VERONIQUE DASEN

DWARFS IN ATHENS

Summary. This paper examines the status of short people in everyday Athenian
life. It reviews written and iconographic sources which provide complementary
information. In literature, especially in the works of Aristotle, dwalfism appears
as a physical handicap which involves various disorders, such as sleepiness,
erratic reasoning and abnormal sexuality. Vase-paintingsmoderate this negative
view. Short people are shown as fill humans, though close to childhood, who
have a specific place in the community; they are associated with satyrs and
the world of Dionysos.
As in any society, the Greek polis included
individuals physically disabled by birth,
accident or old age. In particular congenital
disorders occurred in the same forms and with
the same incidence as today. Dwarfism, for
example, a disorder of the growth process
characterised by a significantly short stature
(below ca. 1.50 m in western countries), is
due mainly to genetic causes, and affects one
child in about 10,OOO live births. Archaic and
Classical Greek artists, however, very seldom
depicted human figures with physical abnorm a l i t i e ~This
. ~ absence may in part be related
to the high rate of infant mortality and to the
practice of exposure. In Classical Athens, the
newborn child was officially recognised by his
father at the feast of the Amphidromia, which
took place a few days after birth (five, seven
or ten days according to different sources); he
probably received a name on the same occasion. Only then was he legally born.4 Newborn babies suffering from conspicuous and
severe anomalies, such as Siamese twins or
children with additional limbs, had to be
OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

exposed within these first critical days. In

this context dwarfs benefited from two positive
circumstances. First, affected newborn babies
are usually strong and could survive without
special care. Second, their appearance may be
slightly abnormal (folded skin, overlarge skull,
small size), but these signs were not necessarily
identified as symptoms of a pathological condition. Their disorder became progressively
evident during infancy, when the time allowed
for exposure was past. The community gradually realised that one of its members was
physically different. How did society then
react? Were short people rejected as anomalous
beings who threaten the established order, or
were they integrated into the socio-religious
system of the community?
MEDICAL DEFINITION

Restricted growth is associated with various

skeletal abnormalities. I review briefly the
physical characteristics of the most common
disorders which allow their identification in
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DWARFS IN ATHENS

art.6 Two main categories of dwarfism are

distinguished: a disproportionate type, where
the limbs or the trunk, or both, are too short,
and a proportionate type, where the whole
body is involved and retains infantile proportions. In most disorders men and women are
equally affected. Intelligence is usually unimpaired, and often outstandingly acute. The
most common condition, achondroplasia (one
in 34,000 live births), belongs to the disproportionate category. It affects the ossification
process of the cartilaginous bones, initiated in
the uterus. The limb shortening is severe, while
the trunk remains almost normal in length. The
head shows a large cranial vault, small facial
bones with low nasal bridge. The fingertips
reach only to the top of the thighs or to hip
level. A marked back deformity (lordosis) is
due to the pelvic tilt and results in prominent
buttocks and abdomen. Genital organs, despite
persistent legends, are normal in size. Muscular
strength and agility, however, can be very
developed. In another common disorder,
hypochondroplasia, the proportions of the
body are similar to those of achondroplasia,
but the skull is not involved and facial features
develop normally. In rarer types, likepseudoachondroplasia and diastrophic dwarjism, the
whole body is affected and becomes disproportionately small; more crippling deformities
may occur, such as club-feet and club-hands.
A short man may also be normal in his
proportions. Most cases are due to a growth
hormone deficiency related to a reduced secretion of the pituitary gland. The adult has a
childlike appearance, with a button nose and
plump cheeks. Secondary hormone deficiencies
can lead to infantilism, but mental development
is usually normal. Pygmies may be placed in
this category. The best known examples are
the pygmy tribes from Central Africa (Aka,
Babinga, Mbuti). They are very small (ca.
130 cm), muscular and well proportioned,
with a lighter skin colour than their negroid
192

n e i g h b ~ u r sWhen
.~
short stature is caused by
hypothyroidism,however, severe physical and
mental retardation occur, which may even lead
to complete cretinism. The adult retains infantile proportions (in some cases with short
limbs) with a distended abdomen. The head
is large with coarse facial features, thick lips,
a large protruding tongue and an apathetic
expression. Sexual maturity is not reached.
LITERARY SOURCES

Literary sources on pathologically short

people go back to the fifth century. The texts
are essentially medical. No inscription refers
to restricted growth, though a wide range of
diseases are recorded in votive inscriptions.
Dwarfs do not occur as characters in the plots
of Greek drama, not even in the comic works
of Aristophanes, but this may be due to chances
of survival! In one passage only Aristophanes
lampoons the sons of the dramatist Carcinos,
who were of small stature, in portraying them
as vavo&kq, dwarfish dancers (Pax, 790).
The first comments on dwarfs morphology
must be sought in Aristotles discussions on
human physiology. His medical notions of
growth disorders were slight, and he does not
distinguish the different conditions by specific
words. He calls dwarfs equally nvyp&ioi or
v&voi, as if the two terms were synonymous,
and describes disproportionate dwarfism as the
prototype of the condition. In the De Partibus
Animalium (IV, 10, 686 b 1-20) Aristotle
defines dwarfs as beings with an over-large
upper part, big in the trunk, or the portion
from the head to the residual vent, and a small
lower part, unlike the normal man whose size
of the trunk is proportionate to the lower
portions. This physical disproportion also
characterises children, who cannot walk but
crawl about, and animals, since compared
with man, all the other animals are dwarf-like.
Proportionate dwarfs, who look like the miniaOXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

VERONIQUE DASEN

ture figures painted on shops, are mentioned

in the Problematu only (X, 892 a 12-13,
16-20). Aristotle attributes the condition to
uterine disorders, either due to a disease (a
deficiency of the sperm?) or to a too narrow
womb (Gen. An. 11, 8, 749 a; HA VI, 24,
577 b), but it may also occur after birth,
because of a lack of space or food.* Thus, in
the Problemutu (X, 892 a 10-12, 20-22),
Aristotle mentions a method of creating artificially dwarf animals, such as Maltese lapdogs,
by bringing them up in small boxes to hinder
their growth. We do not know whether this
method was also used for men in Greece, but
we learn from Longinus (On the Sublime, 44,
5 ) that it was practised in Rome.I3
Aristotle presents the condition in a negative
light. He considers the whole group of dwarflike beings as inferior to man. In various texts
he repeats that disproportions between the parts
of the body cause important metabolic disorders. In the Purvu Nuturuliu (457 a 24)
dwarfs are said to sleep too much, like children
and hydrocephalics, because the heat produced
by food is cooled by their large upper body,
and the resultant flowing back of the cold
paralyses their system, inducing deep sleep.
In the Problematu (V, 883 a 15-21), Aristotle
adds that ill-proportioned bodies are more often
affected by fatigue, which is not equally distributed in their limbs. He says also that dwarfs
have less memory and are less intelligent than
normal-sized men because the heaviness of
their large heads impairs the impulses of
thought (Purv. Nut., 453 b l), for weight
hampers the motion of intellectual and of
general sense (Part. An., IV,10,686 b 22).14
Dwarfs are also believed to possess abnormal
sexuality; in the De Historiu Animalium (VI,
24,577 b) Aristotle says that dwarfs have large
sexual organs like small mules, yivvol. This
statement, based upon no physical reality, had
a long life; it is repeated by scholiasts and
lexicographers like Hesychius, Photius and the
OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

Suda (s.v. vtivos), and has been echoed in

literature and in iconography up to modem
times. l5 These deficiencies were, however,
believed to be counterbalanced by other
qualities; in the De Purtibus Animalium (IV,
10, 686 b 22) Aristotle suggests that dwarfs,
like children, have special abilities, buv&p&s,
in which they are superior, but he does not
specify them.
This negative view of dwarfism as a physical
and intellectual handicap is related to the ideal
of KdoK&yffdfa which associated physical
beauty with moral and mental perfection. This
image of dwarfs is also reflected in myth.
Pygmies appear as puny, primitive and impious
beings who live like scurrying ants in the earth
at the end of the world, and fight periodically
against cranes because of their hybris.16 In
the form of Cercopes, dwarfs again appear as
asocial beings; they are described as a pair of
wily highwaymen who tried to steal the
weapons of Heracles, and are finally changed
into monkeys. l 7 A few allusions indicate,
however, that an unusual body was a feature
noteworthy but not damning. Thus Plato
describes Socrates as a short, fat but very wise
man (Symp. 215 a-b); in the Protugorus
(323 d) he adds that one should not despise
ugly, short ( u p q b s ) or crippled men, for
physical appearance is only due to luck. No
other text, literary, medical or legal, specifies
the status reserved to dwarfs in Greek society,
but iconography is more informative, as I now
show.
ICONOGRAPHY

The earliest certain representations of pathological dwarfs are found in Classical Athenian
vase-painting, and most pictures (there are
about 20) date to the second half of the fifth
century. This distribution conforms to an
important change in the stock scenes of the
painters whose interest in scenes of everyday

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DWARFS IN ATHENS

Figure 1
Lekythos, Paris, Louvre, TH 16, Courtesy
of Museum. Photo Chuzeville.

Figure 2
Cup, Ferrara, Museo Archaeologico Nazionale, 20363
Courtesy of Museum.

Figure 3
Pelike, Boston MFA, 76.45. Courtesy of Museum.

194

Figure 4
Pelike, Agrigento, Museo Civico, Ex Giudice 638.
Courtesy of Museum.
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VERONIQUE DASEN

Figure 5
Cup, Athens, Agora Museum, P 2514. Courtesy of
Agora Excavations, American School at Athens.

Figure 6
Cup, Todi, Museo Civico, 471. Courtesy of
Museum.

Figure 7
Pelike, Leningrad, Hermitage, 740. Courtesy of
Museum.

Figure 8
Kotyle, Munich, Antikensammlungen, 8934.
Courtesy of Museum.

OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

195

DWARFS IN ATHENS

Figure 9
Aryballos, Paris, Louvre, Ca 2183. Courtesy of
Museum. Photo Chuzeville.

Figure 1 1
Chous, Dresden, Skulpturensammlung,
ZV 1827. Courtesy of Museum.

196

Figure 10
Skyphos, Paris, Louvre, G 617. Courtesy of
Museum. Photo Chuzeville.

Figure 12
Krater, Switzerland, Private. Courtesy of Arete Gallery,
Zurich.
OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

Figure 13
Fr. stamnos, Erlangen, Kunstsammlung der
Universitlt, 1707. Courtesy of Museum.

Figure 14
Oinochoe, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1971, 866.
Courtesy of Museum.

Figures 15 and 16
Skyphos, Paris, Louvre, F 410. Courtesy of Museum. Photo Chuzeville.
OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

197

DWARFS IN ATHENS

life increased perceptibly after 500. These

pictures are also related to the emergence of
individualism in Classical art; they bear
witness to the gradual mastery of the rendering
of naturalisticposes, anatomy and physiognomy
which led to portraiture.
Short people were familiar in all classes of
the population. Their pictures are found on
vessels of varying quality. Besides expensive
vases decorated with elaborate drawings, like
the bell krater in a private collection (Fig. 12)
or the small Peytel aryballos (Fig. 9), we find
vessels of a lesser quality such as the skyphos
in Munich (Fig. 8) and the Dresden chous
(Fig. 1 1 ) .
To avoid confusion with depictions of
children and slaves, dwarfs were carefully
characterised by their most typical features
combined with an indication of physical
maturity: most dwarfs have a beard (Figs 2,
3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 1 1 , 13) or a moustache
(Fig. 5 ) , and a balding head (Figs 3, 4, 6, 7,
9, 10, 13, 14); they have mature sexual organs,
often slightly larger or more conspicuous than
those of normal-sized Athenians (Figs 2, 3,
4, 6, 7, 9, 1 1 , 14). Their physical disproportions are also stressed by their nakedness which
contrasts with the clothing of normal-sized
companions (Figs 2, 3, 4, 9, 12, 14). The
rendering of their abnormal anatomy may
be so precise that a diagnosis can often
be attempted.'* Most of them are clearly
achondroplastic: they have a large head, with
a depressed root of nose and a strong jaw, a
long trunk and very short limbs (Figs 3 , 4 , 9 ,
10, 13, 14). Folds of skin in the thighs, due
to the abnormal shortening of the long bones,
may be added (Fig. 9). In contemporary
pictures mythical pygmies are similarly
depicted as achondroplastic dwarfs, often with
a large penis; their snub-noses and thick lips
substitute for negroid features (Fig. l).I9 A
physical abnormality replaces ethnic features.
In a few examples the forehead-nose line is

198

normal (Fig. 12), and cases of hypochondroplasia may be depicted. Rarer types of dwarfism, such as hypopituitarism, may be shown
(Fig. 5 ) : on the Agora cup, the small man has
child-like proportions, with very slender limbs;
his adult age is indicated by a moustache,
painted in diluted glaze, while his malformation is stressed by his large skull, more than
a quarter of his size, curiously elongated.
One and the same real dwarf-may have been
used as a model by different painters. I have
grouped the extant depictions of dwarfs and
pygmies according to J.D. Beazley's attributions to workshops, and I give here a few
examples of striking similarities. In 450, in the
group of Polygnotos, the Epimedes Painter
gave to his pygmy (ARV 1044, 7)20 facial
features closely resembling those of the pathological dwarf depicted by the Peleus Painter
(Fig. 13; ARV 1039, 6). It is likely that we
have here two depictions of the same man. At
the same period, the workshop of Sotades
produced two rhyta and three figure-vases
showing very similar achondroplastic pygmies;
these pictures may reproduce the anatomy of
an individual who was also depicted by the
Sotades Painter on the Louvre skyphos
(Fig. 10; ARV 768, 33; A d d 2 287) and on a
skyphos in Yale.21In 420, the Phiale Painter
(Fig. 4)22 worked with the Dwarf Painter
(Fig. 3; ARV 101 1 , 13; Para 440) in the workshop of the Achilles Painter; they too may have
shown the physical characteristics of the same
short-limbed individual.
This naturalistic care in the rendering could
be interpreted in two different ways. Did
painters stress the abnormal aspects of dwarfs
to make conspicuous their commercial value,
as luxury slaves, or to make fun of them? Or
does this care, on the contrary, express the
fascination of the artist, mingled with respect?
Most scholars adopt the first theory.23They
assume that Athenians must have regarded
small malformed people as living witnesses to
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VERONIQUE DASEN

the mythical puny and short-lived pygmies or

to the treacherous Cercopes, and denied their
quality as full human beings. They probably
treated their short compatriots as living curiosities, as the Sybarites did according to
Timaeus: Another national custom arising
from their luxurious habits was to keep tiny
manikins, hv0ponhpia p i ~ p b l , and owlish
S , took delight in Maltese
jesters, U K U T ~ ~ O U and
puppies and human beings who were less than
human (Athenaeus XII, 518, e-f).24
At first this negative view seems to be
supported by the fact that the criteria used to
identify slaves apply well to most depictions
of dwarfs: like slaves, short people are often
naked and adopt comic or unusual poses.25
Some also seem to have servile occupations,
in particular as personal attendants. On the
Ferrara cup, for example (Fig. 2; ARV 934,
67 bis), a dwarf, characterised by his overlarge head and his short limbs, follows a child
as short as himself, who is wrapped in a cloak.
This iconographic schema is frequent in vasepainting: the master walks forward, followed
by his servant who carries some item. On the
Ferrara cup the dwarf replaces the familiar
pedagogue, the trustworthy slave who accompanied children to school and to other public
places. A similar scene is depicted on an
amphora at Baranello: the child, also draped
in a long cloak, is escorted by an old slave
dressed in a short garment who leans on a
walking-stick and holds the boys lyre.26 In
two other scenes, a dwarf attends a woman,
and substitutes for her maid. On the Agrigento
pelike (Fig. 4; ARV 854, 14), a naked dwarf
follows a woman dressed in a chiton and a long
cloak. They are perhaps coming back from the
market, or going out to a feast. The scene is
very uncommon. Women are usually accompanied by female, not by male slaves. The
dwarf behaves like a female servant: he
balances on his head a basket with a flat
bottom, surmounted by a heap of food (?)
OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

covered with a cloth. This scene is best

paralleled on a skyphos in Greenwich; like the
dwarf, a small girl is carrying a wine-skin
behind her drunken mistress.* The short man
on the Agora cup (Fig. 5 ) also takes the place
of a maid. He stands beside a woman seated
on a chair, her feet resting on a foot-stool.
They are in her bedroom, as the head of her
couch, bearing a large pillow, indicates. The
position of the small man is unusual: servants
either stand behind the seat of their mistress:8
or they come towards her bringing some toilet
object, or they lace her shoes, like the small
girl on a pyxis by the Eretria Painter.29
Visitors face their hostess. On the Agora cup
the dwarf stands in line with his mistress; the
closeness of the two figures and their converging looks suggest that they have an exceptionally close relationship. His smallness evokes
that of the Erotes, little supernatural servants;
in red figure, these winged attendants are
depicted helping their mistress, sometimes
Aphrodite herself, at her toilet, bringing a
piece of her attire, like real slaves.30 This
parallel ErodAphrodite, dwarf/woman may
have meant to show that the small man was
an attendant as devoted to his mistress as are
the Erotes to Aphrodite. Such a slave was
probably not suitable for a proper Athenian
lady. Although she sits gracefully, in a richly
furnished room, the woman may well be a
hetaira, as M. Robertson judiciously notes.3
Would a painter depict a respectable woman
in such an enticing dress, in her bedroom, in
the company of her dwarf, and moreover on
a drinking vessel? The festal garland on the
head of the dwarf suggests that he also accompanied her to the parties where the cup which
bears their depiction was used. His dress and
his walking stick indicate his mobility, and may
imply that the small man was perhaps also her
discreet messenger.
In a few pictures, dwarfs appear as belonging to the world of professional entertainment;
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DWARFS IN ATHENS

they may be depicted performing comic acts

in the symposion. For example, two dwarfs
execute unbridled leaps on a table of the tondo
of a cup in Todi (Fig. 6).32Their shameless
position recalls the famous story of another
insolent dancer, the Athenian Hippokleides
who lost his chance of marriage with Agariste,
daughter of the tyrant of Sicyon, because he
danced wildly on a table at the suitors
banquet.33Another dancing dwarf even bears
his name (Fig. 13), probably as a reference
to Agaristes lover, as G. Lippold first
noted.34 He is performing on a table, as is
shown by the position of his body in relation
to the height of the musicians arms surrounding him. However, this dwarf appears in a
Dionysiac context and he is probably not an
ordinary entertainer, as I show below. A scene
depicted on a cup from Al Mina35 suggests
that dwarfs performances could also take place
in a public location; a short plump man dances
on a block-like podium which resembles the
traditional Pqpa of artistic competitions.
In a few depictions, painters seem to have
used dwarfs in a purely ludicrous way, as
living caricatures. I present here two examples
of such visual satires. On the Leningrad pelike
(Fig. 7; ARV 1134, 1 1 ; A d d 2 333) two
athletes are depicted in the form of two dwarfs
- or is it the reverse? One of them is exercising on a punch-bag of the larger sort as
prescribed for pankratiasts by Philostratus (De
Gyrnnastica, 36 and 57). Their stocky bodies,
with over-large upper parts and stupid expressions, seem to caricature the physical type
produced by intense exercise. It is very likely
that we can here recognize one of the first
illustrations of the rising criticism of the new
training methods which aimed no longer to
produce harmonious bodies, but rather professional athletes.36The painter of the kotyle in
Munich (Fig. 8) may have intended to caricature women taking part in festivals forbidden
to men, like the Haloa. The dwarf woman

200

stands, naked, but with earrings and a large

headband and a wreath around her bun, holding a skyphos in her hand. She is not involved
in a simple komos, but takes part in a cult
scene, as the reverse shows:37a tall phallus,
enlivened with wings and an eye, is erected
in honour of a fertility god, Dionysos or
Demeter, very likely out of doors. Before the
phallus, crowned with an offering basket, a
skyphos is set on a t r a p e ~ aThis
. ~ ~ combination of ritual objects characterises Dionysiac
rites, where it is not uncommon to see women
with models of male genitals.39These models
were used on festal occasions like the Country
Dionysia, but when associated with naked
women they may also refer to the festival of
the Haloa, a fertility cult dedicated to Demeter
and Dionysos. Ancient authors tell us that part
of this festival was confined to women who
held a secret komos in the Telesterion of
Eleusis.40 As M. Robertson has suggested,
the painter probably aimed to caricature these
women performing their secret rites and represented a stunted woman with a deformed body
to suggest that their nakedness could also
reveal ugly forms.41
These pictures thus lead us to assume that
some dwarfs served as slaves in Classical
Athens; they seem to have been more particularly attached to the family, to children and
young men as pedagogues, and to women, as
maids. They were probably foreigners, or
Greeks, but captured in war or kidnapped and
sold at Athens, or they may have been born
in slavery.
The fate of the short-statured men born in
free families remains to be defined. No
Athenian law stated that a man could be
deprived of citizenship because of a physical
d e f i ~ i e n c y .In
~ ~theory, short people must
have benefited from the same status as normalsized Athenians.43In many scenes it is possible to substitute the figure of a normal-sized
adult for the dwarf figure without changing the
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VERONIQUE DASEN

meaning of the picture. For example, the short

man leading a dog on the Boston pelike (Fig. 3;
ARV 101 1 , 13; Para 440) may first be seen
as a pedagogue, like the Ferrara dwarf (Fig. 2).
He is older than his two companions, as his
beard and his balding head show, and he may
be escorting them to the gymnasium, where
he would care for his masters as do so many
small young servants.44 Yet he could also be
a normal citizen. It is not possible to assert that
the painter depicted him in a detrimental way
to show his inferior status. The three men are
similarly carefully differentiated by distinct
hairstyles, clothing and attributes. The young
man who walks in front has curly hair and is
wrapped in a cloak which hides his arms; his
companion has a fringe with long locks, he
wears a normal long himation which leaves his
right arm free and he holds a walking-stick.
The dwarf is distinguished by his beard,
moustache and side-whiskers; he carries a
chlamys on his shoulder, and also holds a
knotty stick. The rendering of his unusual
morphology appears as a supplementary individualising element serving the realistic interest
of the painter. The scene brings to mind
numerous similar pictures of young Athenians
talking, in twos or threes, in a non-specific
place, sometimes indicated as the palaestra.
Most often, this scene is depicted on the
obverse of the vase, as a minor conventional
subject. On the Boston pelike, the painter may
have varied the usual schema to enhance the
original figure of the dwarf, and the group
constitutes the principal scene of the vase. I
note that the short man turns his head back and
exchanges a look with the man who walks
behind him, a look which suggests a reciprocal
relationship, without scorn. The short man is
perhaps just going to the gymnasium like a
normal-sized Athenian. The company of the
dog, which may be his, stresses his integration
in a domestic space.45
Similarly, the dwarf on the Peytel aryballos
OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

(Fig. 9; ARV 813, 96; Para 420; Add.' 291)

has often been described as the slave of the
doctor, collecting the fees of the clients, here
a hare.46Others suggested that he belonged to
a client.47Yet achondroplasts can suffer from
secondary complications such as pains in the
legs and in the back which need medical care.
The dwarf may be an ordinary patient, waiting
for his turn in the clinic of a young doctor.
The hare carried on his shoulder could be .his
own payment for a consultation. The presence
of the short man does not incite any contemptuous attitude on the part of the other clients.
He is talking normally to a man who bends
and seems to lend him an attentive ear. An
important detail must be noted: the penis of
the dwarf is infibulated, a practice limited to
free men, so far as I know.48
Other pictures show dwarfs taking part in
the komos like average-sized citizens. The
dwarf dancer on the skyphos in the Louvre
(Fig. 10; ARV 768, 33; Add.' 287) differs
only in his abnormal proportions from a
normal reveller; on the other side of the vessel,
another dwarf also performs a standard komos
dance.49 Both are infibulated like normalsized Athenians.
Yet a full equality of status of dwarfs with
well-built Athenians cannot be positively
asserted. No extant scene shows dwarf komasts
dancing among other Athenians. A few
elements suggest that short people were
assimilated in some ways to children. On a
chous in Dresden (Fig. 1 1),50 for example, a
naked dwarf holds out a skyphos in his left
hand and leans on a walking stick; a deep foodbasket is hanging on the wall. At first, his pose
seems perfectly identical to that of normalsized k o m a ~ t s . ~The
'
dwarf, however, is
painted on a vessel reserved for children, a
small chous (H. 9.5 cm). He is naked like a
youth, while well-built komasts in a similar
pose are usually dressed in a chlamys. As on
many choes for children, a small jug, crowned

20 1

DWARFS IN ATHENS

with a garland, is set before the small man,52

while normal komasts often stand beside
kraters large in proportion to their own size.
The unusual and disturbing appearance of
dwarfs seems thus to have induced slight social
marginality, but it also gave them a very
special place in the religious system of the
community. Short people were incorporated
into the cult of the most disquieting god in
Athens, Dionysos, who led his attendants into
liminal states of enthusiasm, changing women
into maenads and men into satyrs. This
symbolic association contributed to a positive
approach to the unusual aspect of dwarfs, and
their acquisition of a fitting position within
Dionysiac
Similarities between the facial features of
achondroplasts and of satyrs are striking.
Archaic and Classical artists may have been
inspired by the unusual faces of dwarfs, with
their funny snub-noses and thick lips, to render
the comic unreality of Dionysos companions.
I note for example the striking similarity
between the face of the dwarf in Erlangen
(Fig. 13) and that of the satyr on the Taranto
cup.54 The conventional baldness of dwarfs
was, in return, very likely influenced by that
of satyrs. The two groups of figures are,
however, subtly distinguished: satyrs often
have a much longer beard than dwarfs and their
noses may be very irregular and stumpy like
a boxers.
Short people held a very specific place
among the attendants of the god. While
ordinary humans are transformed by painters
into satyrs to show their passage into the
mythical thiasos, dwarfs keep their full human
form in the mythical world. On a krater once
on the Zurich market (Fig. 12),55 a dwarf
dances on a table, holding a tympanon. At his
right, a maenad accompanies him with the
music of a flute, while at his left a thoughtful
satyr and Dionysos himself, leaning on his
thyrsos, contemplate his performance. All

202

three are crowned with ivy and a branch hangs

above the dwarf to emphasize the Dionysiac
context. The satyr and the maenad refer to real
humans transported into the mythical thiasos
by the performance of the rites. Only the dwarf
has no supernatural characteristics, such as a
tail or animal ears, as if he was a human
substitute for a satyr. A krater once on the
Paris market56 depicts an analogous scene: a
flute-player and Dionysos, holding a thyrsos,
look at a dancer, this time a satyr, on a trapeza.
The satyr has the same pose as the dwarf; he
rests the weight of his body on his left leg,
which is slightly flexed, his left hand is at his
ankle while his right arm is outstretched. He
wears a pair of ithyphallic drawers like a satyrplayer transformed from a full human into a
supernatural being. 57
Very likely, the dwarf dancing on a table
on a stamnos in Erlangen (Fig. 13) also takes
part in a Dionysiac ritual, and not in a simple
symposion. The context is marked by Dionysiac
elements (ivy, pipes, crotala): his accompanists
(of indeterminate sex) are playing the flute
and crotala, while ivy branches are wrapped
around his neck and his raised arm. His
gestures are typically those of a man expressing
Dionysiac inspiration; he makes the gesture
,
into the distance, with
of b r T O O K O T ~ l V gazing
one arm raised to the forehead, and his head
bent, as do dancing satyrs and k ~ m a s t s . ~ ~
Again the painter did not need to travesty the
dwarf as a satyr, as though the malformation
of the short man naturally endowed him with
a daemonic nature.
The sexual behaviour of dwarfs and satyrs
is also strikingly similar. The small man on
the oinochoe in Oxford (Fig. 14) dances
towards his female partner like a lascivious
demon. He is ithyphallic, and a flying phallus
expresses his desire. His hopping step and his
outstretched arms evoke the unsuccessful
gesticulations of satyrs attempting to catch a
maenad.59On the Oxford oinochoe, the dwarf
OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

VERONIQUE DASEN

is not really assaulting the woman, but mimics

that action. The attitude of the woman, stooping forward on a stretched leg, her weight
resting on her withdrawn leg, does not express
real fright; it is the step of a dance frequently
performed by maenads facing satyrs.60 This
scene seems to imply that dwarfs were credited
with the same sexual potency as satyrs. This
belief was not entirely positive. Despite their
spectacular vitality, satyrs are in fact unfortunate lovers, always inflamed but never
embraced by the object of their desire, and
must be contented with auto-erotic fulfilment.
The comparison of dwarfs with satyrs could
suggest that dwarfs were similarly rejected by
women and regarded as innocuous beings by
normal-sized men. The belief reported by
Aristotle that dwarfs had a big penis also did
not imply that they were inordinarily fertile.
On the contrary, Aristotle adds in other
passages that animals with a large organ, like
donkeys, are less fertile because sperm cools
on its way (Gen. An. I, 7, 718 a; 11, 8, 748
a-b).6' In the Roman period, the figure of
the short and ugly god Priapus incarnates this
paradox: he suffers from a pathological,
painful and ceaseless erection.62
Thus dwarfs were accepted and valued by
the god who is the most generous towards
human oddity. It is probably not a coincidence
that the only picture of a female dwarf (Fig. 8)
is found in a scene referring to a fertility ritual
probably related to Dionysos. Dionysos is also
the god who made friends with the only
disabled Greek deity, the lame Hephaistos,
when he brought him back to Olympos in a
merry and inebriated state. Two dwarfs even
take the place of satyrs in an unusual version
of the return of Hephaistos shown on a skyphos
in Paris (Fig. 15).63 One naked dwarf rides
on the neck of a donkey before which a second
dwarf stands, holding a club; the animal is
loaded with wine vessels and baskets full of
grapes which evoke the wine just drunk.
OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

Before them, two bearded men in long dresses

dance with snakes round their shoulders.
Perhaps Dionysos himself is one of them. On
the reverse (Fig. 16), Hephaistos follows, so
drunk that he must be carted away, not on a
mule, but in a kind of wheelchair like that
ridden by the god (though in a more dignified
pose) on a red-figure cup in Berlin;64 instead
of having wings, it is pulled by singular tall
birds. This scene is best paralleled on a Corinthian amphoriskos, where two pot-bellied
figures, two padded dancers in the guise of
satyrs with erect phalloi, welcome Hephaistos
riding a mule, Dionysos and his troop of
satyrs.65 At Corinth, the padded actors are
distinctly separated by a tree from the mythical
thiasos, while on the skyphos in Paris the
dwarfs are involved in the myth without being
transformed into supernatural beings.

CONCLUSION

The condition of dwarfs at Athens was very

ambivalent. The absence of legal restrictions
suggests that their status as full humans was
in principle recognized. We see that they had
their place within Athenian society; we find
them in the streets of Athens, walking with
young men, in the palaestra, in a clinic, taking
part in the komos; some are infibulated like
normal-sized Athenian citizens. The disquieting quality of men's abnormality was symbolically made acceptable by their integration
within the Dionysiac cult. They emerge as
living witnesses to the mythical thiasos.
Dionysiac worship must have benefited from
their inclusion which reinforced beliefs in a
transcendental world. Their religious integration, in return, also demonstrates the impact
of the Dionysiac cult on the imagination of the
Athenian community. It is interesting to note
that it is also in the context of Mysteries,
performed in the sanctuary of the Cabirion near

203

DWARFS IN ATHENS

Thebes, that dwarfish figures again pervade

iconography in the fourth century BC.%
Yet we cannot assert that short people were
regarded as entirely normal citizens. Iconographic gaps suggest forms of rejection, such
as the absence of pictures of dwarf women,
apart from the one on the Munich kotyle
(Fig. 8), as though female malformation was
felt unpleasant or d i ~ q u i e t i n g This
. ~ ~ absence
may also bear witness to some sympathetic
feelings, since their representation would have
implied making them objects of popular derision, as happened to the woman on the Munich
kotyle. The absence of depictions of the
more severe malformations (e.g. pseudoachondroplasia, hypothyroidism) may indicate
a similar unease towards crippling diseases,
perhaps mingled with compassion. Iconography also does not answer questions on some
concrete aspects of dwarfs' position in society.
Could they marry? They are never shown as
true couples with normal-sized (or shortstatured) people. When depicted with a normalsized woman, dwarfs either have a subordinate
position (Figs 4, 3,or a satyr-like relationship
(Fig. 14). The only pairs are of men (Fig. 6).
This may be related to the fact that dwarfs were
seen as lifelong children, as the Dresden chous
suggests (Fig. 11). How did they earn their
living? One could imagine them in the workshops of potters, where a small man would
have been very useful for cleaning the oven.
Yet dwarfs are not shown engaged in specific
forms of work, apart from that of attendant.
They do not appear in hunting, nor in war
scenes. Their absence as warriors is more
easily understood, since short people could not

enter the battlefield with normal-sized companions.68 The only known pictures of fighting dwarfs are those of mythical pygmies who
caricature the heroic world. In red-figure, these
representations of pygmies also clearly express
a form of rejection. Vase-painters change
pathological dwarfs into a race of innocuous,
short plump people, conveniently located in
a far-away country, who cannot resist the
attack of birds (Fig. 1). The trouble induced
by the genetic anomaly was relieved by
laughter, and could be discussed in ethnological
and mythological terms.69
As attendants, dwarfs are never shown as
crafty servants; they seem to have entered the
same category of luxury servants as did
negroes, and may have entertained their
masters at the symp~sion.~'These slaves
could be seen as exotic possessions. As negroes
could evoke Egypt and its divine Ethiopians,
dwarfs may have been presented by skilful
traders as members of a mysterious foreign
population, perhaps p y g m i e ~ . ~ '

NOTES

3. For material, see e.g. Binsfeld 1956, 6-25, and

Metzler 1971, 73 f.
4. On these ceremonies, see recently M. Golden, Echos
du Monde Classique 5 (1986) 252-256. For material on
exposure at Athens and in other parts of Greece, see
J. Rudhardt, MusHely 20 (1963) 16 sq. ; R.F. Germain,
Revue historique de droitfranpis et Ctranger 47 (1969)

I. See in general M.D. Grmek, Les maladies u 1 hube

de la civilisation occidentale (Paris, 1983) 21 -30.
2. That is more than three standard deviations below the
mean height of a population of the same age and sex.

204

Acknowledgements

This paper presents conclusions of my DPhil thesis on

Dwags in ancient Egypt and Greece submitted and
approved at Oxford University in 1988. The research was
conducted under the joint supervision of Professors
J . Boardman and J. Baines whom I wish to thank for their
continuous interest in my work. I am also very grateful
to Dr C. Sourvinou-Inwood (Oxford), Dr J . Bremmer
(Utrecht), and especially to Dr N.M. Horsfall (Rome),
who read this paper in draft, for their comments and
suggestions.

Route du Centre 24
CH-1723 Marly, Switzerland

OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

VERONIQUE DASEN

177-197; M. Schmidt, Hephaistos 5-6 (1983-4)

133-161.
5 . Exceptions were probably made, as suggested by an
Archaic terracotta from Sicily depicting an adult trunkman; J. Dorig, Art antique. Collectionsprivh de Suisse
Romnde (Gentve, 1975) no. 143.
6. There are over 80 distinct types of dwarfism. For a
recent classification (with bibl.), see D.L. Rimoin,
R.S. Lachman, in A.E.H. Emery, D.L. Rimoin (eds),
Principles and practice of medical genetics I (Edinburgh,
1983) 703-735; R. wynne-Davis,c. Hall and A. Graham
Apley, Atlas of skeletal dysplasias (Edinburgh, 1986).
See also Dasen 1988, 256, fig. I , b-e.
7. Their skulls and hips are almost normal in size, which
suggests that pgymyism may be due to an adaptation to
the equatorial environment. See recently T.J. Merimee,
D.L. Rimoin, in L.L. Cavalli-Sforza (ed.), Afncan
Pygmies (London etc., 1986) 167-177.
8. See e.g. K. Herzog, Die Wunderheilungen von
Epidauros (Leipzig, 1933, Philologus suppl. 22), esp.
98-105.
9. Cf. Aul. Gell., NA XIX, 13, 3, on the use of the word
w&uor in a lost play by Aristophanes, the OXK~Y~CF,
or
Merchantships (Kassel-Austin I11 (2). fr. 441).
10. See also their description in Vesp., 1500-1513 and
Schol. to 1509 (Pherecrates, CAFI, 149, no. 14); commentary by A.H. Sommerstein (ed.), Wasps (Warminster,
1983) 246, v. 1501.
11. Transl. A.L. Peck (Loeb, 1937).
12. Hippocrates explains similarly the causes of human
malformations (but without mentioning dwarfs) in De
Gen. IX-XI. See I.M. Lonie, The Hippocratic treatises
On the Generation, On the Nature of the Child, Diseases
IV (Berlin, New York, 1981) 139-146.
13. See also the elder Seneca, Contr. 10,4, about bonebreakers who crippled children to make them beg, and
the freak-market described by Plutarch, On being a
busybody, Mor., 520 C.
14. Transl. A.L. Peck (Loeb, 1937).
15. Cf. the short story by M. Tournier, Le nain rouge,
in Le coq de Bruy2re (Paris, 1978).
16. On pygmies as figures of mankind at its early stage
of civilisation, not yet clearly detached from the animal
world, see Ballabriga 1981.
17. The mischievous Cercopes are never explicitly
described as dwarfs but are depicted as such in vasepainting. For iconography and literary material, see
P. Zancani-Montuoro, U. Zanotti-Bianco, Heraion alla
Foce del Sele I1 (Roma, 1954) 185-195; F. Brommer,
Herakles [I. Die unkanonischen Taten des Helden
(Darmstadt, 1984) 28-32; i d . , in J. Frel, S. Knudsen
(eds), Greek vases in the J . Paul Getty Museum I1
(Malibu, 1985) 203-4.
OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

18. For a detailed discussion of these medical diagnoses,

see Dasen 1988, 269-273.
19. F. Brommer, Vasenlisten zur griechischen Heldensage3 (Marburg, 1973) 548, 7. See also e.g. the
pygmies on the rhyton in Compikgne, Mus6eVivenel898;
ARV 767, 16; CVA I , pls. 18, 16 and 23, pl. 20, 10.
20. Pelike, Brussels, Mus6es Royaux R 302; CVA 2, pls.
7, 3 and 8, 5.
21. Pygmies on rhyta: ARV 767, 16; ARV 767, 19. As
figure-vases (painted black): ARV 766, 2 bis, 1669; ARV
766, 3; ARV 766, 4. Dwarfs in New Haven: Yale
University, R.D. Stoddart Coll. 160; P.V.C. Baur,
Catalogue of the R. Darlington Stoddart collection of
Greek and Italian vases in Yale University (New Haven,
1922) no. 160, fig. 13.
22. For attribution to the Phiale Painter, see Robertson
1979, 129-30.
23. See e.g. Binsfeld 1956, 12; Metzler 1971,99-100;
Trendall 1964, 47-8; Raeck 1981, 181, 204-5.
24. Transl. C.B. Gulick (Loeb, 1933).
25. See Himmelmann 1971.
26. Baranello Museum 85; H. Riihfel, Kinderleben im
klassischen Athen (Mainz am Rhein, 1984) 45, fig. 23.
A similar scene is depicted on a lekythos in New York,
Parke-Bernet Galleries; F.A.G. Beck, Album of Greek
education (Sydney, 1975) fig. 68.
27. The J. Paul Getty Museum, M. and W. Bareiss Coll.
337; H. Riihfel, ibid., 74, fig. 44.
28. See e.g. the black servant on a lekythos, Bucarest,
G. and A. Magheru Coll.; CVA 2, pl. 39,3,7-9; Raeck
1981, cat. N 631, fig. 72.
29. London, BM E 774; ARV 1250, 32; Ruhfel (see
above, note 26) 74-75, fig. 45.
30. See e.g. the cup, Germany Private; H. Hornbostel,
Kunst der Antike (Mainz am Rhein, 1977) no. 283. See
also the hydria, Schloss Fasanerie (Adolphseck) 38;
CVA I , pl. 29, 3.
31. Robertson 1980, 129. Brides are never depicted on
cups and conventionally pull up their short veil, while
Athenians at home wear a himation across their chiton;
see, for example, the veiled woman on a rf. lekythos,
Honolulu 2892; ARV 844, 153; D.C. Kurtz, Athenian
white lekythoi (Oxford, 1975) pl. 28, 1.
32. Attributed to the Painter of Todi 474 by G. Fabrini,
in Todipreromana (Perugia, 1977) 63, pl. 41 a. See also
two dwarfs dancing, facing each other, on the tondo of
a cup in a German private collection; Hornbostel (see
above, note 30) 332, no. 284.
33. Hdt. VI, 126-130.
34. Lippold 1937,44-47; J.D. Beazley, JHS59 (1939)
11.
35. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1938, 312; J.D.
Beazley, ibid., 10-1 I , fig. 30. Compare with theofjpcx

205

DWARFS IN ATHENS

on a skyphos in Bonn, University 1563; CVA I , pl. 22,

2 and 5.
36. On these criticisms, see M.I. Finley, H.W. Pleket,
The Olympic Games. Thejrst thousand years (London,
1976) 113-127. On athletes' deformities, see esp. Xen.,
Symp. 11, 17-18, and Lucilius, Anth. Pal. XI, 75-78,
81 and 258.
37. Robertson 1979, 130, pl. 34, fig. 4 (attributed to
the Kleophon Painter).
38. On baskets for offerings, see L. Deubner, Jdl40
(1925) 210-23, J. Schelp, Das Kanoun der griechische
Opferkorb (Wurzburg, 1975), and N. Horsfall, AntK22
(1979) 104-105. On sacrificial tables, see C. Goudineau,
MelRome 79 (1%7) 77-134, esp. 97-103 on the Lenaea.
39. See e.g. the two women, one dressed, the other
naked, but both with a sakkos binding their hair like the
Munich dwarf, who dance around a similar tall phallic
pillar; cup, Villa Giulia 50404;ARV 1565, 1; L. Deubner,
Attische Feste (Berlin, 1932) pl. 4, 1 . See also the krater,
Berlin, Staatliche Museen (East) 3206; ARV 55 1 , 10;
Para 386, Add.2 257; Boardman 1979, fig. 342.
40. See L. Deubner, ibid., 60-7; W.H. Parke, Festivals
ofrhe Athenians (London, 1977) 98-100; E. Simon,
Festivals of Attica. An archaeological commentary
(Madison, 1983) 35.
41. Robertson 1979, 130. For a possible medical
diagnosis, see Dasen 1988, 271.
42. We read only in the Etym. Magn. S.V.A&X$C, that
those applying for religious offices were physically
controlled. See J. Bremmer, in Perennitas, Studi in onore
di A. Brelich (Roma, 1980) 67-76, for Indo-European
parallels of bodily blemishes.
43. Probably under Solon a special provision was even
created to sustain financially soldiers injured in war and
maimedcitizens; Arist., Ath. Pol. 49, 4; Plut., Sol. 31,
2; Lys., &pi 7017 A~UY&TOU,
24, 8 and 13. See J.J.
Buchanan, Theorika. A study of monetary distributions
to the Athenian citizenry during the j j i h and fourth
centuriesB.C. (New York, 1962) 1-3, and A.R. Hands,
Charities and social aid in Greece and Rome (London,
1968) 100.
44. See e.g. Himmelmann 1971, figs. 37 and 40;Riihfel
(see above, note 26) figs 39-40.
45. On a rhyton in Ferrara Museum 2561 (ARV'730, 5)
three dwarfs also run freely with dogs. Normal-sized men
are frequently shown going out for a walk with their pet.
46. See e.g. Pottier 1906, 153 and 159. R. Herbig, in
R. Lullies (ed.), Festchriji zum 60. Geburtstag von
B. Schweitzer (Stuttgart, 1954) 271, note 17, describes
the dwarf as the living advertisement for the young
doctor.

206

47. G. Koch-Harnack, Knabenliebe und Tiergeschenke

(Berlin, 1983) 129.
48. Some pygmies are also infibulated, probably in
reference to athletes. See e.g. Fig. 1 , and the pygmy on
the rhyton in Compitgne, M u s k Vivenel898 (see above,
note 19). On infibulation, see L. Stieda, Anatomische
Hefe 19 (1902) 232-309, and E.J. Dingwall, Male
injhulation (London, 1925).
49. P. Ghiron-Bistagne, Recherches sur les acteurs dans
la Gr2ce antique (Paris, 1976) fig. 60. Cf. the similar
komos performed by two dwarfs on a skyphos in Yale
(see above, note 21).
50. Painter akin to the Sotades P.? See G . Van Hoorn,
Choes and Anthesteria (Leiden, 1951) 125, no. 505.
5 1. See e.g. the reveller on a cup, London, Once Mitchell
Coll.; ARV 178, 5 ; Boardman 1979, fig. 125.
52. A child dances before a similar small jug crowned
an ivy garland on a chous in Heidelberg, University 66/1;
Ruhfel (see above, note 26) 135, fig. 73.
53. For similar symbolic corrections, see e.g. the case
of Egyptian twins; J. Baines, Orientalia 54 (1985)
46 1-482.
54. Taranto, Museo Nazionale; ARV 860, 3, (1672);
Para 425; K. Schefold, Die Gijttersage in der klassischen
und hellenistichen Kunsr (Munchen, 1981) 125, fig. 158.
55. Arete, Galerie fiir Antike Kunst, Griechische Schalen
und Vasen, Liste 20, no. 37 (Circle of the Dinos and
Meidias P.?).
56. Krater, Paris Market; ARV 1053, 39; A.B. Cook,
Zeus I (Cambridge, 1914) pl. 39, 1 .
57. On the process of the transformation of humans into
satyrs, see e.g. C. BCrard, C. Bron, in C. BCrard et al.,
La cite des images (Lausanne, Paris, 1984) 127-145,
esp. 139, figs 195-8.
58. See the description of this gesture of dancers in Ath.
XIV, 629 f., and Pliny NH XXXV, 138. See also the
komast on a cup in Frankfurt, Liebighaus 1522; ARV
1280, 65, Para 522; Add.2 3589; CVA 2, pl. 66, 4.
59. See e.g. the skyphos, once Castle Coluchow,
Czartoryski 76; CVA 1, pl. 35 c. See also the similar
gesture of the satyr on the oinochoe at Oxford, Ashmolean
Museum 1918, 63: he stretches his arms to catch a
maenad whose arms are hidden in her cloak; ARV 1215,
1; CVA I , pl. 42, 3.
60. Another depiction of muffled women by the Phiale
Painter on a krater in Rome, Vatican Astarita Coll. 42,
shows nine dancing women around a flute-player; ARV
1018, 68. See Robertson 1979, 130, and J.H. Oakley,
The Phiale Painter (PhD Thesis, Rutgers University
1980; Ann Arbor, London, 1981) 160-161, no. 72,
pl. 15. See also the seated maenad, similarly wrapped

OXFORDJOURNALOF ARCHAEOLOGY

VERONIQUE DASEN

in her cloak, facing dancing satyrs on a cup in Oxford,

Ashmolean Museum 1924, 2; ARV 865, 2; C. BCrard,
C. Bron (see above, note 57) figs 200 a-b.
61. The large but not erect phallos of the dwarfish Geras
noted by Shapiro 1984, 391-2, may also refer to this
notion. On ithyphallic asses, see H. Hoffmann, in
D. Metzler et al. (eds), Antidoron, Festchrif fur
J. Thimme zum 65. Geburtstag (Karlsruhe, 1983) 61-73,
esp. 61-4 and 66.
62. On Priapus, see M. Olender in Dictionnaire des
mythologies I1 (Paris, 1981) 311-314.
63. E. Pottier, Vases antiques du Louvre III (Paris, 1906)
814. For a non-mythical interpretation of the scene, see
A.N. Malagardis, Skyphoi attiques d figures noires.
Typologie et recherche (Paris, forthcoming).
64. Cup, Berlin, Staatliche Museen (East) 2273; ARV
174, 31; Boardman 1979, fig. 120. I am grateful to
B.B. Shefton for attracting my attention on this parodic
element.
65. Athens, National Museum 664 (about 630-620 BC);
H. Payne, Necrocorinthia (Oxford, 1931) 118 f., fig.
44 G, no. 1073; T. Carpenter, Dionysian imagery in
Archaic Greek art (Oxford, 1986) 15 sq., pl. 5.
66. See P. Wolters, G. Bruns, Das Kabirenheiligtum bei
Theben (Berlin, 1940).
67. Women do not have the same role as men in the
Dionysiac thiasos. They cannot change fully into satyrs,
even if they may be depicted wearing ithyphallic trousers
as on a cup in Corinth, American School; ARV 1519,
13; C. BCrard and C. Bron (see above, note 57) fig. 198,
140- 14 1.
68. As possible exceptions, two marble loutrophoroi
depict a short, but well proportioned, bearded man, with
a helmet and a shield, standing behind a departing
warrior; Athens, National Museum 2563 and 3483;
C. Bliimel, AM51 (1926) 57-74, esp. 57-59, figs 1-3.
69. Other fabulous peoples of Greek ethnography refer
to real genetic abnormalities. See e.g. Aul. Gell., NA
IX, 4 , 6 citing Ctesias about a distant land called Albania,
[where] men are born whose hair turns white in childhood
and who see better by night than in day time (transl.
J.C. Rolfe, Loeb, 1948). Also in Pliny, NHVII, 23. On
this archetypal need, see Ballabriga 1981 (with earlier
references), and F. Gonzales-Crussi, Notes of an
anatomist (London, 1985) 91-102. I intend to discuss
pygmies and birds more fully in a forthcoming paper on
cranes and herons.
70. Cf. their ludicrous role in South Italian iconography
in Trendall 1964 and K. Schauenburg, RM 79 (1972)
317-322.
71. Cf. Lucr., 4, 1162.

OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

ABBREVIATIONS

ABV J.D. Beazley, Attic black-figure vase-painters.

Oxford, 1956.
Add.* T.H. Carpenter, Beazley addenda2. Oxford,
1989.

ARV J . D. Beazley, Attic red-figure vasepainters.

Oxford, 1963.
CAF T. Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta.
Leipzig, 1880-1888, 3 vols.
CVA Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum.
Kassel-Austin C. Austin, R. Kassel, Poetae Comici
Graeci. Berlin, 1983-1986, 3 vols.
Para J.D. Beazley, Paralipomena. Oxford, 1971.
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BINSFELD. w. 1956: Grylloi. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
der antiken Karikaturen. Koln.
BOARDMAN, 1.
DASEN. V.

1979: Attic red figure vases. London.

1988: Dwarfism in Egypt and Classical anti-

quity: iconography and medical history. Medical History

32, 253-276.
HIMMELMANN. N . 1971 : Archaologisches zum Problem
der griechischen Sklaverei. Mainz (AbhMainz 13).

LIPPOLD, G . 1937:

Zu den Imagines Illustrium. RM 52,

44-47.
METZLER, D .

1971: Portrut und Gesellschaf. Berlin.

1906: Une clinique grecque au

(MonPiot 13), 149-166.
POTTIER, E.

rs.Paris

RAECK. w. 1981 : Zum Barbarenbild in der Kunst Athens

im 6. und 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Bonn.

1979: A muffled dancer and others.

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