The Lived Experience of Short-Statured People in the Early Roman Empire

Abstract

In the Roman Empire, what constituted a non-normative body, as well as the symbolic values ascribed to it, was not fixed or “natural,” but was instead negotiated as a part of a complex social identity. While research on bodily difference and disability in ancient Rome has focused, perhaps excessively, on “‘monstrous’ or extremely deformed bodies” (Graham 2013, 250), how individuals inhabited and participated in creating their identity as non-normatively bodied has rarely been considered. The aim of this dissertation is to explore what can be learned about the lived experience of non-normatively bodied and specifically short-statured individuals from art, literature, and funerary inscriptions.I begin in chapter 1 by interrogating the premises central to previous scholarship on lives and representations of short-statured individuals: that they were always seen as the apotropaic, humorous “Others” (Barton 1993; Garland 1995; Clarke 1998, 2001, 2005, 2007; Trentin 2022). I examine terracotta lamps portraying sex scenes to show that while the bodies of short-statured individuals were sometimes “Othered” by Romans to amuse and avert the evil eye, a wider range of responses—including normalizing and integrating ones—can be conceptualized when we do not apply these interpretations uncritically. Using one such lamp found in an Aquileian burial as a case study, I suggest that it was chosen for its association with leisure and entertainment and was likely chosen by the tomb owners to reflect and enhance their social status. I then use two historical figures as my case studies in chapter 2 and 3 to show that in imperial Rome enslaved and freed short-statured people were similarly ascribed socially enhancing and entertainment value and attempt to envision how they could have navigated this expectation. I also propose that these functions were imposed on enslaved and freed short-statured people specifically, while freeborn people had the resources and opportunity to engage with their bodily non-normativity differently. In chapter 2 I consider how the identities of deliciae, “pet child,” and short-statured person overlapped for Conops, an enslaved person of Julia the Younger (Plin. HN 7.75). By bringing out the parallels between the skills ascribed to deliciae and non-normatively bodied performers, I explicate the labor that likely went into maintaining these personas. I then argue that this labor and the benefits it brought was seen as an opportunity for positive identification in the community of enslaved people and freedpeople by analyzing Conops’ epitaph (CIL 6.7613) alongside others found in the Iunii Silani columbarium. In chapter 3 I turn to the gravestone of Myropnous the aulos player (IG 14.1865 = IGUR 2.798); I propose that life accounts of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century freak show performers provide useful comparative evidence for envisioning the agency of Roman enslaved and freed short-statured performers. I interpret Myropnous’ commemoration as showing his identities as short-statured performer and musician as inextricably linked, and as reflecting the pride he and his community had in both facets of his life.