Week 6: The ideal body: disability and wounding

Introduction

There is evidence from art and from medical texts describing what the ideal body was supposed to look like. But how did reality match up?

Many of the images from the ancient world you see today are of strong bodies, which give the impression that the Greeks and Romans were healthy and physically powerful. Yet this ideal was far from reality. This week you will explore the role of exercise in the ancient world and then examine physical impairments: how can they be identified? How did people live with them? What injuries could be treated so that strength and health remained?

Much evidence for exercise regimens comes from the Greek and Roman military, so you will explore ancient texts on army recruitment and on surgical treatment, and compare these with literary texts and visual representations of surgery. By exploring this material, you will see what soldiers did to maintain their battle strength. Their fitness helped protect them from battle wounds; however, such wounds were inevitable and you will also explore how soldiers treated wounds and the types of objects used for treatment. This will lead into considering the general surgical procedures used to maintain bodily health.

You should begin the final week of this course by watching Video 1. In this video, Helen King and Mathijs Lucassen discuss how ideals for male and female bodies have changed over time, and consider not only the effect of injuries on this ideal, but also the physical and psychological health of soldiers in the ancient world.

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Transcript: Video 1 Becoming perfect?

HELEN KING

I’m Helen King. I’m Professor of Classical Studies at The Open University. And I’m here with Mathijs Lucassen, who is a lecturer in the School of Health, Well-being and Social Care. So we’re going to talk about mobility and the Roman army, but first we’re going to talk a bit about the ideal body. So where do we get on our ideals today about what our bodies ought to look like if they’re healthy?

MATHIJS LUCASSEN

I think we get bombarded with lots of images. So we’ll see pictures, advertisements, all sorts of ways in which we depict the perfect body. And we’ve got loads of information we’re exposed to, how we should look, both for men and women.

HELEN KING

And that’s going to be everyone, presumably. Whereas in the ancient world, if you’re looking at something like, I don’t know, a statue of Atlas or something, kind of, holding the entire world on the shoulder, then that’s only going to be available to people who are based in the city where that statue is. If you’re living out somewhere in the rural zones, you might not really see any of these perfect bodies, whereas we’ve got them everywhere.

This is a classic example. This magazine where you’ve got rock hard abs on the front. You’ve got couple of ideals there, and then on the back you’ve got another one. So they’re just everywhere, and they’re all much of a muchness. They’re all extremely muscular, and that’s quite hard to achieve for most people.

So the image that we have is very strong. The army, I’d have thought, were going to be a group who are nearer to that ideal than many because they have to be pretty fit. I mean, looking at my little Roman soldiers here.

You know, they’re carrying their shields and their swords, and they’ve got pretty heavy armour. They’ve got helmets on. They’d also have to carry all their kit with them when they’re marching. I suppose that’s similar to today. The Army is the area where physical fitness is prized.

MATHIJS LUCASSEN

Yeah, and I think that most people would know about the whole concept of basic training. Basic training is a whole process to prepare you physically and mentally for battle, for your role in the military.

HELEN KING

And you mentioned mentally there, as well, because of course the mental health of the Roman army is something we don’t know about. What about, what could you say from that about that today?

MATHIJS LUCASSEN

Well, I think it’s something where the military is sort of becoming increasingly aware of the sorts of psychological factors of the service men and women. I went to a conference last month in New York on cognitive behavioural therapy, and there was a whole session on how to help returning service men and women coming back from battle zones.

HELEN KING

So it’s that readjustment to civilian life after living in the army, fighting all the time, completely different standards of everyday behaviour.

MATHIJS LUCASSEN

Yeah, those difficult transitions, yeah.

HELEN KING

Yeah. Yeah, I can understand that. But of course also, being in the army is one of the most dangerous areas in terms of the injuries that you might suffer, and we still don’t know for sure whether the Roman army had dedicated doctors or whether the soldiers mostly looked after each other. But if you were injured, there, or I suppose in civilian life, it’s hard to know exactly how you would be treated. Mobility is a big thing.

I don’t know today if you’ve got an injury-- I mean, I managed to break my wrist in three places last year, so I was in this delightful extremely pink cast for a while, but I could modify my behaviour. So I had a chance to heal. I don’t-- today, I’m just trying to think whether, actually, it’s more difficult today to recover from something like this, because we’ve got computers and cars and things, or whether it actually would be easier to recover today.

MATHIJS LUCASSEN

Well, we’d certainly have the ways in which we could assess something like a fracture really scientifically. We’ve got x-rays, and we can, we can use surgery if it’s required. And we’ve got all sorts of evidence around what will facilitate recovery, and I guess we become very efficient in the way in which that’s managed.

I guess it’s much more tricky in a battle zone because it’s going to be so much more chaotic than a sort of civilian setting.

HELEN KING

And if you do put too much stress on a fracture when it’s healing, you are going to be more likely to be left with a permanent disability, which fortunately I wasn’t. Also I had physiotherapy which was extremely good so that, you know, my wrist is I think completely normal now. But that wouldn’t be the case for someone who had to go back to agricultural work or maybe into their military work too soon.

So probably, although they start off healthier because they look fit. They’re strong. They can cope with carrying things and fighting and marching for long periods of time. Maybe they’re actually-- if they’re damaged, they’ve got more risks to their body as they’ve got to get back to work more quickly.

So I’m just wondering where we are in terms of the ideal body image and where it was located in the past. Is it, is it in your mind that you need to look like a certain type of person? Do you judge by simply whether you can do what you need to do?

MATHIJS LUCASSEN

Well, I guess it’s that whole division between function over fashion, and we can be thinking about what we-- the images and the ways in which we’re sort of exposed to ideas around how we should look. Which, of course, is really pervasive, but we’ve got the stuff around our functioning, as well.

So we’ll say well, a body that might not look beautifully, sort of very attractive, might be really functional or a body that might not be so functional is really attractive. And I guess what would be the ideal is this body that functions perfectly and looks stunning. And usually those images that you showed, they’re sort of images of, of, of, physical perfection in youth. They’re usually of young bodies.

HELEN KING

So even if you could look like that, it wouldn’t last very long.

MATHIJS LUCASSEN

Yeah.

HELEN KING

Thanks very much.

End transcript: Video 1 Becoming perfect?

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Video 1 Becoming perfect?

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