The Romans were as aware as Jeremy Kyle was of the pleasure that people could get from situations in which others were seen to be in trouble or humiliated in one way or another. Such situations were exploited by everyone from emperors to artists. Is there a new TV show here to replace Mr Kyle’s?
Romans would have made programmes exploiting the disabled. There was a fad among emperors for purchasing deformed slaves, and every elite home wanted to have one (we are told there was a market in Rome specialising in them). We hear of someone who paid a vast sum for a guaranteed cretin, only to demand his money back when he turned out to be no fool at all. The emperor Domitian staged a gladiatorial contest between a band of ‘knotted, ball-shaped dwarfs’. Elagabalus amused himself by hosting banquets for eight bald, or one-eyed, black, deaf or fat men ‘to get a laugh, e.g.
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