General Notes on Cicero's
Political Thought
Having realized that it would be impossible to get through all
of the de Re Publica and the de Officiis in a timely manner if I
continued to lecture in as much detail and with as much attention to
the text as I was doing before the break, I decided a more compendious
approach was in order. What is more, it seems that after the break, we
could all use a bit of refreshing about what we were talking about
before the break. So this page repeats some of what was covered in the
week or so before break.
This page is largely inspired by and is a presentation of E.M.
Atkins chapter on Cicero
from The Cambridge History of Greek
and Roman Political Thought. Indication of quotations and
citations of page numbers would be tedious, but the reader should know
that Atkins' chapter is the source of the structure of this page. Much
of the wording has been changed to my own idiom.
Cicero's background is relevant to his political thought: he was
a novus homo, a man whose
family had never before had one of its members achieve the consulship.
He was from Arpinum. In his life, he governed Rome, Sicily, and
Cilicia. He studied at Rome and in Greece. He was widely read.
Cicero knew that no political regime lasts forever. Conscious of that,
he nonetheless argued that the Roman republic was the most stable
regime available. As a novus homo
and an intellectual, he had the fervor of a convert combined with the
scholarly urge, and so he put in writing the aristocratic ideals of the
Roman republic of his time.
He set the scene of the de Re Publica
in Rome's past, possibly because he was convinced that the tradition,
and the fact that it was a tradition, not a pie-in-the-sky intellectual
endeavor, gave what he wrote gravitas and credibility. But he was
deeply familiar with the more theoretical discussions of politics that
Greek philosophy offered, and he reacts to, reshapes, and uses that
tradition extensively in his writings.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Republic was governed by a few
aristocratic families, but it was not a closed club. New blood
could enter. Cicero was one of them. Those few families are known as
patricians. They were the governing
class. They were wealthy too, but considered such things beneath them.
But there was a parallel wealthy class called the equites ("knights") who ruled the world of
property and finance
in Rome. They did not have political duties or privileges. But they
could stand for office and thereby switch over to the patricians.
Voting was weighted in Rome towards the wealthy and aristocrats. What
is more, although anyone could stand for office, in practice, only the
aristocrats did most of the time.
The people had significant opportunities to exercise their political
power particularly when there was disagreement and conflict in the
aristocratic class (remember Thersites).
"OPEN-AIR SOCIETY"
victorious generals => triumphs => election
lavish funerals =>publicity => election
important court cases => renown => election
Reputation => election
POPULARES
Those who favored reforms that would give more to the people were known
as 'polulares.' It was not a party in our sense, but rather a tendency
which some politicians followed some of the time. The paradigm
populares were the Gracchi brothers, Gaius and Tiberius, both of whom
were killed in the early to mid 2nd c. BCE. Measures of populares were
one force that caused tension in the system.
GROWTH
The empire grew and grew. Individual military commanders accrued
immense power and could hold it for a long time (as opposed to consuls
who were consul for one year only).
ALLIES
Individual ties to the provinces and allies were of great import.
MILITARY LEADERS
From the time when Marius encouraged the propertyless to enroll in the
Roman army in 107BCE, individual military commanders came to wield so
much power that there were not effective checks and balances on their
power.
ARISTOCRATIC CODE
Everything was cast in moral terms: virtue and vice, justice and
injustice, etc.
The code was an inherited one: mos
maiorum, and was to a large extent responsible for keeping
things on track in Rome.
Education via historical heroes: actual historical personages held up
for emulation.
Education via apprenticeship to powerful individuals who knew the code.
Respect for precedent was deeply engrained.
The family, not the individual was the locus of pride and reputation.
"In theory, individual and familial ambitions were channeled to benefit
the greater whole. There was thus an inherent tension in the system
between competitive and socially directed values."
LIBERTY
For the powerful, it consisted in preventing one from becoming supreme.
For the people, it meant equality before the law, right of appeal,
voting.
CICERO'S CAREER
Cicero's initial education with L Licinius Crassus the orator,
Quintus Mucius Scaevola the Augur and his cousin Quintus Mucius
Scaevola the Pontifex, both of whom were lawyers. He got from theme a
passion for moderated conservatism.
Philosophically, he was influenced and learned from the Stoic Diodotus
and the head of the Academy Philo of Larissa, a sceptic. Then he went
to Greece from 77-79 and studied under the Stoic Posidonius and the
Academic Antiochus of Ascalon, an Old Academy man.
Cicero followed scepticism in that he held that one should examine all
sides, then choose one, but not be dogmatic about it. But he also
admired and took material from stoics, peripatetics, and Platonists.
The only ones he rejected explicitly were Epicureans (although he
sometimes seems to take something from them too). Cicero's closest
friend Atticus was an Epicurean.
When he was unable to be politically active, Cicero wrote philosophical
works. It was clearly a substitute, not his most preferred activity.
Cicero rose to power through being an orator. He took on important
cases and acquitted himself well. First, he defended Sextus Roscius
Ameria against a supporter of Sulla the dictator. Then the Verrines in
69 BCE against an exploitative governor of Sicily.
As consul in 63, his first action was defeating land reform. But his
main claim to fame as consul was putting down the rebellion of
Catiline, who was following the populares tendency.
After his consulship, the triumvirate of Pompey, Caesar and Crassus
made Cicero's brand of politics, moderate conservatism, out of favor.
What is more, Cicero had a powerful aristocratic enemy, Publius
Clodius, who drove Cicero into exile in 58 (he was recalled the next
year, but it had a significant effect on his career and person).
Under Caesar and Pompey, Cicero was not happy. His "concord of the
orders" could not come to be without free senatorial debate, free law
courts, and a free republic. He was compelled to defend personal
enemies and forced to renounce some of his ideas.
- His "concord of the orders" pictured a republic in
which all the classes, rich, poor, aristocrat, knight, plebeian,
financial, governing, etc. would unite in supporting the republic and
reject revolution. He saw it as a sorto of harmony of different
elements.
- During this time (the 50's), Cicero wrote de Oratore, about rhetoric. The
orator, it turns out, is also the statesman. The primary question of
the work was whether an orator need be broadly learned. It is in part a
reaction to the Gorgias. The
Roman ideal, for Cicero, was an orator who combined rhetorical ability
with broad learning: theory and experience come together in one person.
- The de Republica
- follows Plato's Republic
in many of its concerns
- justice
- origin of the best city
- criteria for best city
- long-term stability
- education of leaders
- philosophical principles
- education
- the afterlife
- differs as well
- concrete versus purely theoretical
- historical/empirical versus purely theoretical
- trust of experience and the actual as opposed to the purely
theoretical
- Structure
- 6 books, comprised of three days of discussion
- first day: books I and II
- What is the best state?
- Rome as visual aid to theory
- follows Polybius:
- Rome as sampling of the best of the three pure options
- consul as best of monarchy: imperium
- senate as best of aristocracy: consilium
- elections, plebeian assembly, and tribunes as best of
democracy: libertas
- liberty includes access to office and a judicial
role
- government as a trust: something given by the
people to the magistrates in trust
- of the three, the authority of the senate is the most
important for Cicero: the leadership of the best citizens must be there
for the best republic
- each generation improves the inherited tradition
- illustrated by kings in book II
- second day: books III and IV
- justice and human nature
- justice as sine qua
non for best state
- distributive justice
- justice vis-a-vis external states
- justification of empire
- Athenian Embassy to Rome of 155 BCE
- three philosophers went to Rome
- the occasion was Roman fine imposed on Athens for
trying to seize Oropus
- argument was made that justice is single,
unchanging, universal, and innate in humans (a Stoic view)
- civil (Epicurean) versus natural justice (Stoic)
- justice as culture specific
- justice as self-interest (not to be harmed)
- the main challenge for the speaker Laelius is to
show that Roman Rule really is just even though it is a sensible thing.
- St. Augustine summary seems to indicate that his
argument was a form of paternalism: Roman rule saved subjects from
themselves.
- Roman imperialism defended as defense of allies
- the historic Scipio was at the time of de Re Publica's setting attaching
Tiberius Gracchus for land reform because
it deprived Italian allies of their rights.
- third day: books V and VI (quite fragmentary)
- the best citizen
- education
- conduct in crisis
- Cicero cast the discussion in terms of wisdom, virtue,
and morality
- Roman virtue is held up not as military prowess, but as
wise decisions
- failures blamed in corruption of the aristocrats
- Most famous part of de
Re Publica: Scipio's dream
- Scipio meets his dead grandfather Scipio Africanus
- Grandpa foretells Scipio's greatness
- Grandpa says that politics is a small stage compared to
the divine scale of the cosmos; Pales to insignificance
- True statesman rewarded by going to heaven.
- The de Re Publica was
published in 51 BCE and a letter from Caelius to Cicero (ad Fam. VIII.1.4) says it was
popular.
- The de Legibus
- Apparently never published!
- Clearly intended as a companion to the de Re Publica
- Concrete example of Rome combined with Greek emphasis on reason
and theory
- Structure
- Book I: origin of justice
- Natural law is discovered by reason, independently
- But generations of Roman legislators have created a legal
system that is largely in harmony with or identical to natural law
- Facets of and ?an argument for the existence of natural law?
- gods give certain things to humans as gifts and duties
- there is one shared ratio
vivendi (1.35) and coniunctio
hominum (1.16): a principle of living together
- humans share a natural affection for and societas bound together by justice
- true law = right
reason
- right reason is what belongs to all humans qua humans and
is fully developed in some
- right reason is shared by gods and humans
- thus, normal human development leads to just humans
- 1.33 says that one wise human loves other (wise?) humans
as much as him or her self
- justice
- true justice arises from natural human inclinations, not
the contractual threat of punishment
- true justice not equal to written law (written law could
enforce robbery)
- true justice not a matter of what is useful: it is good
for its own sake
- true justice is an objective matter
- Cicero describes his opponents as claiming that justice is
defined differently by different communities
- It's not clear whether Cicero thinks there is an actual
code of laws that can be discovered or rather that there is a
divine/human reason that can serve to identify what is naturally just
- It seems that Cicero is actually arguing that there is one
single system of law and justice which is largely the same as the
actual traditional Roman constitution that every community would be
best off implementing.
- The assumption is that reason and human experience should
lead to the same answer to the question what is justice.
- A further assumption is that human law (at least that of
Rome) comes closer and closer over time to natural law (rather than
simply changing as circumstances change).
- And yet, in emergencies, law can and should be suspended
(e.g. Cicero's actions against Catiline's conspiracy and later Antony)
- Perhaps the thorny impossibility of reconciling all of
these claims led Cicero to postpone publication and to plan a revision
of de Legibus (which he
apparently never accomplished)
- Book II: religious law
- Book III: magistracies
- at least two more books, perhaps about education and the
courts
- THE CIVIL WAR BETWEEN POMPEY AND CAESAR
- Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army in 49: he refused to
lay aside his military command and return to Rome, because once he did
so, he was vulnerable to prosecution.
- Cicero chose Pompey's side, the losers.
- We can see Cicero debating what he should do:
- the watchwords and principles of the debate
- friendship: amicitia
- glory: gloria
- the republic: res
publica
- duty/obligation/appropriate action: officium.
- Letter to his friend Atticus 9.4.2: should tyranny be
overthrown at the cost of the safety of the state? may a statesman
retire in bad times, or must he act for freedom?
- Letter to his friend Atticus 7.14.3: peace is better even
than a just civil war
- he was wrestling with duty to family, friends, and state
- Pompey was his 'friend'
- Pompey offered some hope
- those citizens whom Cicero considered good supported
Pompey
- Pompey offered a better hope of a restored republic
- Cicero's prior actions made him lean toward Pompey as a
matter of constancy
- loyalty to family demanded neutrality
- what did the state demand?
- Caesar won and pardoned Cicero.
- But there was no longer a role for free debate and a
contribution for Cicero to make on Cicero's terms
- Hence Cicero withdrew and wrote philosophy
- Philosophy as a service to the state when the actions
befitting a statesman were not an option
- Cicero wrote extensively between Caesar's victory and the
Ides of March of 44 BCE when Caesar was assassinated.
- After the Ides: more politically oriented philosophy
- de Amicitia about
friendship: a political virtue
- friendship should not lead one against the republic (an
attack on Antony?)
- de Officiis
- Dec of 44: written while he was becoming more active
again in politics
- the title refers to the Stoic concept of to kathekon, the "appropriate"
- Cicero transformed that into officium, a Latin term for
"obligation"
- has different connotation than to kathekon: it involves others, a
relational word
- also has greater linkage to one's particular role:
different roles => different obligations
- It was written as advice to his son Marcus, who was off
in Athens for his education
- It is clearly somehow modeled on Panaetius the Stoic's
work on to kathekon.
- Some claim it is slavishly derivative
- That seems unlikely
- Characteristic melding of the theoretical Greek with
the more empirically-grounded Roman
- Cicero declares that he is criticizing and modifying,
not just expounding what Panaetius said
- Structure:
- Book I
- What is the honorable (honestas)?
- The four cardinal virtues: justice, fortitude,
temperance, prudence
- Stoic versus Academic versus Peripatetic
- Stoic view is uncompromising: virtue is the only
good
- Academic and Peripatetic: virtue is the supreme
good, but other things can be good too
- Book II
- What is the useful (utilitas)?
- is it different from the honorable?
- Book III
- case studies where the useful and the honorable seem
to conflict
- Cicero's conclusion: combination: nothing can be good
unless honorable and nothing is honorable unless good
- Note: "good" means "beneficial": thus by substitution,
nothing can be beneficial unless honorable, and nothing honorable
unless beneficial
- Note 2: "beneficial" things are useful...
- In appearance the honorable and the useful can
conflict
- In actuality, they cannot
- rule for cases of apparent conflict:
- "for one man to take
something from another and to increase his own advantage at the cost of
another's disadvantage is more contrary to nature than death, than
poverty, than pain, and than anything else that may happen to his body
or external possessions." III.21
- "Nature prescribes that
one human should want to consider the interests of another, whoever he
may be, for the very reason that he is a human" III.27
- "Parents are dear, and
children, relations and acquaintances are dear, but our country alone
has embraced all the affections of us all." I.57
- Altruism as a natural property of humans?
- Robbing and doing violence actually hurt the
perpetrator
- They also destroy the bonds of society, which are
what preserves the republic
- Thus the duty of justice is to preserve societal
bonds and thereby the republic
- Was Caesar's assassination justified
- Yes, because it actually preserved societal
bonds
- tyrants are like lifeless limbs: they need
amputation because they harm the body
- Nature prescribes obligations of justice to us even
more than obligations of wisdom: Cicero is reversing the order of
the Greeks, who held that the life of science is superior to the life
of the politician
- For Cicero, justice has two aspects
- justice itself
- injustice is harming others or failing to prevent
harm
- justice is preventing harm/not harming others
- Justice is also serving the common good
- A prerequisite for justice is fides, loyalty/trust
- society is held together by trust
- citizens require fides of their elected officials
- Justice is also concerned with maintenance of
private property
- major concern here was populares measures such as agrarian
measures and debt relief
- the state has as one of its purposes the
maintenance of private property
- Why be unjust
- absorption in philosophy/science, etc
- reluctance to make enemies
- justice as liberality
- one should give to others
- but only in accordance with their worth
- and only in accordance with one's means
- liberality such as agrarian legislation or debt
relief is not appropriate: it is both unjust and not useful
- courage or greatness of spirit
- great spirits could derail the common good, but
greatness of spirit was nonetheless a virtue
- politicians could display as much greatness of spirit
as soldiers
- without justice, greatmenss of spirit was a vice
- Cicero also championed gloria and dignitas
- Greek philosophers reject reputation as a good: it is
fickle, treacherous, and has no intrinsic value
- Cicero acknowledges that glory can lead the ambitious
astray, but holds that it is a positive good for people who pursue only
the honorable.
- Once again, without justice, glory-seeking is a vice.
- Shame too is a virtue
- one should not cause outrage to other humans
- each person has four personae
- as a human
- as this particular human with this character
- as this particular human in these circumstances of
fortune
- as an individual with a particular career
- different aspects of a person demand different virtues
- Cato's character required his suicide
- Other people were not required to commit suicide
Atkins' conclusion:
"It may have been naive, but it was not, surely, valueless, to suggest
an alternative strategy [to tyranny] for restoring and maintaining
peace. The ethos of the Roman Republic, ti which Cicero gave personal
philosophical Expression, was to possess a lasting appeal." P516