This book is based on a striking observation: the metaphor of the body politic appears in a wide range of Latin literature, but the way that Roman authors use the metaphor changes over time in a manner that seems to track the transformation of the Roman res publica from Republic to Principate, the precise details of which continue to be debated by historians and political theorists. The evidence is substantial (Cicero, Varro, Sallust, Lucretius, Livy, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Velleius Paterculus, Valerius Maximus, Manilius, the elder and younger Senecas, and Lucan all get detailed treatment), and the book’s core premise is compelling: Roman thinkers ‘responded to constitutional change’ (p. 22) through the metaphor of the body politic, and they contested and defined the very nature and meaning of res publica through the image. A major point of interest is Augustus’ new position as princeps and whether contemporary Roman thinkers did in fact acutely feel the need to rethink the fundamental nature of the res publica in response. Mebane makes the case that they did: ‘I argue that we find such proof in the figurative language that Latin writers used to represent the res publica. In reimagining the shape of the body politic in response to sole rule between the 20s BCE and 60s CE, they implicitly acknowledged and confronted a shift in Rome’s governing form’ (p. 13). The most striking evidence is radical change in the use of head imagery. Before the time of Augustus, ‘on the rare occasions when capital symbolism did appear it was used to criticise those whose ambitions posed a threat to collegial governance’, but ‘by the end of the Julio-Claudian era, the res publica had been radically reimagined as a collection of limbs and organs unable to survive without a head to command it’ (p. 3). By concentrating on a metaphor and tracing patterns in usage over time, rather than focusing on formal analysis of constitutional structures and law, Mebane advances a fresh way of looking into Roman political thought and practice as the Republic transitioned into the Principate.
The results of this method are consistently illuminating. After an Introduction that helpfully discusses the critical approach to metaphor, the conceptual problems in uncritically using terms such as res publica and the Roman Republic, and the current state of scholarship in the field of Roman political thought and history, the first chapter, ‘The Divided Body Politic’, draws attention to the metaphor ‘as a key site of contestation between competing views of the res publica in the mid-first century BCE’ (p. 30). There is a particular emphasis on Catiline’s highly provocative use of head symbolism (associated with kingly rule) and the aggressive response of Cicero in 63 BCE, while it is also shown that the use of the body politic metaphor goes all the way back to the Secession of the Plebs in 494 BCE with Menenius Agrippa’s Fable of the Belly. The chapter succeeds in highlighting an established tradition in which ‘Roman thinkers used the metaphor of the body politic to make weighted claims about the distribution of political power in the res publica’ (p. 38)—there were very real social divisions and structural conflicts, but the body politic metaphor allowed such divisions to be subordinated to an ‘overarching ideal of concord’ (p.41).
Chapter 2, ‘The Sick Body Politic’, focuses on the medical language of health and illness. There is detailed discussion of the narrative of Roman moral decline in Varro, Sallust, and Cicero – the view that the Roman res publica was not only sick in body but in spirit. Such authors used the body politic metaphor to argue that the res publica needs healers who can apply treatments and remedies. It is an easily understandable framework, with emotional pull and motivational force: who does not want to be healed when their health problems are diagnosed? But treatment at times includes emergency interventions such as amputation. The argument is made that Cicero in particular exploited the metaphor for his own drastic actions with Catiline that ran over established legal procedures. He knew he was breaking the law so ‘he thereby used the metaphor of the diseased body politic to create a climate of emergency in which radical action seemed necessary to save the Republic’ (p. 61). The medical framework provides Cicero and others the logic ‘to circumvent the judicial system in which he expressed faith elsewhere’ (p. 62). The case is well presented and shows clearly that Cicero saw a legitimate place for political violence. This is important to stress, since Cicero’s political thinking is often presented in more sanitised terms, as upholding a republican model in which all citizens and in particular political leaders should exhibit the noblest virtues and values, in which there is the rule of law and the integrity of constitutional norms and structures, in which free-thinking men debate the issues and reason things out in good faith for the common good. But, at least in emergency situations (howsoever declared or seen), violence is what is needed—be it following due process or not. The rightness of violence will be judged in the result—the health of the body politic going forward. But if health is the highest good, a view the body politic metaphor encourages, that changes the nature of the political game—perhaps republican norms and institutions are not the most effective means to that end.
The rhetoric of the Roman body politic needing some cure for its ills is very powerful in the first century BCE. Perhaps that cure is not amputation or surgery but rather allowing the head to play its proper role in leading or guiding the body towards what is good for it. In Chapter 3, ‘The Augustan Transformation’, Mebane stresses continuity in the use of healing and medical imagery when it comes to political leadership and the state of the res publica (prevalent in works of Livy, Vergil, Horace, and Ovid), while highlighting major changes with the head of state metaphor. In short, the head of state metaphor had to be made more acceptable if it were to be applied positively to Augustus and those to come, and moves in that direction can be seen most clearly first in Livy’s use of the image with regard to Roman leaders in his account of Roman history, and then in the work of Ovid some years later. A process is underway in the Augustan period, but ‘the identification of the princeps as the caput rei publicae did not occur until the reign of Tiberius’ (p. 126).
Chapter 4, ‘Julio-Claudian consensus and civil war’, looks at authors such as Velleius Paterculus, Valerius Maximus, and Manilius, who stress the necessity of a head if the res publica is to be healed and protected from bodily decay and self-harm. But not just any head will do: it is the good head, the princeps as healer, that is really what the res publica needs. But what happens if the head itself is diseased, as happens with the example of Caligula? The body politic needs a head, so it cannot simply be cut off. Rather, ‘when confronted with a bad princeps, they offered a new and better princeps as the solution’ (p. 162). As such, the model of autocracy is not questioned (if anything, it is reinforced—a head will always be there), but the body politic metaphor offers scope for reflection on the virtues of leadership and the relationship of princeps and citizens.
Chapter 5, ‘Addressing autocracy under Nero’, adds further evidence for this transition in Roman political thinking, Under Nero, Roman authors ‘envision a body politic often wounded by its Caesars but unable to survive without them’ (p. 162). Works of the younger Seneca (in particular De clementia) are examined in terms of prescriptive models and practical advice to leaders. Mebane shows how Seneca stresses to Nero the interdependence between Caesar and the people: the head is not separate from the body and indeed needs the strength of the body to support it. Thus Seneca can advise the head not to harm the body, for the head too will suffer; and likewise, acting well towards the body will see benefits to the head. The body politic metaphor provides a motivational model for the princeps to act well in his position of power rather than indulge in acts of self-harm. Lucan, in conversation with Seneca, is shown to be far more blunt in his portrayal of the Roman res publica—self-harm and destructive acts of bodily mutilation are normal when it comes to the Roman body politic, and the autocratic model is no cure for this. Through his use of the body politic metaphor, Lucan undercuts many of the positives that other authors sought to find in the model of autocratic rule. That said, Lucan also signals that there is no real alternative to the head of state model, even though it offers no real cure for anything —it ‘could not be changed without catastrophic consequences’ (p. 194). So the Romans are stuck with what they have got, at least for now, but at least they can be clear-eyed about it. This chapter is followed by a conclusion that reflects on the ways the authors of this period laid the conceptual foundations that ‘helped cement the Principate as Rome’s governing form for centuries to come’ (p. 204).
The chapters can be read together but also as individual case studies. When taken on their own, each shows something interesting about a particular period; and when placed side by side in sequence, trends and developments over time come into relief. How much that is due to an author’s conscious imitation or critical engagement with earlier uses of the body politic metaphor by other Roman thinkers is still up for debate, however. It is often insinuated that one author is reacting or responding directly to earlier examples and usages, which suggests a pointed reworking of the metaphor in a kind of conversation between authors that can be traced via intertextuality. Some cases work very well (e.g. Lucan and Seneca), and this certainly creates a compelling picture of an at times combative Roman intellectual culture, with thinkers reading each other’s work attentively and engaging critically with their use of metaphors as a way of contesting ideas about the res publica. But there is too the suspicion that in many cases this may be largely circumstantial given the relatively commonplace nature of the metaphor and the effects of a modern scholar having all the evidence arrayed neatly in sequence and side by side (arguments for direct influence or critical response based on intertextual connections and resonances are always somewhat fraught). That said, it is worth pushing the argument and seeing how much weight the evidence can bear, and the close textual analysis on display in each chapter is a real highlight—it is always presented in full (with relevant texts in both Latin and English) so both the primary source evidence and the working method can be readily followed and evaluated by the reader.
In sum, this is an ambitious study that tackles a wide range of literary evidence and offers an engaging account of the ways that many Roman authors developed the metaphor of the body politic over a period of substantial social and political change. It will be of value to all those interested in Roman political thought and history.