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2016 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

Chapter 4 Political Philosophy and the Roman Republic

verfasst von : Walter Nicgorski

Erschienen in: Cicero’s Skepticism and His Recovery of Political Philosophy

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US

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Abstract

Here, Cicero’s De Re Publica and De Legibus are the central texts. The way Cicero has embraced skepticism and grounded the right and utility in nature shows his distinctive way of following yet differing from Plato. He appreciates Plato’s Republic as a clarifying philosophical achievement yet sees in Roman development a better tool for teaching his audience the principles of political life. Seemingly modern concepts emerge as mixed constitution, genuine progress, equality, republican liberty, consent and contract, collective leadership over time, and a limited defense of property rights. There is much evidence within these texts on how he transcends Rome so as to be able to judge her and to address audiences well beyond Rome and his time.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Chapter 3 Duties and Virtue

Nächstes Kapitel Chapter 5 The Socratic Statesman

That Cicero sees himself as standing in this tradition when he writes Rep. and Leg. is evident in Div. 2.3 and Leg. 3.14. The statement on “the orientation and scope” of classical political philosophy is by Strauss. Strauss explains that “the primary questions of classical political philosophy” and “the terms in which it stated them” were “not specifically philosophic or scientific”; rather, “they were questions that are raised in assemblies, councils, clubs and cabinets, and they were stated in terms intelligible and familiar at least to all sane adults, from everyday experience and everyday usage.” Examples of such questions are “what group should rule, or what compromise would be the best solution—that is to say, what political order would be the best order.” Strauss concedes that though the “immediate concern” of actual controversies is “the best political order for the given political community…every answer to that immediate question implies an answer to the universal question of the best political order as such.” Thus Strauss speaks of “the natural tendency” of political controversy “to express itself in universal terms.” Then Strauss clarifies this tendency by acknowledging that though the classical philosopher understood the best political order as that “which is best always and everywhere,” this is not to be taken to mean that he regards that order “as necessarily good for every community, as ‘a perfect solution for all times and for every place’: a given community may be so rude or so depraved that only a very inferior type of order can ‘keep it going”’ (1973: 79–87).

Erskine’s treatment of the political thought of the Hellenistic Stoa shows The Republic as inspiration and foil in this tradition (1990: 30, 61, 71). Vander Waerdt (1994a: 281 ff., 302 ff.) explores the Stoic Zeno’s “republic” or polity of Wiseman as a response to Plato’s city in speech.

Such instances in Cicero are Off. 1.33, 35; 2.28–29; 3.28, 41,46–47, 49, 80 ff., 109, 113–15; Rep. 1.5–6; 3.41; Leg. 2.13–14, 23; 3.37; Att. 19–21; 92.

Ernest Fortin (1994: xvi) observes that Cicero “deftly conceals [Rome’s] defects (but not without letting the informed reader know that he is fully aware of them)….” Mansfield (1996: 135) characterizes Book 2 of Rep. as a place “where Cicero, with fine irony and careful responsibility, blends an account of the origin of his own republic with the developments of the features of the best regime. This kind of history is both theoretical and practical because it supposes that nature and virtue are not so much in contest as in cooperation.” Rawson remarks (1985: 216) that save, perhaps, for some political pamphlets “as far as we can see, there was nothing on political theory apart from Cicero’s” Rep. and Leg. in the Roman tradition of the late Republic. In the preceding sentence, she notes that “an aversion to such abstract works seems to have made the Romans particularly dependent on historiography.”

J. Atkins (2013) and J. Zarecki (2014) are two recent treatments of Cicero’s political philosophy that, each in their own ways, have emphasized his attention to both the Greek philosophical tradition and Roman traditions and practices.

Scipio and Laelius are also utilized as personae in Cicero’s Sen. and Amic. They say very little in Sen., being present only to introduce a discourse by Cato the Elder. The dramatic setting of Amic. occurs just after the death of Scipio, yet his words and thoughts are presented, explicitly at times, within the discourses of Laelius. For a fuller discussion of the relation between Rep. and Amic., see Nicgorski (2008).

Rep. 3.5–6; also 1.15 and Amic. 6–7. These men appear to function for Cicero as exemplar consular philosophers. In the light of their explicit tie to Socratic learning, the general practice of taking Scipio, their apparent intellectual and moral leader, as Cicero’s spokesman makes sense. There are, however, good reasons for caution in concluding that Scipio is the exclusive voice of Cicero. One such reason is that Philus, who reluctantly and against his convictions argues in the dialogue contra to the notion that justice is grounded in nature, is associated, in this role, with the Academic school to which Cicero gives his allegiance. Nor is it persuasive to argue that the major statement on natural law at 3.33 does not, given that it is spoken by Laelius, represent the view of Cicero. See Nicgorski (2012: 271–72).

Cicero follows here the general practice in his other dialogues, of opening most books with a preface or introduction (prooemium) wherein he speaks directly to the reader in his own name. The prefaces in this work are only partially extant, though we have what appears to be a substantial portion of that written for the first book, seemingly setting the direction and tone for the work as a whole. On the function of his prooemia, as well as overall reflections on his use of the dialogue form, see above, Chap. 2.

Rep. 1.12.

In his preface to Ac. 2 (5–6), Cicero defends philosophical conversations by public leaders as long as they are consistent with their public responsibilities; appropriately, given the nature of Ac., his defense is less clearly restricted to political philosophy.

Rep. 1.33.

Rep. 1.32.

Rep. 1.35–36.

Rep. 1.36.

Rep. 2.3.

Rep. 4.4–5; Aristotle, Politics 1261^a2–1264^b25.

Differences between Cicero and Plato on political/legal matters are suggested in a comment that Quintus, Cicero’s brother, is portrayed as making in Leg. 2.17. Cicero does not speak directly to this suggestion, save to affirm that he tries to imitate Plato’s mode of discourse and does not merely translate Plato’s views, for he wishes to be himself.

Tusc. 1.39–40; also Div. 1.30, 62; Orat. 42.

Cicero describes himself as “a follower of Socrates and Plato” (De Or. 1.2). He takes Plato as clearly preeminent as a philosopher; see especially Leg. 2.14, 39; 3.1; Rep. 2.21 (Laelius speaking); Nat.D. 2.32 (Balbus speaking). At Tusc. 1.22, Aristotle is held first among thinkers, except for Plato, in brilliance (ingenio) and thoroughness (diligentia). In Orat. 10, Plato is called gravissimus auctor et magister with respect to both thought and speech. At De Or. 3.21 Plato is presented as a teacher of the unity of knowledge and at Tusc. 5.36 as a teacher of virtue as the chief good, both of these being functions very important to Cicero. References to Plato in Cicero’s speeches and letters show him consistent in his high praise. In his Pro Scauro (4), Cicero refers to Plato as the greatest (summus) philosopher whose written work was done graviter et ornate. In Pro Murena (63), Plato is presented by Cicero as his teacher along with Aristotle, who is said to be free of the immoderate aspects of the philosophical life manifested in certain Stoics. See also Pro Rabirio Postumo 23, Att. 89, and QFr. 1.29. As to the comparative standing of Socrates and Plato, Plato is consistently “the philosopher” (princeps philosophorum), and Socrates is the source or founder of philosophy in the form it takes in Cicero’s time (princeps or parens philosophiae). A fuller discussion of these descriptions and the Socrates/Plato relationship in Cicero’s eyes is found in Nicgorski (1992).

Cumming (1969: I, 190). Whether one agrees or not with his sense of the limitations of Cicero, Hösle (2008) explored fruitfully the dependencies and differences with respect to Cicero and Plato.

Rep. 1.67–68; 2.52.

This passage was often cited by Strauss as an apparent key to his interpretation of The Republic: (1953: 122, 1963: 41, 1964: 138, 1975: 1, 1989: 162).

Cicero here uses optare for “wishing for the impossible” and sperare for “hoping for the possible.” Evidence for this being a habitual distinction in Cicero’s work and its impact on Thomas More is found in Wegemer (1996: 110–11, 227 n.6). Here, it is proper to mention the interesting suggestion of Parens (1995: xx): “[B]ecause Plato’s Laws as opposed to his Republic, presents his best politically possible city, one could say that both Cicero’s Republic and Laws are commentaries of a sort on Plato’s Laws.”

Rep. 2.57. The limits of reason with respect to politics is an important theme for J. Atkins (2013).

Voegelin (1974: 128).

Cicero’s letters and other evidence make clear that Rep. was written sometime between 55 and 51 B.C. and that the De Or. was completed by 54 or shortly thereafter. These two works stand together in time and apart from the great body of Cicero’s other rhetorical and philosophical writings, which were done in the last years of his life, 46–43. Antonius in the De Or. seems to represent a “no nonsense” technical approach to oratory that might only slowly and cautiously open to the relevance of philosophical studies.

De Or. 1.224–25. Antonius seems to be implying that philosophy read and considered on a holiday for men bearing public responsibility will be a philosophy resistant to Plato’s approach.

Cicero’s comment to Atticus (Att. 21) that Cato, his contemporary, with his lofty and pure views would be more in place in Plato’s republic than among the dregs of Romulus seems to be an indication of this popular shorthand.

De Or. 3.84–85.

Orat. 7–10. See Tarrant (1985: 118–19, 124–25) on Cicero’s use of Plato in this passage and on Cicero’s understanding that the “Ideas” exist only “within minds.”

Cicero’s De Or. uses personae who, like those of the Rep., are active public leaders, and his chief rhetorical writings turn out to be defenses of the life of the statesman as providing the greatest service and, hence, the most fitting utilization of rhetorical ability and art. In the prooemium to the first book of De Or. Cicero describes true eloquence as derivative from “the arts of the most prudent persons” (prudentissimorum hominum artibus, De Or. 1.5, see also Orat. 44); we will see, in this and the following chapter, prudence emerge as the most necessary and chief characteristic of Cicero’s model statesman. Crassus opens the dialogue in De Or. by describing the glory and power of speech as follows: “Nothing at all…seems to be more outstanding than the power of holding an assembly of men by speech, of drawing the support of the mind of men and of directing their wills where one wishes and diverting them from what one wishes” (De Or. 1.30). In the rhetorical writing of his youth, Inv. 1.2, Cicero shows the public leadership function of the art from its very beginnings. See Cumming (1969: I, 265–67), Davies (1971: 111) and Mitchell (1991: 29).

Cumming is, I believe, the originator of the phrase “shift of focus” (1969: I, 286) to describe Cicero’s break with Plato and emphasis on “the ideal statesman.” Such a “shift” is central to the interpretation of Rep. elaborated here but was first presented in my 1991 essay. This “shift” plays a key role in Ferrary’s compelling interpretation of Rep. (1995: 49 ff.).

Rep. 1.34, 39 ff.

Div. 2.6–7.

Rep. 1.45.

Ferrary (1995: 70).

There is, then, no simple congruency between reason and political order, which is to say that there is no perfect and, hence, stable solution to the problem of politics. Ferrary’s interpretation of the key passage, Rep. 2.57 (1995: 57 n. 21), emphasizes that the reason that is overcome by political developments is that of the prudence of the statesman. At Leg. 3.23, Cicero shows that institutions, which in general he and the Romans favor (e.g. tribunate and consulship) and which he gives roles to in the model mixed regime that Rome exemplifies, cannot be wholly freed from their potential for evil.

It is noteworthy that Polybius, who is generally thought to have influenced Cicero toward the mixed regime and who is presented in Rep. as having talked with Scipio (1.34), bans Plato’s city in speech from a competition for the best constitution because Plato’s city, not having been tested, is not a proven practicable model (vi. 47, 7–10). See Cumming (1969: I, 279, n. 71). Cumming also makes the interesting suggestion (I, 89–90) that Plato himself, in the Timaeus, is the source for Polybius banning Plato’s city from competition. The suggestion is interesting partly because the Timaeus, having been translated by Cicero, apparently was carefully tended to by him. Aristotle’s Politics (Book 2) or some other Peripatetic text might well be the basis for Cicero’s critique of the practicalness of Plato’s city. Lintott stresses the Aristotelian character of Cicero’s mixed constitution over the Polybian influence on it (1997: 80–85). Lintott also highlights his understanding of how Cicero’s and Polybius’s approaches to the mixed constitution differ. On the Aristotelian and Platonic dimensions of this part of Cicero’s thought distinguished from those of Polybius, see Ferrary (1984: 87–98 and 1995: 54 f.). On Polybius and Cicero on the mixed constitution, also see Millar (2002: 23 ff. and passim). J. Atkins (2013: Chap. 3) strongly differentiates Cicero’s conception of the mixed regime from that of Polybius.

Scipio claims that he can define the best regime without a specific exemplification (Rep. 2.66); see also Polybius, vi. 3, 6–10 and Cicero’s Off. 2.74, where Cicero is explicit about his universal intent.

This is not to claim, as the reader of Plato’s Laws and Aristotle’s Politics will know, that the concept of combining the simple forms of government toward a goal of a more stable and better regime is a Roman discovery. Marquez (2011), while focusing on the text of Cicero, explores the understanding of the ideal or theory of mixed government in classical antiquity and the role of leaders and a primary class in providing balance, justice, and a source of direction in mixed government.

Lintott (1997: 80, 85) does not do justice to either Aristotle or Cicero by suggesting that they understand the mixed constitution as “static” rather than “dynamic” and that a dynamic mixed constitution based on a natural process like the one discerned by Polybius “cannot ensure its own ultimate survival.” The latter suggestion introduces the implausible notion that such assurance is attainable.

T. White writes that Cicero uses the “historical exemplum” for “explanatory efficacy” and for the legitimization of the concept at issue by testifying to its “workability” (1981: 6).

Wood writes that for Cicero “Rome is not only the best practicable state, but, with only slight modification, the ideally best state” (1988: 66). My argument above is that the ideally best state is the best practicable state and that Rome is the best actualized exemplification of such a state. It is the best exemplification among actual communities, perhaps in part, because it is the most available and the most useful exemplum under the circumstances. J. Atkins (2013: 232) concurs with my understanding of Cicero’s use of Rome.

Hathaway (1968: 3–4, 12) probes this subsequent difficulty for Cicero’s thought well, arguing that Cicero is a Socratic political philosopher first and a Roman patriot second and that he strives to use Rome and her history to point to “eternal principles,” but “precisely because his rhetoric is successful, he blurs the issue of the mortality of all earthly cities; he makes us believe that history culminates in some sense in Rome,….” See Cumming’s thoughtful struggle with the question of whether Cicero’s model is Rome (1969: I, 239, 279, n. 72, 303, 336, n. 57.

Rep. 2.51; also Off. 1.85. The model seems an exemplar of the consular philosophers.

At Rep. 1.69, Scipio states that significant moral failings (vitia) among the leaders (principes) will destabilize even the mixed regime. See Cumming (1969: I, 244–48, 267) for an effort to understand how Cicero’s model statesman and mixed regime relate to one another. At 278, n. 61, he properly points to Leg. for “a precise institutional illustration of how psychologically indispensable is the leader’s role.”

Internal evidence in Rep. and Leg. and indications in his letters on the centrality of this model statesman to Cicero’s political thought are discussed in Nicgorski (1991: 242–43, 250 n. 43). Also see Att. 126 and How (1930: 39–42). Powell (1994: 19–29) and Ferrary (1995: 49–55) have both highlighted this emphasis of Cicero, and recently there is Zarecki’s important book-length study around this theme (2014).

That many leaders over a long time contribute to this development (Rep. 2.2) does not mean that some, as Romulus (Rep. 2.21), do not contribute significantly more than others. Ferrary writes of Cicero being influenced by the latter “alternative view” (1995: 55). Hösle (2005: 32, n. 12) sees the emphasis on individual contributions found in Cicero’s Scipio to be a tacit correction of the elder Cato’s view.

That the model statesman was intended by Cicero as his dominant theme in Rep., or at least a co-theme with the issue of the best regime, is supported by two comments of Cicero in his letters. In a letter to his brother Quintus, in 54 B.C. (QFr. 25.1), a time when he seems to have been working on Rep., Cicero is found discussing his first version of the dialogue and speaking of it as being concerned with “the best regime and the best citizen” (de optimo statu civitatis et de optimo cive). Five years later, in a letter to Atticus (Att. 161), Cicero recalls the Rep. as a place where he had treated “that man,” that leader and guide (moderatorem) of the polity, “by whom we sought to judge all things” (quo referre velimus omnia). Cicero also refers the reader of Leg. (3.32) to the Rep. for a more exhaustive treatment of the role of the statesman and leading citizens and their influence on the moral character of a society. However, earlier (2.23; 3.4, 13), he thrice speaks of the topic of Rep. being the best state.

A comment by Cicero in a letter of 60 B.C. to his brother Quintus (QFr. 25.1) reveals what Cicero seems to regard as the essential teaching (easdem rationes) of The Republic and that this teaching can be seen as directing Cicero toward an emphasis on the statesman, his qualities, and his education. The passage begins with great praise for Plato and then speaks of his teaching that states will only be happy when either the wise and learned rule or those who rule devote themselves to learning and wisdom. In Cicero’s words, what is needed in rulers is the pursuit of doctrinam, virtutem et humanitatem. See also Fam. 20.12.

Carlyle and Carlyle (1903: I, 8–9). The authors already had made a significant statement of Cicero’s “modernity” when they chose to give to Cicero’s political thought the first chapter of the first volume of their six-volume work. McIlwain (1932) follows closely the Carlyles in this respect; McIlwain observes that “Locke’s theory of the rights of man as man antecedent to and independent of the state has been implicit in political thought ever since the Stoics and as a result of Rome’s transmission of Stoic conceptions of equality” (114–15). Later (1947), he continues in this vein, citing, with evident approval, Lord Acton observing, “[I]t is the stoics who emancipated mankind from its subjection to despotic rule, and whose enlightened and elevated views of life bridged the chasm that separated the ancient from the Christian state, and led the way to freedom” (43 and 155–56, n. 3). Sabine, in his once widely used text (1937), also accepts the point of “divide” set by the Carlyles, remarking at one point on “the astonishing fact…that Chrysippus and Cicero are closer to Kant than they are to Aristotle” (141 ff., 165). Compared to the Carlyles and McIlwain, Sabine does not focus as exclusively on the differences over equality as on defining the new Roman and Ciceronian age. Sabine, instead, emphasizes the movement away from the polis-centered world that is thought to have informed and constrained Aristotle’s understanding. What he sees emerging in Cicero is “the idea of the individual, a distinct item of humanity with his purely personal and private life, and the idea of universality, a world-wide humanity in which all are endowed with a common human nature.” Like Sabine, Cumming (1969) and McCoy (1950 and 1963) locate a modern turn in terms of a clearer and enhanced role of the individual in Cicero’s moral and political thought. McCoy ties this “bold contrast” between Aristotle and Cicero to the natural law doctrine in the latter, and Cumming actually specifically rejects an understanding of Cicero’s modernity in terms of the idea of equality. For Cumming, see I, 135–36, 154, n. 2, and passim. For McCoy, see (1950: 678–88), especially 683, and (1963: 78 ff). Recently, J. Atkins (2013: 152) has offered a richly grounded and persuasive claim that Cicero incorporates “a conception of rights into his theory of political society.”

Cumming (1969: I, 174).

Wood (1988: 10). MacKendrick (1989: 146) seems also to think of Cicero as “transitional,” for despite the appearance of modern political concepts in Cicero, he claims that Cicero does not appreciate the social contract solution to the question of political authority.

On Scipio as spokesman for Cicero along with appropriate cautions, see n. 6 above and Nicgorski (1991: 232, 247 nn. 6–7).

The topic is proposed and this phrase used at Rep. 1.33. Readers of the Latin text will notice at once that the announced topic concerning civitas leads with no apparent apology or clarification to a discussion of res publica. There appears to be no overall pattern regarding when Cicero uses civitas and when he uses res publica to speak of the state or commonwealth (“State” or “Commonwealth” are the standard translations for res publica; my rendering will almost invariably be “polity” or “political community”). Thus res publica is not, as one might expect, restricted to the Roman polity after the fall of the monarchy and during the period conventionally known by historians as the Republican period. See Schofield (1995: esp. p. 66 ff). For an explanation of his preference to render the term as “commonwealth” and background on this traditional rendering, see Brunt (1986: 15 n. 4).

Off. 1.153, 157–58; also see 1.12; 2.73.

Off. 1.22; 3.25; Fin. 2.45–46. In a similar fashion, Cicero understands genuine friendship as not driven by weakness or need in a narrow sense; see the discussion of friendship in the following chapter.

Rep. 6.13.

J. Atkins (2013: Chap. 2) has properly taken the approach of treating the Dream of Scipio as integral to Cicero’s political philosophy.

Rep. 1.39–41; Inv. 1.2–3; Off. 1.22; Leg. 2.11.

“Apparently” is introduced to acknowledge the difficulties posed for interpretation by the fragmentary character of the text of Rep. at this point; however, there is a strong basis in this case for the inference that Laelius is the speaker.

Rep. 3.41; there is a remarkable suggestion in this fragmented passage, which is made even more explicit in a similar passage at Off. 2.28–29, namely, that the neglect of jus in relation to non-citizens, as in foreign policy, comes to undermine the bond of jus that defines the political community among citizens. The result is that though the walls of a city may yet stand, its inhabitants will come to live in fear, and the res publica will be lost. The reverse also seems to hold in Cicero’s eyes. Courageous and just action within the citizen-body against conspirators of all kinds is significant to others standing outside citizenship, to, in effect, all peoples. Sest. 38.

Rep. 2.45, 48.

Force should be also distinguished from legal compulsion, which Cicero acknowledges (Rep. 1.3) as an instrument of political leadership; however, even laws, reports Cicero when he explains his prefaces to the various parts of his model legal code (Leg. 2.14), should win compliance by persuasion and not simply by force.

Rep. 2.46.

At the very start of Sest., Cicero links the condition of republic with the state of general or common liberty. Arena (2012) explores this and the other forms of liberty that mark the Roman Republic.

Rep. 1.52, 58; 2.4, 24 ff. especially 31. Also, How (1930: 31).

Rep. 1.51; 2.56, 61; Leg. 3.25. Schofield (1995: 77, 76, 79) writes of “a fundamental recognition of popular sovereignty” in Cicero. This seems so as long as we remain mindful, as will be clear later in this chapter in the consideration of rightful consent in Cicero, that such sovereignty is not moral sovereignty.

Inv. 1.2–3; Sest. 91–92. At Off. 2.40–42, Cicero indicates how the force of justice (vis justitiae) would animate a res publica, and how the desire for jus and specifically a fair or equitable jus, which is true jus, brought people to select the monarchs of the Roman past (see also Off. 2.73, Leg. 2.11, 3.4). All of these passages indicate, either explicitly or implicitly, that political authority is established by choice of the people—choice at least in the form of consent, choice that could and in most cases would, of course, be aided by persuasion. Nederman’s work on the Ciceronian dimension of medieval and renaissance political thought involves him in looking particularly closely at Inv. and Off., and the endeavor leads him to affirm a clear theory of consent in Cicero. He writes, “Cicero held that social and political arrangements were the product of explicit common agreement among primitive men arrived at through non-coercive means….” He adds that while not “a social ‘compact’ in the sense of a formal contract amongst a people,” Cicero’s consensual view entailed the compatibility of “a naturalistic explanation of the early development of social and political institutions” with the “doctrine that individual choice alone determined the existence of legitimate authority” (1988: 9–10); also (2000: 22). I think, on the basis of the texts considered in this section of this paper, that Nederman’s overall sound view falls short in attributing to Cicero a position that “individual choice alone” determines legitimate authority. Rather, it seems that Cicero finds that choice is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of a well-founded or wholly just government. The claim for “individual choice alone” plus the terminology of “legitimacy,” if warranted in the case of Cicero, would place him clearly on the side of the moderns.

Off. 1.12; Rep. 3.3.

Rep. 1.39, 3.43 ff.; Off. 2.28–29.

Strauss (1953: 96, n.22) cites various texts of Cicero and other ancient authors, indicating that “the assumption of savage beginnings” can be combined with “the acceptance of natural right.” According to Strauss (97), what is being indicated by such assumptions is that “man’s beginnings were necessarily imperfect.” Bellarmine, though an Aristotelian who need not as such resist imperfect beginnings, attacks “Cicero and other pagans” in his De Laicis for portraying man’s beginnings in such a savage and asocial way. His concern with Cicero’s account may, above all, be motivated by a desire to protect the literal truth of the Bible with respect to the state of the first created humans. Glenn brought this surprising critique of Cicero, along with possible explanations, to my attention in a 2004 paper that appeared in 2009 (note specifically, 73–74). Carlyle and Carlyle (1903: III, 4, 107) point to a tradition of considering primitive and even bestial beginnings to human community in the thought of Stoics and Christian fathers.

How plausible is it to think of humans as ever outside family structures of some sort? Yet Cicero’s expressions at Inv. 1.2. and Tusc. 5.5 suggest that the first stage of primitive human life was sexually promiscuous without stable married life and, accordingly, without the ability to know one’s own children. Schofield (1995: 71) claims that Inv. 1.2–3 and Sest. 91–92 are contrary to other statements (such as Rep. 1.39) of Cicero that humans are naturally gregarious. Tuck (1979: 33, 44) seems inclined to agree. I disagree. The need for leadership and rhetoric in bringing humans into stable and just political communities does not constitute a denial of human sociality. My argument is elaborated in what immediately follows.

This theme in Cicero is not limited to his Rep. as Tuck suggests (33). It is notably present in Off., which was very influential in the Renaissance.

Rep. 3.3.

The estrangement does seem to be between individuals in reports on the pre-societal state in Inv. and Tusc.

Augustine, Contra Julianum, IV. xii.60.

There appears to be no time, in Cicero’s view, when all humans are equalized by having essentially the same drives or passions, as is the case in writings of Thomas Hobbes. See the very probing and insightful reflection on the similarities and differences between Cicero and Hobbes in the appendix (E. Atkins 1990: 285–89).

1252b27–30, 1253a29–31.

E. Atkins (1990: 287–88).

In the light of origins and then maintenance and development of political communities, Cicero indicates that the right attitude, at least in the case of Rome, is one of gratitude to leaders and institutions. Sest. 136–37; Rep. 5.1–2.

Off. 1.28; Ac. 2.38–39.

Off. 1.13; Cicero appears, here, to be writing of a peak or completeness of human development in describing the sense of self-determination of that mind that desires the truth and is well-formed in it by nature (animus bene informatus a natura): a person whose mind is so formed will subject himself to no counselor, teacher, or ruler except one acting rightly and justly (juste et legitime) for true benefit (utilitatis causa). Such a self-understanding is for Cicero the basis for magnanimity (magnitudo animi…humanarumque rerum contemptio). Also, see Fetter and Nicgorski (2008) on magnanimity, as well as Schofield (2009).

Leg. 1.29 ff. (Nihil est enim unum uni tam simile, tam par, quam omnes inter nosmet ipsos sumus). However wanting one or another commentator has found Cicero’s practical commitment to equality in the form of political applications, his theoretical embrace of the principle has been widely noted. Wood finds Cicero “a sincere and dedicated egalitarian in moral principle” but “unquestionably an inegalitarian in social and political theory and practice,” and the latter is so “despite rhetorical genuflections to populus Romanus” (1988: 90–91, 96, 169). Earlier, Colish, in interpreting Leg., notes that though Cicero argues in Book I “that all men are equal by nature through the common possession of reason, he makes no attempt to apply this principle to politics” (1985: I, 102). In a similar vein, Sabine (1937:167) finds that Cicero’s theoretical “derivation of political authority from the people does not of itself imply any of the democratic consequences which in modern times have been deduced from the consent of the governed.” Cumming too resists the democratic implications of Cicero’s affirmation of equality, writing that this concept “was of no importance” to his treatment of political problems, for he sees no “egalitarian or revolutionary” implications in Cicero’s work on politics; he acknowledges the theory of consent as a “merely formal concession to the democratic demand for equality” and Cicero’s provision of liberty for the people as a grant only in a “formal, legalistic sense” (1969: I, 234, n. 74, 251). Strauss (1953: 135) hesitates to attach much importance to indications in Cicero “of a slight bias in favor of egalitarian conceptions,” noting that his “writings abound with statements which reaffirm the classical view that men are unequal in the decisive respect and which reaffirm the political implications of that view.” It seems that appreciating whatever “democratic implications” may impact on Cicero from his principles requires working out how his affirmations of equality and consent work within his larger understanding of the nature of humans and their communities. What follows is an attempt at this.

Leg. 1.33; also 1.16 and Off. 1.11–13. Another indication that Cicero regards the idea of human equality as generating the theory of consent is found in how he describes democrats arguing for a constitutional arrangement of rights and offices that makes equality the exclusive or nearly exclusive consideration. This argument, at Rep. 1.48–49, appears to assume equality as the condition among persons in the process of constituting the res publica and to use that as an agreed upon basis for arguing that only the choice of democracy as form of government produces a true res publica, res populi, by maintaining equality in jus.

Leg. 1.29–30.

Carlyle and Carlyle (1903: 64, also 15–16); note here and in the immediately preceding pages that the Carlyles’ highlighting of “modern” elements in Cicero did not blind them to Cicero’s Aristotelian dimension in maintaining the natural sociality of humans and the necessary role of inequality in political practice in the light of “human diversity and corruption” (13). In noting both Aristotelian elements and an affirmation of natural equality in Cicero, they repair to an older denigrating view of Cicero’s eclecticism (12), finding Cicero on this matter incoherent and “holding together opinions hardly capable of reconciliation.”

Rep. 3.23 and 18 on role of fear. See Leg. 1.42, also 19 and 2.9,11 for indications of Cicero’s view on this position.

Rep. 3.43–47.

This passage makes clear the normative dimension that Cicero intends with his use of res publica. There is already in Cicero’s time a tradition of speaking of the true political community as opposed to those associations simply claiming its name in common usage. Recall that Haemon, in that heated exchange with his father Creon in Sophocles’s Antigone (737), proclaims that “It’s no city (polis) at all when possessed by one man.” See Plato’s Laws (713 ff.) for the observation that there is no true law or true polity unless they exist for the common good. Aristotle writes of the political community (polis) not as every aggregation of individuals but as that which is self-sufficient for the just and good life for its members (Politics, 1252^b28–1253^a39). Neither this tradition nor Cicero, as will be clear later, scorn the common and looser usage of the term for political community though a proper, normative usage has been introduced,

My earlier observation (n. 54 above) concerning the absence of a pattern in Cicero’s use of res publica and civitas can now be recalled, and Wood’s different conclusion on this matter can be addressed. Wood concludes (1988: 126) that there is a pattern, namely that Cicero uses civitas in viewing the polity “institutionally and constitutionally” and res publica when thinking of it “in terms of common interest and right.” He does not cite any of the alternate uses of civitas and res publica in the Rep. in support of his conclusion. He points, rather, to Leg. 2.12 and Paradoxa Stoicorum 27, both being instances where Cicero argues, as he does at Rep. 3.43 ff. regarding res publica, that a civitas cannot be a civitas if it is not characterized by law—not any rules or orders, but just laws. Carlyle and Carlyle (1903: 5, 14–15) bring the ingredient of justice to the fore in their discussion of the meaning of res publica for Cicero.

Schofield, (1995: 72 ff). On the independence of the right from the public opinion in Cicero’s thought, see the previous chapter and also Tusc. 3.3; 5.104–05. The distinction between the right and the prevalent public opinion seems necessary to Cicero’s view that the true interest of the people or democrats is to be found in the best or mixed constitution (Phil. 7.4).

Mitchell makes the discerning observation that the feature of the mixed constitution that chiefly interested Cicero was the idea that stable government depended on a carefully balanced distribution of rights and powers between different elements of society. He saw these elements as two, however, corresponding to what he considered the two great natural divisions in every body politic: the mass of the people, and the few whose abilities and standing set them apart and entitled them to a position of leadership.

In terms of the political structures of the republic, this meant not so much some literal mixing of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy as a combination of libertas for the people, and auctoritas for the principes or Senate (1991: 53, 52, n. 134, 55–56).

See Vander Waerdt on Zeno’s “imaginary community” of sages, one not intended to be applicable to ordinary humans, and on the different intent of Cicero (1991: 187 ff., 196, 206 ff.; 1994a: 285 ff., 294–95).

Lacey (1978: vi) has properly observed, “Cicero was, and has always been, the most eloquent spokesman for those who believe that politics is the business of persuasion and the ballot-box, and not of coercion.”

Insofar as the normative definition of res publica incorporates the notion of the fully human life, it has implicitly contained all along the notion of self-sufficiency, which is central to Aristotle’s true polis.

Rep. 4.3, 5.6–8; Leg. 2.11. Also see Leg. 1.58 ff. and Tusc. 5.5, where law is seen as an instrument in developing and encouraging virtue. It is clear from several of the preceding passages that Cicero does not regard law as a preventing and punishing device (in other words, as an instrument of negative liberty) to be the appropriate means in all cases for pursuing the end of political community.

Clearly, there is a difference of emphasis, at the least, between my interpretation of Cicero on the end of political life and Nederman’s (2000: 26–27), who argues that Cicero “diminished the standards of public virtue in line with his belief in the primary social good of peace. Nederman does acknowledge Cicero’s concern with the character of the leadership class rather than citizens at large. Though this chapter has emphasized the role of consent and equality in Cicero’s thinking, such texts as Sest. 96–101, Mur. 15 ff., and Off. support a natural aristocracy toward which the artificial aristocracy, that is regnant in many situations, is to be bent.

See Dyck (1996: 360) on the circumstances that appear to have moved Cicero so vehemently about redistribution in this particular work.

Forms of beneficentia or liberalitas, which are primarily treated in Off. (see especially 1.92).

Off. 1.148; 3.67–69; Rep. 4.3.

Wood (1988: 11); later at 105 and 130 he acknowledges that Aristotle gives some significance to private property and seeks to differentiate, in his view, Cicero’s greater emphasis on property.

100

Wood (1988: 11, 120, 132). A close and thorough examination of Wood’s treatment of the property dimension in Cicero’s political theory is found in Barlow (2012). Wood does acknowledge (11) that Cicero has “reservations” about his alleged view that the political community exists to secure and enlarge private property. Wood’s Chap. 6 on “Private Property and Its Accumulation” tries to capture some of the complexities of Cicero’s teaching on property by portraying Cicero as holding to an “enlightened” version of “economic individualism.” Wood’s interpretation of Cicero’s thought seems colored by his suggestion of a kind of determinism or personal interest driving Cicero (105–06, 129). He writes, “Cicero’s concern with private property is by no means confined to the realm of theory. A child of his time, he displays a pronounced desire for the acquisition of possessions and his own economic advancement. His preoccupation with property in public and private life and in his writings places him squarely in the social context of the late Roman Republic.”

101

There is a similar passage at 2.78, where the protection of private property is said to be the appropriate (proprium) function of the political realm.

102

Politics, 1252b29; cf. Inv. 1.2–3, Sest. 91–92, Rep. 1.39.

103

Not only does Cicero deny that nature directly provides for private property (Off. 1.21) and offer an understanding of the political community as a common property (res publica, res populi as treated above) but he also highlights moral duties that require avoiding passivity in the face of injustice and positively contributing to the well-being of others through benevolent or charitable acts. Thus Book 1 of Off. (notably 23, 29, 31, 92) shows the resources for privileging the good of the community in specific choices over the simple protection and extension of private possessions. Book 2’s treatment of taxation and the usual corrupt motives, in Cicero’s view, for government-taking of property (74–79) as well as its use of the story of Aratus (81–84), Book 3’s invocation of private property (53) in the disputation between Antipater and Diogenes, the response to Hecaton (63) Cicero invokes, and Cicero’s portrayal (Fin. 3.67–68) of Cato’s theater-seat metaphor about the right-but-limited right of private property further show his rich resources for protecting property but not doing so in an unreasonable or absolutist way. What nature does appear to teach is that property belongs to the person endowed with the practical wisdom to use it well (Rep. 1.27; Leg. 1.25–26).

Neither Annas nor Long appear to see Cicero’s view on property and property rights as I do. Annas (1989: 167 ff.), in the course of exploring the Stoic tradition of defending private property rights as consistent with the equality of all, shows how Cicero’s statement of this tradition might be taken to claim a value higher than private property, but she concludes that Cicero is explicating, as an Academic, the Stoic tradition, and likely for himself he holds private property as the key human value. Long (1995a: 234 ff.) does not see or find significant resources in Cicero that can be and are at times employed to assert the community good or interest over property rights. He observes, “On Cicero’s interpretation of justice, any intervention by government in the sphere of private ownership, whether by taxation or appropriation, is as flagrantly wrong as an individual’s theft of another individual’s property” (235–36). However, a few pages later (240), he is, perhaps, acknowledging the presence of such resources in Cicero’s thought when he notes “the intellectual achievement” in Off. and that Cicero’s theoretical emphasis on property rights can be separated from Cicero’s politics.

104

For example, Leg. 1.32; Amic. 19–20.

105

The classic statement by Zeno, the Stoic founder, on this matter is preserved in Plutarch; see Watson (1971: 220). Pangle (1998: 238–39) describes this dimension of Cicero’s writings as “the most searching, and at the same time most profoundly sympathetic and constructive, critique of Stoic cosmopolitanism that has ever been executed….” His analysis of Cicero’s “sensible middle ground” (262) between Stoic idealism and anti-Stoic realism subsequently appears in the context of his book with Peter J. Ahrensdorf on political philosophy and international relations (1999). The Stoic background on the notion of universal citizenship and the idea that one at best develops toward such citizenship is illuminated in Schofield (1991: esp. Chap. 3). On the coincidence of utility and altruism, with respect to humanity at large, see Wright (1995: 190).

106

Leg. 2.3–5.

107

As How (1930: 30) writes, for Cicero “Rome is Italy and Italy Rome.”

108

Cat. 1.17; see also, Sest. 29–30.

109

Off. 1.50–57.

110

Off. 1.57–58; Rep. 6.16.

111

Wood (1988: 140).

112

This practical sovereignty makes understandable and even useful the tendency, remarked on in Rep. 3.34, for citizens to see their polity as the whole world and thus not to be allowed to suffer destruction.

113

E. Atkins (1990: 247 ff.) explores the tension in Cicero’s writing between his Roman patriotism and his affirmation of the universal human community. Her “suspicion” is “that Cicero never faced the question of the limits of patriotic duty…squarely….”

114

Off. 1.30; Leg. 1.33.

115

Rep. 6.13–29.

116

Barlow (1987: 371).

117

Also, Leg. 1.61–62.

Titel: Chapter 4 Political Philosophy and the Roman Republic
verfasst von: Walter Nicgorski
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US
Buch: Cicero’s Skepticism and His Recovery of Political Philosophy
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-58478-6

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-58413-7

Copyright-Jahr: 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58413-7_5