Is epilepsy considered a disability? The difference between illness and disability isn't always all that clear to me as to my mind, a persistent illness can in effect be tantamount to a disability. Julius Caesar, as is well known, suffered from either epilepsy or something with similar symptoms.
As we know, Caesar was very much a part of society; but a couple of centuries after him, in contrast to Seneca, Apuleius expressed rather cruel views regarding people suffering from that kind of disease. The passage is from a speech he gave in his own defense in a trial where he was accused of sorcery. One of the arguments against him was that he had caused a guy to fall down with incantations. Apuleius defends himself by saying the guy, being epileptic, falls all the time. His words aren't kind and also reveal nasty things about how that person was treated by others. It broke my heart, really.
(7) Quod si ita est, nominate, quis ille fuerit puer sanus, incolumis, ingeniosus, decorus, quem ego carmine dignatus sim initiare.
(8) Ceterum Thallus, quem nominastis, medico potius quam mago indiget.
(9) Est enim miser morbo comitiali ita confectus, ut ter an quater die saepe numero sine ullis cantaminibus corruat omniaque membra conflictationibus debilitet, facie ulcerosus, fronte et occipitio conquassatus, oculis hebes, naribus hiulcus, pedibus caducus.
(10) Maximus omnium magus est, quo praesente Thallus diu steterit: ita plerumque morbo ceu somno uergens inclinatur.
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44]
(1) Eum tamen uos carminibus meis subuersum dixistis, quod forte me coram semel decidit.
(2) Conserui eius plerique adsunt, quos ex<
h>iberi denuntiastis. Possunt dicere omnes quid in Thallo despuant, cur nemo audeat cum eo ex eodem catino cenare, eodem poculo bibere.
(3) Et quid ego de seruis? Vos ipsi uidetis. Negate Thallum multo prius quam ego Oeam uenirem corruere eo morbo solitum, medicis saepe numero ostensum!
(4) Negant hoc conserui eius, qui sunt in ministerio uestro?
Omnium rerum conuictum me fatebor, nisi rus adeo i
am diu ablegatus est in longinquos
agros, ne familiam contaminaret. Quod ita factum nec ab illis negari potest.
(5) Eo nec potuit hodie a nobis exhiberi. Nam ut omnis ista accusatio temeraria et repentina fuit, nudius tertius nobis Aemilianus denuntiauit, ut seruos numero quindecim apud te exhiberemus.
(6) Adsunt XIIII, qui in oppido erant. Thallus solus, ut dixi, quod ferme ad centesimum lapidem longe ex
ul
est, is Thallus solus abest, sed misimus qui eum curriculo aduehat.
(7) Interroga, Maxime, XIIII seruos quos exhibemus, Thallus puer ubi sit et quam salue agat, interroga seruos accusatorum meorum. Non negabunt turpissimum puerum, corpore putri et morbido, caducum, barbarum, rusticanum.
(8) Bellum uero puerum elegistis, quem quis sacrificio adhibeat, cuius caput contingat, quem puro pallio amiciat, a quo responsum speret.
(9) Velle<
m> hercle adesset. Tibi eum, Aemiliane, permisissem, et tenerem, si tu interrogares. Iam in media quaestione hic ibidem pro tribunali oculos trucis in te inuertisset, faciem tuam spumabundus conspuisset, manus contraxisset, caput succussisset, postremo in sinu tuo corruisset.
If that be so, tell me who was that healthy, unblemished, intelligent, handsome boy whom I deemed worthy of initiation into such mysteries by the power of my spells. As a matter of fact, Thallus, whom you mentioned, needs a doctor rather than a magician. For the poor wretch is such a victim to epilepsy that he frequently has fits twice or thrice in one day without the need for any incantations, and exhausts all his limbs with his convulsions. His face is ulcerous, his head bruised in front and behind, his eyes are dull, his nostrils distended, his feet stumbling. He may claim to be the greatest of magicians in whose presence Thallus has remained for any considerable time upon his feet. For he is continually lying down, either a seizure or mere weariness causing him to collapse.
Part 44
Yet you say that it is my incantations that have overwhelmed him, simply because he has once chanced to have a fit in my presence. Many of his fellow servants, whose appearance as witnesses you have demanded, are present in court. They all can tell you why it is they spit upon Thallus, and why no one ventures to eat from the same dish with him or to drink from the same cup. But why do I speak of these slaves? You yourselves have eyes. Deny then, if you dare, that Thallus used to have fits of epilepsy long before I came to Oea, or that has frequently been shown to doctors. Do his fellow slaves, who are at your service, deny this?
I will confess myself guilty of everything, if he has not long since been sent away into the country, far from the sight of all of them, to a distant farm, for fear he should infect the rest of the household. They cannot deny this to be the fact. For the same reason it is impossible for us to produce him here today. The whole of this accusation has been reckless and sudden, and it was only the day before yesterday that Aemilianus demanded that we should produce fifteen slaves before you. The fourteen living in the town are present today. Thallus only is absent owing to the fact that he has been banished to a place some hundred miles distant. However, we have sent a man to bring him here in a carriage.
I ask you, Maximus, to question these fourteen slaves whom we have produced as to where the boy Thallus is and what is the state of his health; I ask you to question my accuser's slaves. They will not deny that this boy is of revolting appearance, that his body is rotten through and through with disease, that he is liable to fits, and is a barbarian and a clodhopper. This is indeed a handsome boy whom you have selected as one who might fairly be produced at the offering of sacrifice, whom one might touch upon the head and clothe in a fair white cloak in expectation of some prophetic reply from his lips! I only wish he were present. I would have entrusted him to your tender mercies, Aemilianus, and would be ready to hold him myself that you might question him. Here in open court before the judges he would have rolled his wild eyes upon you, he would have foamed at the mouth, spat in your face, drawn in his hands convulsively, shaken his head and fallen at last in a fit into your arms.
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/apuleius/apuleius.apol.shtml
http://classics.mit.edu/Apuleius/apol.2.2.html