MARKED OUT FOR GREATNESS?

Abstract

In many ancient cultures, such as the Greek and Roman civilizations of the Mediterranean, unusual physical characteristics were seen as marking out their owner for an exceptional fate. In a world where very little could be done to ameliorate the lot of a person born with a deformity or crippled by illness, the individual who triumphantly overcame these misfortunes might justifiably be seen as particularly blessed, or even as having been chosen by the gods. In ancient Greece, babies born with a deformity were regularly exposed, as they were seen as a manifestation of the displeasure of the gods against that community. If by some chance they survived this experience, they seem to have been regarded as specially marked out by the gods.! Also, when one man raised himself from the ruck by his own talents, later generations found it impossible to believe that he was entirely like other men; there had to have been some sign that set him apart from the rest of humanity. These signs often took the form of some strange physical abnormality, often not one that could occur naturally, designed to render their possessor instantly recognizable as a great man, marked out for good or evil for a special destiny. A similar belief developed in ancient China, but was shaped by very different cultural attitudes to those pertaining in ancient Greece or Rome. In this paper, the attitudes displayed by people in ancient China towards crippled and deformed members of their society will be considered. Examples will be taken from the Spring and Autumn (771-475 B.C.) and Warring States (475-221 B.C.) periods, to illustrate the treatment of the disabled prior to the unification of