Fiat Lux ! Cécité et déficiences visuelles à Rome : réalités et mythologies, des ténèbres à la lumière
Conceptually, as evidenced by the treaties of physiognomy, physical damage could have appeared, among the Ancients, as constituting real deformities: for any Roman, a healthy body evoked a healthy mind, and a body abnormality was considered as the physical reflection of a deviance, a moral perversio...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Presses universitaires du Midi
2018-08-01
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| Series: | Pallas |
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| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/pallas/5833 |
| Summary: | Conceptually, as evidenced by the treaties of physiognomy, physical damage could have appeared, among the Ancients, as constituting real deformities: for any Roman, a healthy body evoked a healthy mind, and a body abnormality was considered as the physical reflection of a deviance, a moral perversion. Sometimes, disability was even considered as a punishment from the Gods. The infirm would then be representatives of the evil eye and would bring misfortune. They would represent the fear to introduce into society a deviant element that could cause trouble and bring danger in the community, thus hindering the concordia: this turn of events would potentially turn these individuals into outcasts. This negative image of ancient invalids is passed on by the scientific literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yet, some sources seem to indicate that this theoretical vision finds no systematic reflection in the daily treatment of the disabled, and that this hypothesis must be qualified. In recent years, research has striven to revise the preconceived idea that in Antiquity, disability was tantamount to an outright exclusion from society. This article aims to apply this process to review the case of the blinds and the visually impaired by trying to reconcile the information found in the various types of materials available, in order to speculate on the probable conditions imposed on them by the Roman society. |
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| ISSN: | 0031-0387 2272-7639 |