About the Book
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.
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
About the Author :
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.
Review :
This book aims to gather the surviving evidence for republican discourse on the body politic, to uncover its shared ideological underpinnings and resonances, and to understand Cicero's idiosyncratic usages and goals.
... anyone wishing to pursue any significant study of imagery in Republican literature-in particular oratory-will first consult Walters as a necessary and convenient starting point.
In this slim, but by no means lightweight, volume, Walters dissects Roman republican imagery of the body politic, carving out how, why, and with what potential effects Cicero and his contemporaries, in particular, employed bodily potential effects Cicero and his contemporaries, in particular, employed bodily metaphors, similes, and analogies to describe their state, its institutions, and its wellbeing.
In just 120 pages it is complete and accurate as a catalogue, and breaks new ground in a busy literature... this is an excellent, engaging book of high scholarship of the republican period... It will be of interest to anyone interested in Cicero's rhetoric, philosophy, or politics; scholars and students of the late republican era; and early modernists and comparativists interested in the use of body-political imagery in Latin speeches, poems, philosophica, and history of the 1st century BCE.
