Abstract
In this chapter I examine a development in Roman political thought, often called the theory of the ‘two cities’, that involved a change in how ‘bodies politic’ were conceived and that has had extensive effects on Western political thought. For most of classical antiquity, the locus of political loyalty was the parochial city-state, but during the Roman imperial period Stoic and other philosophers more strongly emphasized the cosmos as the proper location of ethical identity: the universe was a great heavenly city, governed by a rational natural law (just as an earthly city is governed by a man-made law), whose population encompassed all humanity. Although this conceptual shift also appeared in other schools of thought (including Cynic and Christian), Stoic philosophers most clearly expressed it. I will focus on the writings of Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.l
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Zavadil, J. (2009). Bodies Politic and Bodies Cosmic: The Roman Stoic Theory of the ‘Two Cities’. In: Musolff, A., Zinken, J. (eds) Metaphor and Discourse. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230594647_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230594647_14
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