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The Body Politic in Roman Political Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2024

Julia Mebane
Julia Mebane
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington

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The Body Politic in Roman Political Thought , pp. i - ii
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NC
This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/cclicenses/

The Body Politic in Roman Political Thought

How did Roman writers use the metaphor of the body politic to respond to the downfall of the Republic? In this book, Julia Mebane begins with the Catilinarian Conspiracy in 63 bce, when Cicero and Catiline proposed two rival models of statesmanship on the senate floor: the civic healer and the head of state. Over the next century, these two paradigms of authority were used to confront the establishment of sole rule in the Roman world. Tracing their Imperial afterlives allows us to see how Romans came to terms with autocracy without ever naming it as such. In identifying metaphor as an important avenue of political thought, the book makes a significant contribution to the history of ideas. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Julia Mebane is an assistant professor in the Department of Classical Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington.

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