Abstract
[The medicine of the corpus publicus and the rhetoric of power] The Metaphor of the sick State, like that of the good politician as a good doctor, is an ancient topos of Greek culture widely exploited by Plato. In political and legal Roman Thought this image appears in various places, especially in Cicero’s Catiline Orations. However, also the imperial Chancelleries often make use of the representation of the sovereign as a doctor and protector of citizens. The basic element that justifies the adoption of images and words pertaining to the medical field, again as in the rhetoric of Cicero, is the political construction of the legitimacy of power and the conservation of consensus.
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