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

by Cicero

  35

  36

  PHILUS: I’m quite sure, Scipio, that you have no superior in ability, and that you far surpass everyone else in your experience of the great affairs of state. We know what studies you have always pursued. So if, as you say, you have also paid some attention to this science (or should I say art?), I am most grateful to Laelius for his suggestion. I expect that what you have to say will be more richly rewarding than anything which the Greeks have written for us.

  37

  SCIPIO: Well, you are saddling my talk with great expectations—a heavy burden indeed for anyone about to speak on such an important subject.

  PHILUS: However great our expectations, you will still surpass them, as you always do. There’s no danger that your rhetorical powers will fail when you are talking about political theory.

  38. Scipio clears the ground

  SCIPIO: I’ll do my best to oblige. I begin by observing a rule which all speakers, I fancy, must adhere to if confusion is to be avoided: that is, if the name of the subject under discussion is accepted (whatever it is), the meaning of the name* should be explained. Only when that has been agreed can the discussion begin. For the scope of the subject under investigation will never be understood unless people first understand what it is. Since, then, we are examining the state, let us first ascertain what precisely we are examining.

  38

  Laelius nodded assent; so Scipio resumed: As the topic of discussion is so well known and familiar, I shan’t go back to the basic elements which professionals usually deal with in such cases. That is, I shan’t begin with the initial union* of male and female, and then go on to their offspring and degrees of kinship. Nor shall I offer frequent definitions of what each thing is and the ways in which it is expressed. After all, the audience consists of intelligent men who have served this great country with enormous distinction in war and peace; so I shan’t allow my talk to be more obscure than the actual subject I have chosen. In undertaking this task, I don’t aspire to give an exhaustive account like a professional teacher; nor do I promise that not one single detail will be overlooked.

  LAELIUS: For myself, I’m looking forward to just the kind of talk that you have promised.

  39–42. The three simple forms of government

  SCIPIO: Well then, a republic is the property of the public* But a public is not every kind of human gathering,* congregating in any manner, but a numerous gathering brought together by legal consent and community of interest. The primary reason for its coming together is not so much weakness* as a sort of innate desire on the part of human beings to form communities. For our species is not made up of solitary individuals or lonely wanderers. From birth it is of such a kind that, even when it possesses abundant amounts of every commodity … [One leaf is lost in which Scipio presumably speaks of mankind’s intrinsic impulse to form societies.]

  39

  … (Without) certain seeds, as it were, (of that kind) no means could be discovered of establishing the other virtues or even the community itself. So these groups, formed for the reason just explained, first founded a settlement in a fixed place for the purpose of building houses. When, with the help of the terrain and their own manual labour, they had made it secure, they called such a collection of dwellings a town or, when it had been laid out with shrines and public spaces, a city. So then, every people (which is a numerous gathering of the kind described), every state (which is an organization of the populace), and every republic (which, as I said, is the property of the public) must be governed by some decision-making process* if it is to last. That process must, in the first instance, always come into being for the same reason as that which gave rise to the state. Then this process must be entrusted to one man, or a select group, or else be carried on by the whole populace. When the supreme authority is vested in one man, we call him a king, and the government of that state is a monarchy. When it is vested in a select group, that state is said to be ruled by the power of an aristocracy.* The state in which everything depends on the people is called a democracy. Provided the bond holds firm, which in the first place fastened the people to each other in the fellowship of a community, any of these three types may be, not indeed perfect, nor in my view the best, but at least tolerable, though one may be preferable to another. A just and wise king, or a select group of leading citizens, or the populace itself (though that is the least desirable type) can still, it seems, ensure a reasonably stable government, provided no forms of wickedness or greed find their way into it.

  41

  42

  43–5. The defects of each form

  Nevertheless, in monarchies the rest of the populace plays too small a part in the community’s legislation and debate; in aristocracies the masses can have hardly any share in liberty, since they are deprived of any participation in discussion and decision-making; and when the government is carried on entirely by the people (however moderate and orderly) their equality is itself unequal, since it acknowledges no degrees of merit. Hence, although Cyrus of Persia was an exceptionally just and wise monarch, that form of government was not, in my view, the most desirable; for the property of the public (which is, as I said, the definition of a republic) was managed by one man’s nod and wish.* Similarly, if it is true, as it is, that our clients, the Massilians, are governed with exemplary justice by a select group of leading citizens, yet even still the people are in a position somewhat akin to slavery. If at one period after the abolition of the Areopagus Athens discharged all its business through the resolutions and decrees of the people, that state failed to maintain its high reputation, for it did not observe different levels of merit.

  43

  I am speaking here about these three types of government, not when they have become mingled and blended, but when they retain their pure form. These types are each imperfect in the ways described above. They have also other potentially destructive defects. In fact each of these governments follows a kind of steep and slippery path which leads to a depraved version* of itself. Cyrus (to take the most conspicuous example) was a tolerable, even (I grant you) a likeable monarch. Yet below him stands the cruelly capricious* Phalaris. His is the image into which, by a smooth and easy process, the rule of one man degenerates. The government of Massilia, which consists of a few leading citizens, has as its close counterpart the Thirty—that notorious junta which at one time ruled Athens. The supreme power exercised by the Athenian people (to take no other instance) was transformed into the mad and irresponsible caprice of the mob … [A leaf is gone and there is something wrong with the opening words of 45; they have been omitted from the translation. It is clear, however, that they referred to the process whereby one constitution arose from another.]

  44

  … likewise, one of those types which I have just described usually bursts forth from it. The cycles* and, so to speak, revolutions through which governments pass in their successive changes are quite amazing. It is the business of the intelligent man to be aware of them; but to see them coming, to modify their effects, and to keep control of their course while governing the state—that calls for a great citizen and a man of almost superhuman powers. That is why, in my view, a fourth kind of government is to be judged the best; that is, a carefully proportioned mixture* of the first three described above.

  45

  46–50. A defence of democracy

  LAELIUS: I know that’s what you prefer, Africanus; I’ve often heard you say so. Still, if it’s not a nuisance, I’d like to know which of your three forms you consider the best. For it would help us to appreciate …

  46

  [One leaf is lost. Scipio is presenting the arguments for democracy.]

  SCIPIO: … and the nature of every state depends on the character and will of its ruling body. So liberty has no home in any state except a democracy. Nothing can be sweeter than liberty. Yet if it isn’t equal throughout, it isn’t liberty at all. For how can liberty be equal throughout, I will not say in a monarchy, where slavery is evident
and unmistakable, but in those states where everyone is free in name only? They register their votes, they bestow military commands and political offices, they are canvassed, and asked to say yea or nay; but they confer what they would have to confer even if they didn’t want to—things which they themselves don’t have, in spite of being asked for them by others. For they have no share in the supreme power, or in national policy-making, or in legal decisions (those are made by specially appointed judges). All such things are apportioned on the basis of one’s ancient lineage or wealth. But in a free community of the Rhodian* or Athenian kind there is no citizen who … [A leaf is lost. Scipio is still speaking on the same topic]… We are told that, when one or more exceptionally rich and prosperous men emerge from the populace, (a despotism or an oligarchy) comes into being as a result of their arrogance and contempt; for the faint-hearted and the weak give way and succumb to the haughtiness of wealth. But if the people would hold fast to their rights, nothing, they say, would be superior in power, liberty, or happiness, inasmuch as they would be in charge of laws, courts, war, peace, treaties, individual lives, and wealth. They maintain that this form of government is the only one that deserves the name of ‘republic’ (i.e. the property of the public); and that for this reason the republic tends to be restored to freedom from the domination of a king or a senate, whereas kings or rich and powerful aristocrats are not summoned to take over from free peoples. They insist that the whole concept of a free people should not be rejected because of the crimes committed by an undisciplined mob. When the people, in a spirit of unity, judge everything in the light of their own security and freedom, nothing, they say, is less liable to change or collapse. Harmony is readily maintained in a state where everyone has the same interests. It is from incompatible interests, when different policies suit different people, that discord arises. And so, when a senate held power, the stability of the state was never assured. Far less was it assured in the case of monarchy, which, as Ennius* says, possesses ‘no holy partnership or trust’. Since, then, law is the bond which holds together a community of citizens, and the justice embodied in the law is the same for everyone, by what right can a community of citizens be held together when their status is unequal? If the equalization of wealth is rejected, and the equalization of everybody’s abilities is impossible, legal rights at least must be equal among those who live as fellow-citizens in the same state. For what is a state other than an equal partnership in justice? … [One leaf is lost. The topic remains the same.]

  47

  48

  49

  … The argument runs that the other types of state have no right to the names by which they themselves wish to be called. Take a man who is greedy for domination or absolute power, lording it over an oppressed people. Why should I call him ‘king’, using the title of Jupiter the Best, instead of ‘despot’? Despots can be benevolent, just as kings can be oppressive. So, as far as the people are concerned, the only question is whether they are the slaves of a kind or a harsh master. Either way, they must necessarily be slaves. When Sparta was thought to excel in its political organization, how could it be sure of enjoying good and just kings when it was obliged to accept as a king whoever was born into a royal family?* As for those ‘aristocrats’ who have not been granted the title by the people’s consent but have appropriated it through their own electoral assembly, who could endure them? For on what criteria is a man to be judged ‘the best’? Why, on the basis of his learning, his skills, his activities, I hear it said … [Two leaves are lost.]

  50

  51–3. A defence of aristocracy

  [Scipio continues]… If (the state) leaves the process to chance, it will be overturned as quickly as a ship in which a man chosen by lot* from among the passengers has taken over the helm. If, however, a free people chooses the men to whom it will entrust itself, and if, with a genuine desire for security, it chooses only the best men, then without a doubt the security of such states depends on the policies of aristocrats, especially as nature has decreed not only that men of superior character and ability should be in charge of the less endowed, but also that the latter should willingly obey their superiors.

  51

  But they maintain that this ideal state has been ruined by people who cannot think straight—people who, knowing nothing about worth (which resides in a few, and is discerned and assessed by a few), imagine that aristocrats are those with large fortunes and possessions or those who belong to famous families. When, as a result of this vulgar misconception, a few with money, not worth, have gained control of the state, those leaders seize the name of ‘aristocrats’ with their teeth, though lacking any right to it in fact. Money, name, and property, if divorced from good sense and skill in living one’s own life and directing the lives of others, lapse into total degradation and supercilious insolence. And indeed there is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best. But what can be more splendid than a state governed by worth, where the man who gives orders to others is not the servant of greed, where the leader himself has embraced all the values which he preaches and recommends to his citizens, where he imposes no laws on the people which he does not obey himself, but rather presents his own life to his fellows as a code of conduct?

  52

  If one man alone could meet all these requirements there would be no need for more than one. If the whole populace could perceive what was best and reach agreement about it, no one would advocate appointing leaders. It is the difficulty of initiating policies that has transferred authority from kings to larger groups, and the bad judgement and recklessness of popular bodies that has transferred it from the masses to the few. Hence the aristocrats have taken over the middle ground between the inadequate autocrat and the reckless mob. Nothing could be more moderate than that. With such men protecting the state the people must be very fortunate; they are freed from all trouble and anxiety, having made others responsible for their carefree life. Those others must protect it and not give the people cause to complain that their interests are being ignored by the leaders. That is always a risk, for equality before the law, which free people so cherish, cannot be maintained indefinitely; for the people themselves, even when free from all restraint, give many special privileges to many persons, and even among the people there is much favouritism in regard to men and their status. So-called equality is most inequitable; for when the same respect is accorded to the highest and the lowest (who must be present in every nation), equity itself is most unequal. That cannot happen in states ruled by the best. Those, more or less, are the arguments, along with others of a similar kind, that are advanced by those who maintain that this is the most desirable form of government.

  53

  54–64. Pressed to choose one of the simple forms, Scipio prefers monarchy but acknowledges its precarious nature

  LAELIUS: But what about yourself, Scipio?* Which of those three do you most approve of?

  54

  SCIPIO: You are right to ask which of the three I most approve of, for I do not consider any one of them ideal by itself. Rather than any one of the separate types, I prefer a mixture of all three. But if one has to be preferred in its pure form, I would prefer monarchy … [In the last few lines of this section the text is defective.} The name of king is like that of father, in that a king takes thought for his subjects as if they were his children, and looks after them more conscientiously than … that they are supported by the dedication of one man, the best and most highly esteemed.

  Here now are the aristocrats, who claim to perform this function more effectively, claiming that there is more good sense in a group than in an individual, and yet also the same degree of fairness and reliability. But here come the people, shouting at the top of their voices that they will obey neither an autocrat nor an oligarchy; that nothing is sweeter than liberty, even to wild animals; and that this blessing is denied to anyone who serves a king or an aristocracy. Accordingly, kings attract us by affection, aristoc
racies by good sense, and democracies by freedom. So in comparing them it is hard to choose which one likes best.

  55

  LAELIUS: I’m sure you’re right; but the problems ahead can hardly be cleared up if you leave this one unresolved.

  SCIPIO: Well then, let’s follow the example of Aratus,* who at the opening of his great exposition thinks it right to begin with Jove.

  56

  LAELIUS: Why with Jove? And what has your talk in common with his poem?

  SCIPIO: It just seems right that we should begin our discussion with that being who is acknowledged by everyone, learned and unlearned alike, to be the sole king of all gods and men.

  LAELIUS: Why?

  SCIPIO: Why do you think? The reason’s obvious. One answer is that rulers of states have, for reasons of practical expediency, promoted the belief that there is one king in heaven who, in Homer’s words,* ‘shakes the whole of Olympus with his nod’; and that he should be regarded as king and father of all. In that case there is weighty authority and many witnesses (if universal testimony may be so described) that, in obedience to their rulers’ decrees, countries have agreed that there is nothing superior to a king, in the belief that all the gods are ruled by one divine power. If, however, we have been brought up to think that this belief is a kind of fable, founded on the misconceptions of the ignorant, let us listen to people who may be described as the common teachers of educated men—those who have, as it were, seen with their eyes things which we barely take in through our ears.