“Bodily Politics: Frank Speech and the Health of the Greek City”

Dana Fields, Classics Photographer: Douglas Levere

“Bodily Politics: Frank Speech and the Health of the Greek City,” the October 21st talk by Classics professor Dana Fields, examines how Greek writers of the Roman Imperial period use metaphors of medical practice to talk about frank speech (parrhēsia). In public assemblies, interactions among the oligarchic class, and even works addressed to the Roman emperor, the metaphors of drugs, cutting, and cauterization justify the special authority claimed by the frank speaker, which can contradict both Roman hierarchy and the Greek premium on freedom.