Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to thank the many people who have offered their expertise and support in the completion of this book, which began as a dissertation at the University of Chicago. My deepest gratitude goes to Michèle Lowrie, who introduced me to Lucan’s Bellum Civile in a seminar during my first year of graduate school. Her encouragement to keep working on a paper on the beheading of Pompey sparked my interest in the conceptual history of the Roman body politic. Since then, I have benefited in countless ways from her mentorship and scholarship. As my dissertation took shape, I had the good fortune to receive additional guidance from Clifford Ando and Shadi Bartsch. They joined Michèle in offering incisive and thoughtful feedback on multiple drafts of every chapter. It is a rare gift to have scholars of such formidable intellect engage deeply with one’s work. I have tried my best not to squander the opportunity.

I turned my dissertation into a book in the Classical Studies department at Indiana University, Bloomington, which has provided a wonderful home over the past five years. Matthew Christ and Cynthia Bannon have been mentors in research and teaching, while Lindsey Mazurek, Kenneth Draper, and the rest of the junior faculty have become great friends as well as colleagues. The Scholarly Writing Program at Indiana University kept me accountable throughout the writing and publication process, while the Chicago Regional Workshop for Junior Classics Faculty provided a place for conversation among peers. Many of the ideas in this book began in classroom conversations with graduate students. I thank them for patiently enduring every reference to the body politic I found in our readings.

I happened to become interested in the metaphor of the body politic around the same time as Hunter Gardner and Brian Walters, whose excellent books on the topic precede mine. Both have been incredibly generous in sharing this intellectual territory; Hunter reached out to me on the topic of pestilence in Livy, while Brian shared a copy of his manuscript with me before its publication. I have tried to flag my intellectual debts to them in the pages that follow.

My sincerest thanks go to the press’s readers, whose careful critiques greatly improved the manuscript. Dean Hammer revealed himself as one of those readers, providing the opportunity for further conversation on Roman political thought. I also benefited from the careful reading of Harriet Fertik, who provided feedback on nearly every chapter. I tried out many of my ideas before audiences at the University of Cincinnati, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Pomona College, as well as at various meetings of the Society for Classical Studies and Classical Association of the Middle West and South. A conference on Lucan organized by Laura Zientek and Mark Thorne allowed me to expand my discussion of the Bellum Civile beyond its original scope. Gwendolyn Gibbons provided diligent editorial assistance in the final stages of the book’s completion.

Chapter 5 uses material previously published as “Pompey’s Head and the Body Politic in Lucan’s De Bello Civili,” TAPA 146.1 (2016): 191–215 and “Lucan and the Specter of Sulla in Julio-Claudian Rome,” in Lucan’s Imperial World: The Bellum Civile in Its Contemporary Contexts, ed. Laura Zientek and Mark Thorne, 173–90 (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). The reproduction of these pieces has kindly been granted by Johns Hopkins University Press and Bloomsbury Press.

The path from a dissertation to a book is a long and arduous one. It is wonderful to look back on the friends and family who have helped me along the way. Natalie Trevino, Paul Vădan, and Andrew Horne were great friends at the University of Chicago and remain so today. My parents, to whom this book is dedicated, have supported me in more ways than I can mention. I am lucky to count my brothers among my closest friends. Above all, I would like to thank my husband, Carlos, who has been a true partner at every stage of this journey. It is difficult to imagine traveling such a long road without him and I am grateful I never had to. I submitted the revised manuscript to the press the night before our son, Maxwell, was born. While the publication of this book is a great achievement, it pales in comparison to the gift of watching him grow.