Pompey’s Head and the Body Politic in Lucan’s De bello civili

<p class="summaryheading"><span class="summaryheading">summary:</span></p><p> Conceptualizing Rome as a body had a long history in Latin literature, but only after the transition to the principate did the head assume a central role in such metaphors. Designating the <i>princeps</i> as the <i>caput rei publicae</i> naturalized singular authority and contributed to the process of imperial legitimation. Lucan’s <i>De bello civili</i> critically responds to this discourse through the beheading of Pompey, which is staged as a mutiny of the body politic. The ramifications of Pompey’s failure to fulfill the role of the head-of-state extend beyond the plot of the poem, offering a critique of the principate’s ideological underpinnings. </p>