Search

This article examines the use of compulsory tattooing in Greco-Roman antiquity. During the ancient period, ornamental, prophylactic, apotropaic or religious body marking was practiced in many of the civilisations with which the Greeks and Romans interacted. However, the Greeks and Romans disapproved of the custom of voluntary tattooing on the grounds that it violated the integrity of the human body and was contrary to traditional morality. In Hellenic and Roman society, tattooing was necessarily an expression of punishment or domination. Penal tattoos were used to punish prisoners of war, delinquent slaves and criminal freemen. It served to punish by infamy the person who had it, but also to distinguish him or her from other individuals so as to prevent their escape. As for the tattoo of belonging, it was most often affixed to Roman soldiers and imperial officials. Its purpose was to identify agents of the state and thus easily prevent or repress the evasion of their duties.

This article focuses on the issue of FGM (female genital mutilation). In order to do so, we must first draw up a history of FGC in order to understand its genesis. These lessons from the past will help us explain the different foundations of FGM. That is, to understand the motivations of those who impose FGM. The strict observance of religious precepts, especially in Islam, and the respect of tradition are the reasons most commonly invoked by the supporters of FGM.

Entering the field of Disability Studies, we question the necessity of the physical integrity of Roman priests in the sense of ius sacrum. This questioning must be analyzed in terms of orthopraxy and purity. We must distinguish between Roman priests according to whether they are «statue priests», i.e. physical incarnations of the divinity they serve, or simple «masters of the sacred». The first ones must be physically perfect, whether it is at the time of their entry in function or throughout the exercise of their dignity. This total physical integrity is both necessary to guarantee the proper performance and purity of religious rituals, and also - and above all - because priests in this category are assimilated to the gods whose worship they must maintain. As for the «masters of the sacred», they are probably chosen on the basis of a sufficiently good physical condition to ensure orthopraxy. Apart from this minimum requirement, our certainties become less clear and we can think that the Romans proceeded on a case by case basis. During the course of their duties, the «masters of the sacred» had to maintain the physical qualities that guaranteed the proper execution of the rites, otherwise they risked having to be replaced.

The civil death, which is the consequence of outlawing, is a practice that has now disappeared and consists of the right to deprive someone of all rights because of his violation of the law. However, its resurgence is often mentioned in national legal debates following traumatic exactions. Moreover, attenuated versions of civil death exist in the form of a deprivation for citizens of a part of legal personality, and raise fears of a return to the legal scene of civil death. In order to understand this mechanism, we will explain its genesis by dwelling on a figure of archaic Rome: that of homo sacer. We will begin by describing his putting into otherness by the Law following his transgression of the religious rules which maintain an equilibrium between the gods and human beings in the society. Henceforth, being a simple living body foreign to the world and devoted to the gods, we will see in a second part that the homo sacer is in an exceptional relationship. This, as well as the right of men, since anyone can put him to death without fearing of becoming homicidal, as with regard to the law of the gods, since in spite of his status as a be sacred, he cannot be sacrificed