Living with chronic pain in Fronto’s Letters
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51349/veg.2025.2.16Keywords:
Imperial Rome, Chronic Pain, Disability StudiesAbstract
This paper deals with the experience of ageing with chronic pain in imperial Rome through the letters of Fronto (2nd century CE). Letters are first-person narratives of a man with a chronic and painful condition, probably gout, as well as a privileged source to approach living with pain in Antiquity. This work analyzes the symptoms and the physical and emotional consequences of Fronto’s pain, his relationship with time and space, the medical and assistive technologies he recurred to, and how gout conditioned his individual and social life.
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