This is the first volume ever to systematically study the subject of disabilities in the Roman world. The contributors examine the topic a capite ad calcem, from head to toe. Chapters deal with mental and intellectual disability, alcoholism, visual impairment, speech disorders, hermaphroditism, monstrous births, mobility problems, osteology and visual representations of disparate bodies. The authors fully engage with literary, papyrological, and epigraphical sources, while iconography and osteo-archaeology are taken into account. Also the late ancient evidence is taken into account. Refraining from a radical constructionist standpoint, the contributors acknowledge the possibility of discovering significant differences in the way impairment was culturally viewed or assessed.

Christian Laes, Ph.D. (2004), Catholic University of Leuven, is Associate Professor of Latin and ancient history at the Free University of Brussels and the University of Antwerp. He has published five monographs and over fifty international contributions on the human life course in Roman antiquity. Childhood, youth, old age, marriage and sexuality as well as disabilities are the main focuses of his scholarly work.

C.F. Goodey, Ph.D., has researched and published on the history of ‘intellectual disability’, including the ethical and social implications of the concept, for more than 20 years. His articles have appeared in a number of scholarly journals. He formerly held teaching and research posts at Ruskin College, Oxford, the Open University and the University of London Institute of Education. He is currently an independent consultant on learning disability in the UK.

M. Lynn Rose, Ph.D, is Professor of History at Truman State University. She teaches ancient history and history of disabilities. Her monograph The Staff of Oedipus: Transforming Disability in Ancient Greece was the first to systematically study the topic for the Greek world.

Contributors: Patricia Clark, Bert Gevaert, Chris F. Goodey, Danielle Gourevitch, Emma-Jayne Graham, Lutz Graumann, Cornelia B. Horn, Christian Laes, Alex Mitchel, Martha L. Rose, Evelyn Samama, Lisa Trentin.