This chapter introduces the reader to some major themes and sources of evidence in the study of ancient Roman music, as well as surveying the history of scholarship in this field. It also provides an overview of the four main chapters and their contribution to the overall themes of the book.

This chapter handles the most extensive anatomical text to survive from antiquity, Galen’s Anatomical Procedures. It queries the innovations of the text and Galen’s motives in writing it. After introducing the unique character of the treatise and addressing the question of its illustration, the chapter approaches the text from three angles. First, it examines its composition, explaining Galen’s authorial process and the motivations for his rewrite of the original version. Next, it broaches its purpose, arguing that Galen intends it to stand alone as an instructional guide, thus subverting the contemporary educational norms of in-person instruction. Third, the chapter turns to the consideration of the audience of the text, both as Galen explicitly envisions it and as his implicit expectations reveal it; this includes discussion of the motivations, educational background, technical skills, and financial position Galen imagines for his readers. Finally, the chapter ends with a conclusion of the argument of the book as a whole.

This chapter reveals the extent and variety of Roman anatomical literature beyond Galen. Many texts are completely lost or fragmentary; the chapter analyzes those that remain and reconstructs and contextualizes the nature and contents of those that do not. Rufus and the pseudo-Rufian texts are considered, including his experience with dissection and evaluation of evidence in Rufus vis-à-vis Galen’s assertion that Marinus was responsible for reviving anatomical activity. Detailed analysis of Marinus’ anatomical work is followed by the anatomical work of Quintus and his various students comes next, with discussion of Antigenes, Aiphicianos, Satyrus, Numisianus, Heracleianus, Pelops, Aelianus, and Lycus. The chapter then turns to anatomy in the pseudo-Galenic Doctor: Introduction, and then papyrological evidence for anatomical writing. Finally, it describes the Roman anatomical world in general, including how medical and philosophical sects approached anatomy, with discussions of the Erasistrateans, including Martianus, the Pneumatists, including Aretaeus, the Empiricists, the Methodists, including Soranus, the Stoics, the Peripatetics, and the Platonists, including Apuleius.

In many ways, the development of the image of Roman emperors was a search for a way to make the supreme position of the emperor recognisable in an acceptable way, through tools that were already available. Emperorship was never unambiguously defined, other than by the name Augustus. Over time, the range of options which emperors and the inhabitants of the empire had to portray the ruler extended as previously less acceptable modes of representation became normalised. At the same time, there was some sort of congruence in what were typical imperial attributes. The much-discussed ceremonial reforms of Diocletian were a confirmation of practice, rather than a watershed. They did not end the variety of imagery. Expectations of how emperors ought to be described and portrayed continued to differ regionally, medially and between social groups, even when typically imperial modes of representation, with diadem, purple cloak and standardised facial features solidified. Very few typically imperial features, the diadem excepted, were unique to the emperor. For many people, the Roman emperor would always remain a distant figure, far removed from their daily life

This chapter takes as its central focus the triumphal games given by the Roman praetor Lucius Anicius Gallus in 167 BCE. The chapter deconstructs the hostile account of this event in Polybius’ Histories by examining how Anicius manipulated the musical dynamics of the spectacle in order to amplify the importance of his triumph. The second half of the chapter situates the episode in the context of broader developments in Greek and Roman musical culture during the second century BCE. As well as discussing the general treatment of music in Polybius’s Histories, it considers how the dissemination of Greek musical culture during this period sparked a reaction from senior members of the Roman political elite, as evidenced most notably by the fragmentary speeches of Cato the Elder and Scipio Aemilianus.

In this chapter, I examine how voluntas helps the young lawyer Cicero craft arguments and structure relationships with Roman clients, witnesses, and juries. In the De inventione and forensic speeches, we see his struggle to reconcile tradition with new intellectual tools. As he seeks to bring ratio more fully into Roman legal culture, voluntas plays a plural and ambiguous role. It is an instrument of rational inquiry, as in the competing schemata of criminal responsibility he examines in the De inventione. As it has always been in Roman law, voluntas is the desire of a legally relevant individual, emanating from and attributable to him alone – the marker of his agency and responsibility. So, too, however, is it used to signify the collective goodwill of an audience, which Cicero makes clear is the expert orator’s plaything. The “goodwill” sense of voluntas adds greatly to its durability in moral philosophy. While a sententia or iudicium pertain to a specific question, voluntas marks an ongoing choice or disposition, such as the will of a legislator, to be conserved. Cicero’s objectives for the law go largely unachieved in his time, but they expand Rome’s intellectual field of vision.

Imperial behaviour, like the emperor’s name and image, was multifaceted, with different people expecting different things at different times. The variation was limited. A set of imperial roles – military, religious, and civil – was established rapidly and remained important throughout Roman history. There was variation of the balance between these different roles, but it was difficult for any emperor to wholly ignore any of them. Emperors could not present themselves as they saw fit. In that sense, Roman emperorship shows striking continuity. Still, the empire developed, and emperorship developed with it. Some of these shifts took place within traditional patterns. Christianity reformulated the emperor’s religious role, but did not redefine it. Child emperors were still expected to be military leaders. The move away from Rome as the emperors’ residence seems to have had a different kind of impact, diminishing the importance of some of the ‘Republican’ expectations with which Roman emperors had to cope. Yet for a Roman emperor to become exemplary, he had to satisfy different demands. Playing the right roles for relevant people was the best way to become the perfect emperor.

Chapter 9 focuses on the erasure of the Ghetto in the late nineteenth century as urban renewal, and in particular flood control, left the district divided in two – one modern and tied to the new road system and one within the lines of the ancient circus porticos.