This is how the legionaries of Ancient Rome did liposuction: baskets full of fat

At the beginning of our era, Rome was the most important capital in the world and countless luxury items arrived there from all corners of the Empire. One of the most appreciated things in busy urban life was food, and the more exquisite and abundant, the better. The excesses were so great that, at the banquets of the wealthy classes, there was always a slave dedicated to inducing the vomiting reflex, with a bucket in his hand, tickling the palate with a feather. The goal was to make room for the next handling, whether it was fresh deer brain, roasted giraffe neck, stuffed elephant trunk, dolphin meatballs, turkey tongue cakes or roasted wild boar uterus.

One of the young nobles who enjoyed these treats was Lucius Apronio Cesiano, whose story Van de Laar collects in his book. Like so many other Romans of his generation, he was clearly obese. His father, a tough Army commander in Germany at the time of Emperor Tiberius, must not have been very happy with his son’s state of form. “Apparently he was a seasoned scourge of the barbarians and his pulse did not tremble if he had to decimate a cohort that behaved cowardly on the battlefield,” the author notes in the book.

The dictator commissioned it in 1933 to the architect Italo Gismondi, who worked on it until his death in 1974, with such a spectacular and realistic result that it is still used today as an educational tool for thousands of schools in Italy.

Life on the battlefield

Life on the battlefield, in fact, had nothing to do with what his son enjoyed in the big city, from one feast to another: building fortresses, resisting the attacks of the enemy and maintaining a strict diet of acorns and rabbits. that they could find, in which Lucius Apronio had become a true master. In the Senate of Rome they knew it and, in the year 15 AD, he was rewarded with a ‘triumph’ organized in the very capital of the Empire. We talked about the civil ceremony and the religious rite that was celebrated to publicly consecrate the success of a commander in the war in the service of the State, while Lucio Jr. dedicated himself to living life.

At one point, the father decided that he should become a soldier like him and as soon as possible. According to the details recounted by Pliny the Elder in his encyclopedia ‘Naturalis historia’, published several decades later, both had numerous discussions about this matter and that the father must have come out ahead because Lucius Jr. had to undergo an operation. This is how the historian relates it in chapter 85: “It is said that the consul’s son had his adipose tissue removed to free him from a discomfort that prevented him from walking.” The author mentions this operation to explain that fatty tissue is insensitive and does not contain blood vessels.

According to Van de Laar, this operation had to be carried out with some frequency in the Roman Empire. And it should not be far-fetched, because in the ‘Talmud’ it is mentioned that in the province of Judea the same intervention was carried out on a very corpulent local official who was in the service of Rome: «They gave him a potion to sleep and took him to a marble room where they opened his belly and took away baskets full of fat. The reason in this case was not aesthetic, but functional. He believed that he should reduce his belly not only because it bothered him during sexual relations, but also to “be less visceral and be able to judge more wisely.”

The abdominal cavity

The author of ‘The Art of the Scalpel’ believes that in these operations the abdominal cavity was not actually opened, since centuries before Hippocrates had already written that such an intervention was fatal and the Romans should have been aware of this. In fact, the first of its kind was not possible until 1809, shortly after anesthesia was invented. Before, the chances of surviving it were so slim that they were only attempted when the urgency required it, that is, with those stomachs torn in the middle of battle.

In the 3rd century BC. C., the doctors Erasistratus and Herophilus of Alexandria received authorization to study the anatomy of the abdomen in those condemned to death who had not yet been executed. Of course, they had the advantage that they would not have to close the victims’ cuts after the operation without anesthesia, which must have caused them indescribable pain, but perhaps not as much as if they had been tortured. Currently, to correctly perform one of these surgeries on the abdomen, the patient must be calm and not feel anything, not tense the muscles and not start vomiting, in addition to the surgeon working in hygienic conditions and not damage the intestines.

As Van de Laar clarifies, this was not possible at that time, with the victims writhing in pain, so it is likely that neither in the case of Apronio nor in that of Rabbi Eleazar was it really an abdominal operation. They had to have their belly fat removed, that is, an intervention located between the abdominal wall and the skin. In medical terms, this is known as a tummy tuck. In this case, the surgeon believes that the consul’s son must have done well, since he ended up becoming a soldier, fought in Africa with his father and later maintained a healthy lifestyle, to the point that he rose to become consul of the Emperor Caligula in the year 39:

«In Roman times, an infected wound was still a complication that could cause death. We know from other sources that Apronio Jr. had a long and prosperous life, so in his case the correction of the abdominal wall must have gone well and there were no major complications. On the other hand, Rabbi Eleazar is said to have suffered much pain during the last years of his life. Could they be surgical complications?