Bodies on Display: Human, Animal and Cryptid Bodies from Antiquity to the Present

An increasing amount of attention has been paid to impairment and disability in classical antiquity in recent years. However, one aspect of the subject that has not received significant attention, despite recent developments in the study of ancient paradoxography (e.g., Kazantzidis 2019; Geus 2018) and ancient collections, collectors, and collecting (e.g., Carpino et al. 2018; Higbie 2017; Thompson 2016; Gahtan and Pegazzano 2015; Rutledge 2012), is the public display of impaired and disabled people. The same applies to extraordinary (in all senses of the word) bodies. Whether those bodies were human, animal, or cryptid, when scholars have acknowledged this phenomenon, the focus has been placed squarely on those individuals responsible for the displaying. For example, the imperial biographer Suetonius uses this as an indicator of virtue or vice in his subjects: Augustus is a good emperor for avoiding bodily display while Tiberius and Domitian are bad emperors for indulging in the pr