| This dissertation is an examination of drug references found in the works of Republican and early Imperial Roman authors and includes non-medical prose and poetry falling chronologically between the lives of Cato and Ovid. It questions past assumptions concerning the role of drugs in rural and urban environments and attempts to establish a new model for the role of the Roman physician as a 'medical artisan.' It examines the unique epidemiological landscape of the crowded urban environment of Rome and tries to relate this information to the use of drugs and the art of pharmacy. It also investigates the use of drugs as poisons in non-medical literary sources, and attempts to show that the Roman world was well aware of the use of drugs to commit murder for the sake of political and social advancement. A significant number of references to poisons and poisoners are buried within the Latin works falling between Cato and Ovid, and this textual evidence reveals much about Roman cultural attitudes concerning the use of poisons and the particular methods for the preparation and administration of poisonous drugs. This work also looks at the use of cosmetics as they are found throughout Latin literature of this period, and it tries to characterize some of the basic elements of the use of Roman makeup and perfume. Drugs play a prominent role in the works of prose authors and poets from the Republic and early Empire; these non-medical sources merit serious discussion in any work concerned with Roman medicine and pharmacy. |
