King's College London

This article explores an ancient mythological narrative in which three disabled immortals unite in a quest. Lucian's On the Hall (28-29) describes a painting in which Orion, who has been blinded, carries the dwarf Cedalion on his shoulders. Cedalion directs him towards the sunlight that will restore his sight. Hephaestus, who is lame, watches them from his home island of Lemnos. This description inspired one of Nicolas Poussin's most famous classical landscapes, Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun. The myth of the three supernatural friends, disabled in different ways but mutually supporting one another, might reflect some aspect of the reality of the lives of disabled individuals in antiquity, or of medical procedures associated with Lemnos, or both. Although not claiming that the mythical narrative encapsulated in Lucian's ecphrasis has ever been previously interpreted, either in antiquity or more recently, as providing a positive representation of mutual self-help among disabled communities, my own interpretation springs from the premise that classical material needs to be open to new readings. If it can be reinterpreted from feminist, anti-racist, postcolonial, pro-youth, and anti-classist perspectives, why not from the perspective of 'the forgotten other'?.