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Title: The republic of Cicero - Translated from the Latin; and Accompanied With a Critical - and Historical Introduction.
Author: Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Language: English
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[Illustration:
_Specimen palimpsesti vaticani._
_Imbert’s Lithographic Facsimile._
]
THE
REPUBLIC OF CICERO,
TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN;
AND ACCOMPANIED WITH A
CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
BY
G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH, ESQ.
FELLOW OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON; OF THE AMERICAN
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; OF THE LYCEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY OF NEW-YORK, &C.
&C. &C.
[Illustration]
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY G. & C. CARVILL, 108 BROADWAY.
1829.
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW-YORK, ss.
Be it remembered, that on the 23d day of January, A. D. 1829, in the
fifty-third year of the Independence of the United States of America, G.
& C. Carvill, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the
title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the
words following, to wit:
“The Republic of Cicero, translated from the Latin; and accompanied with
a Critical and Historical Introduction. By G. W. Featherstonhaugh, Esq.,
Fellow of the Geological Society of London; of the American
Philosophical Society; of the Lyceum of Natural History of New-York, &c.
&c. &c.”
In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled, “An
Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps,
charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during
the times therein mentioned;” and also, to an Act, entitled, “An Act,
supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of
learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the
authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein
mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing,
engraving, and etching historical and other prints.”
FRED. I. BETTS,
_Clerk of the Southern District of New-York_.
ERRATA.
INTRODUCTION, p. 22, line 12, dele “then.”
DO. p. 27, line 16, for “requires,” read “require.”
Sleight & George, Printers, Jamaica, L. I.
TO
RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, ESQ.
F. R. S., F. G. S., &c. &c. &c.
I dedicate these pages to you, my dear MURCHISON, that you may have a
renewed assurance of my great esteem and friendship for you. I should
have had a livelier satisfaction in doing so, if the part I have had in
the production of them, were more worthy of your refined taste. I hope
to offer some compensation, however, in the assurance, that you will
find in them many congenial opinions and principles.
G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH.
New-York, January 21, 1829.
PREFACE.
I am not aware that any translation of the Republic of Cicero into the
English tongue has been made.
Believing that it cannot but excite a deep interest with generous minds,
as well on account of the high nature of the subject, the illustrious
name of Cicero, as of the great motives which led him to compose this
work, I venture to offer a translation of it to the public.
In this extensive republic, where every individual reads, it appears
peculiarly proper, that an English dress should be given to a work, of
which almost every page teaches that public happiness depends upon
individual virtue.
Cicero’s definition of a republic, that it is an association of the
people for the defence and advancement of the common interest; will be
understood here, which may be doubtingly said of any other republics now
in existence.
A bare translation of the fragments of this mutilated work, unassisted
by any commentary, could not but have been unsatisfactory. The
deficiencies of the original are somewhat compensated to us, not alone
in the grandeur of thought which pervades it, but in the majesty of
diction, precise, elevated, as it frequently is, and always governed by
the most refined taste. It would be a vain effort to attempt the dignity
of the Latin tongue, when adorned with the elegancies of the Ciceronian
style. Humbly as the translation may deserve to be considered, it will
perhaps be deemed sufficiently faithful: and that the translator has not
altogether failed in pointing out to grave and reflecting minds, the
immediate cause of the ruin of a noble Republic.
He has therefore prefixed a brief historical introduction; the which,
whether it will be thought too long, or not sufficiently detailed, will
probably depend upon the reader’s historical recollections. The motive
for drawing it up was to render the work more generally useful and
acceptable.
INTRODUCTION.
The imperfect manuscript, a translation of which is now presented to the
American public, was discovered in the Library of the Vatican, by
Professor Angelo Mai; a person of singular ingenuity in the detection of
those Palimpsests whose contents were written upon ancient writings
partially erased. A fac simile of part of the MSS. accompanies this
work. The Republic of Cicero was greatly cherished by those who lived in
and near his times; of which occasional evidences are found in the
writings of antiquity. But the tyranny of the emperors bridled the
Romans so soon after its appearance, that Horace, Virgil, Seneca,
Quintilian, Pliny, and even Tacitus, have not dared to praise it, lest
they should bring down vengeance upon themselves. It is remarkable that
while despotism was rapidly extinguishing philosophy and letters, and
the very existence of these precious monuments of better times was
scarcely thought of; the Christian religion was gradually raising up
amidst the persecutions of the primitive church, new champions for truth
and justice; to whose works we are indebted for many valuable fragments
of the best writers of antiquity, and for almost all the passages of
Cicero’s Republic which we were acquainted with, until the late
discovery of professor Mai. It is in the works of St. Augustin and of
Lactantius that these passages most abound; and they are appealed to by
them as most eloquent arguments, in support of just government, and
virtuous conduct. Scipio’s Dream, forming the only part of the sixth
book which has been preserved, and which is one of the most splendid
passages that has been saved from antiquity, has long had a place in the
works of Macrobius, a writer at the beginning of the fifth century,
addicted to the Pythagorean mysticisms; and who has preserved it
probably on account of the occult astronomical relation of numbers
contained in it. Notwithstanding the mutilated state of the MSS., the
order of the books is distinctly preserved, the general plan of the work
is obvious, and we have much greater reason to rejoice at what we
possess, than to regret what is wanting. The disordered state of the
government and the republic at large, evidently suggested to Cicero this
patriotic and bold attempt to stem the influence of bad men, and raise
the falling liberties of his country. In this highly philosophical
discourse he sought to recall the Romans from the interests of ambitious
individuals, and fix their attention upon the greater interests of the
country, where each man had a stake: to revive their veneration for the
simplicity of the early institutions of Rome, and for the men who had
made themselves illustrious by their virtues: and to guard the people
more effectually against the innovations and factions now succeeding
each other with so much rapidity, he invests those ancient times with a
perfection, that the attractions of his eloquence alone can excuse.
Of the original simplicity of the government, some evidences are
afforded by this work; as where it is stated that lands were assigned to
the sovereign, and cultivated for him by the people, that he might have
nothing to do but administer justice. The principal men too of the state
in those early times lived in the vicinity of Rome, cultivating a small
possession. The illustrious names of Fabius, Lentulus, Cicero, &c., were
perhaps given to those husbandmen who excelled in the cultivation of
those vegetables; such was the opinion of Pliny.[1]
The censor had the power of reprimanding those whose fields were
slovenly cultivated. Many customs of those antique times are found in
Cato’s curious Treatise on Rural Affairs. “Our ancestors constituted and
ordained thus in their Laws: A thief was condemned to double
restitution; an usurer to quadruple. You may judge from this how much
worse a citizen they deemed the usurer to be than the thief. And when
they praised a worthy man, they spoke thus of him: ‘that he was a good
farmer, an excellent husbandman.’ He that was commended in these terms,
was thought to be praised enough.”[2] And again speaking of a good
husbandman, he says, “He should part with his old cattle, his weaned
calves and lambs, his wool, his skins, his old carts and worn out irons,
his old slaves, and his sick ones; and if he has got any thing else he
does not want, let him sell it. A father of a family ought always to
sell and never to buy.” Dion says that a messenger summoned the
patricians by name, but that the people were convened _by the blowing of
a horn_.[3] But the splendid military government which soon grew up,
gave both state employment and riches to that class once distinguished
for their industry and frugality. Agriculture was abandoned to slaves,
and men branded for crimes: it was no longer deemed an honourable
employment. Luxury and habits of profusion made it necessary for
conspicuous men to acquire the means of indulging in them, at the
expense of principle and patriotism. At length when sensual
gratifications became dearer to a majority of the Romans than liberty,
the republic was overthrown, and military despotism accomplished the
circle of military influence; extinguished every spark of light and
liberty; stripped the empire of its moral and physical power, and left
it unmindful of its past glorious existence, to perish in a blind and
helpless old age.
Marcus Tullius Cicero was born at Arpinum, a city of the Samnites, which
had long enjoyed the freedom of Rome. His family was an ancient one, and
of the equestrian order; which comprehended the most respectable gentry
of the empire, who were only inferior in rank to the patricians. Having
assumed the manly gown at his sixteenth year, he immediately began to
acquire a knowledge of the laws of his country, under the two Scævolas,
eminent persons of that day. The Marsian war, and the civil broils of
Marius and Sylla, the former of whom was also a native of Arpinum,
occurred during the prosecution of his civil studies; and although they
gave some interruption to them, yet these violent contentions falling
immediately under his observation, he became at an early period
accustomed to consider the political situation of his country. These
circumstances no doubt had some influence in deciding his future career;
although the rare natural activity of his mind would perhaps have led
him under any situation to the investigation of all moral and physical
relations. Prompted by this impulse, he now began the study of Grecian
philosophy under the learned Athenians who fled to Rome from the
persecutions of Mithridates, and afterwards perfected himself in it
under Molo the Rhodian; a man so distinguished, that he was permitted to
address the Roman Senate in the Greek tongue without an interpreter.
About the age of twenty-six, with his mind filled with all the knowledge
taught at that period, he first began to plead at the Forum. His
celebrated successful defence of S. Roscius was made soon after, in
which he braved, what the other Roman orators had not dared to do, the
resentment of Sylla. By this bold measure, the generosity of his
character, as well as the force of his talents, were developed, and his
reputation established as the most powerful orator of Rome. He visited
Athens not long after this period, partly to avoid the displeasure of
Sylla, and partly to renew the study of philosophy, which he here
pursued with great ardour. His friend Atticus, who was at Athens at the
same time, had embraced the Epicurean doctrines; but Cicero appears at
this early period to have believed in a future state; a doctrine which
at a later period he has most eloquently recorded in his celebrated
Dream of Scipio. At the end of two years, he returned to Rome, greatly
improved by his intercourse with the philosophers and orators of Greece
and Asia.
In his thirty-first year, and not long after his marriage, he was
elected to the quæstorship, which opened his way to the Senate. One of
the provinces of Sicily fell to him by lot, and he exercised his
quæstorial functions with such moderation and ability, as to induce the
Sicilians to confer extraordinary honours upon him at the termination of
his year; when he returned to Rome, determined henceforward to withdraw
himself as little as possible from the eyes of the Roman people. In his
thirty-seventh year he received the unanimous suffrages of all the
tribes for the edileship, which introduced him into the magistracy. The
exhibition of the shows and games, which was the province of the ediles,
was conducted by Cicero with great satisfaction to the people, and
without injuring materially his own private fortune. In this he achieved
a difficult point, which marks his great prudence and address. So great
had the affection of the people now become for him, that at three
different elections for prætor, he was each time placed at the head of
the list by the unanimous vote of all the centuries. In his forty-third
year, having been very diligent in strengthening his interest, he became
a candidate for the consulship with others; among whom were L. Sergius
Cataline: but such was his popularity that he was saluted consul by
acclamation of the people before the votes were counted. He received
also a strong support from the patricians, who had uniformly been
opposed to his advancement; but Cicero’s reputation for knowledge and
probity was so great, and the times were becoming so critical, that they
deemed the government safe in his hands. The patricians at this time
were of the faction of Sylla, to which also Cataline belonged: and the
Tribunes and the people were of the Marian faction; at the head of which
was Julius Cæsar, a near relation to Marius. Although Cæsar, and Cicero
were both on the popular side, yet they were not united upon any common
principles of order. Cæsar was always individually opposed to him: and
when Cicero being consul, was endeavouring in the senate to bring the
associates of Cataline to punishment; Cæsar defended them, and even
indirectly encouraged their cause, by declaring his disbelief in the
immortality of the soul. The suppression of this conspiracy of Cataline,
Cethegus, Lentulus and many others, among whom Cæsar was generally
numbered, raised the reputation of Cicero to the greatest height. By his
incessant vigilance, Rome was saved from the horrors of a general
massacre and pillage. The greatest honours were paid him by the senate
and equestrian order: and for the first time the sublime epithet of
“Father of his Country” was addressed to a Roman citizen in the senate,
in the person of Cicero.[4] This great action of his life he most
feelingly alludes to in the introduction to his first book of the
Republic. “Nor is my name forgotten,” &c. The feelings too which the
circumstances attending the very last act of his consulship excited in
him, are eloquently pourtrayed in a passage immediately following. It
was the custom for the consul at the expiration of his office, to make a
speech in the assembly of the people, and to swear that he had executed
his duties with fidelity. When he was already in the rostra, and was
about to address the whole people assembled on this interesting
occasion; Metellus, a new tribune, prompted by the officious spirit of
popular authority, which often delights to mortify the great and good,
forbade the consul to address the people, alleging that Cicero having
caused Lentulus and the rest to suffer death without being heard in
their defence, did not deserve to be heard himself. Whereat with an
enthusiastic presence of mind peculiar to himself, he swore with a loud
voice that he had saved the republic: and the multitude moved by a
generous feeling which the demagogues had no time to tamper with, more
than atoned to him for the intended affront from their tribune, by a
simultaneous shout that he had sworn nothing but the truth,[5] and by
accompanying him from the Forum to his own house.
In this most glorious year of his life, and at the very time when he was
occupied in saving his country, Octavius Cæsar was born; by whose arts
and influence Cicero, as well as the republic, were not more than twenty
years after destroyed. And although he had acted so noble a part toward
his country, which under his government had been saved from the most
profligate attempt that had yet been made upon its liberties; and
enjoyed the highest rank in the senate, and the first consideration from
all good men; corruption had now reached such a height, that
pre-eminence in virtue, shining forth in so active a citizen as Cicero,
who was constantly thwarting the designs of bad men, served but to unite
their efforts against him. He became henceforward the object of their
hatred and vengeance. Cæsar, who did not believe in a future state, and
who consequently had no principle to restrain him, was constantly
plotting means to usurp the government. Pompey, in whose interest Cicero
had always been, and who at the close of the Mithridatic war had become
the most powerful man in the Republic, was afraid to disoblige the
numerous enemies of Cicero, and declined even to strengthen him by a
public approbation of the measures he had taken to suppress the
conspiracy of Catiline. The luxurious and the corrupt, who far
outnumbered the rest, were willing to sell the republic and themselves
to the highest bidders. The people were as usual the tools of
demagogues. Every thing conspired to accelerate the downfall of the
republic. In the face of these fearful odds stood Cicero, a large
majority of the senate, and of the equestrian order, which comprehended
the independent landholders and gentry of the Roman nation: and with but
little other support than the satisfaction of being engaged in the
noblest of causes, the maintenance of regular government. It is most
painful to look back upon the history of the degradation of such a
people; corrupted and ruined by their blind admiration of that falsest
of all idols, military glory.
An event occurred the year after his consulate, which brought him into a
new conflict with some of the worst of these men. P. Clodius, at this
time a quæstor, a vicious and debauched young man of family, and who
possessed many personal advantages, had an intrigue with Cæsar’s wife
Pompeia. Satiated with ordinary voluptuousness, he disguised himself as
a woman, and entered the house of Pompeia in the night time, when she
with other distinguished Roman matrons, was celebrating the mysteries of
the Bona Dea, or Patroness of Chastity. He was discovered and fled. Such
was the respect in which these mysteries, at which women alone
officiated, were held, that the profanation excited the utmost
indignation throughout the city. Even Cæsar found it necessary to put
away his wife. The senate directed the consuls to prepare a law for the
trial of Clodius before the people, which was resisted by one of the
tribunes friendly to Clodius. At length it was agreed that a law should
be passed to try him before the prætor and a select number of judges.
Clodius rested his defence upon an alibi, which he endeavoured to
sustain by witnesses. When Cicero was called to give his deposition, he
was insulted by the mob which adhered to Clodius; but such was the
veneration in which he was held, that the judges stood up, and received
him with great honour. He testified that Clodius had been with him in
his house in Rome on the very day of the pollution. Cæsar who was also
called, said that he was ignorant of the whole affair; although it
occurred in his own house, and in the presence of his mother and sister,
who had deposed to the truth of the accusation. Being asked, why then he
had put away his wife? he answered, “Because those who are connected
with me, must be as free from suspicion as from crime.”[6]
That the wife of Cæsar must be free even from suspicion, is a saying
that has passed down to our days: yet too many who have heard it are
ignorant of the circumstances attending its origin. We read the
commentaries of Cæsar at school, and are fired with admiration at his
talents and successes. We are thus prepared to pity his death and the
manner of it. But the military and political glories of Cæsar, can never
furnish an apology for a profligate private life; and a memorable saying
is stripped of every attraction, when we know that it was uttered by the
lips of a perjured atheist.
In a letter to Atticus, Cicero draws a curious picture of the judges
selected to try this famous cause; a majority of whom appears to have
been packed from the outcasts of all the orders, and to have been paid
for the occasion. Clodius was acquitted by a majority of thirty-one
voices over twenty-five. Upon their appointment some of them had
requested a guard from the senate to protect them from the mob. Upon
which occasion, Catulus a distinguished member of the senate, very
facetiously asked one of the judges, “why they wanted a guard, and
whether it was to protect the money which Clodius had bribed them with?”
After his acquittal, Clodius was wont to attempt to throw ridicule upon
Cicero in the senate, finding it vain to encounter him in argument, and
hoping to divert in some degree the force of his attacks. “So the
judges” said Clodius, “would give no credit to your oath.” “Twenty-five
of them did,” replied Cicero: “the rest would give you none it seems,
but made you pay beforehand.”
After the return of Pompey to Rome, as well as of Cæsar from Spain, a
triumvirate of interests was formed between these two and Crassus: each
having his own ascendancy in view. Cæsar, to make the interest it was
thus intended to direct against the independence of the republic, still
stronger, made overtures to Cicero, who declined connecting himself with
them. At length Cæsar openly declared against him, and favoured the
election of Clodius to the tribunate, in the which he succeeded. Being
now in authority, he brought forward the law, that whoever had taken
away the life of a Roman citizen, uncondemned, should be interdicted
bread and water. This was directed against Cicero, in relation to his
consular acts respecting the conspirators; and affected him so much,
that although the law was in general terms, and his name was not
mentioned in it, he changed his garments, and appeared abroad sordidly
dressed to attract the compassion of the people. The young Romans of
liberal character, to the number of twenty thousand also changed their
dress, and accompanied him; soliciting the favour of all in authority,
and of the people, against the passage of this law. But the combination
of bad men proved too strong against him, and Pompey having refused his
protection, Cicero was induced by the advice of his friends, to withdraw
himself into a temporary exile from Rome. This humiliating event took
place in his forty-ninth year. During his absence his residences both in
town and country, which were upon a scale commensurate with his dignity,
were despoiled; and together with the furniture appropriated by the
consuls and by Clodius. At length the daring insolence of that tribune,
and the perpetual broils he occasioned, began to indispose all men
against him, except his immediate profligate retainers. Advantage was
taken of this to propose in the senate the recall of Cicero; which
finally prevailed at a very numerous convocation of the senators and
magistrates; Clodius alone giving a dissenting voice. At its final
passage into a law by the Roman people, the field of Mars was crowded
with their assembled centuries. Such was the public veneration for him,
that voters from every town in Italy were present to insure the passage
of a law which restored so great a benefactor to his country. All the
centuries concurred in an act thus most solemnly passed by the whole
Roman people. In anticipation of the event, he left Dyrrhachium in
Macedonia, and soon after his arrival at Brundisium, where his daughter
Tullia had come to meet him, he received the welcome news from Rome. His
journey was a continued triumph, and he was received on his arrival at
the city in the most enthusiastic manner. An insufficient sum of money
was voted to him to rebuild his mansions. When he had almost finished
his palatine house, it was attacked by one of Clodius’ mobs, and
destroyed. Broils and slaughters were now so common in the streets of
Rome, that gladiators were retained to assist in these feuds; in which
the consuls of the same year were sometimes opposed to each other.
Cicero who had now reached his fifty-first year, was again made to feel
how unremitting is the hatred of enemies, and uncertain the support of
friends. Public virtue appeared to him to have no longer any value in
the eyes of the Romans. He saw that every man attended more to his
private safety and advancement, than to the public peace and dignity of
the city; and perceiving the necessity of a powerful protector for
himself and family in his old age, he appears from one of his letters to
have determined to conform himself in every thing to the pleasure of
Pompey. We also see him from time to time engaged in agreeable services
to Cæsar, with whom Pompey was yet connected. Experience and persecution
appear to have induced him to adopt a course foreign to the character of
the perfect citizen he has pourtrayed in his republic. In his fourth
epistle to Atticus, he says[7] “If they will not be friendly to me who
possess no power, I must endeavour to make those like me who have the
power of being useful. ‘I told you so long ago,’ you will say; I know
that you did, and I was an ass for not taking your advice.” The opinion
too of his friend Cælius, would have great weight with most men, in such
disturbed times. “It cannot have escaped you, that the duty of men
amidst domestic dissensions, is to espouse the honestest side, as long
as the contention is of a civil nature, and force is not used. But when
it comes to wars and camps, they should take the strongest side, and
consider that the best which is the most safe.”[8]
The influence of Cæsar was now becoming very conspicuous. His military
career in Gaul, his generosity, and the universality of his talents,
gave him at length a pre-eminence over Pompey in the public estimation.
Pompey and Crassus had entered into the consulship with little
observance of constitutional forms; and, with as little deference to the
senate, had caused provinces to be assigned to them for five years.
Spain and Africa to Pompey. Syria and the fatal Parthian war to Crassus.
This triumvirate had now almost the whole Roman military force at their
command.
It was in the spring of the next year, that Cicero at his Cuman villa,
began his famous work on government. He was now advancing into his
fifty-fourth year, and it appears that he had completed his work before
he entered upon his command in Cilicia. His military career was
distinguished by great activity and judgment. He was saluted emperor by
the army upon one of his military successes, and returned gladly to Rome
at the end of the year. During the remainder of his eventful life, he
appears to have found comfort only in the cultivation of philosophy and
letters. The corruption of the Romans, the ruin of the republic, the
death of his beloved daughter, and his separation from the wife he had
lived with thirty years, embittered his days. He was too conspicuous a
man not to be affected by all the political changes which took place.
Crassus perished in the Parthian war; and Cæsar, as soon as he felt
himself strong enough, crossed the Rubicon, which was the limit of his
military command, and marched upon Rome, from which Pompey and the
senate ingloriously fled. Cicero at length felt himself also constrained
to follow the fortunes of Pompey, because he believed the dignity of the
Roman name was alone to be found under his banners. And when the battle
of Pharsalia left Cæsar sole master of the Roman world, he submitted to
Cæsar, because there was no other government to submit to. But he
rejoiced in his death, of which he was a spectator, and to the last,
gave all the aid in his power to the patriots who sought to raise the
liberties of his country. In his latter days, he showed an invincible
spirit, defying the profligate Anthony in the plenitude of his power.
And when the assassins of the second and more bloody triumvirate
surprised him, he ordered his servants to set down the litter in which
they were carrying him, and forbade them to defend him. Then undauntedly
stretching out his neck, he bade his executioners do their pleasure;
happy to escape from so much misery, to the immortality he had always
believed in. This occurred when he was just entering his
sixty-fourth-year.
This rapid sketch of the transactions of Cicero’s times, will, it is
hoped, not be deemed impertinent, but may rather be considered as
assisting the general reader to form an adequate estimate of the great
object which Cicero had in view, when he drew up this celebrated
treatise, which was to revive the veneration of the Roman people for
their ancient institutions, now in danger from the machinations of
lawless men, at the head of whom was Cæsar, who denying in the senate a
future existence, expressed his contempt for all religion. But it has
been objected to Cicero that he was insincere, and that he called upon
his countrymen to venerate what was often the object of his ridicule.
The leading men of Rome who formed the sacerdotal order, from the
earliest periods and under all circumstances maintained their influence
over the people, chiefly by that religion they had been brought up in
the veneration of, and especially by the observance of auspices. But in
time the credulity of the Romans began to relax. Men like Cicero had for
their religion the glorious doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and
a great majority of his enlightened equals no doubt entertained his
opinions. Others, and among them was his brother Quintus, from various
motives, as has always been the case in the history of superstitions,
persevered in the prejudices they had received from education.
Prejudices acquired in infancy from our earliest and dearest protectors,
and to relinquish which, seems to require the relinquishment of all
reverence for those we most venerate. When therefore Cicero ridicules
the religious observances of his times, it is to enlightened men he
sometimes addresses himself; just as men have in all times laughed at
absurdities they do not care publicly to assail: and at other times he
may have used his ridicule to expose the most stupid superstitions
indiscriminately to all. When in his Republic he praises the institution
of auspices, however he may be charged with inconsistency, it was done
from great and public motives, and not from selfish ones. There is no
hypocrisy in this conduct, as we understand the word; and if we examine
the whole bearing of Cicero’s life, the policy which the circumstances
of it, sometimes obliged him to, will not offend liberal minds. In
estimating therefore the character of Cicero, it is well to remember Dr.
Middleton’s remark in his preface “and in every thing especially that
relates to Cicero, I would recommend the reader to contemplate the whole
character, before he thinks himself qualified to judge of its separate
parts, on which the whole will always be found the surest comment.”
The first book is the most complete of the whole six: the opening
however is imperfect. Cicero in his own person enters into a discussion
whether governments should be administered by contemplative
philosophers, or by active practical men. He recapitulates the arguments
on both sides of the question, often discussed by the ancients, and
decides the question in consonance with those feelings which had
governed his very active life. The eloquence and force of some of the
passages are inimitable. They will be applicable to all times as long as
civil government exists among men. But in this country where the
experiment of a popular government is trying upon so comprehensive a
scale, the grandeur of the sentiments deserves the attention of every
man. As where he states as an argument of those who shun active
occupations, that it is dangerous to meddle with public affairs in
turbulent times, and disgraceful to associate with the low and
disreputable men who are conspicuous at those periods; that it is vain
to hope to restrain the mad violence of the vulgar, or to withdraw from
such a contest without injury; “As if,” he adds with a generous
enthusiasm, “there could be a more just cause for good and firm men,
endowed with noble minds, to stand forth in aid of their country, than
that they may not be subject to bad men; nor suffer the republic to be
lacerated by them, before the desire of saving it may come too late.”
After disposing of this question, he proceeds with great address to open
the plan of his work, and presents in all the beautiful simplicity of
the times, Scipio, his friend Lælius, with some of their most
accomplished cotemporaries, seated, not in the gorgeous saloon of a
Lucullus or Crassus, but in the sunny part, because it was the winter
season, of the lawn of Scipio’s country place; where they had convened
to pass the Latin holidays in discussing philosophical questions. Here,
upon an inquiry being instituted into the cause of two suns reported to
have been seen in the heavens, occasion is found to introduce in a very
pleasing manner, the astronomical knowledge of the day, which Cicero was
well versed in. Scipio is made here to deliver a magnificent passage,
beginning at the 17th section. “Who can perceive any grandeur in human
affairs,” &c.[9] This inquiry about celestial phenomena, which appeared
so foreign to a philosophical investigation on the principles of
government, is admirably closed and without the abruptness being
perceived, by Lælius asking how it can interest him that Scipio should
be solicitous about the two suns, “when he does not inquire the cause
why two senates, and almost two people exist in one republic.” At the
general request Scipio consents to deliver his opinion of government. He
defines a republic to be the “public thing,” or common interest of all:
and he shews most satisfactorily that human beings congregate not on
account of their weakness, but that they are led thereto by the social
principle, which is innate in man, and leads him even in the midst of
the greatest abundance to seek his fellow. He successively examines the
despotic, the aristocratic, and democratic forms of government: their
advantages and disadvantages; and concludes that a fourth kind of
government, moderated and compounded from those three is most to be
approved. This is subsequently recurred to and enlarged upon. Many
persons will be surprised that the balanced representative form of
government, which has but in modern times received the sanction of the
wisest nations, should have been shadowed forth in an apparently
speculative opinion, two thousand years ago. We must however remember,
that in the numerous small independent states of Greece; their various
forms of government, the tyranny of their kings, the oppression of the
aristocracies, and the violence of the people, had produced many
discussions among their writers. Few of these have come down to us. Yet
Cicero was familiar with them, and it is evident that his plan of a
mixed government was drawn from this source. There is a passage to this
effect preserved in the Anthology of Stobæus, of Hyppodamus. He says
that royalty, which is a copy of divinity, is insufficient, on account
of the degeneracy of human nature. That it must be limited by an
aristocracy, where the principle of emulation leads men to excel each
other: and that the citizen also should be admitted into that mixed
government as of right: but cautiously, as the people are apt to fall
into disorders. These opinions also flattered the Romans, for in fact it
was substantially their own form of government, which consisted of
consuls, patricians, and the people and their tribunes.
Scipio in the 43d section, gives an eloquent passage from Plato, where
the excesses of the multitude are painted in the strongest language; a
passage which might well have been inspired by the French revolution.
Scipio opens the second book with the origin of the Roman people,
adopting the received opinions concerning the early history of Rome, of
Romulus, and the succeeding kings. These opinions have of late, been
much controverted. Niebuhr whose erudition appears to be inimitable,
whatever success he may be thought to have had in shaking them, has
substituted nothing satisfactory in their place, at least as far as we
may gather from his first volume. One thing may be safely asserted, that
Cicero might well present in his republic, those traditions of the
times, as the real history of his country, because the Roman people were
acquainted with no other. He could not call upon them to venerate the
founders of Rome and their institutions, and tell them at the same time
they had never existed. Niebuhr himself strengthens the account given at
section 19, Book II., of the Greek descent of the first Tarquin, by
observing that the clay vases made at Tarquinii were painted, and
resembled in colour and drawing some discovered near Corinth. He says
they are found only in the district of Tarquinii, and that the
circumstance implies a peculiar intercourse between Corinth and
Tarquinii.
In the 22d section of the 2d Book, is another passage with which Niebuhr
is not satisfied, and which even Professor Mai terms “vexatissimum
locum.” Cicero says the Roman people were distributed by Servius into
six classes, whose entire elective force was one hundred and
ninety-three centuries. To give the landed proprietors who were rated in
the first class, a majority of this number, or ninety-seven votes, three
centuries of horse with six suffrages, meaning those inscribed in the
great census or register, in contradistinction to the horsemen set apart
from the mass of the whole people; the century of carpenters, and the
first class, constituted together eighty-nine centuries. Eight more
centuries taken from the other five classes and added to this number,
made ninety-seven, being a majority of one over ninety-six, and thus in
Cicero’s words “Confecta est vis, populi universa.” The unwearied
erudition of Niebuhr, to which great deference is due, is not satisfied
with the simplicity of this statement of the Roman Constitution, but
assails it with an unusual bitterness of critical spirit. He supposes
the passage from its genuine state to have been corrupted by successive
transcribers and commentators, to the order in which Professor Mai has
thought proper to give it to the public, and that in its original state
it stood thus. “Nunc rationem videtis esse talem ut prima classis,
addita centuria quæ ad summum usum urbis fabris tignariis est data:
LXXXI centurias habeat; quibus ex CXIV centuriis, tot enim reliquæ sunt,
equitum centuriæ cum sex suffragiis solæ si accesserunt,” &c.
“Now you will perceive the plan was such, that the first class, a
century being added from the carpenters on account of their great
utility to the city, consisted of eighty-one centuries; to which if from
the one hundred and fourteen centuries, for so many remain, only the
centuries of horse with six suffrages are added,” &c. I forbear to add
his very curious reasons for this proposed restoration, and which, not
to be deemed extravagant, require to be judged by those familiar with
the emendations of ancient MSS. It will be perceived, however, that he
makes the whole number of centuries to consist of one hundred and
ninety-five; and that he gives the landed proprietors a majority of
ninety-nine over the ninety-six centuries belonging to the other five
classes, which appears superfluous in a system which aimed at the
appearance of moderation, “ne superbum esset.” Substantially the system
appears to have been this. The Roman people were distributed into six
classes, having one hundred and ninety-three centuries or votes. The
first class consisting of men of rank and property, with the centuries
of horse, had ninety-six votes; leaving ninety-seven votes to the other
five classes. In order, however, to give the ascendancy to the first
class in the least offensive way, the century of blacksmiths and
carpenters was added to the first class, under pretence of their great
utility to the city; but really because they were dependent upon the
first class and the cavalry for employment, and could be relied upon. In
this manner the first class secured a majority of ninety-seven votes.
The second book closes with a declaration from Scipio, that unless the
most perfect justice is observed, no government can prosper.
The third book opens with a philosophical analysis of the faculties of
man, introductory to the great principle of the immutable nature of
justice, which it appears was fully discussed in this book, of which so
small a portion is preserved. A splendid picture is drawn in the second
section of an accomplished statesman, such as Cicero himself had aimed
to be, and which from a passage in one of his letters to Atticus,
appears to have been farther elaborated in the sixth book. It relates to
a triumph about which he felt some anxiety after his government of
Cilicia. “If this idea of a triumph which even you approve, had not been
infused into me, you would not have had to look far for the perfect
citizen described in the sixth book.”[10] Philus is called upon to
defend the cause of injustice after the manner of Carneades the Greek
sophist. The powerful passage contained in the seventeenth section is
delivered by him. It was reserved for Lælius to close the discussion as
the advocate of justice. Scarce any part of his discourse is preserved.
Some fragments have, however, been collected by Professor Mai, preserved
by Nonius the Philologist, and by Lactantius. In the one, Lælius is made
to declare, that the Roman youth ought not to be permitted to listen to
Carneades, who if he thought as he spoke, was a bad man; and if he was
not, as he preferred to believe, his discourse was nevertheless
detestable. One of the passages from Lanctantius is that well known
exposition of eternal right, or natural law of justice of which
conscience is the voice.
“There is indeed a law, right reason, which is in accordance with
nature; existing in all, unchangeable, eternal. Commanding us to do what
is right, forbidding us to do what is wrong. It has dominion over good
men, but possesses no influence over bad ones. No other law can be
substituted for it, no part of it can be taken away, nor can it be
abrogated altogether. Neither the people or the senate can absolve us
from it. It wants no commentator or interpreter. It is not one thing at
Rome, and another thing at Athens: one thing to-day, and another thing
to-morrow; but it is a law eternal and immutable for all nations and for
all time. God, the sole Ruler, and universal Lord, has framed and
proclaimed this law. He who does not obey it, renounces himself, and is
false to his own nature: he brings upon himself the direst tortures,
even when he escapes human punishments.”[11]
The fourth book of which a mere fragment is preserved, appears to have
treated of domestic manners, the education of youth, and of Roman life,
public and private. We have lost here many fine pictures of the
simplicity of Roman manners, at that flourishing period of the republic,
as well as of the progress of luxury, which was not inconsiderable. A
fragment of this book is preserved in Nonius, where Scipio opposes the
collection of a revenue, necessary perhaps to make good those
deficiencies which extravagance had produced. “Nolo enim eundem populum
imperatorem et portitorem esse terrarum. Optimum autem et in privatis
familiis et in republica vectigal duco esse parsimoniam.” “I am not
willing that the same people should be the sovereigns and the
toll-gatherers of the world. I look upon economy to be the best revenue
for the republic, and for private individuals.”
The fifth book is also a mere fragment. St. Augustin has preserved some
notices of it, from which it appears that it treated very much of the
ancient Roman institutions, with a view to show the degeneracy of the
times in which Cicero wrote. In the fifth section of this book, he
speaks of the comfortable enjoyment of life depending upon legal
marriages and lawful children; from whence perhaps we may gather the
obligation which the dissolute manners of the times had laid him under,
of asserting the value of these ties, as well as his own veneration for
them.
Of the sixth book no part whatever has come down to us with this MSS:
but the important fragment on a future state preserved in Macrobius,
warrants our supposing that he was naturally led in a treatise so highly
philosophical, to pass from the consideration of human morals, to the
great object which moral conduct has in view: the resisting of human
weakness, for the sake of fitting the immortal part of our nature for a
higher condition of being. The dream of Scipio, encumbered as it is by
some of the pedantry of the schools, is a production of the highest
order, upon this most sublime of all subjects.
-----
Footnote 1:
His. Nat. 18. 3. 1.
Footnote 2:
Cato de Re Rustica. Majores enim nostri, &c.
Footnote 3:
Dio. 11. 8. Gellius xv. 27.
Footnote 4:
Roma patrem patriæ Ciceronem libera dixit. Juv. 8.
Footnote 5:
Magna Voce me vere jurasse juravit. Ep. fam. 5. 2.
Footnote 6:
Quoniam, inquit, meos tam suspicione quam crimine judico carere
oportere. Suet. J. Cæs. 74.
Footnote 7:
Sed quoniam qui nihil possunt, &c.
Footnote 8:
Ep. fam. 8. 14.
Footnote 9:
“Quid porro aut præclarum putet in rebus humanis.” Lib. 1. xvii.
Footnote 10:
Let. to Att. vii. 3.
Footnote 11:
Lact. Inst. vi. 8.
CICERO’S REPUBLIC.
[Illustration]
BOOK I.
I. For without the strong feeling of patriotism, neither had G. Duelius,
Aulus Atilius or L. Metellus freed us from the terror of Carthage; or
the two Scipios extinguished with their blood the rising flame of the
second punic war. Quintus Maximus would not have weakened, nor M.
Marcellus have crushed the one which was springing up with still greater
strength: or P. Africanus turning it from the gates of this city, have
borne it amid the walls of our enemies. Yet it was not thought
unbecoming in M. Cato, an unknown and a new man, by whom all of us who
emulate his course are led as a bright example of industry and virtue,
to enjoy the repose of Tusculum, that healthy and convenient situation.
That insane man, however, as some have considered him, preferred when
urged by no necessity, to contend amid those waves and tempests to
extreme old age; rather than pass his days in the most agreeable manner,
amid so much ease and tranquillity. Men without number I omit, each of
whom were benefactors to the State, and who are not far removed from the
remembrance of this generation. I forbear to commemorate them, lest any
one should reproach me with neglecting to speak of himself or his
immediate friends. This one truth I would mark, that nature has so
strongly implanted in man the necessity of virtue, and so powerful an
inclination to defend the common welfare, that this principle overcomes
all the blandishments of voluptuousness and ease.
II. Yet to possess virtue, like some art, without exercising it, is
insufficient. Art indeed, when not effective, is still comprehended in
science. The efficacy of all virtue consists in its use. Its greatest
end is the government of states, and the perfection not in words but in
deeds, of those very things which are taught in the halls. For nothing
is propounded by philosophers, concerning what is esteemed to be just
and proper, that is not confirmed and assured by those who have
legislated for states. For from whence springs piety, or from whom
religion? Whence the law, either of nations, or that which is called
civil? Whence justice, faith, equity? Whence modesty, continence, the
dread of turpitude, the love of praise and esteem? Whence fortitude in
trouble and dangers? From those who having laid a foundation for these
things in early education, have strengthened some of them by the
influence of manners, and sanctioned others by the influence of laws. Of
Xenocrates, one of the noblest of philosophers, it is said, that when he
was asked what his disciples learnt of him, he replied “to do that of
their own choice, which the laws enjoined them to do,” therefore the
citizen who obliges every one by the authority and fear of the law to do
that, which philosophers by reasoning, with difficulty persuade a few to
do, is to be preferred to those learned men who only dispute about these
things. For which of their orations, however exquisite, can be compared
in value to a well constituted state, to public right and to morals.
Truly as great and powerful cities, as Ennius says, are as I think, to
be preferred to villages and castles; so those who stand pre-eminent in
those cities, in authority and counsel, are to be esteemed far before
those in wisdom, who are altogether ignorant of the conduct of public
affairs. And since we are chiefly urged by a desire to increase the
possessions of the human race, and seek by our counsels and labours, to
surround the life of man with gratification and security, and are
incited by the instincts of nature to these enjoyments; let us hold the
course which was always that of the best men: nor attend to those
signals which speculative philosophers make from their retirement, to
allure back those who are already far advanced.
III. Against these reasons so certain and so clear, it is urged by those
who are opposed to us: first, the labour to be undergone in preserving
the public welfare; a slight impediment to the zealous and industrious,
not alone in matters of such high import, but in inferior things:
whether in studies or in official stations; and to be despised even in
affairs of business. To this they add the dangers to which life is
exposed, and the dread of death, which brave men scorn; being wont to
view it as more wretched to waste away by infirmity and old age, than to
seize an occasion to devote that life to the advantage of their country,
which one day must be rendered to nature. It is here however they deem
themselves most successful and eloquent, when they bring forward the
calamities of eminent men, and the injuries heaped upon them by their
ungrateful countrymen. Here come the instances in Grecian history.
Miltiades, the conqueror and subduer of the Persians, with those wounds
yet streaming, which he received in front, in the height of victory:
preserved from the weapons of the enemy, to waste away his life in the
chains of his countrymen. And Themistocles proscribed and driven from
the country he had freed, flying, not to the harbours of that Greece he
had preserved, but to the barbarous shores he had harrassed. Nor indeed
are instances wanting among the Athenians of levity and cruelty towards
great numbers of their citizens; instances which springing up repeatedly
among them, are said also to have abounded too conspicuously in our
city. For either the exile of Camillus, the misfortune of Ahala, the ill
will towards Nasica, or the expulsion of Lenas, or the condemnation of
Opimus is remembered: or the flight of Metellus, the sad overthrow of C.
Marius, the cutting off of the most eminent citizens, or the destruction
of many of them, which soon after followed. Nor indeed is my name
forgotten. And I judge that deeming themselves to owe both life and ease
to my peril and counsel, they have a more deep and tender remembrance of
me. But it is not easy to explain how they who cross the seas for the
sake of observing or describing * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
IV. * * * * At the expiration of my consulship, when in the assembly of
the Roman people, I swore that the republic had been saved by my
exertions, which they confirmed by universal acclamation, I was requited
for the cares and vexations of every injury. Albeit my reverses had more
honour than pain attached to them, and less disquietude than glory.
Greater was my pleasure at receiving the approbation of good men, than
my regret at observing the satisfaction of the bad. But had it happened
otherwise, as I said, what complaint could I make? Nothing unforeseen
could have occurred, nor more grievous than I might have expected for so
many of my deeds. For I was one who could well have gathered greater
fruits from ease than others, on account of the agreeable variety of the
studies I had pursued from my childhood; and if any disaster had
overtaken the republic, I need not have sustained a greater share of it,
but have divided it equally with the rest. I hesitated not to oppose
myself to those stormy tempests, and almost raging waves, for the sake
of preserving my fellow citizens, and of accomplishing at my own risk
the common safety of all. For our country has not produced us, or
educated us under a law, that she is entitled to no support on our part,
lending herself as it were to our convenience only; furnishing a secure
refuge, and a tranquil and peaceful asylum to our indolence: but rather
holds as pledges to her, to be employed for her benefit, the many and
great faculties of our mind, genius, and reason; and only permits us to
appropriate to our private purposes, that portion of them, of which she
stands in no need.
V. The pretences which are urged for the enjoyment of indolence are not
to be listened to. As when it is stated that the public affairs are
meddled with by men worthy of no confidence, with whom it is disgraceful
to associate: yet to contend against whom is a miserable and dangerous
effort, especially when the multitude is excited. For which reason a
prudent man ought not to take the reins, when he is not able to restrain
the mad and untameable violence of the vulgar: or a generous man expose
himself to the lashes of contumely in a strife with low and outrageous
adversaries: or a wise man hope to withdraw from such a contest without
injury. As if there could well be a more just cause for good and firm
men, endowed with noble minds, to stand forth in aid of their country,
than that they may not be subject to bad men; nor suffer the republic to
be lacerated by them, before the desire of saving it may come too late.
VI. But who can approve of their exception, that a wise man ought not to
take upon him any part of the public affairs, unless an occasion of
extraordinary need should drive him to it? as if indeed a greater
necessity could ever have happened to any one, than occurred to myself.
How could I have been useful then, had I not been consul? and how could
I have been consul, had I not pursued that course of life from my youth,
which belonging to the equestrian rank, in which I was born, enabled me
to attain the first honours of the state? No man therefore can assume at
pleasure the ability of aiding in the public service, however urgent the
danger may be, unless he stands in that relation to his country, which
fits him for the occasion. And it appears to me most marvellous, that in
the discourse of learned men, they who declare themselves unable to
steer in a calm sea, because they have never been taught, nor have ever
studied the subject, talk of taking the helm in the midst of the
greatest storms. For these very men openly declare, and pride themselves
greatly upon it, that they have never studied or taught the mode of
establishing or protecting the public interest; which they think the
exclusive province, not of learned and erudite men, but of those who are
practised in these matters. What consistency is there then in promising
to aid the republic in times of peril, when they are incapable of the
easier task of directing it in the calmest moments? And although, in
truth, the philosopher is not wont of his own accord, to consider the
details of state affairs, unless called upon by the times to do it, when
indeed he will not decline what duty imposes on him; nevertheless, I
judge the knowledge of state affairs is least to be neglected by a wise
man; that every thing may be familiar to him, for he cannot tell the
moment, when it may be necessary for him to avail himself of his
knowledge.
VII. These things I have somewhat enlarged upon, because the discussion
proposed and undertaken by me in this work, was on government: and in
order to prevent its being without effect, it was necessary in the first
instance, to remove every doubt as to the duty of engaging in the public
service. Nevertheless if there are any who are governed by the opinions
of philosophers, let them turn their attention for a while, and listen
to those who enjoy a proud pre-eminence among learned men, even when
they have not borne any charge in the republic; still whom I deem from
the extent of their studies, and their writings on government, to have
been invested with functions appertaining to the public interest. But
those seven, whom the Greeks call wise, I perceive have almost all been
greatly engaged in public affairs. For there is no one thing in which
human worth is more nearly allied to the power of the gods, than to
found new states, or to preserve those already founded.
VIII. Concerning which matters, since it hath happened to me, to be
deemed something worthy of memory in my administration of public
affairs, and to possess some talent for unfolding them; not only in
practice, but being versed too in the art of speaking and teaching:
while of those before me, some were perfect in debate, yet unknown by
their deeds; others of respectable parts for business, without the
talent of oratory. Still it is not my intention here to bring forward
any new system invented by myself, but to repeat a discussion, that took
place at a certain period of our history, among our most illustrious and
wise men, which was related to me a long time ago in my youth, by P.
Rutilius Rufus, when we were at Smyrna together: in the which I think
scarce any point was omitted that belongs to the consideration of these
great matters.
IX. When P. Africanus, the son of Paulus, established Latin holidays in
his gardens, during the consulate of Tuditanus, and Aquilius; and his
most intimate friends had promised to visit him frequently at that
season. On the morning of the first day, Q. Tubero, the eldest son of
his sister, came. Pleased with his visit, and kindly addressing him
“What! Tubero,” said he, “is it you so early? I should have thought
these holidays would have given you a favourable opportunity of pursuing
your literary inquiries.” “Why in truth,” replied he, “I can apply all
my leisure to my books, for they are always disengaged. But to find you
at leisure, is very remarkable; especially at this time so critical for
the republic.” “So help me Hercules,” said Scipio, “however you find me,
it is more idle in appearance than in truth.” “You must now,” said
Tubero, “relax your mind a little also, for several of us have
determined if it is not inconvenient to you, to spend some of our
leisure with you.” “With all my heart,” replied Scipio, “provided we may
acquire some information thereby on philosophical subjects.”
X. “Since you invite and encourage me to it yourself,” said Tubero, “let
us first converse, Africanus, before the others come, about the meaning
of this double sun which has been spoken of in the senate. For those who
declare that they have seen two suns, are neither few in number, nor
insignificant persons: so that it appears to be of less importance to
doubt the fact, than to inquire into the cause of it.” “Would that we
had with us our excellent Panætius,” said Scipio, “who among other
objects of knowledge, was so diligent an inquirer about celestial
phenomena. As to myself, Tubero—for to you I will freely declare what I
think; I am not drawn in to adopt in matters of this sort, the opinions
of our friend, who pronounces things which are scarcely within the reach
of conjecture, to be as manifest, as if he beheld them with his eyes, or
could lay his hands upon them. On which account I am accustomed to
consider Socrates much wiser, who leaves the consideration of such
things aside, and teaches that the phenomena about which nature may be
interrogated, are either beyond the force of human reason, or irrelevant
to the conduct of human affairs.” “I know not,” rejoined Tubero, “what
authority there is for the fact, that Socrates rejected all discussion
upon such matters, and confined himself to the moral conduct of human
life. For what author is to be commended, as more ample on that head
than Plato; in whose writings, in many places, it is the custom of
Socrates in discussing morals, the virtues, and finally public affairs;
to allude studiously to the science of numbers, to geometry, and to
harmony, after the Pythagorean mode.” Scipio answered, “these things are
as you say; but I dare say you have heard, Tubero, that Plato after the
death of Socrates, was carried by the love of knowledge first into
Egypt, afterwards into Italy and Sicily, that he might obtain an insight
into the discoveries of Pythagoras. That he associated much with
Archytas the Tarentine, and with Timæus of Locram. That he acquired the
commentaries of Philolaus, and perceiving that the name of Pythagoras
was at that time in great reputation in those places, he dedicated his
time to the disciples of Pythagoras and to their opinions. But as he had
loved Socrates alone, and wished to make all things conducive to his
reputation, he interwove very skilfully the subtlety and humour of the
Socratic style with the mysteries of Pythagoras, and with many branches
of the arts.”
As Scipio ceased to speak, he suddenly saw L. Furius approaching, and as
soon as he had kindly saluted him, he took him by the hand, and placed
him on his couch. And as P. Rutilius the accomplished preserver of this
conversation appeared at the same time, saluting him also in the same
manner, he bade him be seated near to Tubero. “What are you engaged in,”
said Furius; “hath our arrival broken in upon your conversation?” “Not
in the least,” replied Africanus, “for it is precisely about matters,
such as Tubero has just been introducing, that thou art wont diligently
to inquire into, and to investigate. And indeed our friend Rutilius was
in the habit occasionally of discussing things of this kind with me,
when we were under the walls of Numantia.” “What is the subject you have
fallen upon?” said Philus. “These two suns,” replied he, “respecting
which I am desirous of hearing your opinion.”
XII. As he spoke this, a boy announced that Lælius was approaching,
having already left his house; upon which Scipio having dressed himself,
left his chamber, and had made but a few paces in the portico, when he
saluted Lælius who was approaching, and those who were with him: Spurius
Mummius, to whom he was particularly attached; Fannius, and Quintus
Scævola, sons-in-law of Lælius, highly gifted young men of the
quæstorial age. And having welcomed them all, he made another turn on
the portico, placing Lælius in the middle; for in their friendship it
was a sort of law between them, that Lælius did homage to Scipio as to a
god, on account of his glorious pre-eminence in war; while in his turn
Scipio, in private life, paid to Lælius all the reverence due to a
parent, on account of his superior years. And having chatted a little
together in various places, Scipio, who was very much enlivened and
gratified with their arrival, was pleased to have them seated in a sunny
place in a little meadow, on account of its being the winter season;
which as they were about to do, M. Manilius came, a prudent and
agreeable person, and very dear to them all; who being cordially saluted
by Scipio and the rest, took his seat next to Lælius.
XIII. “It does not seem to me necessary,” said Philus “that we should
seek another subject of conversation on account of those who are
arrived, but that we should observe more accuracy, and say something
worthy of their ears.” “What subject were you upon,” said Lælius, “and
what discussion are we come to be present at?” “Scipio was inquiring of
me,” replied Philus, “what my opinion was respecting the fact of two
suns having been seen.”
Lælius. “Why truly Philus, is there no longer any thing left for us to
inquire about, touching our own domestic affairs, or those appertaining
to the republic, that we must be exploring the things that are passing
in the heavens?” “Dost thou then think,” replied he, “that it does not
concern our own mansions, to know what is passing, and what is done in
that vast one, not the one surrounded by our walls, but that which
constitutes the universe, and which the gods have given to us for a
domicile, and a common country with themselves. Especially when if we
are ignorant of them, many and very high matters will be hidden from us.
As to myself, the contemplation and knowledge of these things delight
me, as certainly as it does you, Lælius, and all who are eager in the
pursuit of knowledge.” “I offer no impediment,” said Lælius, especially
at this holiday time; but shall we hear any thing, or are we come too
late?”
Philus. “Nothing has been discussed yet, and as the subject is entire, I
freely concede to you, Lælius, the right of expressing your sentiments
first.”
Lælius. “Let us rather hear you, unless Manilius thinks, that some
decree by way of compromise between these two suns may be adjusted; so
that each may keep possession of its own part of the firmament.” “You
love still to banter that science, Lælius, in which I am proud to
excel,” replied Manilius, “and without which no one could know his own
possession from anothers. But of that by and by. Let us now listen to
Philus, who I perceive has a case of greater difficulty referred to him,
than ever came before me or P. Mucius.”
XIV. “I shall lay nothing new before you,” said Philus, “nor any thing
discovered or thought of by myself. I remember, however, that C.
Sulpicius Gallus, a very learned man as you know; when this same
phenomenon was stated to have been seen, being by chance in the house of
M. Marcellus, who had been in the consulate with him; ordered a sphere
to be placed before him, which the ancestor of M. Marcellus had taken
from the conquered Syracusans, and brought out of their wealthy and
embellished city; the only thing he had possessed himself of among so
great a spoil. I had heard a great deal of this sphere, on account of
the fame of Archimedes, but did not admire the construction of it so
much; for another which Archimedes also had made, and which the same
Marcellus had placed in the temple of virtue, was more elegant and
remarkable in the general opinion. But subsequently, when Gallus began
very scientifically to explain the nature of the mechanism; the Sicilian
appeared to me to possess more genius, than human nature would seem to
be capable of. Gallus said, that the other solid and full sphere was an
old invention, and was first wrought by Thales of Miletas: but
afterwards was delineated over with the fixed stars in the heavens by
Eudoxus, the Cnidian, a disciple of Plato. The which adorned and
embellished as it was by Eudoxus, Aratus who had no knowledge of
astronomy, but a certain poetical faculty, many years afterwards
extolled in his verses. The mechanism of this sphere, however, on which
the motions of the sun, moon, and those five stars which are called
wandering and irregular, are shown; could not be illustrated on that
solid sphere. But what appeared very admirable in this invention of
Archimedes was, that he had discovered a method of producing the unequal
and various courses, with their dissimilar velocities, by one
revolution. When Gallus put this sphere in motion, the moon was made to
succeed the sun by as many revolutions of the brass circle, as it
actually took days to do in the heavens. From which the same setting of
the sun was produced on the sphere as in the heavens: and the moon fell
on the very point, where it met the shadow of the earth, when the sun
from the region * * * *
[About ten pages wanting.]
XV. * * * * * for he was a man I was very much attached to, and I know
that my father Paulus esteemed and placed the highest value on him. I
remember when I was but a boy, being with my father, who was then consul
in Macedonia; that while we were encamped, our army was struck with a
religious dread, because the full and splendid moon in the serenity of
the night, was suddenly eclipsed. He being then our lieutenant, the year
just before that in which he was declared consul, did not hesitate the
following day, to pronounce openly in the camp, that it was no prodigy.
And that what had then taken place, would always occur in future at
those particular periods, when the position of the sun was such, that
its rays could not fall upon the moon. “But how could he,” asked Tubero,
“make men half wild, comprehend such matters, or venture to speak of
them before the unenlightened?”
Scipio. “Indeed he did, and with great * * * *
[About two pages wanting.]
* * * * * there was neither a haughty ostentation, nor any thing in his
speech unbecoming a grave personage; and he accomplished a point of
great importance, in removing from the disturbed minds of the men, the
influence of an idle and fearful superstition.
XVI. There was an occurrence similar to this during the great war, which
the Athenians and Lacedemonians waged against each other with so much
inveteracy. Darkness being suddenly produced by the obscuration of the
sun, and a prodigious fear taking possession of the minds of the
Athenians. Pericles, the first man in the city, in authority, in
eloquence, and in council; taught the citizens what he had himself
learnt from Anaxagoras, whose pupil he had been: that it was an
unavoidable appearance at the particular period, when the moon had
placed herself immediately before the orb of the sun: and although it
did not take place every lunar period; it could nevertheless be
occasioned only by the moon’s motion. Having convinced them by
reasoning, he delivered the people from their apprehension. For it was
then a strange and unknown reason to give for an eclipse, that the sun
and moon were in opposition to each other, which it is said, was first
observed by Thales the Milesian. At a later period, this had not escaped
our Ennius, who wrote about the year 350 of the building of Rome, in the
nones of June; that “_the moon and night stood before the sun_.” So
great, however, is the advancement of knowledge in these matters, that
from this day, which we find noted in the principal annals, and by
Ennius; the previous occultations of the sun are fixed up to that which
took place in the reign of Romulus, in the nones of the fifth month.
During which darkness, Romulus, whom the laws of nature indeed would
have carried to the tomb, is said to have been borne by his virtue to
heaven.
XVII. Then Tubero, “Dost thou not perceive Africanus, that what appeared
otherwise to thee a while ago * * * * * *
[About two pages wanting.]
* * * * * * “Who can perceive any grandeur in human affairs, whose eyes
are accustomed to survey the empire of the gods? What are temporal
things in the eyes of those conversant with eternal ones? What is there
glorious to the contemplation of him, who looks at the small size of the
earth; first as to its whole extent, then to that part of it which men
inhabit? And yet we, confined to so small a portion of it, unknown to
most nations, hope our name will be diffused to its utmost limits. What
are lands, and houses, and flocks, and immense masses of gold and silver
to him who neither considers them desirable nor calls them so: the
fruition of which appears to him trifling, the use unsatisfactory, the
possession uncertain: and which are often in the hands of the most
contemptible of men? How fortunate may that man be esteemed, who alone
claims a share in all things, not as the privilege of a citizen, but of
a philosopher: not by civil rights, but by the common law of nature,
which forbids any one to be the proprietor of aught, of the proper use
of which he is ignorant! Who considers our consulships and high offices,
not to be sought after for the sake of personal advantage or glory; not
as things to be coveted, but to be undertaken as duties. The man finally
who can say that of himself which my ancestor Africanus, as Cato writes,
was wont to say, “that he never was more busy than when he was doing
nothing; and that he never was less alone, than when nobody was with
him.”
For who can deem Dionysius to have accomplished a greater thing, when by
the greatest exertion he snatched their liberties from the citizens,
than Archimedes his countryman, who appearing to be occupied in nothing,
produced this sphere of which we were but now conversing? Are they not
more alone, who find no one in the forum or in the crowd who chooses to
talk with them, than those who without any witness can converse with
themselves; or as it were, be present at the councils of the most
learned men, when they solace themselves with their discoveries and
writings? Who in truth can imagine any one to be more rich, than the man
who has no wants, beyond the simple calls of nature; or more powerful
than him, who has attained the possession of al that he desires; or more
blessed than him who is freed from all anxiety of mind? or what man’s
fortune is better established than his, who can carry along with him, or
out of a shipwreck as men are wont to say, all his possessions? What
command, what office, what kingdom can be preferred to that condition of
mind, which looking down upon all things human, and esteeming them to be
the objects of an inferior wisdom, turns ever to the contemplation of
those things that are divine and eternal: persuaded that they only
deserve to be called men, who are refined by the sciences of humanity?
That which has been said of Plato, or of some other sage, appears to me
therefore very excellent. Who being borne by a tempest to unknown lands,
and cast on a desert shore, while his companions were apprehensive on
account of their ignorance of the place, is said to have perceived
geometrical figures described on the sand. Which when he saw, he bade
them all be of good heart, for he had seen vestiges of men. Not that he
judged so from the cultivation of the fields which he beheld, but from
these indications of science. For all these reasons, Tubero, learning,
and learned men, and these thy studies have always been pleasing to me.
XVIII. Then said Lælius, “I am not bold enough, Scipio, to speak of
these things: nor even to thee, or Philus, or Manilius * * * * *
[Two pages wanting]
* * * * in his paternal house we have had a friend, worthy to be
imitated by him.
“Ælius Sextus, conspicuously discreet and wise.” That he was
conspicuously discreet and wise, is said by Ennius, not because he
sought after what he was not able to discover, but because he answered
those who made inquiries of him, in a manner to solve their difficulties
and anxieties, in whose mouth when arguing against the studies of
Gallus, were always these words of Achilles, in Iphigenia.
“Astrology, its signs; how are they read in heaven?
When goat or scorpion, or ferocious names arise,
The obvious earth is shunned, to scrutinize the skies.”
He also said, for many times and willingly I listened to him, that
Zethus the author of Pacuvius, was too great an enemy to science. The
Neoptolemus of Ennius pleased him more; who says that he likes to
philosophize but only with a few; not willing to give himself up to it
altogether. But if the studies of the Greeks delight you so much, there
are others freer and more easily diffused, which we may bring to the use
of life, or even to that of the republic. As for these arts, their value
consists, if in any thing, in stimulating and sharpening the genius of
young boys; enabling them in this manner the better to comprehend
greater things.
XIX. “I do not dissent from you, Lælius,” said Tubero, “but ask what you
understand by greater things?”
Lælius. “I will tell you in good faith, although you may somewhat
despise me for it; since it is you who are asking Scipio about these
celestial matters. As for myself, I think those things most worthy of
our attention, which lay immediately before our eyes. How can it
interest me that the grandson of L. Paulus by the mother’s side, born of
such a noble and illustrious family in this republic, should seek for
reasons why two suns have been seen, when he does not inquire the cause
why two senates, and almost two people exist in one republic? For as you
perceive the death of Tiberius Gracchus, and even before that event, the
whole proceedings of his tribunate were dividing one people into two
parties: those who are the detractors of Scipio also, and are envious of
him, urged on at first by P. Crassus and Appius Claudius, keep up
notwithstanding their death, an opposition to us in the senate, through
the influence of Metellus and P. Mucius. Nor will they suffer him to
come forward, who is alone equal to so dangerous a crisis, amidst the
factious and dangerous associations made under the Roman name: amidst
violated compacts, and the new matters daily stirring by the seditious
triumvirs, to the consternation of good and respectable men. Wherefore
young men, if you will listen to me, entertain no apprehensions about
this double sun: for either it is nothing at all, or if it is a reality,
as far as it has been observed, there is nothing injurious in it. Either
we can know nothing about such matters, or even if we could know all
about them, we should not be better or happier for that knowledge. But
one senate and one people we may have; that is practicable. And if it is
not done, we shall suffer for it. And we know it is otherwise, and that
if it were effected, we should have more stability, and be happier and
better.”
XX. Then Mucius. “What is it we have to learn, in your opinion, Lælius,
that we may be able to effect what you require of us?”
Lælius. “Those sciences whose tendency is to enable us to be useful to
the state; for I deem that to be the most pre-eminent gift of wisdom, as
well as the noblest fruit of virtue and duty. Wherefore that these
holidays may be productive of conversations in an especial manner useful
to the republic, let us entreat Scipio to impart to us, what he deems to
be the happiest condition of a state. Afterwards we can consider other
matters, the knowledge of which I hope will bring us to the subject
before us, and will unfold the causes of the present condition of
things.
[Two pages wanting.]
XXI. * * * * * not for that cause alone I wished it, but because I
thought it proper that the first person in the republic should first
speak on public affairs; and because I remembered that you were
accustomed frequently to discuss with Panætius before Polybius, two
Greeks extremely versed in civil affairs; and that you had proved by
various reasonings the excellence of that form of government, which our
ancestors had transmitted to us from so distant a period. In the which
matter, you, being more competent to it, will do an agreeable thing to
us all, (for I speak also for the rest,) if you will unfold to us your
opinion of the commonwealth.”
XXII. “I cannot,” he began, “say that I have been in the habit of
turning my mind more intensely and diligently to the consideration of
any subject, than the very one which you now propose to me, Lælius. For
when I perceive that every artificer who truly excels in his vocation,
is filled with anxiety, care, and zeal, lest any one should surpass him
in his art. I, whose chief duty, bequeathed to me by my parents and
ancestors, is the conduct and administration of the republic, must
confess myself more indolent than any artisan, if I bestowed less
attention on the greatest of arts, than he does on the most
insignificant. But neither am I satisfied with the writings on this
subject which the first and wisest among the Greeks have left to us;
while I hesitate to establish my own conclusions in preference to
theirs. Wherefore I intreat you, not to listen to me as one entirely
ignorant of the affairs of the Greeks, nor as one who gives them the
preference to our own writers, particularly in matters of this kind; but
as one liberally brought up by the diligence of distinguished parents,
and ardent in the love of knowledge from his youth; yet nevertheless
much more formed by domestic experience, than by literary studies.”
XXIII. “I doubt,” said Philus here, “whether any one has ever excelled
you in genius. We know to what studies you have always been partial, and
that in your acquaintance with the great affairs of the state, you have
surpassed every one: wherefore if as you say, your mind has been
particularly turned to matters which have now become almost a science: I
feel very much indebted to Lælius, feeling a hope that what you will say
will be more instructive, than all those things which the Greeks have
written for us.” “You are creating” replied he, “much expectation from
my discourse, which is a very great weight upon one, who is about to
speak of matters of importance.” “However great it may be,” said Philus,
“you will throw it off as you are accustomed to do; nor is there any
danger that a dissertation from you on government will be deficient in
any requisite.”
XXIV. “I will do what you desire, as well as I am able,” rejoined
Scipio, “and will begin the discussion in conformity with the rule which
I think ought to be observed in the examination of all things, if you
would avoid error. That the name of the subject in discussion being
agreed upon, the meaning of the name shall be defined. If this be found
to be appropriate, the matter can be entered upon at once; for unless
this be perfectly understood at first, we never can understand what we
are disputing about. Wherefore since it is of the republic we are
inquiring, let us first examine what that is we are inquiring about.”
Lælius having shown his acquiescence. “I do not intend, however,” said
Africanus, “in a matter so clear and familiar, to begin with the very
origin of things; the first conjunction of the sexes; then their progeny
and descendants, as some of our learned men are accustomed to do: nor
shall I go into continual definitions of terms—what they are—and how
many varieties of them. When I address wise men, who in war and in
peace, have taken a glorious part in the affairs of a great republic, I
shall not expose myself in such a manner, that the very thing under
discussion shall be more intelligible, than my own explanation of it.
Neither do I take upon me to pursue the subject in every direction, as a
master would: nor can I promise to do it so effectually, that no
omission whatever shall escape me.” “It is exactly such a discourse as
you promise, that I am in expectation of,” said Lælius.
XXV. “A republic or commonwealth then,” said Scipio, “is the wealth or
common interest of the people. Every assemblage of men however, gathered
together without an object, is not the people, but only an assemblage of
the multitude associated by common consent, for reciprocal rights, and
reciprocal usefulness. The leading cause of this congregating, is not to
be ascribed so much to his weakness, as to the social principle innate
with man. Our species is not a solitary and wandering one, but is so
created that even when enjoying the greatest affluence * * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XXVI. * * * * rather intuitive; for no original institution of the
social state has been found, nor of the other moral virtues. These
congregations therefore made for the purposes I have explained,
established their first seat in some particular place for a residence.
Which after being fortified by their labours and by its position, and
fitted with temples and public squares, the re-union of dwellings
constructed after this manner, they called a town or city. Every people
therefore, formed by the assemblage of such a multitude as I have
described, every city which is the settlement of a people, every
commonwealth which as I have said, is the wealth of the people, must in
order to be permanent, be governed by some authority. That authority
however must always have a strong relation to the causes from whence the
commonwealth derived its origin. It may then be delegated to one, or to
some selected persons; or it may be borne by the whole multitude of the
people. When therefore authority over all things, is in the control of
one man, we call him king; and a commonwealth so ordered, his kingdom.
When the authority is exercised by selected persons, then such a state
is said to be under the government of the better class. But there is
also a popular form of government, for so it is called, where all things
are ruled by the people. And of any of these three modes, if the chain
is in any manner kept together, which at first united men into the
social pact for the sake of the common interest, I would not indeed call
the mode perfect, nor say that in my opinion it was the best, but that
it was to be tolerated, and that one might be preferable to another. For
whether under a just and wise king, or chosen eminent citizens, or the
people themselves, although this last is least to be approved of,
setting aside the irregularities occasioned by the bad passions of some
men, any one may see that a steady government might be preserved.
XXVII. In kingdoms however, the governed are too much deprived of common
rights, and of power. Under the better class, the multitude can scarcely
be partakers of liberty, as they are not admitted either to the public
councils or offices: and when the government is conducted by the people,
although it be justly and moderately administered, yet equality itself
becomes injustice, seeing that it admits of no degrees of rank.
Therefore, although Cyrus the Persian, was a most just and wise king,
yet such a commonwealth, (for as I said before, it is the common
property,) governed by the nod of one man, does not appear to me very
desirable. And although the Massilians our clients are governed with
great justice, by their chosen chief men, nevertheless in that condition
of a people, there is something resembling slavery. And the Athenians at
a certain period having abolished the Areopagus, conducted every thing
by ordinances, and decrees of the people; yet as they had no
distinctions in dignity, their state was without its ornament.
XXVIII. And this I say of these three kinds of government, not of the
agitations and disturbances incidental to them, but of their tranquil
and regular state. Those varieties are principally remarkable for the
defects I have alluded to. Then they have other pernicious failings, for
every one of these governments is travelling a dangerous road, bordering
on a slippery and precipitous path. To a king so commendable, or if you
choose, since I especially name him; to the amiable Cyrus; a parallel
springs up in the cruel Phalaris, with all his capricious tyranny; into
whose similitude the government of one man so easily slides with a
downward course. To the administration of the city of the Massilians by
their select chiefs, may be opposed the plot and faction of the Thirty,
which took place at a certain period among the Athenians. Nor need we
look farther; the very Athenian people having assumed the power over all
things, and giving license to the fury of the multitude * * * * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XXIX. * * * * * * and this great mischief arises whether under the rule
of the better class, or under a tyrannical faction, or under the regal
government; and even frequently under the popular form. At the same time
from the various forms of government of which I have spoken, something
excellent is wont to emanate. For the changes and vicissitudes in public
affairs, appear to move in a circle of revolutions; which when
recognized by a wise man, as soon as he beholds them impending, if he
can moderate their course in the administration of affairs, and restrain
them under his control; he acts truly the part of a great citizen, and
almost of a divine man. Therefore I think a fourth kind of government,
moderated and mixed from those three of which I first spoke, is most to
be approved.”
XXX. “I know” said Lælius, “that such is your opinion Africanus, for I
have often heard you say so. Nevertheless, unless it is troublesome to
you, I should be glad to learn which you judge best of these three kinds
of government. For either it will throw some light upon * * * * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XXXI. * * * * * * every government partakes of the nature and will of
him who administers it. So that in no other state, save where the power
of the people predominates, has liberty any home. Liberty the sweetest
of all blessings, and which if it is not equal for all, is not liberty.
For what equality can there be, I do not mean in kingdoms where slavery
has no doubtful character: but in those states where all are nominally
free: there indeed they give their votes, confer commands, magistracies
and are solicited and intreated. But in truth they only part with that,
however repugnant it may be to them, which must be conferred: things
which they cannot retain, which is the reason why others seek to possess
them. For they are invested with no command, have no public authority,
nor are called to be judges in the tribunals: privileges which belong
either to ancient families, or are purchased by money. Among a free
people however, as at Rhodes or Athens, there is no citizen
who * * * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XXXII. Some assert, that when one or more in a state becomes conspicuous
by his opulence or riches, disdain and pride soon break out: and the
weak and indolent yield and bend under the arrogance of riches. But if
the people are able to preserve their rights, they think no condition of
things could be more excellent, more free, or more happy. For in their
hands would be the laws, the tribunals, war, peace, treaties, and the
properties and lives of all the citizens. This sort of government they
think is properly called one republic, that is the common interest of
the people. Wherefore it is, that the people are wont to restore
commonwealths to liberty from the domination of kings, and patricians;
not that kings are believed to be necessary to a free people, or that
the better class are the source of power and wealth. And they deny that
these advantages should not be conceded to a free people on account of
the excesses of uncivilized nations: for where the people are unanimous,
and every thing tends to the public safety and liberty, nothing can be
more unchangeable, nothing more firm. Unanimity in such a commonwealth
is very easy, where the common effort is for the public good. But from
opposing interests, where one man clashes with another, discord arises.
Wherefore when the senate had possession of the government, the
condition of the state was never sound. In kingdoms the disadvantages
are still greater; of them Ennius said
“No holy confidence or fellowship reigns there.”
Wherefore as the law is the bond of civil society, and equal rights form
that of the law, by what power can a community of citizens be
maintained, where their condition is not an equal one? If therefore it
is not expedient to equalize fortunes; if the powers of mind cannot be
equalized in all, certainly then an equality of rights ought to exist,
among those who are citizens of the same republic. For what is a state
but a community of rights? * * * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XXXIII. * * other governments however are deemed by them not to deserve
those names, which they have chosen to arrogate to themselves. For why
should I call a man who is greedy of rule, or of the sole command, and
who is trampling upon an oppressed people, king, which is the title of
the good Jupiter, rather than tyrant? A tyrant may be clement as well as
a king may be oppressive; the matter really interesting to the people
is, whether they are to serve under a gentle or a severe master: for as
to being any thing but servants, that is not to be avoided. How could
Lacedemon, when she was thought to excel in the science of government,
possess only good and just kings, when she was obliged to take any king
who was sprung from the royal blood? And the better class, who can
endure them, who have arrogated to themselves in their own assemblies, a
name not conceded to them by the people? For who is the man to be
pronounced best, in learning, in the arts, in studies? * * * * *
[Four pages wanting.]
XXXIV. * * * * If it was done by lot, the government would be
overthrown; like a ship, at whose helm, some passenger taken at hazard
was placed. A nation can entrust its affairs to whom it may choose; and
if it wishes to remain free, it will choose from among the best. For
certainly the security of states is found in the counsels of the best
citizens; especially as nature has not only ordained that they should
preserve an influence over the weak by their conspicuous virtue and
courage, but also that the weak should resign themselves to the
government of great minds. This most desirable state of things, they
say, is prevented by the erroneous opinions of men who, through
ignorance of that virtue, which belongs to but few, and is seen and
appreciated only by few, deem those who are sprung from a noble race, or
who are opulent and wealthy, to be the best men. Under this vulgar
error, when the power, not the virtues of a few, have got possession of
the government; those chiefs tenaciously preserve the title of better
class; a name however to which the substance is wanting. For riches,
titles, and power, devoid of wisdom, of the knowledge of
self-government, and that of the government of others, exhibit nothing
but insolent and disgraceful pride. Nor can the condition of any city be
more deplorable, than where the richest men pass for the best. But what
can be more delightful than a state virtuously governed? What more
illustrious than the man, who while he governs others, is himself the
slave of no bad passions? Who, while he calls upon the citizens to
observe the regulations he has formed, lives up to them all himself? Nor
imposes any laws upon the people, which he himself obeys not, but who
presents his whole life to his fellow citizens as one unbroken law. If
one man could suffice to all things, there would be no need of many; and
if all men could perceive what is best, and consent to it, no one would
require any chiefs to be elected. The difficulty of coming to wise
determinations, has transferred the rule from one king to many persons;
and the error and rashness of the people, from the multitude to a few.
Thus between the obstinacy of one, and the temerity of many, the better
class have possessed themselves of the middle and least turbulent of all
the situations: by whom if the commonwealth is well administered, the
people relieved from all care and thought, must necessarily be happy:
enjoying their independence through the labours of those, whose duty it
is to preserve it to them; and who ought never to permit the people to
think that their interests are neglected by their rulers. As to that
exact equality of rights, which is held so dear by a free people; it
cannot be preserved: for the people themselves, however free and
unrestrained they may be, are remarkable for their deference to many
persons; and exercise a great preference as it respects men and
dignities. That which is called equality also, is a most unjust thing in
itself: for when the same honour is enjoyed by the high and by the low,
through a whole people, that very equality must be unjust; and in those
states which are governed by the better class, it can never happen.
These, Lælius, and some other reasons resembling them, are wont to be
urged by those who chiefly praise that form of government.
XXXV. “But which, Scipio, among those three, do you chiefly approve of?”
said Lælius.
Scipio. “You do well to ask, which chiefly of the three, since
separately I do not approve of any of them; but should prefer to every
one of them, a government constituted out of all three. But if one of
them for its simplicity may be admired, I should approve of the kingly
form, and give it the highest praise. For the name of king calls up at
once the idea of a father, consulting with his citizens as if they were
his own children; and more anxious to preserve them, than to reduce them
to slavery: it being a great advantage to the weak to be sustained by
the exertions and by the foresight of one pre-eminent and good man. Here
however the better class profess to do the same thing to more advantage,
and say there is more wisdom with numbers than with one, and at the same
time equal justice and faith. But the people call out with a loud voice,
that they choose neither to obey one nor many; that nothing is sweeter
to the beasts of the field than liberty, which is wanting to all who
serve either under the better class or under a king. Thus on the score
of personal attachment, kings attract us. The better class by their
wisdom; and liberty on the side of the people. So that in making the
comparison, it is difficult to say which is preferable.”
L. “I believe it,” said he, “but if you leave this point unfinished, the
other parts of the subject can scarcely be cleared up.”
XXXVI. S. “Let us imitate therefore Aratus, who in his introduction to a
discourse upon high matters, thought it best to begin with Jupiter.”
L. “Why with Jupiter? and what has this discussion to do with the verses
of Aratus?”
S. “Insomuch, that the opening of our debate may be honoured with the
name of him, whom all, learned and unlearned, consent with one voice, to
be the one king of all the gods and men.” “What then!” said Lælius.
“What do you believe in but the things which are before your eyes?”
replied he. “This opinion has been established for the conduct of life,
by those who have had the direction of public affairs; that the belief
might prevail, that one king ruled in heaven, who with his nod, as Homer
says, could tumble down Olympus; and that he should be considered as the
King and Father of all. Great is the authority for it, and many the
witnesses, inasmuch as all have concurred in it. Nations too have
agreed, as we find in the decrees of princes, that the regal form of
government was most excellent, since they imagine the gods themselves to
be under the government of one king. And if we have been told that this
and similar opinions have sprung from fables and the errors of the
ignorant, let us listen to those who may be considered almost the common
teachers of erudite men; who as it were, saw these very things with
their eyes, which we scarcely are acquainted with, when we hear of
them.” “And who are they?” said Lælius. “They,” replied he, who in their
investigations of the nature of all things, have perceived a design in
the universal structure of this world * * * * * *
[Four pages wanting.]
XXXVII. * * * * * * “But if you desire it Lælius, I can give you
authorities in no wise barbarous, nor of too remote an antiquity.”
L. I should be glad to have them.
S. You are aware that it is now somewhat less than four hundred years
since this city has been governed without kings.
L. That is true; rather less.
S. What then are four hundred years, for the age of a city or state; is
it such a long period?
L. It can hardly be called an adult age.
S. Then there was a king in Rome four hundred years ago?
L. And a very superb one.
S. Who before him?
L. A most just one; and from that period up to Romulus, who reigned six
hundred years from the present time.
S. Then he is not so very remote.
L. Not at all. The institutions of Greece were already on the wane.
S. I submit to you now, whether Romulus was the king of a barbarous
people?
L. If as the Greeks say, all men were either Greeks or Barbarians; then
I am afraid he must be esteemed a king of a barbarous people. But if
that epithet is appropriate to a difference of manners, rather than to
languages, I think the Greeks not less barbarians than the Romans.” “In
relation to the matter of which we speak,” said Scipio, “it is
intelligence we are looking for, rather than men. If a discreet people
therefore, not of a very ancient period, have preferred the government
of kings, I am availing myself of testimony which cannot be deemed
savage, uncivilized, or of a barbarous antiquity.”
XXXVIII. “I perceive Scipio,” said Lælius, “that you are sufficiently
provided with testimony. But with me, as with good judges, sound
argument prevails more than witnesses.” “Make use of an argument then,”
replied Scipio, “which your knowledge of yourself can suggest to you.”
“What knowledge,” said he.
S. Why as when by chance it happens to you to be angry with some one.
L. That occurs oftener than I could wish.
S. What! when you are in anger, do you suffer your mind to fall under
the domination of that passion?
L. No, so help me Hercules. I rather imitate Archytas, the Tarentine;
who on arriving at his country house, and being greatly offended at
perceiving his orders had been disobeyed, “You are a miserable wretch,”
said he to his farmer, “and I would have you flogged to death if I were
not angry.” “Excellent,” said Scipio. “Archytas wished to calm his anger
by reflection, considering that degree of it which was not under the
control of reason, to be leading on to a sort of sedition of the mind.
To it add avarice, ambition, the passion for glory, and for sensual
pleasures; and it will appear that there exists in the minds of men, a
sort of regal controlling power, to wit, reflection. For that is the
best part of the mind, and where its authority prevails, there is no
room for sensuality, for anger, or for rashness.
L. So it is.
S. Do you approve therefore of a mind so disposed?
L. There is nothing I admire more.
S. Then you really do not think, reflection being driven away; that
voluptuousness or the angry passions, which are without end, should have
the mastery in all things.
L. Indeed I can conceive of nothing more wretched, than such a state of
mind; nor of a man more debased than when under such government.
S. You prefer then all parts of the mind, to be under some government,
the government of reflection?
L. I certainly prefer it.
S. Why therefore do you hesitate in your opinion about public affairs;
where if the administration is transferred to many, there will be no
one, as I now understand it, to take the command. And it seems that if
authority is not one thing, it is nothing at all.
XXXIX. “I would ask,” said Lælius, “of what consequence it is to us,
whether one or many, if justice is dispensed by the latter.” “Since I
find Lælius,” said Scipio, “that my witnesses have made no great
impression on you, I shall not desist from making use of yourself as a
witness to prove what I say.” “Me,” said he, “in what way?”
S. Why adverting to the directions you so earnestly gave to your family,
when we were lately at Formianum; to obey only the orders of one person.
L. Oh! my farmer!
S. Well, at home, I suppose, several are entrusted with the management
of your affairs?
L. No, only one.
S. What, your whole establishment! does no one but yourself manage it?
L. Just so.
S. Do not you therefore accede to the same conclusion in public affairs:
that the government of a single person, if it is a just one, is the
best?
L. I am brought to the conclusion, and must almost assent to it.
XL. You will be more inclined to that opinion, said Scipio, when
omitting the analogies of one pilot, one physician, who if they are any
way skilled in their arts, ought one to have the control of the ship;
the other of the patient, in preference to many; I come to the
consideration of greater matters.
L. What are they?
S. Are you not aware that the name of king became odious to this people,
on account of the oppression and pride of one man, Tarquin?
L. Yes, I am aware.
S. Then you are aware of what haply in the course of this discussion, I
may find occasion to speak. Tarquin being driven out, the people exulted
with a marvellous sort of insolence of freedom. At one time driving
innocent people into exile; at another, confiscating the property of
many. Next came annual consuls. Then the fasces prostrated before the
people—appeals in all cases. Then the mutiny of the plebeians—then a
complete revolution in every thing, placing all things in the power of
the people.
L. It is as you say. “It is true,” said Scipio—“in peace and
tranquillity, some license may be permitted when there is nothing to
fear, as at sea sometimes, or in a slight fever: but like him who is at
sea, when suddenly the ocean puts on its terrors, or the sick man, when
his complaint oppresses him, and the assistance of one is implored: so
our people in time of peace, interfere in internal affairs, threaten the
magistrates, refuse submission to them, denounce them and provoke them;
yet in war obey them as they would a king, preferring their safety to
the indulgence of their passions. Also in our more important wars, our
countrymen have constantly preferred the command to be in the hands of
one, without any colleague; the extent of whose power is indicated by
his name. For a dictator is so called on account of every thing being
dictated by him. But in our books, Lælius, you see also that he is
called master of the people.”
L. It is so. “Wisely therefore did those ancients,” said Scipio * * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XLI. * * * When a people is deprived of a just king, as Ennius says,
after the death of one of the best of kings,
“Long were their bosoms moved with deep regret;
Oft they together call upon his manes.
Oh, godlike Romulus! the bounteous gods
What a protector did they give in thee?
Oh father, parent, blood derived from heaven!”
Those whom the laws enjoined them to obey, they did not call lords or
masters; finally, not even kings, but guardians of the country, fathers
and gods. Nor without cause, for what is added,
“Thou broughtest us into the realms of light!”
They thought that life, honour, and every comfort was given to them by
the justice of a king. And the same inclinations would have remained
with their posterity, if the character of their kings had not changed.
But you perceive that kind of government was ruined by the injustice of
one man.
L. I do perceive it, and I am desirous of knowing the course of these
changes, not only in our own country, but in all governments.
XLII. “It will be for you,” said Scipio, “when I shall have given my
opinion of that kind of government which I prefer, to give a more
accurate account of the mutations in governments; although I do not
think them much to be apprehended in the form I am inclined to. But a
regal form of government is particularly and most certainly exposed to
change. When a king begins to be unjust, that form of government
perishes at once. The tyrant is, at the same time, the worst of all
conditions of government, and the nearest to the best. Whom, if the
better class have overturned, which for the most part happens, the
commonwealth possesses that second class of the three. And this is a
sort of royalty; a paternal government of the principal people, for the
benefit of the rest. But if the people cast out or slay the tyrant;
rejoicing in their own deed, they are more moderate, as long as they
know and feel the value of being so, in their endeavour to protect the
commonwealth constituted by themselves. But when the populace have bent
their force against a just king, and have stripped him of his kingdom;
or even, as it happens very often, have tasted the blood of the better
class, and have prostrated the whole republic in their madness; think
not that the vexed ocean or the wildest conflagration, can be more
easily kept down, than the unbridled insolence of the multitude.
XLIII. Then is produced what in Plato is so clearly described, if I can
in any manner express it in Latin, a thing difficult to be done, but I
will endeavour. “It is then,” he says, “when the insatiable throats of
the people, parched with the thirst of liberty, and led on by rash
demagogues, have greedily drank, not temperate but too unalloyed
draughts of freedom. Then the magistrates and chiefs, unless they are
too lenient and indulgent, permitting them every excess of liberty; are
pursued, impeached, insulted, and called oppressors, kings, and
tyrants.” I think this part of his works is known to you.
L. I am well acquainted with it.
S. Then follows, “Those who pay obedience to the magistrates, are
tormented by the people, are called voluntary slaves. But those
magistrates who affect to be on an equality with the lowest; and other
individuals who strive to abolish all distinction between citizens and
magistrates, are exalted with praises, and overwhelmed with honours. And
in this condition of things, it follows, of course, that there is an
unrestrained license in a government of this kind; so that every private
family is without any government: and this evil extends even to the
beasts. At length the father fears the son—the son disregards the
father: every sort of decency is extinguished, that an open license may
prevail. Nothing distinguishes the citizen from the stranger. The master
pays court to his scholars, that he may be flattered by them. Teachers
are despised by their disciples. Young persons take upon themselves the
authority of aged ones, who abase themselves to mingle in their games,
lest they become odious and burdensome to them. At last slaves give
themselves all sorts of liberties. Wives assume the privileges of their
husbands. Nay the dogs, the horses, the asses at length are so infected
with liberty, and run kicking about so, that it is absolutely necessary
to get out of their way. Wherefore from this infinite license these
things result, that the minds of the citizens become so scornful and
impatient, that if the least power of government is exercised, they
become exasperated and will not endure it; whence they come to despise
every kind of law, that they may be without the least restraint
whatever.”
XLIV. “You have,” said Lælius, “precisely expressed Plato’s sentiments.”
S. Returning therefore to the subject of my discourse. “It is from this
very license,” he says, “which they deem to be liberty itself, that a
tyrant springs up as a sapling from a root. For as the destruction of
the better class arises from their overweening power, so this excess of
liberty, effects the slavery of this free people. Thus all extremes of
an agreeable nature, whether in the seasons, or in the fertility of the
fields, or in our natural feelings, are often converted into their
opposites. Especially it occurs in public affairs, where excess of
liberty degenerates into public and individual slavery. Out of such
licentious freedom a tyrant arises, and the most unjust and severe
bondage. For by a people so untameable, or rather so outrageous, some
leader is chosen out of the multitude, in opposition to the better
class, now persecuted and driven from their offices: bold and dishonest,
perversely persecuting those who have frequently deserved well of their
country, and gratifying the people from his own means and from those of
others. To whom, that he may be freed from all apprehensions on account
of his private condition, authority is given and continued to him.
Surrounded too by guards, as was the case with Pisistratus at Athens, at
length he becomes the tyrant of the very citizens who brought him
forward. Who, if he is subdued by the good, as often happens, the state
is regenerated. If by the bad, then a faction is established, another
kind of tyranny. The same state of things too frequently occurs in that
goodly form of government of the better class, when the vices of the
chiefs have caused them to deviate from their integrity. Thus do they
snatch the government of the commonwealth from each other like a
ball—tyrants from kings—chiefs or the people from tyrants; and factions
or tyrants from them, nor does the same mode of government ever last a
long time.
XLV. These things being so, the regal form of government is in my
opinion much to be preferred of those three kinds. Nevertheless one
which shall be well tempered and balanced out of all those three kinds
of government, is better than that; yet there should be always something
royal and pre-eminent in a government, at the same time that some power
should be placed in the hands of the better class, and other things
reserved for the judgment and will of the multitude. Now we are struck
first with the great equability of such a constitution, without which a
people cannot be free long; next with its stability. The three other
kinds of government easily fall into the contrary extremes: as a master
grows out of a king; factions from the better class; and mobs and
confusion from the people. The changes too are perpetual which are
taking place. This cannot well happen in such a combined and moderately
balanced government, unless by the great vices of the chief persons. For
there is no cause for change, where every one is firmly placed in his
proper station, and never gives way, whatever may fall down or be
displaced.
XLVI. But I am afraid, Lælius, and you too my very discreet and
respected friends, if I continue long in this strain, my discourse will
appear more like that of a master or teacher to you, than as a
conversation with you. Wherefore I will speak of matters known to us
all, and which we have all inquired into long ago. For I am convinced,
and believe, and declare, that no kind of government, either in the
constitution, the planning, or the practice, is to be compared with that
which our fathers have left to us, and which was adopted by our
ancestors. Which if you please, since you have been desirous that I
should repeat things known to yourselves, I will shew not only what it
is, but that it is the best. And with our own government in view, I will
if I can, have a reference to it, in whatever I may say respecting the
best form of government. The which if I can follow up and effect, I
shall, as I think, amply fulfil the task which Lælius has imposed on me.
XLVII. “It is your task indeed, Scipio,” said Lælius, “most truly yours.
For who in preference to yourself may speak of the institutions of our
forefathers; you being sprung from such illustrious ancestors; or of the
best form of government. The which if we now possess it, would hardly be
so, if any one stood in a more conspicuous situation than yourself. Or
who may venture to advise measures for posterity, when thou, having
delivered the city from its greatest terrors, hast foreseen for the
latest times?”
CICERO’S REPUBLIC.
[Illustration]
BOOK II.
I. Perceiving them all now eager to listen to him, Scipio thus began to
speak. “It was old Cato, to whom as you know I was singularly attached,
and whom I admired in the highest degree: to whom, either through the
advice of both my parents, or from my own prepossession, I devoted
myself entirely from my youth; whose conversation never could satiate
me. Such was the experience of the man in public affairs, which he had
for a long time successfully conducted in peace and war. His manner of
speaking too, a facetiousness mixed with gravity: his constant desire
also to improve himself and others; indeed his whole life in harmony
with his maxims. He was wont to say, that the condition of our country
was pre-eminent above all others for this cause. That among other
people, individuals generally had respectively constituted the
government by their laws and by their institutes, as Minos in Crete,
Lycurgus in Lacedemon. At Athens, where the changes were frequent, at
first Theseus, then Draco, then Solon, then Clisthenes; afterwards many
others. Finally exhausted and prostrated, it had been upheld by that
learned man Demetrius, of Phalera. But that the constitution of our
republic was not the work of one, but of many; and had not been
established in the life of one man, but during several generations and
ages. For he said so powerful a mind had never existed; from which
nothing had escaped; nor that all minds collected into one, could
foresee so much at one time, as to comprehend all things without the aid
of practice and time. For which reason, as he was wont, so shall my
discourse now repeat the origin of the people; for I have a pleasure in
using the very words of Cato. But I shall more easily follow up my
proposition in describing our own republic to you, in its infancy, its
growth, in its adult, and its present firm and robust state; than if I
were to create an imaginary one, as Socrates is made to do in Plato.
II. When all had approved of this, he proceeded. “What beginning,
therefore, have we of the establishment of a republic so illustrious and
so known to you all, as the origin of the building of this city by
Romulus, born of his father Mars? For let us concede to the common
opinion of men, especially as it is not only well established, but also
wisely recorded by our ancestors, that those who have deserved well of
us on account of our common interest, be deemed not only to have
possessed a divine genius, but also a divine origin. He therefore after
his birth, with Remus his brother, is said to have been ordered to be
exposed on the Tiber, by the Alban king, Amulius, apprehensive lest his
kingdom should be shaken. In which place, having been sustained by the
teats of a wild beast, the shepherds took him, and brought him up in the
labour and cultivation of the fields. It is said, that when he had grown
up, he was distinguished above the rest by his corporeal strength, and
the daringness of his mind. So that all who then inhabited the fields,
where at this day stands the city, obeyed him willingly and without
dissent. And being constituted their leader, that we may now come from
fables to facts, with a strong force he took Alba-longa, a powerful and
well constructed city in those times, and put the king Amulius to death.
III. Having acquired which glory, he is said first to have auspiciously
thought of building a city, and of establishing a government. In regard
to the situation of the city, a circumstance which is most carefully to
be considered by him, who endeavours to establish a permanent
government; he chose it with incredible skill. For neither did he remove
to the sea, although it was a very easy thing for him with his forces,
to march through the territory of the Rutulians and Aborigines; neither
would he build a city at the mouth of the Tiber, to which place the king
Ancus led a colony many years after. For he perceived, with an admirable
foresight, that maritime situations were not proper for those cities
which were founded in the hope of continuance, or with a view to empire.
First, because maritime towns were not only exposed to many dangers, but
to unseen ones. For the ground over which an expected enemy moves, as
well as an unexpected one, announces his approach beforehand by many
indications: by sound itself of a peculiarly tumultuous kind. No enemy
can make a march, however forced, without our not only knowing him to be
there, but even who he is, and whence he comes. But a maritime enemy and
a naval force may be before you, ere any one can suspect him to be come.
Nor even when he does come, does he carry before him any indication of
who he is, or from whence he comes, or even what he wants. Finally by no
kind of sign can it be discerned or determined whether he is a friend or
an enemy.
IV. In maritime cities, too, a sort of debasing and changeable manners
prevail. New languages and new customs are mingled together, and not
only productions but manners are imported from abroad; so that nothing
remains entire of the pristine institutions. Even they who inhabit those
cities are not faithful to their homes, but with capricious inclinations
and longings are carried far from them; and although their persons
remain, their minds are rambling and wandering abroad. Nor did Carthage
or Corinth, long before shaken, owe their ruin to any thing more than to
the unsettled scattering of the citizens, who abandoned the study of
agriculture and arms through their cupidity of gain and love of roaming.
Many pernicious excitements too to luxury, are brought over the sea to
cities by commercial importation or by conquest. Even the very amenity
of the situation suggests many costly and enervating allurements. What I
have said of Corinth, I know not if I may as truly say of all Greece;
for almost all Peloponnessus lies on the sea, and except the
Phliuntians, there are none whose lands do not extend to the coast.
Beyond Peloponnessus, the Enianes, the Dorians, and the Dolopians are
the only people in the interior. What shall I say of the islands of
Greece? which surrounded with billows, float about as it were with the
institutions and manners of their cities. These things as I said before,
relate to ancient Greece; but of the colonies brought by the Greeks into
Asia, Thrace, Italy, Sicily, and Africa, except Magnesia alone, which of
them is not washed by the ocean? Thus a part of the Grecian shores
seemed to be joined to the lands of the barbarians. For among the
barbarians themselves, none were a maritime people, except the Etruscans
and the Carthagenians; the one for the sake of commerce, the other for
the sake of piracy. A most obvious cause of the evils and revolutions of
Greece, arising from the vices of these maritime cities, which awhile
ago I slightly touched upon. Nevertheless among these evils there is a
great convenience. The products of every distant nation can be wafted to
the city you inhabit; and in return the productions of your own lands
can be sent or carried into whatever countries you choose.
V. Who then more inspiredly than Romulus could secure all the maritime
conveniences, and avoid all the defects? placing the city on the banks
of a perennial river, broadly flowing with an equal course to the sea.
By which the city might receive what it wanted from the ocean, and
return whatever was superfluous. Receiving by the same channel all
things essential to the wants and the refinements of life, not only from
the sea, but likewise from the interior. So that it appears to me, he
had foreseen this city, at some period, would be the seat and capital of
a mighty empire: for a city placed in any other part of Italy would not
easily have been able to acquire such a powerful influence.
VI. As to the native defences of the city, who is so unobservant as not
to have them marked and fixed in his mind? Such is the alignment and
direction of the wall, which by the wisdom of Romulus, as well of
succeeding kings, was bounded on every part by lofty and craggy hills:
so that the only entrance, which was between the Esquiline and the
Quirinal hills, was defended by a huge mound, and a very wide ditch. The
citadel, surrounded by this craggy and seemingly hewn rock, had such a
gallant position, that in that furious invasion of the terrible Gauls,
it remained safe and intact. He choose also a place abounding in
springs, and salubrious even in a pestilent region. For there are hills
which while they enjoy the breezes, at the same time throw a cool shade
upon the vallies.
VII. These things were done too with great celerity. For he not only
founded a city, which he ordered to be called Rome, from his own name;
but to establish it, and strengthen the power of the people and his
kingdom, he adopted a strange and somewhat clownish plan, but worthy of
a great man, whose providence extended far into futurity. When the
Sabine virgins, descended from respectable families, were come to Rome
to see the games, whose first anniversary he had then ordered to be
celebrated in the circus, he ordered them to be seized during the
sports, and gave them in marriage to the most honourable families. For
which cause, when the Sabines had made war upon the Romans, and when the
success of the battle was various and doubtful, he struck a league with
Tatius, king of the Sabines, at the entreaty of the very matrons who had
been seized: in consequence of which he admitted the Sabines into the
city: and mutually having embraced each others sacred rites, he
associated their king with him in the government.
VIII. After the death however of Tatius, all the power came back into
his hands: although he had admitted some chiefs into the royal council
with Tatius, who were called fathers, on account of the affection borne
to them. He also divided the people into three tribes, named after
himself, after Tatius, and after Lucumon, a companion of Romulus, who
had been slain in the Sabine war: and into thirty curia, which curia he
called by the names of those from among the Sabine virgins seized, at
whose entreaties the peace and league had been formed. But although
these things were done before the death of Tatius, yet after that event,
his government became much better established, aided by the authority
and counsel of the fathers.
IX. In the which he saw and judged as Lycurgus at Sparta had done, a
little while before him: that states were better governed by individual
command and royal power, if the authority of some of the better class
were added to the energy of that kind of government. Thus sustained, and
as it were propped up by the senatorial authority, he carried on many
wars very successfully with his neighbours; and appropriating to himself
no part of the spoil, he never ceased to enrich the citizens. At that
time Romulus paid in most things attention to auspices, a custom we
still retain, and greatly advantageous to the republic. For he built the
city under the observance of auspices at the very beginning of the
republic; and in the establishment of all public affairs, he chose an
augur from each of the tribes to assist him in the auspices. He also had
the common people assigned as clients to the principal men, the utility
of which measure I will afterwards consider. Fines were paid in sheep
and cattle: for then all property consisted in flocks, and in
possessions of lands, whence the terms pecuniary[12] and landholders[13]
were derived. He did not attempt to govern by severity or the infliction
of punishments.
X. When Romulus had reigned thirty-seven years, and had established
those two excellent foundations of the state, the auspices and the
senate, he obtained this great meed: for when he had disappeared upon a
sudden obscuration of the sun, he was deemed to have been placed among
the number of the gods. A belief which no mortal had ever inspired
without the greatest pre-eminence in virtue. And this is most to be
admired in Romulus, that others who are said to have been deified out of
the mortal state, lived in the less civilized ages of man, when the
proneness to fiction was great, and the unenlightened were easily led to
believe in it. But during the period of Romulus, not quite six hundred
years ago, we know that learning and literature existed, and that the
ancient errors peculiar to the uncultivated ages of mankind were
removed. For if Rome, according to an investigation of the annals of the
Greeks, was built in the second year of the seventh olympiad; the reign
of Romulus occurred at that period when Greece was full of poets and
musicians; and when but little faith would be given to fabulous stories,
unless they were concerning very ancient things. For one hundred and
eight years after Lycurgus ordained laws to be written, the first
olympiad was established: which through a mistake in the name, some have
thought to be founded by Lycurgus. Homer, however, by those who take the
lowest period, is made to precede Lycurgus about thirty years. From
which it may be gathered that Homer flourished many years before
Romulus. So that there was scarce room in so intelligent an age, and
amid so many learned men, for any one to establish fictions. Antiquity
sometimes has received fables crudely devised, but that age already
refined, and especially deriding improbable events, has rejected * * *
[About 230 letters wanting.]
* * * * Simonides was born in the fifty-sixth olympiad, by which the
credit given to the immortality of Romulus may be more easily
understood, seeing that the institutions of society were then so well
established, organized, and known. But really so great was the force of
his genius and virtue, that what men would have given no credit to for
many ages in favour of any other man, was believed of Romulus upon the
evidence of Proculus Julius, a countryman, who at the instigation of the
fathers, in order to repel from themselves every suspicion of the death
of Romulus, is said to have declared in the assembly, that he had seen
Romulus on that mount which is now called Quirinal; and that he had
commanded him to request the people to erect a temple for him upon that
hill; that he was a god, and was called Quirinus.
XI. “Do not you perceive therefore a new people not only sprung from the
wisdom of one man, and not left crying in leading strings, but already
grown up, and almost an adult?” “Indeed we perceive it,” said Lælius,
“and that you have entered upon a new method of discussion, which is no
where to be found in the writings of the Greeks. For that pre-eminent
person,[14] whom no one has excelled in writing, has imagined to himself
a situation, in which he might construct his city after his own
pleasure: admirable enough perhaps, but foreign to the conduct and the
manners of men. Others have discussed the subject in relation to the
kinds and causes of governments, but not under any particular example of
a form of government. You seem to me to be about to do both, for
according to your method, you appear to prefer to attribute to others
what you yourself have observed, than to imagine a state of things, as
Socrates is made to do in Plato. And these matters respecting the
foundation of the city, you suppose to be part of a system, which were
only adopted by Romulus through necessity or chance. And your discourse
is not of a desultory kind, but concerning a particular commonwealth.
Wherefore proceed as you have begun, for already I perceive you are
about to follow on with the other kings, as perfecting the government.”
XII. “Wherefore,” said Scipio, “when the senate, which Romulus had
instituted out of the better class, and which had been so much favoured
by the king, as to cause them to be called fathers, and their children
patricians; endeavoured after the death of Romulus, to carry on the
government itself without any king; the people would not endure it, and
in their regret for Romulus did not cease to demand a king. Upon which
the leading men prudently imagined a mode of interregnum, new and
unknown to other nations. So that until a regular king was proclaimed,
neither the city should be without a king, nor with one too long a
period. Fearing lest from too long an enjoyment of the government, the
interrex should be reluctant to lay it down, or strong enough to
maintain himself in it. Even in these times, this new people perceived
what had escaped the Lacedemonian Lycurgus; who esteemed it best not to
choose a king, if this were indeed in the power of Lycurgus to do, but
rather to be governed by any one whatever descended from the race of
Hercules. But our ancestors, rude as they appear to have been, thought
it behoved them rather to look to royal wisdom and virtue, than to
descent.
XIII. When the great fame of Numa Pompilius had reached them, the
people, leaving aside their own citizens, called in by the authority of
the fathers, a king not born among them, and sent to the Curians for a
Sabine to reign over Rome. When he arrived, although the people had
decided that he should be king in the conventions of the curia,
nevertheless he himself had a law passed in the curia concerning his own
power; and as he saw the Romans through the institutions of Romulus were
eager after warlike pursuits, he deemed it proper to wean them somewhat
from that propensity.
XIV. And first, the lands which Romulus had acquired in war, he divided
equally among the citizens; and pointed out to them, that without
depopulating and pillaging, they might possess all the necessaries of
life, by the cultivation of their lands. He inspired them also with the
love of peace and repose, under which justice and good faith most kindly
flourish; and under the protection of which, the cultivation of the
fields, and the gathering of the harvest are most secure. The same
Pompilius having established auspices of a superior kind, added two
augurs to the ancient number, and placed five priests over sacred things
from the class of the chief men. And having established those laws which
we possess in our monuments, he softened, by the ceremonies of religion,
minds which were inflamed by the habit and inclination of making war. He
added also Flamens, Salii, and Vestal Virgins; and established with
great solemnity all the branches of religion: ordaining many ceremonies
to be learnt and observed, but without any expense. Thus he increased
the duty of religious observances and diminished the cost of them. In
like manner he established markets, games, and all the stated occasions
of assembling the people together. Under which institutions, he recalled
the minds of men become fierce and wild in warlike pursuits, to humanity
and gentleness. When he had reigned thirty-nine years in the most
perfect peace and concord, (in this we follow principally our friend
Polybius, than whom no one was more accurate in ascertaining periods,)
he departed from life; having strengthened every thing for the endurance
of the government, by those two conspicuous virtues, religion and
clemency.
XV. When Scipio had spoken these words. “Is it true, Africanus,” said
Manilius, “what tradition has brought down to us, that this king Numa
was a disciple of Pythagoras, or is it certain he was a Pythagorean? For
often we have heard this, as having been declared by old people, and
understand it also to be the common opinion; yet we do not see it
sufficiently proved by the authority of the public annals.” “It is
false,” replied Scipio, “entirely so Manilius! Not false alone, but
ignorantly and absurdly false; for the mendacity of those assertions is
not to be endured, which we not only see are not true, but which could
never have been so. It was in the fourth year of the reign of Lucius
Tarquinius Superbus, that Pythagoras is ascertained to have come to
Sybaris and Crotona, and those parts of Italy. For the sixty-second
Olympiad announces that very arrival of Pythagoras, and the beginning of
the reign of Superbus. From which it may be understood by a calculation
of the reigns, that Pythagoras touched first at Italy about a hundred
and forty years after the death of Numa. Nor has this fact, by those who
have very diligently investigated the annals of the times, ever been
thrown into any doubt.” “Immortal gods,” said Manilius, “how inveterate
and great is the error of men! Nevertheless, I can be very well pleased
in the belief, that our intelligence has not been derived from abroad,
and through foreign arts, but from natural and domestic virtues.”
XVI. “You will distinguish that more clearly,” said Africanus, “when you
perceive how the commonwealth advances and comes to the greatest
perfection by a straight forward and natural course. For in this also
the wisdom of our ancestors is to be praised; that many things derived
from abroad, have been rendered much more perfect by us, than they were
from whence they were brought, and where they first had existence. You
will see also that the greatness of the Roman people has not been
confirmed by chance, but by wisdom and discipline. Fortune indeed being
propitious to us.
XVII. King Pompilius being dead, the people upon the proposition of an
interrex, created Tullus Hostilius king, in the conventions of the
curia; and he, after the example of Pompilius, consulted the people in
the curia, concerning his power. His military glory was great, and
important warlike affairs took place. He constructed edifices for the
senate and the curia, and surrounded them with military trophies. He
established a law also for the declaration of war, which most justly
decreed by him, he made more sacred by the solemnity of Heralds: so that
every war which was not proclaimed and declared, was deemed to be
impious and unjust. And observe how wisely our kings saw that some sort
of deference must be paid to the people. I might say many things on that
head. Tullus indeed did not venture to appear with royal insignia unless
at the command of the people. For in order that it might be lawful for
him to be preceded by twelve lictors with their fasces * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XVIII. * * * * * “The government which your discourse is establishing,
does not creep, but rather flies towards perfection.” S. “After him,
Ancus Martius, grandson to Numa Pompilius by his daughter, was made king
by the people, who had his elevation sanctioned by a law of the curia.
Who having conquered the Latins in a war, incorporated them into the
state. He also added the Aventine and Cælian Mounts to the city. The
lands too which he had conquered he distributed, and made a public
domain of all the forests he had taken on the sea coast. He built a city
at the mouth of the Tiber, and planted a colony there. When he had thus
reigned twenty-three years, he died. “This king also is to be praised,”
said Lælius, “but the Roman history is obscure: for although we know who
was the mother of this king, we do not know who was his father.” S. “So
it is” said he, “but generally the names of the kings only of those
times are conspicuous.”
XIX. “But it is here that we first perceive the city to have become more
intelligent by extrinsic information. For not a gentle stream flowed
from Greece into this city, but an abundant flood of arts and knowledge.
It is stated that one Demaratus, a Corinthian, a principal man, and of
much honour and authority in his own city, and of an easy fortune, not
being able to endure Cypselus, the tyrant of the Corinthians, fled with
a great deal of money, and betook himself to a flourishing city of
Etruria, among the Tarquinians. When he had heard that the domination of
Cypselus was confirmed, being an independent and powerful man, he
renounced his country, and was received a citizen by the Tarquinians:
and in that city he fixed his home and establishment. Where when he had
begotten two sons from one of the Tarquinian matrons, he instructed them
in all the arts after the manner of the Greeks * * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XX. * * * * * He was well received in the city, and became intimate with
king Ancus on account of his learning and liberal knowledge. So much so
that he shared all his counsels, and might be deemed even a partner in
his kingdom. For there was a great affability in him, and an extreme
readiness in aiding, protecting, and doing liberal acts to every
citizen. Martius therefore being dead, L. Tarquinius was created king by
the united suffrages of the people; for thus he had changed his name
from his Grecian one, that in every thing he might be seen to imitate
the manners of the people. Having caused his accession to be confirmed
by a law, he doubled the pristine number of the fathers; calling those
whose opinions he first asked, ancient fathers of the greater families;
and those whom he had admitted, he called the lesser families. Then he
established the knights; after the manner that has obtained unto our
day. He could not change the names of the Titienses, of the
Rhamnensians, or the Luceres, when he wished to do so; because Attus
Nævius being then Augur in great reputation, would not consent to it. We
see the Corinthians chose formerly to assign cavalry for the public
service, and to have their expenses defrayed by taxes on orphans and
widows. But to the old troops of horse he added others, and made twelve
hundred knights. He doubled this number after he had subdued the Equi in
war, a powerful and ferocious race, which threatened the affairs of the
Roman people. And when he had driven the Sabines from the walls of the
city, he scattered them with his horse and conquered them. It is he whom
we understand to have instituted the great games, which we call Roman,
and to have made a vow during the Sabine war, while in battle, that he
would raise a temple on the capitol to the great and good Jupiter. He
died when he had reigned thirty-eight years.
XXI. “Now,” said Lælius, “is that saying of Cato very certain, that the
constitution of the state is not the work of one moment or one man: for
it is evident how great an accession of good and useful institutions
occurred under each reign. But he comes next, who appears to me to have
looked farther than them all into the nature of government.” “So it is,”
said Scipio, “for after him Servius Sulpicius is stated first to have
reigned without the command of the people. He is said to have been born
of a Tarquinian slave: she having conceived him by some client of the
king. Brought up among the number of the servants, when he attended at
the royal table, he did not suppress those sparks of genius, which even
then shone forth in the boy: so shrewd was he in every thing, whether in
business or conversation. Wherefore Tarquin, who at that time had only
young children, became so attached to Servius, that he was generally
thought to be his son; and with great pains instructed him in all those
arts, which he himself had been taught, after the very superior manner
of the Greeks. But when Tarquin had perished by the plots of the sons of
Ancus, Servius, as I before said, began to reign, not by the command,
but by the assent and sufferance of the people. For when Tarquin was
falsely said to be alive, and sick from the effects of his wound; he
declared the law in royal pomp, and discharged debtors with his own
money. Conducting himself with much courtesy, he declared that he
pronounced the law at the command of Tarquin. He did not commit himself
to the fathers, but Tarquin being buried, he conferred with the people
about himself, and being authorised to reign, he had his accession
confirmed by a law of the curia. And first he avenged himself by war,
for injuries received from the Etruscans, * * * * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XXII. * * he inscribed eighteen centuries of horse in the great
register. Afterwards having set apart a great number of equestrians
from the mass of the whole people, he distributed the rest of the
citizens into five classes, and divided the old from the young: and
classed them in such a manner, that the suffrages were not in the
power of the multitude, but of the landed proprietors. He was careful
of what ought always to be observed in government; that numbers alone
should not have the ascendency. Which classification if it were
unknown to you, should be explained by me. You will perceive the plan
was such, that the centuries of horse with six suffrages, (a century
being added from the carpenters on account of their great utility to
the city,) and the first class, make eighty-nine centuries: to which
from the one hundred and four centuries, for so many remain; if only
eight are added, the whole power of the people is obtained: and the
much greater multitude comprehended in the ninety-six centuries
remaining, is neither excluded from voting, lest it should seem
disdainful; nor is it made too effective, lest it should be dangerous.
In the which matter he was very circumspect even as to terms and
names. Those from among the wealthy he called “assiduos”[15] from
paying their taxes in money. Those who possessed no more than one
thousand five hundred pieces of brass, or those who were polled in the
register without any possessions whatever, he called proletaries; as
if progeny only; that is, as if nothing but population might be
expected from them. But of those ninety six centuries, more were
enumerated in one century, than almost in the whole first class. Thus
the right of suffrage was not prohibited to any one by law, and that
class had a greater weight of suffrage, which had most at stake in the
preservation of good government. As to public criers, men hired for
parade, clarion players, horn players, and proletaries, * * * *
[Four pages wanting.]
XXIII. * * * * * Was[16] sixty-five years more ancient, being built
thirty-nine years before the first olympiad. And the very ancient
Lycurgus had the same thing in view. This equality therefore, and this
triple nature of public affairs appears to me to have been common to us
and to those people. But what is peculiar in our republic, and than
which nothing can be more admirable, I will look very critically into if
I am able; as nothing similar is to be found in any government. For
these things which I have adverted to, were so mingled in this state,
and among the Lacedemonians, and the Carthagenians, that they were not
properly balanced. For in whatever government any one man enjoys
perpetual power, especially royalty, although even a Senate may exist in
it, as was the case at Rome under the kings, and in the laws of Lycurgus
at Sparta; and even granting the people some share in the government, as
was the fact under our kings: still that royal name will stand
pre-eminent, nor can a government of that kind be any thing but a
kingdom, or be called otherwise. But such a form of government is
especially subject to change for this reason; that it easily falls into
the most unprofitable courses, precipitated thereunto by the vices of
one man. For the royal form of government itself, not only is not to be
condemned, but I know not whether it is not greatly to be preferred to
the other simple forms, if I could approve of any simple form of
government. But only as long as it preserves its proper character, which
is that the safety, the equality, and tranquillity of the citizens, are
to be preserved by the justice, the wisdom, and the perpetual power of
one man. Many things however are altogether wanting to a people subject
to a king. Liberty among the first: which is not that we may live under
a just master, but under none at all. * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XXIV. For some time fortune prosperously accompanied this unjust and
cruel master in the administration of affairs. He subdued all Latium in
war, and took Suessa, an opulent and well stored Pometian city. Enriched
with great spoils of gold and silver, he accomplished the vow of his
ancestor in the building of the capitol. He established colonies, and
according to the institutions of those from whom he had derived his
origin, he sent magnificent gifts, as offerings of his spoils, to Apollo
at Delphos.
XXV. Here the very circle is set in motion, whose natural movement and
revolution you learn to distinguish from the beginning. For the very
head of discretion in civil matters, upon which all our discourse turns,
is to observe the ways and bendings of public affairs; so that when you
perceive what way any thing inclines, you may either keep it back, or
meet it by opposing other things to it. For the king of whom I speak,
having stained himself first with the murder of a good king, no longer
preserved his integrity of mind, and wished to inspire fear himself,
because he dreaded every sort of punishment for his wickedness.
Afterwards borne up with his victories and riches, he exulted with
insolence, and imposed no restraint on his own conduct, or the
licentiousness of his followers. Wherefore when his eldest son had used
violence with Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, and daughter of
Tricipitinus, and the noble and chaste woman had inflicted death upon
herself on account of that injury; L. Brutus, a man pre-eminent in mind
and courage, released his fellow citizens from that unjust yoke of a
cruel slavery: who, although he was a private citizen, sustained the
whole government, and was the first who taught in this city, that no man
was to be considered insignificant, when the public liberties were to be
preserved. Under which leader and head, the whole city being in
commotion, as well with the recent complaints of the family and kindred
of Lucretia, as with the remembrance of the many wrongs done by the
haughtiness of Tarquin himself, and his sons; the banishment of the
king, his children, and his whole race was pronounced.
XXVI. Do not you perceive then how a master may spring out of a king,
and how a form of government from being good, may become the very worst,
through the vice of one man. This is that master over the people, whom
the Greeks call tyrant; him only they esteem a king, who consults like a
parent with the people, and preserves those over whom he is placed, in
the most prosperous condition of life. A sort of government very good as
I have said, but bordering upon and inclining to a very pernicious one.
For when this king deviates into unjust rule, at once he becomes a
tyrant, and an animal more hideous, more destructive, and more odious,
in the eyes of gods and men cannot be conceived: surpassing, although in
the human form, the most monstrous wild beasts in cruelty. How can he be
rightly called a man, who observes no fellowship of humanity with his
fellow citizens, no communion of law with the whole race of man? But a
more proper place to speak of this will occur, when circumstances will
suggest to us to speak of those, who have sought to usurp the Government
over free cities.
XXVII. You have here then the origin of a tyrant, for the Greeks would
have this to be the name of an unjust king. Our ancestors indeed have
called all who have had an exclusive and perpetual dominion over the
people, kings. Thus Spurius Cassius, M. Manilius, and Spurius Mælius,
are said to have wished to establish a kingdom, and even * * * * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XXVIII. Lycurgus gave the name of ancients[17] at Lacedemon, to that too
small number of twenty-eight, to whom he wished the whole authority of
counsel to be confided, while the sole command should be held by the
king. Wherefore our ancestors translating and adopting that term, those
whom he called ancients, they called a senate: as we have already stated
Romulus to have done with the select fathers. Nevertheless, the royal
title, and its strength and power were always pre-eminent. Impart too
something of power to the people, as was done by Lycurgus and Romulus,
and you will not satisfy them with freedom, but you will inflame them
with the passion of liberty, when you have only permitted them to taste
of power. The fear indeed will always hang over them, lest they should
have an unjust king, which generally happens. The fortune therefore of a
people is, as I said before, very uncertain, which is placed in the will
or conduct of one man.
XXIX. Wherefore this first form, example, and origin of a tyrant, is
found by us in that very government which Romulus instituted with
auspices, and not in that, which Plato says Socrates imagined to himself
in that peripatetic discourse. And as Tarquin subverted the whole fabric
of royalty, not because he grasped a new sort of authority, but because
he made a bad use of it; so let us oppose to him another; a good man,
wise and expert in every thing useful and dignified in civil life: a
tutor and steward as it were of the commonwealth, for so may be called
whoever is the ruler and governor of a state. Imagine to yourselves that
you recognise such a man; one who can protect the state, both by his
counsel and conduct. And since the name of such a man has not been
alluded to in this discourse, and that a character of this kind will be
frequently treated of in what remains to be said * * * * * *
[Twelve pages wanting.]
XXX. * * * * * * Plato described a state more to be desired, than to be
hoped for upon the smallest scale. He did not constitute things as they
might exist, but in such a manner as the nature of civil affairs might
be considered. As to myself, if in any way I am able to accomplish it,
with the same principles which he had in view, I will look, not into the
picture and shadow of a state, but into a most powerful republic; that I
may appear to touch, as it were, the true cause of every public good and
evil. After these two hundred and forty years of regal government, and
indeed a little more, including the interregnums, Tarquin being
banished, the royal title was as odious to the Roman people, as it had
been regretted after the death, or rather the disappearance of Romulus,
and as much as they wanted a king then, in like manner, after the
expulsion of Tarquin, they could not endure the name of one.
XXXI. Under this feeling our ancestors then expelled Collatinus, who was
innocent, through apprehension of his family connexions, and the other
Tarquins from disgust at their names. From the same cause too P.
Valerius ordered the fasces to be lowered when he began to speak before
the people; and had his building materials taken to the foot of the
Velia, as soon as he perceived the suspicions of the people to be raised
on account of his having begun to build in a more conspicuous part of
the Velia, the very place where King Tullus had dwelt. He also, in the
which he greatly deserved the name of Publicola, had that law passed for
the people, which was first carried in the meetings of the centuries,
that no unfriendly magistrate should put to death, or flog any Roman
citizen for appealing. The pontifical books however declare appeals to
have existed under the kings; the augural records show it also. The
twelve tables too in many laws indicate that it was lawful to appeal
from every judgment and punishment. What is brought down to us by
tradition, of the Decemvirs who wrote the laws, being created without
any appeal, sufficiently shows that the other magistrates had not the
power of judging without appeal. The law, too, which for the sake of
concord passed in the consulate of Lucius Valerius Potitus, and M.
Horatius Barbatus, men very justly popular; sanctioned the principle,
that no magistrate should be created without appeal. Nor did the Portian
laws, which are three as you know of the three Portii, contain any thing
new except the confirmation of it. Publicola therefore, upon the law in
favour of appeal being published, immediately ordered the axes to be
taken from off the fasces, and the next day had Sp. Lucretius appointed
to him as his colleague: being his superior in age, he ordered his own
lictors to go to him; and first established the custom that lictors
should precede each of the consuls, alternate months, lest the ensigns
of command among a free people, should be as numerous as in a kingdom.
There was something more than mediocrity in this man, as I consider him:
who having given a moderate liberty to the people, preserved more easily
the authority of the chiefs. Nor do I repeat these things, now so old
and obsolete to you, without cause. I select examples of men and things
drawn from illustrious persons and times, to which the remainder of my
discourse shall be applied.
XXXII. In such a manner the senate governed the commonwealth in those
days, that though the people were free, still they interfered in but few
things. Public affairs were principally managed under the authority, and
by the rules and customs of the senate. And although the consuls
possessed their power only for a year, it was royal in its nature and
effect. And this was strenuously preserved, as necessary to the
preservation of the influence of the nobles and principal chiefs, that
nothing should be established in the meetings of the people, which was
not sanctioned by the authority of the fathers. In these very times too,
T. Larcius was appointed dictator, about ten years after the first
consuls. A new kind of authority, very much resembling, as we perceive,
the royal power. But all great matters were conducted by the authority
of the principal men, the people submitting to it. And great events took
place in those times in war, under renowned men in the supreme command,
from among those very dictators and consuls.
XXXIII. But what belongs to the very nature of things, as that a people
emancipated from kings, should take a little more power to themselves;
was brought about not long after, about the sixteenth year, in the
consulate of Postumus Cominus, and Sp. Cassius. Not in the right way
perhaps, but it is of the nature of public affairs frequently to deviate
from what is right. For observe what I said in the beginning, that
unless an equable compensation prevails in a state, in the laws, in
offices, in emoluments; so that the magistrates enjoy their proper
degree of power; the chief men their authority in council, and the
people their liberties, such a state of the government cannot remain
unchanged. For when the city was in commotion on account of the pressure
of their debts, the people first occupied the Sacred Mount, then the
Aventine. Nor could the discipline even of Lycurgus keep the Greeks
within those restraints. In the reign of Theopompus, at Sparta, those
five whom they call Ephori; the ten too in Crete, who are called Cosmoi;
arose against the royal power, as the tribunes of the people did against
the consular authority.
XXXIV. Perhaps there was a mode by which our ancestors might have
relieved the pressure of the law of debt, which had not escaped Solon,
the Athenian, some short time before, and which our senate adopted not
long after, when on account of the infamous conduct of a creditor, the
citizens were liberated from the general oppression, and voluntary
bondage on account of debt abolished in future.[18] And always at such
periods, when the common people are exhausted by contributions in times
of public calamity, some relief and remedy is to be devised for the
common safety. Which the senate having neglected to do, sufficient cause
was given to the people to create two tribunes during a sedition of the
plebeians, with intent to weaken the power and authority of the senate;
which nevertheless remained a grave and great body, bringing forward in
the service of the state the wisest and bravest men, and strengthening
it by arms and counsel. And their authority was the greater, because far
excelling all others in honour, they were less conspicuous for
voluptuousness, and not much signalized by their wealth. Their high
worth also was the more esteemed in the state, because in private life
they diligently assisted individuals by their advice, and by substantial
services.
XXXV. In which situation of the republic, the quæstor accused Sp.
Cassius, who enjoyed the highest degree of favour with the people, and
was contriving a usurpation of the government; and as you have heard,
when his own father stated himself to be satisfied of his guilt, the
people assenting to it, he put him to death. It was a grateful thing
also to the people, when Sp. Tarpeius, and A. Aternius, consuls, about
fifty-four years after the first consuls, carried a law in the meetings
of the centuries concerning fines. Twenty years afterwards when L.
Papirius, and P. Pinarius, censors, by pronouncing fines, converted the
strength of the flocks of many private individuals to the public use; a
light valuation of cattle was ordained in the law on fines, during the
consulate of C. Julius and P. Papirius.
XXXVI. But some years before, when the senate enjoyed the greatest
authority, the people being very patient and obedient, a new plan was
instituted. The consuls and the tribunes of the people abdicated the
magistracy, and ten men were created with the greatest authority, and
without appeal, who were to possess the supreme power, and to inscribe
the laws. Who when they with great equity and prudence, had written ten
tables of laws, appointed ten other decemvirs for the following year,
whose faith and justice are not in like manner praised. From which
college, however, comes that praiseworthy act of C. Julius, who stated
that in his presence a body had been dug out of the chamber of a
patrician, L. Sestius. Although he had supreme power, and as decemvir
was without appeal, he admitted him to bail, refusing to lose sight of
that most excellent law, which forbids sentence to be pronounced on the
head of a Roman citizen, unless in the meetings of the centuries.
XXXVII. A third decemviral year followed under the same men, they being
unwilling to appoint others. In this condition of the commonwealth,
which I have often already stated not to be lasting, because it is not
equable to all the orders of the state, the chief men had the whole
government in their hands; the most noble decemvirs being always
preferred. No tribunes of plebeians opposed to them, no other
magistrates associated with them, and no appeal left to the people
against death and stripes. Wherefore on account of the injustice of
these men, a great disturbance suddenly arose, and a revolution took
place in the whole commonwealth. They added two tables of iniquitous
laws, in which the very marriages which were even permitted to
strangers, were forbidden by an inhuman law, lest the plebeians should
connect themselves with the fathers; which law was afterwards abrogated
by the plebicist Canuleius. In all things they conducted themselves
libidinously, cruelly, and avariciously towards the people. Upon that
celebrated and well known affair contained in many literary records, in
which one Decimus Virginius on account of the outrage of one of the
decemvirs, slew his virgin daughter with his own hand in the Forum, and
fled lamenting to the army which was then on Mount Algide; the soldiers
abandoned the war they were then engaged in, and as was before done for
a similar cause, first came to the sacred mount, and next to the
Aventine * * * * *
[Eight pages wanting.]
XXXVIII. When Scipio had spoken these things, and all by their silence
were expecting the remainder.—“Since my seniors here, Africanus,” said
Tubero, “ask you no questions, hear from me what I still find wanting in
your discourse.” “Most cheerfully,” replied Scipio. “You appear to me,”
said he “to have been pronouncing the eulogium of our republic, when
Lælius was inquiring not respecting ours, but of government in general.
Nor have I learnt from your discourse, by what discipline, or by what
customs or laws, a republic like the one you praise, can be constituted
or preserved.”
XXXIX. “I think,” said Africanus, “we shall by and by have a more
appropriate occasion, Tubero, of discussing the establishment and
preservation of states. In respect to the best kind of government, I
deem myself to have sufficiently answered the inquiries which Lælius
made. First I pointed out three kinds of government that might be
endured, and to these three their very pernicious opposites: that no one
among them was the best, but that one moderately balanced from all
three, was preferable to either of them. That I have availed myself of
our state for an example, was not with a view to define the best form of
government, for that could be done without an example. But in truth,
that a great state might present the very picture, such as reason and
language might describe it to be. But if without going to the example of
any people, you are desirous of finding that perfect condition of
government, then look at the image which nature presents to us * * *
[A great number of pages wanting here.]
XL. S. * * * a character I have been looking for, and have been desirous
of arriving at.
L. The discreet statesman, perhaps?
S. The very same.
L. You have all those present who are so numerous: or you can begin with
yourself. “I wish,” said Scipio, “it was proportionally so in the whole
senate. However, he is a discreet man, who as we have frequently seen in
Africa, seated on a monstrous wild and ferocious animal, governs and
directs him; making him kneel down, not with blows, but with a slight
sign.”
L. I know, and have often seen it when I was Lieutenant to you.
S. So the Indian or Carthagenian governs a wild beast, and renders it
docile and gentle with humane conduct. But that intellectual principle
which is hidden in the souls of men, and which is called a part of the
soul, does not bridle or tame one easily subdued, whenever it
accomplishes it, which rarely happens. For that ferocious animal must be
restrained[19] * * * *
[Either four or eight pages are wanting here.]
XLII. “Already,” said Lælius, “I see the man I expected, so greatly
endowed, and charged with such duties.” “With this duty only,” replied
Africanus, “for in this one almost all the rest are included. That in
his thoughts and actions he never deviate from himself, so that he may
call upon others to imitate him, and that he may offer himself in the
purity of his mind and his life, as a mirror to his fellow citizens. For
as in stringed instruments or pipes, as well as in singing with voices,
a certain harmony is to be formed with distinct sounds, an interruption
to which cannot be borne by refined ears; this kindred and harmonious
concert being produced by the modification of dissimilar voices. So a
government temperately organized from the upper, the lower and middle
orders blended together, harmonizes like music by the agreement of
dissimilar sounds. And that which in song is called by musicians,
harmony, is concord in a state; the strongest and best bond of safety in
every republic; yet which without justice cannot be preserved.[20]
[Many pages wanting.]
XLIV. “I assent entirely to it,” said Scipio, “and declare freely to
you, that we must esteem in nothing all that we have said upon
government, or that may remain farther to be said, unless it be
established, not only that it is false, that injustice is necessary, but
that this is most true; that without the most perfect justice, no
government can prosper in any manner. But if you please, thus far for to
day. The remainder, for many things remain yet to be said, we will defer
until to-morrow.” When this was approved, an end was put to the
discussion for that day.
-----
Footnote 12:
Pecuniosi.
Footnote 13:
Locupletes.
Footnote 14:
Plato.
Footnote 15:
Asses dare.
Footnote 16:
Carthage.
Footnote 17:
γὲροντας in the MSS.
Footnote 18:
This passage appears to deserve a note. The words “nexa” and “nectier”
are used in the original. And at the first glance, the passage,
connecting it with the well known custom of keeping debtors in chains,
as well as the memorable occasion which produced this insurrectionary
movement, would appear to declare, that all kinds of bondage for debt
were abolished in future. In early periods, whoever was unable to pay
his debts, was adjudged by a decree of the prætor, to discharge them
in personal services: for which purpose his person was delivered to
his creditor; whose slave in every sense of the word he thus became,
until the debt was discharged. A debtor thus situated was termed
“addictus” or sentenced. Livy, vi. 36., relates “that those against
whom judgments had been given, (addictos) were led out daily in herds
from the Forum, to the mansions of the patricians, which were filled
with enchained debtors: and that wherever a patrician dwelt, there was
a private prison.” That all debtors were subject to actual bonds,
appears from every indebted person under voluntary judgment, being
called “nexus,” meaning linked or chained; and probably when judgment
was passed, debtors were delivered in that condition to the creditors.
But “nexus” changed its meaning, as the word “bond” has done in our
language, where we bind ourselves only with forms. The urgent
necessity of the plebeians, arising out of the exactions of the
patricians, obliged them to borrow money at usury; and upon such
occasions, for money weighed out to him “per æs et libram,” before
witnesses, the borrower pledged his person and liberty to the lender
as security for the debt. This voluntary act, which was equivalent to
a modern confession of judgment, constituted the debtor a “nexus;”
before the period of payment had expired, at which time only he was
liable to fetters. Upon the occasion of the insurrection mentioned in
the passage; a young man of respectable plebeian family, C. Publilius,
surrendered himself to Papirius, a patrician usurer, in the place of
his father who had failed to redeem himself from his “nexus.”
Rejecting the infamous propositions made to him, Papirius caused him
to be cruelly scourged. This transaction having roused the people, the
senate was obliged to consent to the liberation of all persons who had
become “nexi” by their voluntary act, and to order the practice to be
discontinued in future.
I have translated the passage in accordance with this view of the
subject. Niebuhr, vol. i. 506. Livy, vi. 36. viii. 28. &c.
Footnote 19:
The continuation of this passage is, perhaps, found in Nonius Voc.
Exsultare, “which nourishes itself with blood, and which so delights
in every kind of cruelty, that it scarcely can be satiated with the
sad destruction of human beings.”
Footnote 20:
Professor Mai quotes the following passage from St. Augustin, De. Civ.
Dei, as containing a summary of that part of the discussion
interrupted here. “And when Scipio had in a more comprehensive and
diffuse way, shown how advantageous justice was to a state, and how
injurious the absence of it was: Philus, who was one of those present
at the discussion, took it up, and proposed that that subject should
be very carefully investigated, on account of the opinion which was
obtaining, that governments could not be administered without
injustice.”
CICERO’S REPUBLIC.
[Illustration]
BOOK III.
[Four or eight pages wanting.]
II. * * * * The intelligent principle having found man endowed with the
faculty of uttering rude and imperfect sounds, enabled him to separate
and distinguish them into articulations. Thus words were affixed to
things as signs of them, and man, once solitary, became united to man,
by the sweet bond of conversation. By the same intelligence, the
inflexions of the voice, which we find to be infinite in number, are all
distinguished and expressed, by the invention of a few marks, which
enable us to hold a correspondence with the absent, to indicate our
inclinations, and to preserve a record of things past. To this the
knowledge of numbers was added, a thing not only necessary to life, but
at once immutable and eternal. Which first led us to consider the
heavens, to look upon the motion of the planets with interest, and the
numbering of the nights and days * * * *
[Eight or ten pages wanting.]
III. * * * * Whose minds rose to a loftier pitch as I before said, that
they might execute or discover something worthy of the gift they had
received from the gods. Wherefore let those who have treated upon the
moral conduct of life, be deemed by us, great men, as they are; learned
men; masters of truth and virtue. Yet let it be admitted that civil
rights, and the government of a people, whether they are the fruits of
men experienced in the management of public affairs, or, as the fact has
been, the result of their literary leisure, be least despised; causing
as they do to spring up in great minds, as we have often seen, an
incredible and divine virtue. For if any one to those faculties which
the mind has from nature, and to those talents which civil institutions
produce, hath added also the learning, and the more various knowledge of
things, in which men engaged in the discussion of those books are
versed, there is no one who ought not to prefer such a man to all
others. For what can be more excellent, than when the practice and habit
of great affairs is joined to a perfect knowledge of the theory of the
science of them? Or what more perfect can be imagined than P. Scipio, C.
Lælius, and L. Philus; who that they might omit nothing appertaining to
the high character of enlightened men, to the knowledge of our domestic
and ancient customs, united the learning received from Socrates?
Wherefore he who determined and effected both, that is, instructed
himself as well in the institutions, as in the philosophy of the
ancients, I think has accomplished every thing with praise. But if a
choice must be made between those two paths to excellence, and if to any
one, that tranquil way of life passed in the best studies and sciences
may appear happier, still certainly an active, civil life is more
illustrious and more laudable. The greatest men derive their glory from
such a life, as M. Curius * * * *
“Whom none could overcome with arms or gold.”
[Six pages wanting.]
IV. * * * Nevertheless this difference existed in their two different
modes: the one unfolded the principles of nature by their studies and by
their eloquence; the others by their institutions and by their laws.
This commonwealth alone has produced many, if not altogether to be
deemed sages, since that title is so cautiously bestowed, yet worthy of
the greatest praise; for they cultivated the precepts and discoveries of
sages. Wherefore civil governments are to be extolled and ever will be,
since in the nature of things, to constitute a commonwealth which shall
be lasting, is one of the greatest efforts of mind: and thus if we only
enumerate one for every country, what a multitude of excellent men do we
find. For if we permit our minds to take a survey of that famous Greece,
of Italy, Latium, or the Sabine and Volscian people; the Samnites, the
Etrurians; next the Assyrians, the Persians, the Carthagenians. If
these * * *
[Twelve pages wanting.]
V. * * * “Truly,” said Philus, “you have imposed a fine task upon me,
wishing me to undertake the justification of what is wrong.” “Surely,”
said Lælius, “you are afraid lest in using the same arguments which are
wont to be brought forward against justice, you may appear to hold such
opinions yourself; you who are almost the only example left of ancient
probity and faith. But your habit of discussing both sides of the
question, in order more easily to get at the truth, is very well known.”
“Well, well,” said Philus, “I will do as you wish, and defile myself
with my eyes open: for since those who search for gold do not refuse to
do it; we who are looking for what is right, a thing much more precious
than gold, assuredly ought not to avoid any thing that is disagreeable.
And I wish, since I am about to make use of another man’s opinions, it
was possible for me to make use of his tongue also. Now, however, L.
Furius Philus, must say what Carneades, a Greek in the habit of saying
whatever he pleased * * *
[Four pages wanting.]
VIII. * * * But the other has filled four pretty large books with the
subject of justice. From Chrysippus I have never looked for any thing
very great or magnificent; since he reasons in a particular way of his
own, and examines things rather by the force of words, than the weight
of facts. It was for those distinguished men, to raise up that prostrate
virtue, and elevate it to the divine heights of wisdom. A virtue which
stands alone as it were, greatly munificent and liberal; which loves
every thing better than itself, and is born more for others, than for
its own interests. Nor was the inclination wanting to them: for what
other cause had they for writing, or what motive soever? In genius they
excelled all. But the cause was greater even than their inclination and
strength. The right indeed concerning which we inquire, is something
civil, not natural: if it were, justice and injustice would be the same
things to all men, as hot and cold, bitter and sweet things are.
IX. Now however, if any one borne upon the chariot with winged serpents,
of which Pacuvius speaks, could survey with his eyes, and look down upon
the many and various nations and cities; he might see chiefly among that
unchanging race of the Egyptians, which preserves in its records the
memory of so many events and ages, an ox esteemed as a god, which the
Egyptians call Apis; and many other strange things among them, among
which wild beasts consecrated into the number of the gods. Then in
Greece, where as with us, magnificent temples are consecrated containing
human images, which the Persians considered impious. For which cause
alone, Xerxes is said to have ordered the temples of the Athenians to be
burnt; considering it to be wicked to shut the gods up within walls,
whose residence was the whole universe. Afterwards Philip who had it in
contemplation, and Alexander who carried it into effect, gave as reasons
for making war against the Persians, that they avenged the temples of
Greece; which the Greeks did not think of repairing, that the
devastation might be an eternal monument to posterity of the infamy of
the Persians. How many, as the Taurians in Axinum, as Busiris the king
of Egypt, as the Gauls, the Carthagenians, have thought it a grateful
and pious duty to the gods, to immolate men. But the institutions of
life differ so much, that the Cretans and Etolians esteem it honourable
to steal: the Lacedemonians used to say that all lands were theirs which
they could reach with a shaft. The Athenians were wont to swear even
publicly, that every soil was theirs, which produced oil and corn. The
Gauls consider it shameful to produce grain by labour, and therefore go
armed to harvest other people’s lands. But we, the most just of men, to
make our own olive and vineyards more valuable, do not permit the
transalpine nations to plant them: in doing which we are said to act
prudently; it is not called acting justly. By which you may understand
there is a wide distance between prudence and equity. Lycurgus, the
founder of the best laws, and the most equal rights, gave the lands of
the wealthy to be cultivated by the lower class in the state of
servitude.
X. But if I were to describe the various kinds of laws, of institutions,
of customs and manners, not only so different among such divers nations,
but even in a single city, or in this, I could demonstrate them to have
been changed a thousand times. Our friend Manilius here, an interpreter
of laws, will tell you that other laws exist now concerning the legacies
and inheritances of women, than those he was wont to speak of in his
youth, before the Voconian law was passed; which very law, indeed
proposed for the advantage of the men, is full of injustice towards the
women. For why should a woman not have possessions? Why should a vestal
appoint an heir, and her mother not? Why if limits were to be put to the
possessions of women, should the daughter of Crassus, if she were an
only daughter, possess thousands legally, when mine could not possess
two or three hundred * * * * * *
[Two pages wanting.]
XI. * * * * * * If these rights were thus sanctioned in us, all men
would have the same rights, and would not have different rights at
different periods. But if it is the duty of a just and good man to obey
the laws, I would ask which are they to be? Or shall he obey all
indiscriminately? But virtue does not admit of uncertainty, nor nature
endure inconstancy. The strength of law consists in punishment, not in
our natural justice. Natural right therefore does not exist. Whence it
follows, that men are not made just by nature. But it is said, although
there are various laws, still good men, by natural inclination, pursue
what is just in itself, and not what is assumed to be so; because it is
the part of a good and just man, to render that justice to every one
which he is deserving of. Now, first, are we in any wise just to the
dumb beasts? For men, not of mediocrity, but great and learned;
Pythagoras and Empedocles, declare that all animals possess the same
degree of right, and denounce unatoning punishments to hang over those
by whom any animal is outraged. It is wicked therefore to injure the
brutes. * * * * * *
[Eight pages wanting.]
XII. * * * * * * what we call wisdom, urges us to increase our wealth,
our riches, and to extend our possessions. How could that great
commander[21] who formerly carried the limits of his empire into Asia;
how could he govern, bear sway, reign, have dominion, and the full
enjoyment of voluptuousness, unless he took something from others? But
justice orders us to spare all, to consult the welfare of mankind, to
give to every one his own, and to abstain from every thing that is
sacred, every thing that is public, every thing which is not our own.
What therefore is to be done? If wisdom is consulted, riches, power,
wealth, honours, authority, empire, are open to individuals and nations.
But since it is the public interest we are discussing, instances of a
public nature will illustrate better; and as the same degree of right is
in both, I shall advert to the wisdom of a nation, and I shall omit the
rest. Our own nation, which Africanus in his discourse yesterday, traced
to its origin, whose empire already extends over the earth, has it, once
least of them all, become so by justice or wisdom? * * * * * *
[Four or eight pages wanting.]
XIV. For all who possess the power of life and death over a people are
tyrants, yet they prefer to be called kings by the name of the good
Jupiter. When certain persons through the influence of their riches,
their class, or other circumstances, possess themselves of the
government, it is a faction. Yet they call themselves, the better class.
If the people however are uppermost and rule every thing at their own
pleasure, that is called liberty; nevertheless it is licentiousness. But
when one fears another, man mistrusting man, and one class another, then
because no one confides, a sort of pact is made between the people and
the great, from whence that combined form of government springs, which
Scipio has praised. So that neither nature, or the will is the mother of
justice, but weakness. For when one thing is to be chosen out of three,
either to do injustice without permitting it to be done to you; or to do
it and permit it also; or neither one or the other: the best is to do it
with impunity[22] if you can; the second best is neither to do it, nor
suffer it to be done to you: the worst of all is to be eternally
fighting now on account of your own aggressions, now on account of those
of others * * * * *
[An unknown number of pages wanting.]
* * * Except the Arcadians and the Athenians, who, I suppose, fearing
lest at some period this decree[23] of justice might appear, have
feigned themselves to be sprung from the earth, like the little mice we
see in the fields.
XVI. To these things, others are wont to be added principally by those,
distinguished for their honesty in discussion, and having more weight
for that reason. Who when engaged in the inquiry of what constitutes a
good man, frank and plain as we wish to find him, are not themselves
crafty, hardened, and malicious in argument. They deny that the wise man
is good only because goodness and justice are pleasing to him from their
nature; but because the lives of good men are free from apprehension,
care, solicitude and danger. Whereas bad men have always a sting goading
their souls, and judgment and punishment are always present to their
eyes. That there is no emolument, no advantage arising from injustice,
so great as to compensate the fear, and the constant thought that some
punishment is impending * * * * *
[Four or eight pages wanting.]
XVII. I ask if there be two men, one of them of the very best kind;
equitable, perfectly just, of exemplary faith: the other singular for
his wickedness and audacity: and suppose the community in such an error,
that the good man passes for a wicked and dishonest one; while the bad
one has the reputation of perfect probity and good faith. And through
this general delusion of the citizens, the good man is harassed,
arrested, bound, his eyes put out, condemned, thrown in chains, tortured
in the fire, banished. Wanting every thing, at last he appears to all to
be deservedly the most wretched of men. On the other hand, the bad man
is praised, sought after, caressed by all. Honours of every kind,
authority, power, and every advantage conferred upon him from all sides.
A man, finally, in the estimation of all deemed the very best, and
worthy of the highest gifts of fortune. Who would be so insane as to
hesitate which of these two he would choose to be?
XVIII. As it is with individuals, so it is with nations. No community is
so stupid, as not to prefer commanding by injustice, to serving
according to justice. I shall not go far back for examples. Being
consul, you assisting me in council; I had to examine the Numantine
treaty. Who is ignorant that Pompey made that treaty, and that Mancinus
was concerned in the same affair? This last most excellent man supported
the proposition I carried from the consultation in the senate; the other
most earnestly opposed it. Those who valued modesty, integrity, and good
faith preferred Mancinus: yet for his reasoning, counsel, and policy,
Pompey took the lead of him * * * *
[An unknown number of pages wanting.]
XXIX. * * * * * Ti. Gracchus was vigilant for the interests of the
people, but neglected the rights of the Latins and the treaties with the
allies. If such customs and license should spread themselves wider, and
our empire be changed from right to force, so that those who until now
voluntarily obey us, should be ruled only by terror; although it has
been vigilantly preserved for us, who are of the present age; yet I
should be very solicitous about our posterity, and about the immortality
of the republic, which might be perpetual, if the institutions and
manners of our forefathers were preserved.
XXX. When Lælius had thus spoken, all present expressed themselves to
have been very much delighted by him, but Scipio, among the rest, as if
quite elated with pleasure, “many causes,” said he, “indeed Lælius, hast
thou often defended, in such a manner that I can by no means compare our
colleague Servius Galba to thee; whom when he lived thou preferredest to
all; nor in truth any of the attic orators * * *
[Twelve pages wanting.]
XXXI. * * * * * Therefore that common interest, that is the
commonwealth, who can recognize it when all are oppressed by the cruelty
of one; when no bond of Law exists, nor that consent of congregated
society, which constitutes a people. And this very condition of the
Syracusans: a celebrated city, as Timæus says, the first among the
Greeks, and the most beautiful of them all: its harbour embosomed within
the walls, its canals running through the city: its broad streets, its
porticoes, temples, fortifications, all these did not help to constitute
a commonwealth, while Dionysius reigned. The people had no part in them,
for the very people belonged to one man. Therefore where there is a
tyrant, it is not a vitiated commonwealth, as I said yesterday, but
reason compels us to declare plainly that no commonwealth at all exists.
XXXII. “Indeed” said Lælius, “you speak very clearly, and I already
perceive the drift of your discourse.
S. You see therefore, that when every thing is in the power of a
faction, neither can that be properly called a commonwealth.
L. I judge it plainly so.
S. And most rightly do you judge, for what was the condition of the
Athenians, when after that great Pelopponesian war, thirty men were most
unjustly placed in the command of that city? Did the ancient glory of
the city, the admirable nature of its buildings, its theatre, gymnasia,
its noble porticoes, its citadel, or the admirable works of Phidias, or
the magnificent port of Piræus, did they constitute a commonwealth? “Not
in the least” said Lælius, “because indeed the common interest was not
thought of.”
S. How was it at Rome, when the Decemvirs existed without appeal, in
that third year, when liberty itself had parted with its privileges?
L. Nothing was left to the people, and truly it was necessary to bring
them to that point, that they might recover their rights.
XXXIII. S. I come now to the third kind, that in which some
inconsistency will perhaps be perceived, where all things are said to be
done by the people, and to be in the power of the people. When the
multitude orders punishments to be inflicted in any manner that it
pleases, ordering, seizing, keeping, dissipating every thing whatever
they choose, can you then Lælius, deny that to be a republic, where all
things belong to the people, and when indeed we define a republic to be
a commonwealth?” “There is nothing,” said Lælius, “I would sooner deny
to be a republic, than where all things are in the power of the
multitude. We did not consider that they had a republic among the
Syracusans, or at Agrigentum, or at Athens when they were under tyrants,
or at Rome when under the decemvirs. Nor do I see how the name of
republic is appropriate when the multitude rules. Because first, as you
have happily defined it to me, Scipio, a people does not exist, but
where it is held together by consent of law; and this sort of mob, is as
much a tyrant as if it were one man. Indeed it is more mischievous, for
nothing is more ferocious than the wild beast which assumes the name and
form of the people. Nor is it right, when the property of maniacs is
placed by law under the guardianship of kindred, that * * *
[Eight pages wanting.]
XXXIV. * * * of it,[24] it may with as much propriety be said that it is
a republic and a commonwealth, as it may be said of a kingdom. “And much
more,” said Mummius, “for a king being one, is more like a master; but
where many good men are at the head of affairs in a republic, nothing
can be more happily constituted. But I certainly prefer a kingdom to the
sway of a democracy; which third and most vicious kind of government
remains for you to explain.”
XXXV. To this Scipio replied, “I recognize well Spurius, your steady
aversion to the popular mode, and although it might be treated with less
aversion than you are wont to do, nevertheless I agree, that of all
these three kinds, no one is less to be approved of. I do not however
agree with you that the better class are to be preferred to a king; for
if it is wisdom which governs a state, of what consequence is it,
whether it resides in one, or in many? But in our discussion we are led
into a sort of error. When we call them the better class, nothing can be
conceived more excellent, for what can be imagined more desirable than
the best? When however a king is mentioned, an unjust king occurs to our
minds. We do not nevertheless intend to speak of an unjust king, in our
examination of this royal kind of government. Think of Romulus,
Pompilius, and Tullus as kings, and perhaps you will not be so
displeased with that kind of government.
M. What sort of praise then is left for a democratic government?
S. What did you think, Spurius, of the Rhodians, with whom we were
together; did you see nothing like a commonwealth there?
M. Indeed I did, and least of all to be blamed.
S. You say well. But if you remember all were alike; sometimes
plebeians, sometimes senators; and by turns discharging during certain
months their functions as senators; the other months they remained in
the ranks of the people. In both capacities however they had the
privilege of being present at the meetings for deliberation, and equally
in the theatres and in the courts, great matters and all others were
judged; so numerous was the multitude and so great its power
that * * * * *
-----
Footnote 21:
Alexander.
Footnote 22:
These are sophisms brought forward in favour of injustice.
Vide Lact. Inst. 5.
Footnote 23:
To restore things unjustly acquired.
Footnote 24:
The better class.
CICERO’S REPUBLIC.
[Illustration]
BOOK IV.
II. * * * * * * How conveniently the orders are set down; the ages, the
classes. The equestrian order where the senate votes. Too many foolishly
seek to abolish that useful institution, hoping that through some
Plebecists procuring the sale of the horses, they may get a largess.
III. Look now at the other provisions so wisely made, that the citizens
may enjoy a happy and honest state of society, for that is the very
motive for their union; and which government ought to secure to men, by
institutions and laws. In the first place, as to puerile discipline for
free-born young men, respecting which the Greeks have laboured so much
in vain; and the only matter about which our guest Polybius reproaches
the negligence of our institutions. No defined system, or of a public
nature, or uniform for all, was decreed by the laws.
[Four or eight pages wanting.]
IV. * * * * * * nor naked when at an age of puberty. So deep did they
seek as it were to lay the foundations of modesty. But how absurd the
exercises of youth in the Grecian Gymnasia; how trifling that drilling
of young boys: what loose and unrestrained manners permitted to them. I
say nothing of the Eleans and Thebans, among whom free license and
permission was given to the young people to indulge in sensuality. The
Lacedemonians too, when they allowed every sensual indulgence short of
violence, among their youth, were destroying what they were granting
such a slight protection to. “I clearly understand, Scipio,” said
Lælius, “that in these practices of the Greeks, which you reprehend, you
had rather attack the most illustrious people, than your favourite
Plato, whom you do not assail at all, especially * * * * *
CICERO’S REPUBLIC.
[Illustration]
BOOK V.
II. * * * * * * No prerogative more royal than the administration of
justice, in which was comprehended the expounding of rights, for
individuals were accustomed to seek justice from kings. On which account
the lands, the fields, the groves, the extensive and rich grazing
districts were defined, which belonged to the sovereign, and were all
managed without any care or labour on his part; that none of the cares
of private business, might abstract him from the affairs of the public.
Nor was any man an umpire or arbitrator of any legal contention, but all
things were decided by royal judgments. And it seems to me, that our
Numa chiefly adopted this ancient custom from the kings of Greece. For
the others, although they also discharged this function, yet a great
many of them waged wars, and occupied themselves in establishing the
rules of war. But that long peace of Numa, was the parent of law and
religion to this city. He also was the writer of those laws which you
know to be extant: all which is appropriate to the very citizen whose
character we are drawing * * * * * *
[An unknown number of pages wanting.]
III. S. Do you think there is any harm in his being acquainted with the
nature of roots and seeds?
M. None, if only his work is not neglected.
S. But do you think it to be properly the study of a farmer?
M. Not in the least; for the cultivation of the land would often be
unattended to.
S. Therefore, as a farmer is acquainted with the nature of his soil, a
steward with the nature of letters, and each can turn from the amusement
of theory to the greater utility of practice; so this our ruler may be
thoroughly conversant with the knowledge of rights and of laws; he may
have looked even into the very fountains of them: but let not his
consultations, his constant readings, and his writings occupy him too
much; but let him be as it were both steward and farmer to the
commonwealth. Let him be skilled in the principles of law without which
no man can be just; let him not be ignorant of civil law: but let it be
as the pilot who studies the stars; the physician who studies the nature
of plants and minerals; each turning his knowledge to the benefit of his
art, without permitting it to impede the practical use of his
vocation * * *
[An unknown number of pages wanting.]
IV. * * * * In those states where the good look for praise and honour,
and fly from ignominy and disgrace. Not so much restrained by
apprehension of the penalties established by law, but by a sentiment of
self-respect, which nature has planted in man, a sort of dread of
deserved censure. This sentiment the ruler of a state strengthens by
public opinion, and confirms by education, and by institutions, that
shame may deter the citizen from crime as much as fear. But these
considerations properly belong to renown, and shall be more abundantly
considered.
V. Life, however, and the comfortable enjoyment of it, are constituted
by legal marriages, lawful children; the keeping hallowed the seats of
the penate gods, and the domestic lares; that all may enjoy public and
private comforts. Without good government, private life cannot be
agreeable, nor can any one be more happy than in a well regulated
state * * * *
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Corrected items noted in the Errata.
2. Silently corrected typographical errors in the Preface,
Introduction, and footnotes.
3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed in the
Preface, Introduction, and footnotes.
4. Did not alter punctuation or spellings in the Translation with the
exception of joining words split by pages.
5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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