A Beautiful Defect:The Rising Popularity of Physically Deformed Slaves

According to Plutarch, Rome had a special ‘monster market’, where various ‘deformed’, or ‘exotic’ human beings were offered for sale. Considering the paradoxical fact that it was stated in the Twelve Tables that when a deformed child had been born it should be killed, it is striking that these slaves were far more expensive than their ‘healthy’ and ‘ordinary’ counterparts. Apparently, the role and functions that the deformed and disabled played seem to have been much more dynamic and complex. What kind of functions did they have and in which contexts? How did that correspond to the interactions or experiences between masters and slaves? Why was having them so attractive? Who exactly was buying these prodigia, mirabilia, portenta or monstra? So far, historians only seem to mention these physically deformed slaves in a largely anecdotal way. Therefore, this book is a first attempt to explore how, and in which ways, physically deformed slaves, such as eunuchs, giants, dwarfs and hunchbacks, were included in or excluded from Roman society during early Imperial Rome and why they became increasingly popular.