This thesis started with the question if parents in Roman times would be able to love their child, even if it turned out the child was disabled. The Roman law recorded in the Twelve Tables from the...Show moreThis thesis started with the question if parents in Roman times would be able to love their child, even if it turned out the child was disabled. The Roman law recorded in the Twelve Tables from the fifth century B.C.E. stated that parents had to kill their disabled children for the good of the Roman citizens. Some historians however, wrote that disabled individuals were displayed for popular entertainment in ancient Rome as part of an established tradition in the Roman culture of displaying the anomalous bodies of humans and animals. How can children be killed at birth and yet be displayed for popular entertainment? In this thesis I have placed myself within a debate about disability history. The debate is about what the social position was of the disabled within an ancient society, in this thesis the Roman era. The main question for this thesis therefore became: What was the position of the disabled within the Roman Empire?Show less