Overview

That the Roman republic died is a commonplace often repeated. In extant literature, the notion is first given form in the works of the orator Cicero (106-43 BCE) and his contemporaries, though the scattered fragments of orators and historians from the earlier republic suggest that the idea was hardly new. In speeches, letters, philosophical tracts, poems, and histories, Cicero and his peers obsessed over the illnesses, disfigurements, and deaths that were imagined to have beset their body politic, portraying rivals as horrific diseases or accusing opponents of butchering and even murdering the state. Body-political imagery had long enjoyed popularity among Greek authors, but these earlier images appear muted in comparison and it is only in the republic that the body first becomes fully articulated as a means for imagining the political community. In the works of republican authors is found a state endowed with nervi, blood, breath, limbs, and organs; a body beaten, wounded, disfigured, and infected; one with scars, hopes, desires, and fears; that can die, be killed, or kill in turn. Such images have often been discussed in isolation, yet this is the first book to offer a sustained examination of republican imagery of the body politic, with particular emphasis on the use of bodily-political images as tools of persuasion and the impact they exerted on the politics of Rome in the first century BCE.

Full Product Details

Author:   Brian Walters (Assistant Professor of Classics, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.70cm , Height: 1.60cm , Length: 22.30cm
Weight:   0.350kg
ISBN:  

9780198839576

ISBN 10:   019883957
Pages:   176
Publication Date:   03 March 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

Frontmatter List of Figures List of Abbreviations 0: Introduction: The Deaths of the Republic 1: The Republican Body Politic Harmony and Discord Mixture, Degeneration, Morals, and Men 'No Longer Provide Your Blood' 2: Healing the State with Violence Medical Imagery in Late-Republican Politics Roman Medicine and Roman Oratory Salus Rei Publicae Vis Omnium Remediorum Healing the State with Arms 3: Butchering the Body Politic Mutilating the Body Politic Meanings of Violent Imagery 'The Republic's Greatest Wound' Significant Wounds 4: Outliving the Republic Deaths, Executions, Funerals, and Murders Deaths and Consolations 'No Natural Death of the Republic' 'Perish Along with the Republic' 5: Murdering the Fatherland 'Parricide' in Earlier Invective Murdering (the Father of) the Fatherland Vitae Necisque Potestas Coda: Parricide and Caput Patriae Endmatter Bibliography Index of Passages General Index

Reviews

In sum, this is an excellent, engaging book of high scholarship of the republican period. * Evan Dutmer, Culver Academies, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *

Author Information

Brian Walters is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has previously published a translation of Lucan's Civil War (Hackett, 2015), in addition to various poems, and articles on Cicero, Roman oratory, and metaphor.

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