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"On the Republic" and "On the Laws"
Marcus Tullius Cicero, David Fott
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"On the Republic" and "On the Laws"
Marcus Tullius Cicero, David Fott
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Cicero's On the Republic and On the Laws are his major works of political philosophy. They offer his fullest treatment of fundamental political questions: Why should educated people have any concern for politics? Is the best form of government simple, or is it a combination of elements from such simple forms as monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy? Can politics be free of injustice? The two works also help us to think about natural law, which many people have considered since ancient times to provide a foundation of unchanging, universal principles of justice. On the Republic features a defense of politics against those who advocated abstinence from public affairs. It defends a mixed constitution, the actual arrangement of offices in the Roman Republic, against simple forms of government. The Republic also supplies material for students of Roman history—as does On the Laws. The Laws, moreover, presents the results of Cicero's reflections as to how the republic needed to change in order not only to survive but also to promote justiceDavid Fott's vigorous yet elegant English translation is faithful to the originals. It is the first to appear since publication of the latest critical edition of the Latin texts. This book contains an introduction that both places Cicero in his historical context and explicates the timeless philosophical issues that he treats. The volume also provides a chronology of Cicero's life, outlines of the two works, and indexes of personal names and important terms.
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Filosofía políticaOn the Republic
(with explanatory notes)
Book 1
[Cicero wrote prefaces in his own voice to books 1, 3, and 5. Most of the preface to book 1 is missing (the missing pages total thirty-four—i.e., seventeen leaves of the discovered manuscript), but we can obtain an indication of Cicero’s line of argument from the first fragment: he maintains that the city has a greater claim than our biological parents to our loyalty. The second fragment is just a snippet, but I leave it here because it may refer to the philosophers who reject involvement in public life, to whom Cicero refers afterward.]
Fragments from the Beginning of Book 1
1. Thus, because the fatherland secures more benefits and is an older parent than he who beg0t, surely a greater gratitude is owed to it than to a parent.1
2. from which they call away2
[When the text begins after the fragments, Cicero is arguing against those philosophers who reject public life.]
[1] * * * they would [never] have freed [Rome from attack]; nor would Gaius Duilius, Aulus Atilius, and Lucius Metellus have freed [Rome] from the terror of Carthage;3 nor would the two Scipios have extinguished the rising fire of the Second Punic War with their own blood;4 nor, when it was inflamed with greater force, would Quintus Maximus have weakened it or Marcus Marcellus5 have crushed it; nor, when it was torn from the gates of this city, would Publius Africanus have driven it within the enemy’s walls.6 Marcus Cato,7 a man unknown and the first in his family to hold high office (by whose pattern all of us who are eager for the same things are led to diligence and virtue), was certainly allowed to take delight in leisure at Tusculum, a healthful, nearby place. But that madman (as these men8 think) chose to be tossed about in these waves and storms to an extreme old age—although no necessity compelled him—rather than live most agreeably in that tranquillity and leisure. I omit countless men who were each the salvation of this city; and I leave off mentioning those who are [hardly] far from the memory of this generation, lest someone complain about the omission of himself or one of his own. I make clear this one thing: nature has given to the human race such a necessity for virtue and such a love of defending the common safety that this force will overcome all allurements of pleasure and leisure.
[2] Truly it is not enough to have virtue, as if it were some sort of art, unless you use it. In fact, even if an art can be grasped by knowledge itself without using it, virtue depends wholly upon its use. And its greatest use is the governance of the city and the completion in fact, not in speech, of the same things as these men shout about in corners. For the philosophers say nothing—at least of what may be said correctly9 and honorably—that was [not] accomplished and strengthened by those who have configured laws [ius] for cities.10 Whence comes piety, or from whom comes religion? Whence comes either the law of nations [ius gentium] or this law [ius] that is called civil?11 Whence come justice, fidelity, fairness? Whence come a sense of shame, self-control, avoidance of disgrace, desire for praise and for honorableness? Whence comes courage in labors and dangers? Without doubt, from those men who gave form to those things by training and who strengthened some of them by customs and consecrated others by laws. [3] They even report that Xenocrates, an especially noble philosopher, when he was asked what his students attained through him, responded that “they did willingly what they were compelled to do by laws.” Therefore, that citizen who compels of all persons, by official command and by penalty of laws, what philosophers by speech can scarcely persuade a few persons [to do], should be given precedence even over the teachers themselves who debate those things. For what speech of theirs is so refined that it should outrank a city well established by public law [ius] and customs? For my part, just as I think that “cities great and commanding,” as Ennius calls them,12 should be given precedence over little villages and settlements, so I hold that those who are in charge of these cities by judgment and authority should far outrank in wisdom itself those who have no part at all in public business.13 And because we are very greatly drawn to increasing the resources of the human race, and we are eager to render human life safer and more prosperous by our judgments and labors, and we are spurred toward this pleasure14 by the goads of nature itself, let us maintain this course, which has always been that of every excellent man, and let us not listen to the horns15 sounding the retreat to call back even now those who have already gone ahead.
[4] In these reasonings that are so certain and lucid, they are opposed by those who argue to the contrary, at first citing the labors that must be undertaken in defending the republic—certainly a trifling impediment to the vigilant and diligent man, and one that should be scorned not only in such matters but also in ordinary matters, whether studies, duties, or even business. The dangers to life are then mentioned. Those men put a disgraceful dread of death as an obstacle in front of courageous men, who are accustomed to see it as more wretched to be consumed by nature and old age than to be given an occasion to give back this life–which must be given back to nature anyway—in behalf of their fatherland above all else. On that point they16 consider themselves endowed with a rich vocabulary and eloquent when they collect the calamities of the most famous men and the injustices imposed on them by ungrateful fellow citizens. [5] Here they give those examples from the Greeks: both Miltiades, conqueror and master of the Persians, who, before the wounds that he had received “head-on”17 in the very famous victory had healed [and] while he was in the chains of his fellow citizens, poured out his life, which had been saved from the enemy’s weapons; and Themistocles, driven and scared away from the fatherland he had freed, who fled for refuge not to the Greek ports he had saved but to the interiors of a foreign country he had demolished. Examples are not lacking of the fickleness and cruelty of the Athenians toward their most distinguished citizens, examples that originated and spread among them and also, they say, overflowed into our highly respected city. [6] For instance, the exile of Camillus is mentioned, or the offense against Ahala, or the ill will toward Nasica, or the expulsion of Laenas,18 or the condemnation of Opimius, or the fleeing of Metellus,19 or the bitterest disaster of Gaius Marius, the slaughter of leading men, or the deaths of many others that followed shortly thereafter.20 Moreover, they do not hold back my name; and, I believe, because they think they were preserved in that life of leisure through my21 judgment and danger, they complain even more seriously and kindly about me. But by no means could I easily say why, when they themselves cross the seas for learning and visiting * * *
[Two pages are missing.]
[7] * * * [because] leaving the consulship I had taken an oath in the assembly [that the republic] was safe, and the Roman people took the same oath, I would have been easily compensated for the care and trouble of all the injustices.22 Yet my misfortunes held more honor than labor and not so much trouble as glory, and I reaped gr...