The Republic and The Laws (Oxford World's Classics)

by Cicero

  26

  Now consider this possibility. Let us imagine two people—one a man of the highest character, wholly fair-minded and just and exceptionally reliable, the other a man of remarkable wickedness and effrontery. And let us assume that a country is so mistaken as to think that the good man is wicked, villainous, and evil, while believing that the vicious man is entirely blameless and honest. Let us then suppose that, in keeping with this misconception which is shared by all the citizens, the good man is harassed, seized, has his hands cut off and his eyes gouged out; he is then condemned, clapped in irons, branded, expelled, suffers destitution, and finally, for the best of reasons, is regarded by all as utterly wretched. The villain, on the other hand, is praised, made much of, universally adored; offices, military commands, wealth, and riches of every kind are heaped upon him; in a word, he is judged by everyone to be supremely good and eminently worthy of all the gifts of fortune. Now tell me, who would be mad enough to doubt which of the two he would prefer to be?

  27

  What is true of individuals is also true of nations. No state is so stupid as not to prefer wicked dominion to virtuous subjection. I need not go far to find an instance. While I was consul and you were my advisory committee, I consulted you about the treaty of Numantia. As everybody knew, Quintus Pompeius had made a treaty, and Mancinus was in the same position. The latter, admirable man that he was, actually supported the bill which I introduced in accordance with a senatorial recommendation; the former vehemently defended his action. If self-respect, integrity, and honour are what we are looking for, Mancinus brought all these virtues to the debate; but if we want clear-headedness, practical common sense, and an awareness of our real interests, Pompeius comes out on top.

  28

  29–31. Philus concludes his defence of injustice

  [Some leaves have been lost here, but Carneades’ remarks on wisdom as opposed to justice, reported by Philus, can be recovered in part from Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones 5. 16. 5–13, of which the following is a paraphrase.]

  If a man has faulty goods for sale, should he declare their defects* If he does, he will act justly but will foolishly lose money. If he doesn’t, he will act unjustly but to his own advantage. More seriously, suppose in a shipwreck a strong man sees a weaker man on a plank, will he not push him off to save himself, especially if there are no witnesses? If he doesn’t, he will act justly but will foolishly throw away his own life. So, said Carneades, political justice is really not justice but prudence; natural justice is indeed justice, but it is at the same time folly. These are subtle and seductive arguments, and Cicero could not refute them. When Laelius is brought on to reply to Philus, he carefully avoids them. As a result he apparently fails to defend natural justice against the charge of folly; instead he defends political justice against the charge of being merely prudent.

  32–41. Laelius maintains that justice is necessary for a state’s stability

  SCIPIO (?): … I wouldn’t mind, Laelius, (taking up the defence of justice), but I believe our friends here want what I want too, namely that you also should make some contribution to our discussion, especially as you yourself promised yesterday that we’d hear more than enough from you. But that just can’t happen. So, if I may speak for the rest, please don’t let us down (Gellius 1. 22. 8).

  32

  LAELIUS: (No doubt Carneades is a very clever man) but he certainly ought not to be allowed to address our young people; for if he believes what he says, he is a filthy scoundrel; if he doesn’t, as I hope is the case, his remarks are still outrageous (Nonius, 2. 507 and 2. 508).

  … law in the proper sense is right reason in harmony with nature. It is spread through the whole human community, unchanging and eternal, calling people to their duty by its commands and deterring them from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. When it addresses a good man, its commands and prohibitions are never in vain; but those same commands and prohibitions have no effect on the wicked. This law cannot be countermanded, nor can it be in any way amended, nor can it be totally rescinded. We cannot be exempted from this law by any decree of the Senate or the people; nor do we need anyone else to expound or explain it. There will not be one such law in Rome and another in Athens, one now and another in the future, but all peoples at all times will be embraced by a single and eternal and unchangeable law; and there will be, as it were, one lord and master of us all—the god who is the author, proposer, and interpreter of that law. Whoever refuses to obey it will be turning his back on himself. Because he has denied his nature as a human being he will face the gravest penalties for this alone, even if he succeeds in avoiding all the other things that are regarded as punishments … (Quoted by Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones 6. 8. 6–9.)

  [According to Augustine, De Civitate Dei 22. 6, this book contained a discussion of the view that the best kind of state never resorts to war except in defence of its honour or its security. The same passage has the following words which editors attribute to Laelius.]

  33

  … As for the punishments which even the stupidest can feel— destitution, exile, jail, flogging—individuals often escape them by choosing the option of a quick death; but in the case of states, death, which seems to rescue individuals from punishment, is itself a punishment. For a state should be organized in such a way as to last for ever. And so the death of a state is never natural, as it is with a person, for whom death is not only inevitable but also frequently desirable. Again, when a state is destroyed, eliminated, and blotted out, it is rather as if (to compare small with great) this whole world were to collapse and pass away.

  34

  [The following quotation from Cicero’s Republic is contained in Isidore, Etymologiae 18. 1. 2]

  … wars are unjust when they are undertaken without proper cause. No just war can be waged except for the sake of punishing or repelling an enemy … no war is deemed to be just if it has not been declared and proclaimed, and if redress has not previously been sought…

  35

  [Laelius is now arguing that it is just for superior to rule over inferior. The following fragment comes from Augustine.]

  Do we not perceive that whatever is best has been granted domination by nature herself, to the great advantage of the weak? Why else does God rule over man, mind over body, reason over desire, anger, and the other wicked elements in the same soul? (Contralulianum 4. 12. 61).

  36

  … But one has to recognize that there are different kinds of ruling and serving. The mind is said to rule over the body and also over desire; but in the former case its rule is like that of a king over his subjects, or a father over his children; in the latter case its rule resembles that of a master over his slaves, in that it subdues and crushes desire. The rule of kings, magistrates, senates, and people’s assemblies over citizens and allies is like that of mind over body; but masters break the spirit of their slaves, just as the best element in the soul, namely wisdom, breaks the hold of the unruly and wicked elements in the same soul, such as desire, anger, and the other disruptive forces … (Ibid.)

  37

  … that control over the body’s limbs resembles control over one’s own sons, because of their ready obedience, whereas the bad elements of the soul are kept in subjection, like slaves, by a harsher discipline (Augustine, De Civitate Dei 14. 23).

  [Laelius is now talking about the rewards which goodness (virtus) may expect. The passage survives in Lactantius, whose comments are paraphrased in the parentheses.]

  Goodness clearly likes to be honoured, and it has no other reward. (But the Bible, which you knew nothing about, shows that there is another reward.) Yet, while it readily accepts the reward of honour, it does not stridently demand it. (You are seriously mistaken if you think that goodness can ever receive its reward from men. Why, you yourself in another passage rightly said) What riches will you offer as an incentive to such a man? What kinds of power? What kingdoms? Such things in his view are human possessions; he regards his own goods as divine
. (Inconsistencies of this kind arise from your ignorance of the truth. You then go on to say) But if everyone is ungrateful, or many are resentful, or the powerful few are hostile, and so deprive goodness of its rewards (Only a feeble and vacuous goodness can be deprived of its rewards. If, as you said before, its rewards are divine, how can such malicious people withhold them? It is true, however, that as Laelius says) it consoles itself with many comforts, and sustains itself above all with its own beauty (Divinae Institutiones 5. 18. 4–8).

  40

  [Laelius now refers to great men who rose above worldly rewards.]

  … their bodies (i.e. the bodies of Hercules and Romulus) were not raised to heaven; for nature would not allow that something with an earthly origin should exist anywhere except on earth (Augustine, De Civitate Dei 22. 4.)

  … the most valiant men never (fail to receive the rewards) of valour, energy, and endurance (Nonius, 1. 181).

  … I suppose Fabricius felt deprived of the riches offered by Pyrrhus, or Curius of the Samnites’ costly presents! (Nonius, 1. 192).

  … When he was staying at his Sabine villa, our great friend, Cato, as he told us himself, used to visit this man’s hearth. That was where (Curius) had sat when he refused the gifts of the Samnites, once his enemies but now his clients (Nonius, 1. 95 and 3. 840).

  [Laelius now refers to Tiberius Gracchus, perhaps as one who failed to eschew worldly rewards.]

  … Tiberius Gracchus continued (to act properly) in the case of Roman citizens, but he ignored the rights which had been guaranteed by treaty to the allies and to those with Latin status. If that kind of lawless behaviour becomes more widespread and drags our empire away from justice into violence, so that people who up to now have willingly accepted our authority are kept loyal by terror, then, even if we in our generation have been reasonably alert to this danger, I am still worried about our descendants, and about the survival of our empire—an empire which could remain permanent if people continued to live by our forefathers’ principles and values.

  41

  42–8. Scipio reverts to his original definition of a republic as the property of the public. Tyranny, oligarchy, and mob rule fail to meet this definition, since they lack justice. The book breaks off as the speakers begin to discuss the uncorrupted versions of the three simple forms of government

  When Laelius had finished speaking, all present indicated their great pleasure at what he had said. But Scipio, carried away with something approaching fervour, went beyond the others.

  42

  SCIPIO: Well, Laelius, you have defended many a case so ably that I would put you not only above my colleague Servius Galba, whom you used to judge supreme in his lifetime, but even above any of the Attic orators* in charm …

  [Six leaves are missing.]

  SCIPIO: … SO who would call that a republic, i.e. the property of the public, when everyone was oppressed by the cruelty of a single man, and there was not one bond of justice nor any of that social agreement and partnership which constitute a community? The same was true of Syracuse. That was an outstanding city. Timaeus calls it the largest in Greece and the finest in the world. Yet its striking citadel, its harbour, which extended right into the heart of the town and lapped against the foundations of its buildings, the broad streets, the porticoes, temples, and walls still did not succeed in making it a republic as long as Dionysius was in power. For nothing belonged to the public, and the public itself belonged to one man. Therefore, wherever there is a tyrant, one cannot say, as I maintained yesterday, that there is a defective republic; logic now forces us to conclude that there is no republic at all.

  43

  LAELIUS: You’ve put it admirably. I now see where the argument is moving.

  44

  SCIPIO: And do you see, then, that a place totally controlled by a clique cannot truly be called a republic either?

  LAELIUS: Yes, I’m quite clear about that.

  SCIPIO: And you’re absolutely right. For what became of ‘the property of the Athenian public’ when, after the great Peloponnesian war, the notorious Thirty exercised their power without a semblance of justice? Did the country’s ancient glory, or the celebrated beauty of the city with its theatre, gymnasia, porticoes, its famous Propylaea, its citadel and the marvellous works of Phidias, or the magnificent Piraeus make it a republic?

  LAELIUS: Certainly not, because it was not the property of the public.

  SCIPIO: Well then, what about the time when the Board of Ten ruled in Rome without permitting appeals, in that third year when freedom itself had lost all its rightful possessions?

  LAELIUS: The property of the public did not exist. Or rather, the public had to take action to recover its property.

  SCIPIO: I come now to the third type of government [i.e. democracy]. Here there may seem, perhaps, to be some difficulty. When everything is supposed to be done through the people and to be in the people’s control, when the masses punish whoever they please, when they seize, carry off, hold on to, or squander whatever they like, can you deny then, Laelius, that a republic exists, when everything belongs to the public? After all, our definition of a republic is ‘the property of the people’.

  45

  LAELIUS: Actually there is no state to which I should be quicker to refuse the name of republic than the one which is totally in the power of the masses. If we decided that there was no republic in Syracuse or Agrigentum or Athens when tyrants held sway, or here in the regime of the Ten, I don’t see how there is any stronger case for applying the name of republic to a state enslaved by the mob. In the first place, for me there is no public except when it is held together by a legal agreement, as you rightly laid down, Scipio. That rabble is just as tyrannical as one man, and all the more repellent in that there is nothing more monstrous than a creature which masquerades as a public and usurps its name. It is quite inconsistent that, when the property of the insane is placed by law in the hands of male relatives because the former (are no longer capable of managing it themselves, the property of the public should be left in the hands of an insane mob) … [Four leaves are missing, in which Scipio argued that monarchy, in its uncorrupted form, could be regarded as a republic]

  … The points which I have just adduced in connection with monarchy could also be used to show why (an aristocracy, too,) is a republic and the property of the people.

  46

  MUMMIUS: Yes, and with much greater force; for a king, being a single individual, is more accurately compared to a master. On the other hand, nothing could be more fortunate than a state in which several good men are in charge of affairs. Yet I still prefer even a monarchy to an unfettered democracy. That third type of government, which you have still to discuss, is the most defective of all.

  SCIPIO: That shows, Spurius, your well-known antidemocratic attitude! Still, though such a system can be more easily put up with than you admit, I agree that of the three types it is the least desirable. But I don’t agree with you that aristocracy is superior to monarchy. If it is good sense that governs a state, what does it matter whether that quality is exercised by one or by a group? But in arguing like this we are misled by a confusion of terms. When a group is called an aristocracy, nothing, it seems, could be more impressive (for what is conceivably better than ‘the best’?). But when mention is made of a king, we think at once of a bad king.* Here, however, we are not talking about a bad king; we are concerned with the concept of a state ruled by a monarch. So imagine that your king is a Romulus or a Pompilius or a Tullius. Perhaps you will not be so critical of a state like that.

  47

  MUMMIUS: So what remains to be said in favour of democracy?

  48

  SCIPIO: Well, tell me, Spurius, do you not think that Rhodes, which we visited together not so long ago, has some kind of republic?

  MUMMIUS: I think it does—and by no means a contemptible one at that.

  SCIPIO: Quite right. But, if you recall, all the citizens were both common people and senators. A rota system
decided which months they should serve as commoners and which as senators. They received payment in both capacities for attending meetings. The same men heard all cases, including those of a capital nature, in the theatre and in the senate house. The senate had as much power, and as much prestige, as the masses …

  FRAGMENTS OF BOOK 3

  1. I Loeb, 24]… for when he was asked what criminal urge impelled him to plague the sea with his solitary sloop, he answered ‘the same urge that makes you plague the world’ (Nonius 1. 181;

  2. 498; 3. 856–7).

  2. [Loeb, 35]… Our nation has now attained world power by defending its allies (Nonius, 3. 800).

  3. [Loeb, 3 8] … for there is a type of unjust slavery when people who could be their own masters are subject to somebody else; but in the case of those who are (fit only to be) slaves (no injustice is done) (Nonius, 1. 155).

  4. [Loeb, 42, about Isocrates?] … that he was lacking in two things which prevented him from addressing the public or speaking in the law-courts, namely confidence and vocal power (Nonius, 2. 401).