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

by Cicero

  LAELIUS: And who, may I ask, are they?

  SCIPIO: Those who have studied the nature of reality as a whole, and have realized that this entire world (is controlled) by (one) mind … [57 Two leaves are missing. Scipio continues to argue in favour of monarchy.] … But if you like, Laelius, I will present witnesses who are not excessively ancient nor in any sense barbarous.

  58

  LAELIUS: I’d like to hear them.

  SCIPIO: Well, do you realize that this city has been without a king for less than four hundred years?

  LAELIUS: Of course.

  SCIPIO: Well then, this period of four hundred years is not particularly long, is it, for a city or a state?

  LAELIUS: NO. The place has barely grown up.

  SCIPIO: So four hundred years ago there was a king in Rome.

  LAELIUS: Yes, and a proud one* too.

  SCIPIO: And before that?

  LAELIUS: A very just one;* and from him they reach right back to Romulus, who lived six hundred years before our time.

  SCIPIO: SO even he didn’t live all that long ago, did he?

  LAELIUS: By no means. Greece was already growing old.*

  SCIPIO: Tell me, then: were Romulus’ subjects barbarians?

  LAELIUS: If, as the Greeks say, all people other than Greeks are barbarians, I’m afraid his subjects were barbarians. But if the name should be applied to character rather than language, then the Romans, in my view, were no more barbarous than the Greeks.

  SCIPIO: Yet in this discussion of ours we are not concerned with nationality but with nature. If sensible men, not very long ago, wanted to have kings, then my witnesses are not so very ancient; nor are they wild and uncivilized.

  LAELIUS: I grant, Scipio, that you have an ample supply of witnesses! But with me, as with any good judge, arguments have greater force than witnesses.

  59

  SCIPIO: Very well, Laelius; you can employ an argument based on your own self-awareness.

  LAELIUS: What awareness?

  SCIPIO: Whenever—or if ever—you are aware of being angry with someone.

  LAELIUS: 1 have had that experience more often that I could wish!

  SCIPIO: Ah. So, when you are angry, do you allow anger to take control of your mind?

  LAELIUS: Certainly not. I take my cue from Archytas of Tarentum. Once, on arriving at his country house, he found that all his instructions had been ignored. ‘Why, you worthless wretch!’ he said to his agent, ‘if I weren’t angry I would have beaten you to death on the spot!’

  SCIPIO: Very good! So evidently Archytas rightly looked on anger (that is, when it was at variance with his judgement) as a kind of revolt within the mind, and he was anxious to quell it by rational reflection. Bring in greed, bring in lust, bring in the desire for power and glory; then you realize that if there is to be a ruling power in the human mind, it will be the sovereignty of a single element, namely reason (for that is the best part of the mind). As long as reason is supreme there is no room for lust, anger, or irresponsible behaviour.

  60

  LAELIUS: That’s right.

  SCIPIO: So you approve of a mind which is ordered in that way?

  LAELIUS: Certainly; there’s nothing better.

  SCIPIO: So you would not approve of one where reason had been ousted, and where lust in its countless forms and anger held total sway?

  LAELIUS: In my opinion that sort of mind, and the person who possessed it, would be the vilest thing in creation.

  SCIPIO: So you agree, then, that every activity of the mind should be under the rule of one element, that element being reason?

  LAELIUS: I do.

  SCIPIO: Why, then, do you have any doubt regarding your opinion of the body politic? There, if the thing is put in the hands of more than one person, clearly there will be no power in charge; for if power is not a unity it may well be nothing at all.

  LAELIUS: What, pray, is the difference between one and more than one being in charge, if the latter are inspired by justice?

  61

  SCIPIO: I notice, Laelius, that you are not much impressed by my witnesses! But I shan’t give up. I shall continue to use you as a witness to confirm what I’m saying.

  LAELIUS: Me? And how do you propose to do that?

  SCIPIO: Recently, when we were at your villa in Formiae, I observed that you gave the staff strict instructions to take orders from one person only.

  LAELIUS: Quite; my agent.

  SCIPIO: What about your house in town? Do several people run your affairs?

  LAELIUS: NO indeed; just one.

  SCIPIO: What of the whole establishment? Is anyone else in charge of it apart from you?

  LAELIUS: Certainly not.

  SCIPIO: So why don’t you admit that in a state, too, the rule of one man is best, provided he is just?

  LAELIUS: I’m almost persuaded to agree with you.

  SCIPIO: You’ll agree more readily, Laelius, if I leave aside the analogies of the ship’s captain and the doctor* (which show that, provided they are qualified in their respective professions, a ship should be entrusted to the former alone and an invalid to the latter alone) and move on to more striking instances.

  62

  LAELIUS: What have you in mind?

  SCIPIO: Well, I take it you’re aware that it was because of the overbearing and arrogant nature of Tarquin alone that the name of king has become anathema to our people.

  LAELIUS: I am, indeed.

  SCIPIO: In that case you are also aware of another fact, on which I shall probably enlarge in the course of my talk, namely that after Tarquin’s expulsion the populace revelled in an extraordinary excess of liberty. That was when innocent people were driven into exile, when many had their property seized as plunder, when two consuls were elected each year, when the rods of authority were lowered in the presence of the people, when appeals of all kinds became possible, when secessions of the common people took place, when, in fact, most of the measures enacted ensured that everything should be in the hands of the people.

  LAELIUS: Yes; that’s what happened.

  63

  SCIPIO: And that’s what tends to happen in periods of peace and security. For you can act irresponsibly when you have nothing to be afraid of. The same is true on board ship, and often in the case of a mild illness. But as the seafarer and the invalid beg the help of one individual when the sea suddenly grows rough and the illness more serious, so our people, which at home in peacetime gives orders, threatens the actual magistrates, refuses to obey them, appeals against them, and challenges their decisions, in wartime defers to each magistrate as though he were king; for then safety takes precedence over personal desires. In times of more serious conflict, our countrymen have decreed that the supreme power should not be shared, even with one colleague, but should rest in the hands of an individual whose very name reflects the nature of his power. For a dictator* is so called in virtue of the fact that his appointment is dictated (though in our augurs’ books,* Laelius, you will remember that he is called ‘master of the people’).

  LAELIUS: Yes, I do.

  SCIPIO: And so those men of old wisely … [One leaf is lost.]… When the people are deprived of a just king, they are like orphans. A sense of loss lingers within their hearts. As Ennius says* in the lines following the death of that excellent king:

  64

  And all the time they say among themselves

  ‘O Romulus, O Romulus divine,

  Sent down from heaven as guardian of our land,

  O sire, O father, offspring of the gods!’

  They did not give the name ‘lords’ or ‘masters’ or even ‘kings’ to those whose just rule they obeyed, but ‘guardians of our land’, ‘fathers’ and ‘gods’—with good reason; for what do they say next?

  You brought us forth into the realms of light.

  Life, honour, glory—these were the blessings they thought they had received from their just king. The same goodwill would have continued in later generations if the c
haracter of the king had remained the same. But, as you know, owing to the wickedness of one individual that whole form of government collapsed.

  LAELIUS: Yes indeed. And I’m interested to hear how those changes have taken place, not just in our country but in countries in general.

  65–8. The instability of simple forms

  SCIPIO: When I’ve told you my opinion about what I regard as the best type of constitution, I shall have to talk in greater detail about how constitutions in general pass into one another, even though the best one, I think, will not readily undergo such changes. But the first and most inevitable of all changes is that which overtakes a monarchy. As soon as a king begins to rule unjustly, that kind of government vanishes on the spot, for that same man has become a tyrant. That is the worst kind of government, and at the same time the closest neighbour to the best. If a tyranny is overthrown by an aristocracy, as usually happens, the country then moves into the second of these constitutions. It is somewhat like monarchy in being a paternal council of leading men who have the best interests of the people at heart. If the tyrant has been killed or expelled by the people acting directly, the latter behave with reasonable restraint as long as they remain wise and sensible. They take pleasure in what they have done, and are keen to preserve the constitution which they themselves have set up. But if, violently or otherwise, the populace deposes a just king, or if, as more frequently happens, it tastes the blood of the aristocracy and subjects the entire state to its wild caprice (and make no mistake about it, no tempest or conflagration, however great, is harder to quell than a mob carried away by the novelty of power), then the result is what Plato* so brilliantly described, if I can express it in Latin. (It’s not easy, but I’ll try.) ‘When’, he says, ‘the insatiable throat of the mob is parched with thirst for freedom, and when, thanks to the wicked servants it employs, it thirstily quaffs a freedom which instead of being sensibly diluted is all too potent, then, unless its magistrates and leaders are extremely soft and indulgent, and administer that freedom generously in its favour, it denounces them, arraigns them, and condemns them, calling them despots, kings, and tyrants.’ I expect you know the passage.

  65

  66

  LAELIUS: Very well.

  SCIPIO: Well, this is the next bit: ‘Those who take orders from the leading men are harassed by the populace and called willing puppets. Public officials who try to behave like private citizens, and private citizens who manage to abolish the distinction between ordinary people and officials, are overwhelmed with praise and showered with honours. In a state of that kind total freedom must prevail. Every private household is devoid of authority—a disease which infects even domestic animals. Father fears son, son ignores father, respect is completely absent. In the interests of universal freedom there is no distinction between citizen and foreigner; a teacher is afraid of his pupils and truckles to them; they treat their teachers with contempt. Youngsters assume the authority of older men; the latter lower themselves to take part in youngsters’ amusements for fear of becoming unpopular and disliked. As a result even slaves behave with excessive freedom, wives enjoy the same rights as their husbands, and in this all-pervading freedom dogs and horses and even asses charge around so freely that one has to stand aside for them in the street. As this unlimited licence comes to a head,’ he says, ‘citizens become so tender and hypersensitive that at the slightest hint of authority they are enraged and cannot bear it. In consequence they begin to ignore the laws too; and the final outcome is total anarchy.’

  67

  LAELIUS: Yes, that’s a pretty accurate account of what he says.

  68

  SCIPIO: To revert, then, to my own conversational style, he goes on to say that this excessive licence, which the anarchists think is the only true freedom, provides the stock, as it were, from which a tyrant grows. As the death of an aristocracy comes from its own excessive power, so freedom itself plunges an over-free populace into slavery. All excess, whether the over-luxuriance has occurred in the weather or on the land or in people’s bodies, turns as a rule into its opposite. The process is especially common in states. In communities and individuals alike, excessive freedom topples over into excessive slavery. Extreme freedom produces a tyrant, along with the extremely harsh and evil slavery that goes with him. For from that wild, and indeed savage, populace a chief is usually chosen to oppose the leaders who have now been persecuted and ousted from their position—a brazen dirty fellow, who has the impudence to harass people who in many cases have served their country well, a fellow who presents the people with other folks’ property as well as their own.

  If he remains a private citizen, such a man faces many threats. So he is given powers, which are then extended. Like Peisistratus at Athens, he is surrounded by a bodyguard. He ends up by tyrannizing over the very people from whom he emerged. If that man is overthrown, as often happens, by decent citizens, constitutional government is restored. But if he is supplanted by unscrupulous thugs, then a junta is created which is just another form of tyranny. The same kind of group can also arise from an often excellent aristocratic government when some crookedness diverts the leaders from their course. And so political power passes like a ball from one group to another. Tyrants snatch it from kings; aristocrats or the people wrest it from them; and from them it moves to oligarchic cliques or back to tyrants. The same type of constitution never retains power for long.

  69. A mixed constitution is the best

  That is why, though monarchy is, in my view, much the most desirable of the three primary forms, monarchy is itself surpassed by an even and judicious blend of the three simple forms at their best. A state should possess an element of regal supremacy; something else* should be assigned and allotted to the authority of aristocrats; and certain affairs should be reserved for the judgement and desires of the masses. Such a constitution has, in the first place, a widespread element of equality which free men cannot long do without. Secondly, it has stability; for although those three original forms easily degenerate into their corrupt versions (producing a despot instead of a king, an oligarchy instead of an aristocracy, and a disorganized rabble instead of a democracy), and although those simple forms often change into others, such things rarely happen in a political structure which represents a combination and a judicious mixture—unless, that is, the politicians are deeply corrupt. For there is no reason for change in a country where everyone is firmly established in his own place, and which has beneath it no corresponding version into which it may suddenly sink and decline.

  69

  70–1. The example of the Roman constitution

  However, I’m afraid that you, Laelius, and you, my kind and learned friends, may get the impression that in talking like this I am setting myself up as a preacher or a teacher instead of collaborating with you in a joint inquiry. So I shall move on to matters which are familiar to everyone, and which indeed we have long been working towards. I hold, maintain, and declare that no form of government is comparable in its structure, its assignment of functions, or its discipline, to the one which our fathers received from their forebears and have handed down to us. So, if you approve (because you wanted me to talk on a subject which you yourselves knew well), I shall describe its nature and at the same time demonstrate its superiority. Then, after setting up our constitution as a model, I shall use it as a point of reference, as best I can, in all I have to say about the best possible state. If I can keep this aim in view and bring it to a conclusion, I shall have amply fulfilled, I think, the task which Laelius assigned me.

  70

  LAELIUS: Well it’s certainly your task, Scipio, and yours alone. 71 For who is better placed than you to talk about our forefathers’ institutions, since your forefathers were themselves especially distinguished? Or about the best possible state? If we were to have such a state (which we don’t have even now), who could play a more active role than you? Or who could better formulate our future policies? For by repelling the two dangers* that threa
tened our city you yourself* have made provision for all the years that lie ahead.