The Roman emperor did not exist. Of course, for most of the time from about 50 BC to 1453 there was a man in Rome, and later Constantinople, who for all intents and purposes ruled the empire and was named Augustus. But the expectations of what that man should be and do differed wildly. Various people in various contexts at various times knew exactly what to expect of their emperor. Yet these people did not necessarily agree with one another. That there were such different expectations mattered. It influenced the way in which emperors were depicted and described, the way in which they were remembered, the people with whom they were surrounded, and even how they acted. Context created emperorship. Different groups and individuals tried to understand and formulate the supreme position of the Roman emperor, and then adapt these formulations to changing contexts. They had to, as emperorship as such was never decidedly defined.

This chapter surveys the broader social contexts for dissection, in four sections: public performance, animals, religion, and popular conceptions of anatomy. The first section offers the context for public displays of dissection, namely competing types of performance, including sophistic lectures, legal proceedings, and the general spectacle of the streets. The second focuses on animals and the various circumstances outside scientific dissection in which bodies were cut into and opened, with specific attention on butchery, veterinary practice, pharmacology, magic, and staged animal shows in the arena. The third turns to religious contexts, encompassing the practices of animal sacrifice and divination from entrails, as well as the Italic votive tradition, which included artistic representations of various internal organs, and the Egyptian practice of embalmment. Finally, there is a sketch of popular experience with and conceptions of bodily rupture and anatomy, ranging from postmortem punishments, public executions and gladiatorial displays in the arena, and military violence to literary descriptions of gore, artistic depictions of bodies, and intellectual engagement with anatomy.

This chapter examines the reign of the notorious musician-emperor Nero. It offers a comprehensive survey of the ancient material relating to Nero’s performances, stressing also his important role behind the scenes as producer, composer and choreographer. Building on the recent ‘performative turn’ in Neronian studies, the chapter argues that Nero used music not to satisfy some narcissistic or tyrannical bent, as has traditionally been maintained, but rather as part of a self-conscious strategy for the negotiation and representation of imperial power. Nero’s music-making responded to, and drew energy from, the cultural interests of both the ordinary Roman people and the young metropolitan elite. In this way, Nero succeeded in creating and disseminating an original musical language, which repackaged elements of Greek culture into a distinctly Roman product optimised for popular consumption.

This chapter considers the material and practical requirements of dissection, relying both on Galen’s advice on the subject and on historical and archaeological evidence. After an exploration of the sensory experience of participating in dissections and vivisections, the first section handles anatomical subjects themselves, first monkeys (which Galen considers to be the ideal subjects) then other animals; in each case, the chapter addresses their selection and the probable ways in which dissectors acquired them, covering livestock markets, butchers, trade in exotic animals, and in particular the flow of animals into and out of the arena. It then offers a new and comprehensive consideration of human dissection in antiquity, with a focus on its debated practice in the Roman period. The second half of the chapter considers other requirements for dissection. First of these are the tools, which are presented in terms of selection and acquisition. Next follows a consideration of the books intended to support dissection and their comparative availability. The chapter ends with a look at the people a dissector may have relied on, as assistants in the procedures or as lectors and scribes.

The introduciton opens my exploration of Cicero’s notion of will. I argue that the will is an original Latin contribution to the Western mind. Cicero’s letters, speeches, and treatises show how his skill for language gave him a subtler take on events and a richer repertoire of persuasion. Practical uses of will are foremost: mapping alliances, winning elections, and navigating the “economy of goodwill.” From his earliest writings, however, voluntas emerges in normative claims about law and politics: that Rome’s mass of precedents could be rationalized through Greek ideas. Chief among these is Plato’s precept that reason must rule, and thus an alliance of philosophy and tradition can save the dying Republic. Transmuting political failure into philosophical innovation, Cicero lays the foundation for an idea – the will and its freedom – with tremendous consequences for Western thought. For Cicero, voluntas populi becomes the binding force of a nominally popular but functionally aristocratic constitution. If this state of affairs looks familiar in today’s “democratic” republics, we have Cicero in part to thank. Insistence on the singularity of popular will and mistrust of the common citizen lie at the heart of today’s political crisis and will require Ciceronian creativity to fix.

This chapter offers the evidence for the practice of dissection from the fifth through first centuries BC. The chapter begins with dissection among the pre-Socratic philosophers and then moves on to the authors of the Hippocratic Corpus. A discussion of the opportunities for public display in medical contexts of the fifth and early fourth centuries follows, in order to evaluate the range of public contexts within which the practice of dissection would have fallen. Aristotle’s zoological research program and the parallel developments among fourth-century doctors, including Diocles and Praxagoras, then receive sustained attention before a consideration of the advancements of Herophilus and Erasistratus. The chapter next turns to the dearth of evidence for dissection in the centuries after these figures, touching on various sects, both medical and philosophical, including the Herophileans, Erasistrateans, Empiricists, and Peripatetics. Finally, it considers the opportunities for public medical display in the Hellenistic period, as revealed via both texts and inscriptions.

This concluding chapter brings together the arguments of the four chapters in order to assess broader changes and continuities in Roman musical culture during the period under consideration in the book. While the ideological frameworks underpinning musical discourses remained largely constant over time, and competing political actors continued to use music for their own ends, it is notable that the gradual evolution of Roman society and politics prompted new types of engagement with music. This has important ramifications for our understanding of Rome’s relationship with Greek culture, as well as the interactions between elites and non-elites.

I propose that the young Roman orator Cicero, lacking a political base, cleverly positions himself as defender of the “people’s will”: It is fundamental, justifying all power wielded in its name; it is singular, despite the many conflicting “wills” within it; it is fallible, especially when misled by demagogues; and it is thus dependent on wise elites like Cicero. I then take up the treatises De republica and De legibus, which argue for popular sovereignty and against popular power. His theory differs from the mixed constitutionalism of Polybius and Aristotle. Cicero’s innovation is rational trusteeship: The people own all of the Republic, and the senate and magistrates represent all of the people. The trusteeship principle from Roman law (ius civilis), filtered through Platonic rationalism and Stoic natural law, creates an entirely new constitutional dynamic: A rational elite guides the people’s will, which elevates them in turn to high offices of state. He watches Caesar exploit his notion of voluntas populi to remake Rome around his own brutal will. Yet it is Cicero’s “will of the people” – reliant on a ruling class, limited to voting – with which, for better or worse, we find ourselves in modern democracies.

This chapter focuses on the relationship between Augustus/Octavian and Apollo’s incarnation as citharoedus (lyre-player). The main contention of the chapter is that the Augustan period fostered a revival of music which resonated with, and to some degree embodied, a restorative political message. Not only did Augustus integrate images of Apollo Citharoedus into his own imagery (both in Rome and in the commemorative monuments around the gulf of Actium), but he also exploited harmonia as a metaphor for his newly established regime, imbuing musical rituals like the Ludi Saeculares of 17 BCE with powerful symbolic resonances. The chapter also makes a case for seeing Mark Antony’s use of music as a key part of a project to present himself through the symbolic language of Hellenistic kingship, against which Octavian in turn defined his own musical ‘programme’.

This chapter tackles Galen’s minor anatomical works and the role of dissection in his oeuvre. It begins with his account of these works and then addresses them in roughly chronological order. Each section describes a text or pair of texts and evaluates the role of dissection within them, particular attention being given to lost texts in order to provide the fullest details possible. On the Dissection of the Uterus comes first. Next, the lost, original iteration of Anatomical Procedures receives extensive analysis, with a reconstruction of its contents. On the Dissection of the Dead (Arabic only) and On the Dissection of the Living (lost), On Controversies in Anatomy (lost), and On the Difference between the Homoeomerous Parts (Arabic only) follow. Next, the better-preserved works for beginners, On Bones, On the Dissection of the Veins and Arteries, and On the Dissection of the Nerves, and the more sophisticated On the Dissection of the Muscles are considered. After a brief description of his works dedicated to others’ anatomical output, the chapter concludes with the role that Galen allocates to dissection in his oeuvre, with particular attention to On the Usefulness of the Parts.

This chapter draws on Cicero’s letters to propose the existence of an “economy of goodwill” in the late Roman Republic. Through voluntas mutua, the mature statesman handles sensitive transactions and vouchsafes his allies’ support. I examine potential antecedents to Cicero’s goodwill in Aristotle’s theories of friendship (eunoia and philia), as well as in the system of “friendly loans” (mutuom argentum) in the comedies of Plautus. Cicero’s economics of friendship, though informed by these others, aim at problems particular to Rome’s fast-growing empire. Unlike normal currency, “spending” voluntas only increases one’s supply of it, allowing for mutual reinforcement of political support over time. Additionally, voluntas may be exchanged regardless of facultas, facilitating long-distance governance by low-cost trades of support across the empire when concrete beneficia are unfeasible. In his philosophical works, finally, Cicero shows an intriguing ambivalence about the economy of goodwill that served him so well in practice. Are reciprocal favors a defensible part of friendship? Though he excludes the possibility in De amicitia, in De officiis, voluntas mutua is redeemed in decorum, the ideal by which proportion and mutuality yield virtue.