Classical Studies 3400E Chapter Notes -Roman Art, Pottery Of Ancient Greece, Cretinism
18 Nov 2011
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A dwarf (due to some pathological condition such as cretinism or some other disease that produces disproportion or deformation of features and limbs). A midget is someone perfect in form and normal in function, but diminutive. Greek pygme or pygmaios, meaning the distance from elbow to knuckles. Dwarfs in roman art were there many of these given the roman propensity for exposure of the physically or mentally deformed at birth? these do appear in the slave staffs in the imperial and noble households. Slaves who were bought to amuse their masters/as jesters were called moriones (sing. morio). In the iliad and on greek vases pygmies appear fighting battles with cranes. Artists and patrons beginning in the hellenistic era delighting in depicting life on the nile. The constant in visual representations of pygmies is not their color but their short stature and non-ideal somatotype.
