Exposed

by Caroline Vout

The Greek and Roman body is often seen as flawless - cast from life in buff bronze and white marble, to sit upon a pedestal. But this, of course, is a lie. Here, classicist Caroline Vout reaches beyond texts and galleries to expose Greek and Roman bodies for what they truly anxious, ailing, imperfect, diverse, and responsible for a legacy as lasting as their statues. Taking us on a gruesome, thrilling journey, she taps into the questions that those in the Greek and Roman worlds asked about their bodies - where do we come from? What makes us different from gods and animals? What happens to our bodies, and the forces that govern them, when we die? Vout also reveals the surprising actions people often took to transform their bodies - from sophisticated surgery and contraception to body oils, cosmetics and early gym memberships. You've seen the paintings, read the philosophers and heard the myths - now here's the classical body in all its flesh and blood glory.

432 pages, Paperback

Published January 4, 2024

About the author

Caroline Vout is a cultural historian with a particular interest in the Roman imperial period and its reception (see e.g. Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome, Cambridge University Press, 2007, The Hills of Rome: Signature of an Eternal City, Cambridge University Press, 2012 and, co-edited with Helen Lovatt, Epic Visions, Cambridge University Press, 2013). Her most recent book is Sex on Show: Seeing the Erotic in Greece and Rome, published by the British Museum Press (2013). She was curator of the international exhibition of ancient sculpture, Antinous: Face of the Antique, at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds (summer 2006) and author of its accompanying catalogue, and in 2008 was awarded a prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize for her work on Art History. She is an editor of Omnibus, Perspective (the journal of the National Institute of the History of Art in Paris) and the Cambridge Classical Journal, on the council of the Classical Association and Chair of the Criticos Prize. She has both appeared on and consulted for television and radio and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.