me to do reading that I wouldn’t have [00:49:00] otherwise done. And a lot of the time I was looking at material that I’ve encountered before, like looking at the remains from Pompeii and Herculaneum, thinking about people like Claudius, thinking about, you know, philosophers like Seneca, looking at people like, you know, Philip of Macedon, and even the Twelve Tables.

[00:49:17] We’ve actually just done an episode on the Twelve Tables, where we had mentioned the fact that they built into that law code in Rome, the fact that if people couldn’t physically get to the court, there had to be provision for them to be carried there. And I’d never stopped to think about it. And I’ve never really stopped to think about just how much evidence there really was in this world for people who had a variety of conditions [00:49:41], which would have made life different for them in some way. 

So I am so grateful to have had you on the show to discuss this topic. 

Dr G

And I think it’s very revealing as well in terms of – just to jump in with a little piece of evidence that I quite like that I’ve encountered through this. Because one of the areas that I’m very interested in is the [00:50:00] rise of Augustus.

[00:50:00] And he institutes this law of the three children and we get a whole commentary from Ulpian on this, about what constitutes “the three children”. And it seems that at law, the decision is made that – even if the child is considered “monstrous”, and so we’re not sure to what extent that means in terms of disability, but it seems like there’s some sort of birth deformity at play [00:50:25] – that the mother is not to be held responsible for this and the child still counts towards the three in the eyes of the law. And that’s just a little aspect of a much bigger part of history that is part of my studies that I am now thinking about because of these kinds of discussions that are happening.

[00:50:44] So I think the work that you’re doing, Debby, is really important and significant for the way we approach evidence in the ancient world, across the board. 

Dr Rad

And of course, Dr. G,  is a Vestal fanatic. And of course, to be a Vestal at this time –

Dr G

Oh yes!

Dr Rad

as well, you [00:51:00] also have to have –

Dr G

You have to have no speech impediment to be a Vestal Virgin.

[00:51:04] That is one of the core tenants. Um, young women would not get chosen for the role if they had a speech impediment. 

Dr Debby Sneed

Yeah, definitely, right. So religious ritual is all about repeating things in the exact appropriate way. Uh, so this is something that, um, it’s not really surprising, I guess, about the Vestal Virgins and the Ulpian thing is really interesting.

[00:51:22] One of the things that is great, and that makes it difficult to study this, especially – I’m a non-disabled person, uh, which is a really important thing to bring up and I should have brought it up sooner, um, because I’m studying this as a non-disabled person. 

Um, and I would like it if I was not the one, right [00:51:41], who was sort of doing this work. You know, I hope that we can get more people with disabilities involved in research, doing this research, asking these questions because, um, you know, we’ve known about the ramps. So back to the ramps. We’ve known about these forever, right? 

However long we could have known that there were ramps. We’ve known [00:52:00] that there were ramps at some of these sanctuaries. But I think that non-disabled people, so, which includes many archaeologists, right, we sort of take for granted aspects of mobility. We don’t ask how people get into buildings because we never consciously think about it. We just walk into them.

[00:52:16] Whatever’s there we use. If there are stairs, we use stairs. If there is a ramp, we use a ramp. If the stairs are really tall, we just use them, right. So we just don’t really think about it. And I think that if we had had more people with disabilities involved in some of these studies, I think that the question would have been asked a lot sooner.

[00:52:34] And, um, just because, you know, it’s just something that people with mobility impairments are consciously aware of. And so even if disability is not the answer, it’s worth asking the question and it’s just something that we don’t get, right. When you have only one type of person asking questions.

And this is one of – there’s this really great interpretation of Oedipus.

[00:52:56] So Oedpius, the King of Thebes. So, you know, very [00:53:00] famously killed his father and married his mother. And he also solves the riddle of the Sphinx. And the riddle of the Sphinx is, you know, “what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at midday and three legs in the evening?” And it’s of course humans.

[00:53:15] So, you know, crawling as an infant, walking on two legs and then when you’re an adult, and then using three legs, so two legs, plus a crutch or a cane, in old age. And there’s one really interesting suggestion by David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder, who are both disability studies scholars, that Oedipus is able to answer this question because he has a mobility impairment, because when his parents sort of exposed him at birth in order to avoid his fulfillment of this prophecy, that they actually intentionally mutilated him.

[00:53:46] So they had his heels, sort of, clipped or something like that. And that, because he has this mobility impairment, when he reaches the riddle of the Sphinx, this riddle that nobody before had ever been able to answer, right. That he was uniquely [00:54:00] situated to answer that question because he was uniquely positioned to think about mobility constantly.

[00:54:06] And so, I think that this is a really important thing, is, based on, not just my non-disabled status, but based on all other aspects of my identity, I individually have limited in the kinds of things that I can come up with. The questions that I can ask the interpretations that I can come up with. 

And so, one of the challenges that I have is that there just aren’t people asking these questions. And so, uh, we just need a lot more people asking them and thinking about them and offering solutions, not just disabled people, right. So they don’t have, it’s not like these are their ancestors or something like that, but they just have this other perspective that just hasn’t really been sort of appreciated in an academic context.

Dr Rad

[00:54:35] No, I think you’re absolutely right. As I say, my experience is extremely limited. And as I say, I consider myself to be an extremely fortunate human being, but certainly the way that I interact with the world and things that I’m aware of, that other people aren’t aware of, because I’ve become extremely hard of hearing.

It’s really changed particularly over the last ten years. Yet, you know, just things like going out to restaurants and also I’m a teacher. [00:55:00] The kinds of rooms that I can teach in effectively. I become much more aware of sound qualities and various things like that than other people are just because I struggled so much more to understand people, even with hearing aids.

[00:55:13] Um, and it does, it does allow me to say a little bit of what you’re talking about, in that, unless you’ve got that lived experience, you sometimes won’t think of certain angles of investigations. 

Dr Debby Sneed

[00:55:25] And this is true of other things as well. I don’t know if this is true, but I read something about, sort of this, uh, neolithic or paleolithic find that somebody found a bone and it had notches on it.

[00:55:38] So something like twenty-eight notches on it. And there were all of these interpretations about what these notches meant: why twenty-eight, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And it was a bunch of men asking the question. And that none of them had considered, of course, menstrual cycles, right, and whether that could be a relevant interpretation, because why would they think of menstruation being twenty-eight days?

[00:56:00] And so it’s just demonstrates like the importance of being like, well, here’s a suggestion, right? From somebody who has a lived experience of something it’s not going to mean, it’s not that a man could never have come up with that. It’s just, it’s not going to be at the forefront of their mind.

[00:56:18] And it’s going to take a lot more work for them to consciously think about something. Whereas for a woman, you might more naturally think of this interpretation. 

Dr G

On that note, I’m wondering if there are any scholars that you’re aware of who are working in this field, who are bringing their disability to their study of the ancient world, [00:56:39] we might also consider and consult. And when we’re thinking about this topic in the future. 

Dr Debby Sneed

[00:56:44] I don’t personally, so. There are some, right. A lot of graduate students. For example, I have a [00:56:50] colleague Mason Schrader, who’s currently a graduate student at Texas Tech, who is disabled and he’s working in classical archaeology.

[00:56:56] Um, and I have an article co-authored with him that will be coming out hopefully next year about disability and archaeology and how to make our field schools more accessible. And there’s this really great group called Crip Antiquity. You can look them up on Twitter, but also they have a website, and it is a collective of people with disabilities and also allies of people with disabilities working in classical antiquity.

[00:57:20] And so if you’re specifically looking for somebody, that’s what I would recommend that you start is with the group Crip Antiquity. To look at the work that they’re doing, the advocacy that they’re doing, and suggestions that they have specifically for this. But, you know, there are some great books. Um, I just, I don’t know, for example, so you’re looking for a book length study on this Martha L Roses, The Staff of Oedipus: Transforming Disability in ancient Greece is where I would start.

[00:57:44] You know, I have my dissertation, but if you’re looking for an actual book, The Staff of Oedipus is where I would start. I think it’s a very sensitive, it’s a theoretically engaged study of the subject. She looks at a very limited range of disabilities. She looks at, uh, stuttering, deafness [00:58:00], muteness, and blindness, I think is what she limits her study to, you know. But I think it’s a really fantastic place to start. [00:58:08] Her bibliography is really solid. Um, but then there are a lot of article length treatments of this subject as well. Of course my article on ramps, my article soon coming out this year on disability and infanticide. And hopefully, uh, whenever I finish my book, I will recommend that one. 

Dr Rad

Oh, we’ll have to have you back on once you have finished your book. [00:58:27] Because I mean, as I say, you’ve just opened my mind to all these things, which I’ve seen before. I mean, Everything from Tutankhamun to the stories of Jesus healing, people in the Bible. I’m just like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I’ve never thought about this before!” So you’ve definitely opened up our mind to, to looking at the sources in a completely different way.

[00:58:42] Um, if people do want to access your work, what’s the best way to follow you and what you’re, what you’re up to? 

Dr Debby Sneed

Probably on Twitter. Yeah, so I have a Twitter. I, you know, I don’t know if I’ll have it forever, but right now that’s a great place to find me. I’m @debscavator D E B S C A V A T O R. 

A great way to follow me is on Twitter. [00:59:02] I post about the work that I’m doing, but anyone who’s looking to study this topic in addition to Crip Antiquity, there’s also Christian Laes. I think that’s how you say his last name. He actually maintains a bibliography on disability history in the ancient world, which is limited, uh, which has sort of 3000 BCE to 700 CE and the ancient world confined mostly to the Mediterranean, but broadly [00:59:27] defined within the ancient Mediterranean. So looking at disability in the Bible, disability and Judaic and Islamic, early Islamic context, right; in ancient Greece and ancient Rome. And I think at present, it is seventy-one pages long of articles and books, uh, just, and you can find that online, if you just Google the website is Disability History and the Ancient World.

[00:59:52] Um, and you’ll find this entire bibliography that he updates on a regular basis is constantly taking suggestions for it. Um, so anybody looking to study this, this is a great place to start. Even if the bibliography is kind of difficultly organized. 

Dr G

Oh, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming and chatting with us. [01:00:12] We really appreciate it. 

Dr Debby Sneed

[01:00:14] No this has been really great. You know, I’m always happy to talk about this work. So thank you for having me and giving me the opportunity to sort of spread the idea of disability and lead ancient world questions that people can be asking and hopefully to encourage people to consider these in their own studies, to return to familiar things that they’ve read from the ancient world or vases that they’ve seen or [01:00:31] Sites that they’ve visited and consider what they might have overlooked.

Dr Rad

[01:00:54] Thank you for listening to this special episode of The Partial Historians. And of course, if you’re one of our patrons and you’ve got to listen to it a little bit before everyone else. If you’re keen to also get early access to all of our bonus content, then please subscribe and become a Patreon. We really value your support. It helps keep the show going.

Philip II of Macedon had his right eye surgically removed after sustaining an injury.
This artwork imagines what he may have looked like after the injury.
Image courtesy of panaiotis.deviantart.com

Below are materials recommended by Dr Sneed during the episode or sources that we consulted in preparation for the interview.

• Dasen, V. Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Dillon, M. ‘Legal (and Customary?) Approaches to the Disabled in Ancient Greece.’ In Disability in Antiquity, ed. Christian Laes, 167-181. New York: Routledge, 2017.  
• Fischer, J. ‘Behinderung und Gesellschaft im klassischen Athen. Bemerkungen zur 24. Rede des Lysias.’ In ed. Rupert Breitwieser, Behinderungen und Beeintraechtigungen/Disability and Impairment in Antiquity. British Archaeological Reports, 2012.
• Gaveart, B. ‘Perfect Roman bodies.’ In Disability in Antiquity, ed. Christian Laes, 213-221. New York: Routledge, 2017.
• Laes, C. Disabilities and the disabled in the Roman world: a social and cultural history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• Mitchell, D. T.; Snyder, S. L. Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000
• Pudsey, A. ‘Disability and infirmitas in the ancient world.’ In Disability in Antiquity, ed. Christian Laes, 22-34. New York: Routledge, 2017.   
• Rose, M. L. The Staff of Oedipus: Transforming Disability in Ancient Greece. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003  
• Sneed, D. ‘The architecture of access: ramps at ancient Greek healing sanctuaries.’ Antiquity 94, 376 (2020), 1015-1029.
• Trentin, L. The hunchback in Hellenistic and Roman art. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015
• Trentin, L. ‘The ‘other’ Romans.’ In Disability in Antiquity, ed. Christian Laes, 233-247. New York: Routledge, 2017.
• If you are interested in exploring this topic in greater depth, you may want to consult this bibliography on disability in antiquity that is primarily curated by Christian Laes
• You may also like to check out the work of CripAntiquity @cripantiquity
• If you enjoyed listening to Dr Debby Sneed, you can follow her on Twitter @debscavator and Academic.edu

Original music: Bettina Joy De Guzman

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Cleopatra looms large in the imagination, but her legacy is often overshadowed by the western cultural tradition. It turns out that there are many ways to understand the last Pharaoh of Egypt.

Special Episode – The Reception of Cleopatra with Yentl Love

We were thrilled to sit down with Yentl Love to discuss the Islamic reception of Cleopatra. Love is known for her work in making ancient history and classics accessible through her blog the The Queer Classicist. Love has been studying Ancient History and Classics for a number of years and is now bringing the ancient world to life for readers across the globe.

Egypt’s last pharaoh has a rather negative reputation in the western tradition. A classic example is the characterisation of her as a poisoner.
Alexander Cabanel, Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners, between circa 1845 and circa 1887. Wikimedia Commons

Cleopatra VII was the last Pharaoh to rule Egypt. She was part of the Ptolemaic dynasty, descendants of one of Alexander the Great’s generals. She experienced her fair share of family drama. One of her sisters was executed for seizing the throne from their father! It may not have been a relaxing childhood, but it did prepare her for a political career when she became pharaoh at just eighteen, alongside her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII.

In this episode, we discuss Cleopatra’s journey and her encounters with some of the most famous Romans in history, including Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian (later Augustus!), and how these relationships would impact the way she was represented in the surviving sources.

There are many Greco-Roman sources that refer to Cleopatra, and these include histories, biographies, poems and letters. One factor that they have in common is the negative portrayal of the Egyptian Pharaoh. This is in contrast to the archaeological record, such as coins, statues and buildings.

One of the most arresting portraits is by Artemisia Gentileschi, Death of Cleopatra, 1613 or 1621-1622. Here we see a woman in middle age, stripped bare of all the insignia of power in her final moment of defiance.

We explore some of the reasons behind the differing portraits that have survived of Cleopatra, before delving into the Islamic source tradition. Produced much later than the Greco-Roman sources or the archaeological material, the Islamic sources provide a distinct portrayal of Egypt’s last queen; one that is not bound up in her relationships with men or her appearance.

Cleopatra the scholar? Elizabeth Taylor in the title role of the 1963 film with writing implement in hand!
Image courtesy of http://www.mediafactory.com.au

Join us for this episode about the historiography of Egypt’s last pharaoh; a woman whose fame deserves to include more than just her Roman lovers.

Ashton, S. Cleopatra and Egypt. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.

El-Daly, O. Egyptology: The Missing Millenium: Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings. London & New York: Routledge, 2016.

Gillett, M. “Goddess, Whore, Queen and Scholar.” Teaching History 51, no. 1 (March 2017): 19-23.

Hughes-Hallet, L. Cleopatra: histories, dreams and distortions. London: Pimlico, 1997.

Welch, K. “Cleopatra as Pharaoh?” Teaching History 53, no. 1 (March 2019): 10-15.

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The Twelve Tables are a landmark moment of early Republican Roman history. The lex duodecim tabularum see the codification of Rome’s laws!

The name ‘The Twelve Tables’ is derived from the idea that these laws were inscribed on to twelve oak tablets. We happen to know quite a lot about the content of the tables, even though they have not survived in epigraphic form. The evidence for the tables comes from extant literature.

Special Episode – The Twelve Tables

The main literary sources that we’re reading at the moment, Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, place the landmark moment of the codification around 450 BCE. The process is not a smooth one from their perspective! Normal magistracies are suspended in favour of a specially selected cohort of ten men who are granted authority to put together the law code.

Believe us when we tell you that the drama associated with the decemvirate has only just begun to be revealed in Episode 109.

According to our literary sources, both of whom are writing hundreds of years after the events they describe, the Twelve Tables are the result of the Struggle of the Orders.

This ongoing rift between sections of the Roman population is contentious in its own ways, so it is worth considering the content of the Tables as a point of comparison. The difference between what we might expect of a law code that is the result of a class struggle and the laws themselves is quite something.

So that’s just what we’re going to do in this special mini-episode! Join as we dip into the details of the law code and some of the fascinating details we learn from this document 😊

Roman civilians examining the Twelve Tables after they were first implemented.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Looking to explore the Twelve Tables in more detail? You can read them all here!

Other readings to consider:

• Forsythe, G. 2006. A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War. University of California Press – contains a chapter on the Twelve Tables and how the politics unfolds

• Bell, S., du Plessis, P. (eds.) 2020. Roman Law Before the Twelve Tables: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Edinburgh University Press – this one is hot off the press and we’re super excited to jump in and read it soon!

This shows the forum in ruins, but it is in this space that the Twelve Tables would have been present to the populace.
Image curtesy of Wikimedia Commons, by Kimberlym21

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We are thrilled to be joined by Dr Rob Cromarty, better known as Doc Crom, for this special episode on the Year of the Four Emperors. Doc Crom, is a teacher, author, and fellow fan of #PhallusThursdays and #FannyFriday over on twitter and we recommend you follow him for his excellent tweets about Latin literature and ancient artefacts.

In this very special episode we talk about his journey into Classics and his take on the personalities and power struggles involved in the aftermath of the death of the Emperor Nero.

Special Episode – The Year of the Four Emperors with Dr Rob Cromarty

The Emperor Nero made several mistakes in the last few years of his reign. Following the brutal suppression of a serious conspiracy against him, Nero left Rome in the hands of his freedmen so that he could compete in the Olympic Games.

Back in Rome, the people were dealing with low grain supplies. The aristocracy had been alienated for years, and the increasing use of delatores (informers) only made matters worse. The army was also on edge after the execution of talented generals like Corbulo. The situation in early 68 CE was tense.

The extent of Roman power in the crucial years of 68 and 69 CE. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Year of the Four Emperors really kicks off with rebellion. In March, Caius Julius Vindex, then stationed in Gaul, revolted in protest against Nero’s tax policy. Some problems never change. Servius Sulpicius Galba, an old associate of some of the Julio-Claudians, was stationed in Spain and decided to throw his lot in with Vindex.

Vindex’s rebellion was put down by Lucius Verginius Rufus, and Galba was declared a public enemy. But that did not last long. The Praetorian Prefect, Nymphidius Sabinus, promised the guard a hefty donative to transfer their allegiance from Nero to Galba, and before long the Senate had made Nero himself a public enemy.

Galba became emperor in June 68 CE after the suicide of Nero. As a stern, experienced candidate, he must have seemed like a promising choice. However, he soon acquired something of a reputation.  According to sources, his assumption of power involved the death of many, and he was stingy with money. Most importantly, he did not provide soldiers with the bonuses they had been promised in exchange for their support. As Tacitus (Hist. 1.49.6) remarked, “…no one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor.”

Galba was also 73 years old and had no children. This didn’t bode well for stability, and so he decided to focus on improving his position in this area by adopting Lucius Calpurnius Piso in January of 69 CE, a deliberate snub to one of his most prominent supporters – Otho.

A portrait bust of the Roman emperor Galba. This piece is held in the Antiquities Museum in the Royal Palace, Stockholm. Photo credit to Wolfgang Sauber via Wikimedia Commons.

To say that Otho was displeased is an understatement. He bribed the Praetorians to back his cause; after all, they weren’t getting bonuses from Galba!  On the 15th of January 69 CE, Piso and Galba were assassinated in the forum. Otho thus became the first emperor to unequivocally acquire power by killing the previous emperor. Otho was well known as he had been a prominent member of Nero’s court; indeed, Nero’s most beloved wife, Poppaea Sabina, had once been married to Otho. Unlike Galba, who sought to distance himself from Nero and condemn his reputation, Otho played on the connection. 

However, he faced challenges from the outset. Otho became emperor on 15th January 69 CE and took control of the city of Rome, but another would-be emperor had already taken initiative. The soldiers in Germania Inferior refused to swear loyalty to Galba on the 1st January 69 CE, soon to be followed by the troops of Germania Superior. Vitellius had been stationed in Germania Inferior by Galba, and he began to organise his bid for power. Otho had a lot of support, but his forces were not close by, and he was defeated by Vitellius’ forces at the First Battle of Cremona and driven back to Bedriacum.  Rather than prolong the civil war, Otho committed suicide on 16th April 69 CE. But his death would not bring the conflict to an end.

Silver Denarius of Otho, Rome mint. His bare head right, IMP M OTHO CAESAR AVG TR P around / Securitas standing left holding wreath and scepter, SECURITAS P R. RIC 8. BMCRE 17. Sear RCV 2162. Source: accla.org

Looking to learn more about Galba and Otho? We’ve got a vintage episode just for you.

Of all the emperors to reign in this period, Vitellius probably has the worst reputation (thank you, Flavians?). He had a good relationship with parts of the army and was a well-known figure from the Julio-Claudian period, but the sources record that he was also a glutton, and associated with actors, chariot-drivers and freedmen.

As Vitellius’ popularity started to decline, another emperor was proclaimed in the east on 1st July 69 CE. A man from a modest background, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, had become a trusted military commander. He was supported by the Prefect of Egypt, Tiberius Julius Alexander, and gradually others joined his cause, including the governor of Upper Pannonia (Primus) and the governor of Syria (Mucianus).

A second Battle of Cremona ensued in September 69 CE between the Vitellians and some of Vespasian’s supporters. By December, Vespasian’s men were in Rome itself, and Vitellius was located and slaughtered in the Forum.

This portrait of Vitellius is based on the bust held by the Capitoline Museums in Rome. This particular example is held by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. Photo credit: Luis García (Zaqarbal) via Wikimedia Commons

What’s going on with Otho and Vitellius? Tune into our classic episode for more details.

The year of the four emperors draws to a close with Vespasian. He managed to hold on to power for the next ten years, and was succeeded by his two sons, establishing the second dynasty of imperial Rome.

But how much did his victory influence the historical accounts of this time?

Join us as we discuss the ins and outs of this complicated period, which actually lasted for longer than just one year.

Portrait of Titus Flavius Vespasian, who emerges as a stable ruler from the chaotic years of 68 and 69 CE. Photo credit: Heribert Pohl via Wikimedia Commons

• Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, the lives of Nero, Otho, Galba, Vitellius, and Vespasian
• Tacitus, The Histories

• Musical interludes by Bettina Joy de Guzman. Check out her work, it’s fabulous!
• Additional sound effects: Fesliyan Studios, the BBC, Sound Bible, and Pond5

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Medusa fills the imagination with a very particular kind of fascination. Pity for her situation and dread of what she is capable of make her one of the most recognisable figures from Greek myth. She has transcended that context with her story reimagined by the Romans, the artists of the Renaissance, and she continues to excite wonder today.

We sat down to talk about Medusa and her representation with the fabulous Liv, host of Let’s Talk about Myths Baby.

Special Episode – Medusa with Let’s Talk About Myths Baby

In this far-reaching conversation, we’ll be considering some of the key stories that make up the mythological world of Medusa including:

• How she came to have snakes for hair
• The challenges she faced as the mortal Gorgon
• And how her representation often reflects the values of the context of the artwork.

When you start to look, Medusa is everywhere (but also, don’t look!). She is an extremely ancient figure best known for the Greek myths associated with the hero Perseus.

Medusa is famous for her snaky hair and ability to turn living things to stone with her gaze. This ability has been immortalised in movies such as Clash of the Titans (1981) and its 2010 remake, and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (2010).

Her decapitated head—the Gorgoneoin—can be found on the breastplate of the goddess Athena, the logo for Versace and the Sicilian flag, as well as decorating many ancient buildings, floors and pottery.

Medusa endures today as a polyvalent symbol of danger and empowerment. She recently featured in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018) and her name is given to the crime network in The Hustle (2019), the gender-swapped reboot of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988).

Join us as we discuss Medusa’s journey to becoming a symbol that can seemingly serve many masters.

This is not an exhaustive list, but a guide to those we mention in this discussion and a great place to start reading!

• Hesiod Theogony 270ff
• Homer Iliad 5.741 – The Gorgon’s head is described as a “ghastly monster” and a “potent symbol of Zeus”. Also see 8.349, where Hector’s gaze is likened to that of Gorgo and 11.36f for a description of a Gorgon’s head on the face of Agamemnon’s shield.
• Ovid Metamorphoses 4.604-803
• Pseudo-Apollodorus Bibliotheca 2.4

A great deal of Medusa’s complexity has developed through her reception over time. This is particularly apparent in art. We explore a few key examples that draw attention to a range of interpretations

Dating to the late Hellenistic or Augustan periods, the Rondanini Medusa is iconic. It captured the imagination of Goethe during his travels in Italy and it shares many visual elements with the Versace logo as well.

“So-called “Rondanini Medusa”. Marble, Roman copy after a 5th-century BC Greek original by Phidias, which was set on the shield of Athena Parthenos.” Source: Wikimedia Commons, photograph by MatthiasKabel, 2005-10-26.

This exceptional bronze can be found in Florence where it offers interpretation of the ancient myth and comment on Medici politics…

Bronze and marble (base), 1545–1554. Under the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, since 1554. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons, photograph by Jastrow, 13-9-2005

Florence is home not only to the Cellini bronze, but also the famous Caravaggio portrait, where the face of Medusa is interchangeable with that of the artist himself.

Uffizi Gallery, post-restoration. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

You can also explore Caravaggio’s Testa di Medusa in detail here.

Liv cites Bernini’s Medusa as a piece that encourages empathy for the subject. This perspective will come to the fore again in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Held by the Musei Capitolini, Rome. Source: Wikimedia Commons, photograph by Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, 17-4-2014.

You can explore Bernini’s sensitive artistry in detail here.

Check out this quality graphic!

For Dr G, this was a definitely encounter with Medusa. For many children of the 80s, encountering myths through computer games was a window into the ancient world and its amazing stories.

Screenshot sourced from here.

Garbati’s Medusa flipped the heroic narrative of Perseus and cast our snake-haired heroine as a woman of her own destiny. This reimagining of Medusa’s story demonstrates how cultural perspective can shift representation.

You can explore high quality images of Garbati’s work here.

The complexities of Medusa’s story allow for a variety of interpretations. Garbati’s sculpture positions her as a figure of female empowerment, gaining power by taking the head of Perseus. The image of her head severed from her body has also been repurposed as political imagery by pro-Trump, anti-Hillary campaigners. In such cases, the myth of Medusa is designed to keep women from power. Why are we drawn back to her story time and again?

Since we recorded this episode, we’re excited to say that Liv has a book coming out soon! It’s all about Greek myth and is gorgeously illustrated. If you’re looking for a little more Greek myth in your life, this might be just the ticket 🙂

Looking for more on ancient Greece?

In conversation with Ryan Stitt from The History of Ancient Greece Podcast, Dr Rad talks about slavery and Dr G explores women in religion.

Looking to delve further into the world of Medusa? We’ve got you covered. Below are the works we refer to in this episode as well as readings that will build your appreciation for this incredibly engaging figure from Greek myth.

• Bremmer, J. N. & Welwei, K. 2006. ‘Gorgo’, in Brill’s New Pauly. Consulted online on 11 January 2020.
• Burkert, W.1992. The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Harvard)
• Cixous, H. 1976. ‘The Laugh of the Medusa‘ Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1.4, 875-893
• Freud, S. 1940. ‘Das Medusenhaupt’ Der Internationalen Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und Imago 25.2 (manuscript from 1922).
• Garber, M. Vickers, N. J. (eds.) 2003. The Medusa Reader (Routledge)
• Hirst, K. 2019. ‘Medusa: The Ancient Greek Myth of the Snake-Haired Gorgon’, Thought Co.

Hirst’s article is a great place to start. This is an accessible overview of who Medusa was and the main myths associated with her in the ancient world.

• Keith, A. .2018. ‘Medusa’s Gaze in Imperial Latin Epic: In memoriam R. Elaine Fantham (1933-2016)’, Helios, 45.2, 145-167.

Keith focuses on Ovid, Lucan and Statius and analyses how these Roman authors reconciled themselves with the power of Medusa’s image. Ovid and Lucan’s work has been very influential in shaping the Medusa myth!

• Lewis, S. 2011. ‘Women and Myth’, in A Companion to Greek Mythology, eds K. Dowden & N. Livingstone (Wiley), 443-458.
• Mergenthaler, V. 2008. ‘Gorgon’, in Brill’s New Pauly Supplements I – Volume 4: The Reception of Myth and Mythology. Consulted online on 11 January 2020.
• Topper, K. (2007), ‘Perseus, the Maiden Medusa, and the Imagery of Abduction’, Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 76.1 (Jan-Mar), 73-105.

Topper’s article is extremely useful for anyone interested in the artistic representations of Perseus and Medusa. Topper explains that earlier attempts to categorise representations of the Gorgon were too “neat” and linear, suggesting that Medusa and her sister moved from more monstrous or grotesque to a beautified image in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

• Vernant, J-P., Zeitlin, F. I. (eds.) 1991. Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays (Princeton)
• Zajko, V. & Leonard, M. 2008. ‘Introduction’, in Laughing with Medusa: Classical Myth and Feminist Thought, eds V. Zajko & M. Leonard (Oxford), 1-16.

This introduction provides a succinct overview of the work of French feminist Hélène Cixous’, namely her ‘Laugh of the Medusa’. Keener readers may wish to consult the full essay on Cixous contained in this volume by Zajko.

With gratitude we offer thanks to Bettina Joy de Guzman for the evocative music that accompanies this episode. She’s an incredibly talented musician and scholar as well as a fantastic supporter of our podcast.

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As far as incredible women in history go, it’s hard to top Agrippina the Younger. Political, ambitious, and a savvy operator are all ways we might interpret the evidence that remains for her life. But its fair to say that our ancient sources are a little less than kind.

Special Episode – Agrippina the Younger with Dr Emma Southon

As the Julio-Claudian family developed into a fully formed imperial dynasty, Agrippina the Younger emerged as an important figure in the rule of three emperors: her brother Caligula, her uncle (and later husband) Claudius, and her son Nero.

She could trace her connections back to Augustus through her mother’s line. She was also the daughter of the wildly popular Germanicus, who died too soon and under circumstances palled with suspicion. Her family connections through her father were Claudian and ultimately this meant she embodied the Julio-Claudians.

After the demise of her siblings, we can think of Agrippina as the distilled essence of the family.

But having an illustrious ancestry is not necessarily indicative of how one’s life will turn out, and in this special episode, we have the great pleasure of sitting down with Dr Emma Southon, who has written an accessible academic history of Agrippina the Younger to delve further into the life of this amazing woman.

A recent reconstruction of Agrippina the Younger as potentially the lead singer of an 80s band…
Source: Royalty_Now on pinterest

Dr Emma Southon’s book Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore was published by Unbound in 2018. This biography of Agrippina the Younger combines historical detail, engagement with the ancient sources and a colloquial tone to make for a roaring read.

We consider the path to publication for this biography and how academics are finding ways to bring detailed critical history to a broader readership.

Looking to delve further in the life and times of Agrippina?

Here’s some sources to get you started:

• Tacitus Annals, esp Books 12-14; Agrippina the Elder’s tears as read in Agrippina the Younger’s memoirs by Tacitus Annals 4.53
• Pliny the Elder Nat. 7.6 – Agrippina’s breech birth
• Dio Cassius Roman History Books 59-62
• Suetonius’ Life of Gaius, Life of Claudius, and Life of Nero

• Barrett, A. A. 1999. Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire (Routledge)
• Barrett, A, A. 2002. Agrippina: Mother of Nero (Routledge)
• Ginsburg, J. 2005. Representing Agrippina: Constructions of Female Power in the Early Roman Empire (OUP)
• Southon, E. 2018. Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore (Unbound)

One of the most famous depictions of Agrippina on coinage is her representation with her sisters on the reverse of one of Gaius ‘Caligula’ Augustus’ issues. c. 37-41 CE.
The depiction of living women on coinage was rare and Agrippina’s appearance here is an exceptional moment in Julio-Claudian iconography.

Before things went wrong…
Nero and his mother, Agrippina the Younger depicted together on the obverse side. c. 54 CE. Source: Wikimedia Commons and Classical Numismatic Group, Inc.

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We had the very great pleasure to sit down with Emeritus Professor Edwin Judge to discuss his latest publication The Failure of Augustus: Essays on the Interpretation of a Paradox (2019).

Judge has a long-reaching career, accepting his first junior lectureship in the 1950s and going on accept the inaugural History Chair at Macquarie University in Sydney. Dr G and Dr Rad met as undergraduate students at Macquarie so it is our extraordinary pleasure to sit down with Judge and have the chance to chat.

Dr G (left) holding Cooley’s Res Gestae, Emeritus Professor Edwin Judge (centre), and Dr Rad (right) holding Judge’s The Failure of Augustus

In this far reaching

The cursus honorem of Augustus, as visualised by Edwin Judge. Used with permission of the author. This table appears on the cover of The Failure of Augustus and page 8 of the collection.

Cooley, Alison E. 2009. Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation and Commentary

Judge, E. A. 2019. The Failure of Augustus: Essays on the Interpretation of a Paradox

Lintott, Andrew W. 1999. Violence in Republican Rome

Ridley, Ronald T. 2003. The emperor’s retrospect: Augustus’ Res gestae in epigraphy, historiography and commentary

Final credits: Excerpt from ‘Ancient Arcadian Harp’ by Cormi

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We’ve reached a huge

While our narrative history of Rome is still very much in the early republic, the consul is a position that many aficionados of ancient Rome are familiar with. But how much do we know about the consul especially in the early years of the republic? We’re here to sift through the evidence!

After the expulsion of the Tarquins, Rome is left facing a crisis of governance. How best to restructure the state in the wake of the collapse of monarchy?

The Romans innovative solution was to divide the powers of the rex between two men, thereby saving the populace from the tyranny of a sole ruler. But to claim that the Romans came to this decision cleanly, and with a clarity of what this would really look like, is to miss the fascinating complexities of the way the role developed over time.

In this special episode we’ll trace the some of the key features of the consulship and explore what the position entailed in the early republic, the late republic, and the early empire. There’s plenty to enjoy here including:

• a return to the relationship between magistracies and assemblies;
• the role of consuls in war;
• and the consuls’ relationship with the gods.

Alexandre Jacovleff ‘Ancient Roman Senators’ illustration for The General History Edited by Satyricon (1911)

Interested in learning more about the consulship? These are the major sources we consulted in preparation for this episode and we definitely recommend them for getting a handle on the subject!

Beck, H., Duplá, A., Jehne, M., & Pino Polo, F. 2011. ‘The republic and its highest office: some introductory remarks on the Roman consulate’ in Beck, H., Duplá, A., Jehne, M., Pina Polo, F. (eds) Consuls and Res Publica: Holding High Office in the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press), 1-15.

‘Consul’ in Pauly’s Realencyclopadie der classischen Altumsumswissenschaft Band IV, 1, col. 1112-1138 (1900).

Eck, W. 2019. ‘Suffect consul‘ in Cancik, H., Schneider, H., Salazar, C. F. (eds) Brill’s New Pauly (Last accessed 29/9/2019)

Drogula, F. K. 2015. Commanders and Command in the Roman Republic and Early Empire (University of North Carolina Press)

Gizewski, C. 2019. ‘Consul(es)’ in Cancik, H., Schneider, H., Salazar, C. F. (eds) Brill’s New Pauly (Last accessed 29/9/2019)

Hölkeskamp, K. 2011. ‘The Roman republic as theatre of power: the consuls as leading actors’ in Beck, H., Duplá, A., Jehne, M., Pina Polo, F. (eds) Consuls and Res Publica: Holding High Office in the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press), 161-181.

Hurlet, F. 2011. ‘Consulship and consuls under Augustus’ in Beck, H., Duplá, A., Jehne, M., Pina Polo, F. (eds) Consuls and Res Publica: Holding High Office in the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press), 319-35.

Malik, S.; Davenport, C., ‘Mythbusting Ancient Rome – Caligula’s Horse’ (4/5/2017), The Conversation (Last accessed on 5/10/2019)

Scullard, H. H. 1982. From the Gracchi to Nero (Routledge, London)

Smith, C. 2011. ‘The magistrates of the early Republic’, in Beck, H., Duplá, A., Jehne, M., Pina Polo, F. (eds) Consuls and Res Publica: Holding High Office in the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press), 19-40.

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Dr Amy Place from the University of Leicester sits down with Dr Rad to discuss the humble Roman toga, fashion and social identity, and everyday life in late imperial Roman North Africa!

On a recent tour to Australia, Place presented a paper for the SPQR Roman History Forum at Macquarie University on the representation of fashions in Late Roman North Africa. The Partial Historians we lucky enough to grab the chance to chat.

Late Roman North Africa is a time period and an area that is understudied, but just as fascinating as Italy. Place is particularly interested in how clothing is represented and how it was used to express social identity.

Dominus Julius Mosaic from Carthage, Bardo Museum. Copyright credit: Sean Leatherbury/Manar al-Athar

Dr Place’s research focuses on 200-550 CE. The late Roman empire is full of intrigue and was a time of great change. While there was some stability under the emperor Septimius Severus, who ruled from 193-211 CE, with his death and the succession of his son Caracalla, a century of turmoil began.

Amidst the political chaos that characterised much of this century, the Christians rose in prominence. By the beginning of the fourth century, Rome would have its first Christian emperor, Constantine I. This emerging system would rapidly became established as the exclusive religion of the empire as Rome entered the fifth century.

The focus of Place’s research has been the coastal regions of North Africa, examining an area that spans Namibia to Morocco. Parts of North Africa began to be acquired by Rome in the 2nd century BCE with the end of the Third Punic War. Roman influence continued to expand in this region throughout the late Republic and into the Empire.

Place’s research is based in part on literary sources but is supplemented with mosaics. She highlights the difficulties that come with using textual evidence to understand something that was visual. The terms used in the sources are not always easily matched to a surviving representation and it is extremely rare for any actual samples of clothing to survive to the modern day.  

Matron at her Toilette Mosaic from Sidi Ghrib, Bardo. Copyright credit: Sean Leatherbury/Manar al-Athar.

Place’s research focuses on the impact that the growth of Christianity had on dress and identity. A particularly important author was Tertullian, a Christian writer who made some very vocal criticism of female dress in this region.

Although Roman writers had been critical of women dressing too provocatively before the advent of Christianity, for Tertullian there was an extra moral imperative for women to dress modestly and plainly. Austerity was a means of advertising one’s commitment to the new religion, most especially if one was wealthy enough to have a choice.

We see a stark contrast between words and deeds, however, when we consider the mosaics from the region. As Place notes, these don’t often show people have taken Tertullian’s advice – quite the opposite!

Tune in to hear all Place’s insights into the local trends for women and men and the place of the toga.

Interested in learning more about this fascinating topic? You can consider more of Dr Amy Place’s work at Academia.edu

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