Craniosynostosis in old Greece: political power and physical deformity

Excerpt

The social impact of head deformities in antiquity is well represented by two examples of craniosynostosis. The first—a presumptive case of sagittal synostosis on the grounds of the famous busts attributed to Cresilas and Phydias (upper part of the figure)—concerns Pericles, the politician who made Athens the leading town and the “School of Greece” (Thucydites, II, XLI). The marble portraits show Pericles in a meditative attitude, though wearing a helmet. The mild hypothelorism and the reduced latero-lateral diameter of the skull are obvious. According to Plutarch (Lives), Pericles’ mother Agaristes gave birth to a son “overall handsome but with the head enormously long...for this reason, all the statues representing him wear a helmet because the artists did not want to put into evidence such a defect”. Maybe, such a benevolent attitude was depending, at least in part, on the natural caution which Pericles’ absolute power could inspire the artists. The echo of such a caution can be traced until our days as shown by Jacques Martin’s cartoon (Orion, Le lac sacré, Bagheera Editeur, Paris, 1990) (middle part of the figure). The cartoon states “It’s a honor paid to you (Orion) by the greatest personage of the State (Pericles). Anyway, avoid asking him why he’s wearing the helmet constantly. You must know that the reason is to hide the prominence of the skull, especially of its posterior aspect.” …