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

by Cicero

  71

  FRAGMENTS OF BOOK I

  1. [Loeb, 34] So do, please, bring your talk down from the sky to these more immediate problems (Nonius 1. 121 and 2. 446).

  2. [Loeb, frag. 2] Therefore, since our fatherland brings more blessings, and is a more long-standing parent than the one who begot us, it must surely claim a greater debt of gratitude than a father (Nonius 3. 688). [This seems to belong to the prologue.]

  3. [Loeb, frag. 3] Nor would Carthage have enjoyed such prosperity for some six hundred years without sound policies and a sound system of training (Nonius 3. 845).

  BOOK 2

  I-II. The foundation of Rome

  As everyone was consumed with eagerness to hear what he had to say, Scipio began as follows:

  1

  My first point is taken from old Cato. As you know, I was especially fond of him and admired him greatly. On the recommendation of my two fathers* and, even more so, because of my own interest, I devoted myself to him, heart and soul, from my early days. I could never hear enough of his talk—so rich was the man’s political experience, which he had acquired during his long and distinguished career in peace and war. Equally impressive were his temperate way of speaking, his combination of seriousness and humour, his tremendous zest for obtaining and providing information, and the close correspondence between his preaching and his practice.

  Cato used to say that our constitution was superior to others, because in their case there had usually been one individual who had equipped his state with laws and institutions, for example, Minos of Crete, Lycurgus of Sparta, and the men who had brought about a succession of changes at Athens (Theseus, Draco, Solon, Cleisthenes, and many others) until finally, when it lay fainting and prostrate, it was revived by that learned man, Demetrius of Phalerum. Our own constitution, on the other hand, had been established not by one man’s ability but by that of many, not in the course of one man’s life but over several ages and generations. He used to say that no genius of such magnitude* had ever existed that he could be sure of overlooking nothing; and that no collection of able people at a single point of time could have sufficient foresight to take account of everything; there had to be practical experience over a long period of history.

  2

  Accordingly in my discourse I shall go back, as Cato used to do, to the ‘origin’* of the Roman people (I gladly borrow his actual word). Moreover, it will be easier to carry out my plan if I describe for you the birth, growth, and maturity of our state, which eventually became so firm and strong, than if I deal with some imaginary community, as Socrates does in Plato.

  3

  Everyone agreed to this; so he continued: Have we ever heard of any state with so splendid and famous a beginning as this city founded by Romulus?* He was the son of Mars—let’s not argue with a popular tradition which is not only ancient but also wisely transmitted by our forefathers, namely, that great public servants should be deemed divine by birth as well as in ability. Romulus, then, is said to have been exposed at birth on the banks of the Tiber, along with his brother Remus, on the orders of Amulius, King of Alba, who feared the overthrow of his kingdom. There he was suckled by an animal from the forest before being rescued by herdsmen, who brought him up as an agricultural labourer. They say that when he grew up he was so far ahead of the others in physical strength and force of character that all the people who lived in that part of the countryside where the capital stands today willingly and cheerfully accepted his leadership. Putting himself at the head of their forces (to move, now, from legend to history) he is supposed to have crushed Alba Longa, a strong and formidable city at that time, and to have put King Amulius to death.

  4

  After this splendid achievement, Romulus’ first thought, we are told, was to found a city by means of augury* and to establish a political community. He chose an incredibly advantageous site for the city—a thing which has to be planned with careful foresight by anyone trying to create a permanent community. He did not move it to the coast, though with troops and resources of that size he could easily have marched into the territory of the Rutulians and Aborigines; or he could have started a new city at the mouth of the Tiber, where King Ancus founded a colony* many years later. With his exceptional imagination the great man realized clearly that coastal sites were not particularly suitable* for cities founded in the hope of permanence and power, first because coastal sites were exposed to numerous, and also unforeseeable, dangers. For, in the case of an inland settlement, advance warning is given of an enemy’s approach, not only when it’s expected but also when it isn’t, by many indications, including a certain amount of unavoidable noise and din. No enemy can come across country, at whatever speed, without our knowing that he’s there, and also who he is and where he comes from. But a maritime, naval enemy can be upon us before anyone knows he is on the way; and when he comes he doesn’t advertise his identity or his nationality or even his intentions. There is no means of discerning or inferring even whether he is friend or foe.

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  6

  Furthermore, the moral character of coastal cities is prone to corruption and decay. For they are exposed to a mixture of strange talk and strange modes of behaviour. Foreign customs are imported along with foreign merchandise; and so none of their ancestral institutions can remain unaffected. The inhabitants of those cities do not stay at home. They are always dashing off to foreign parts, full of airy hopes and designs. And even when, physically, they stay put, they wander abroad in their imagination. No factor was more responsible for the ultimate overthrow of Carthage and Corinth* (which had already been long undermined) than the restlessness and dispersal of their citizens; for in their craving for mercantile voyages and commercial profit they failed to attend to their land and their army. The sea also brings enticements to luxury in the form of booty or imports, which cause serious damage to states. Apart from anything else, the attractiveness of their site represents many temptations to sensual indulgence, whether through extravagance or idleness. What I have just said about Corinth could be said with equal justice, I suspect, of Greece as a whole. For the Peloponnese is pretty well surrounded by the sea, and apart from Phlius* there are no communities whose territory does not touch the sea. Outside the Peloponnese, only the Aenianes, the Dorians,* and the Dolopes are far from the sea. I need hardly mention the Greek islands, which are surrounded by the waves and almost float on their surface along with the customs and institutions of their cities. These places, as I said earlier, belong to the Greek motherland. But think of all the colonies she has sent out to Asia, Thrace, Italy, Sicily, and Africa. Except for Magnesia, every one of them is washed by the waves. As a result, a Greek coast seems to have been tacked on, as it were, to the lands of barbarians. Of the barbarians themselves none originally sailed the seas, except the Etruscans, who did so as pirates, and the Phoenicians, who did so for trade. Seafaring was clearly the cause of Greece’s misfortunes, including her political instability, since it gave rise to the characteristic vices of coastal cities which I touched on briefly a little while ago. But along with those endemic faults there is one enormous advantage. The products of every land can come by sea to the city where you live; conversely your people can export and deliver the produce of their fields to whatever country they wish.

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  How then could Romulus have achieved with more inspired success the advantages of a coastal city, while avoiding its faults, than by founding Rome on the bank of a river which flowed with its broad stream, smooth and unfailing, into the sea? Thus the city could import by sea whatever it needed, and export its surplus; and thanks to the same river it could not only draw in by sea the commodities most necessary for its life and culture, it could also bring them down from the hinterland. And so Romulus, in my view, already foresaw that this city would eventually form the site and centre of a world empire. A city founded in some other part of Italy could hardly have held so easily such vast political power.
<
br />   10

  As for the city’s own natural defences, can anyone be so unobservant as not to have them etched, clear and familiar, on his mind? Thanks to the wisdom of Romulus and the other kings, the line and course of its wall were designed to run in every direction through steep precipitous mountains. The only access, between the Esquiline and Quirinal hills, was covered by a high rampart and a huge ditch; and the citadel, thus protected, was built all round on steep crags which looked as if they had been cut away on every side, so that even in the dreadful period of the Gallic invasion it remained impregnable and inviolate. The chosen site also enjoyed an abundance of spring water and a healthy atmosphere in spite of the region’s plague-ridden character; for breezes blow through the hills, and they in their turn provide shade for the valleys.

  11

  12–44. The period of the kings

  Romulus achieved all this in a very short time. He founded the city, which he decreed should be named Rome after him; then, to strengthen the new community, he followed a novel and somewhat crude plan* which nevertheless bore the stamp of a great and far-seeing man, in that it consolidated the resources of his kingdom and people. Well-born Sabine girls had come to Rome on the festival of Consus to attend the yearly games which Romulus had inaugurated. On his orders they were seized and assigned in marriage to young men of the foremost families. The Sabines, consequently, attacked the Romans, and the outcome of the battle was confused and uncertain. Romulus, therefore, made a treaty with Titus Tatius in response to the appeals of the very wives who had been abducted. By the terms of this treaty he admitted the Sabines to Roman citizenship with shared religious observances, and he accepted their king as a partner in his kingship.

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  13

  After Tatius’ death the entire sovereignty reverted to Romulus. Previous to that, he, together with Tatius, had chosen a royal council made up of leading citizens, who were called ‘Fathers’* on account of the affection in which they were held. He had also divided the populace into three tribes,* named after himself, Tatius, and Lucumo (a supporter of Romulus who had been killed in the struggle with the Sabines), and into thirty voting-districts which he named after the Sabine girls who, from among those abducted, had appealed for a peace treaty. But although these administrative divisions had been set up in Tatius’ lifetime, after his death Romulus relied still more on the authority and advice of the Fathers in discharging his royal duties.

  14

  In doing so he was the first to realize and accept something which Lycurgus had realized a little earlier in Sparta,* namely that states are better governed and controlled by the king’s sole power and authority when the influence of all the best men is allowed to act upon the absolute monarch. So, protected and supported by this council, which was a kind of senate, Romulus waged many highly successful wars against his neighbours; and, though he brought no plunder to his own house, he continually increased the wealth of the citizens. Moreover, Romulus was most scrupulous in observing the auspices, a habit which we still retain, much to the benefit of the state. He himself took the auspices when founding the city—an act which marked the beginning of our state; and at the beginning of every public event he appointed augurs, one from each tribe, to assist him in taking the auspices. He also arranged for the common people to be assigned to the leading citizens as clients (the great advantages of this scheme will be explained later*); and instead of controlling them by violent punishments he imposed fines of sheep and cattle; for wealth at that time consisted of livestock* (pecus) and land (loci), hence people were called ‘rich in livestock’ (pecuniosi) and ‘wealthy in land’ (locupletes).

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  Romulus reigned for thirty-seven years and laid those two admirable foundation-stones of the state, namely the auspices and the Senate. So great were his achievements that when, after a sudden eclipse of the sun,* he failed to reappear, it was assumed that he had been admitted to the company of the gods, an idea which could never have gained currency for any human being who had not possessed an outstanding reputation for valour and integrity. This was the more astonishing in the case of Romulus, in that the other men who are supposed to have attained apotheosis lived in less educated periods of history, when the mind was prone to fabricate myths, and simple people were easily induced to believe them; whereas we know that the age of Romulus existed less than six hundred years ago, at a time when writing and learning had long been familiar, and when all those primitive superstitions that belong to an ignorant society had been swept away. If, as Greek chronology informs us, Rome was founded in the second year of the seventh Olympiad,* the age of Romulus came at a period when Greece was already full of poets and musicians, and less credence was given to fables, except in the case of remote events. The first Olympiad is dated a hundred and eight years after Lycurgus began to codify the law, though some people think it was inaugurated by that same Lycurgus, owing to a confusion over the name.* Now Homer, at a conservative estimate, lived about thirty years before the age of Lycurgus. Hence it may be inferred that Homer lived many years before Romulus. So by then, when men were educated and the times themselves were enlightened, there was hardly any scope for myth-making. Antiquity accepted fabulous stories even though they were sometimes clumsily conceived;* but that later age, which was by now sophisticated, made a point of deriding sheer impossibilities and rejecting them with scorn.

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  [There is a gap at this point, and the next lines are based on a fragmentary text. Scipio seems to have mentioned some Greek poets who lived at the time when Romulus’ apotheosis was accepted.]

  … his daughter’s son, as some people said. In the fifty-sixth Olympiad, the very year when (Stesichorus) died, Simonides was born. This helps us to appreciate that Romulus’ immortality was believed at a time when the nature of human life had long been a familiar subject, discussed and understood. There is no doubt that it was due to Romulus’ exceptional intelligence and force of character that people believed what the peasant Proculus Julius said about him—a thing which had not been believed about any other mortal for many generations. At the behest of the Senate, which was keen to dispel the ill-feeling and suspicion following Romulus’ death, Proculus is supposed to have declared at a public meeting that he had seen Romulus on the hill now called the Quirinal; Romulus had instructed him to ask the people to build him a shrine on that hill; he himself, he said, was a god and bore the name of Quirinus.

  20

  You appreciate, then, don’t you, that it was thanks to the good sense of one man not only that a new people came into being but that, when he departed, it was not a baby crying in its cradle, but rather a youth on the verge of manhood.

  21

  LAELIUS: Yes, we are aware of that, and also of the fact that at the outset you are using a novel method of exposition which is not to be found in any Greek treatise. The doyen of writers* on this theme chose a stretch of virgin territory where he could build a state according to his own specifications. It was a remarkable state no doubt, but quite out of touch with men’s lives and habits. His successors have presented their opinions about types and systems of political organization without reference to any definite model or form of constitution. It looks to me as if you intend to do both. For in your opening remarks you prefer to attribute your discoveries to others rather than, like Plato’s Socrates, to claim them for yourself; in talking about the site of the city you discuss in theoretical terms what Romulus did by chance or necessity; and instead of wandering from one state to another you confine your discussion to a single example. So carry on as you have begun. As you work your way through the other kings I fancy I can foresee the emergence of a fully-fledged state.

  22

  SCIPIO: So then, after Romulus’ death, his Senate, which comprised the best men*—men whom the king held in such high regard that he wished them to be called ‘Fathers’ and their children ‘Patricians’*—tried to rule the state by itse
lf, without a king. But the people would not have it, and in their grief at the loss of Romulus they persisted in calling for a king. Therefore the leading citizens astutely devised a new procedure unknown to any other nation, namely the introduction of an interregnum.* This practice ensured that, pending the appointment of a permanent monarch, the state should not be without a king, nor yet have a long-reigning substitute. It thus guarded against a situation in which a person, having grown used to power, should be too slow in laying down the sovereignty or too well placed for usurping it. Even at that stage, you see, that newly established people perceived something that escaped the Spartan Lycurgus. He thought that a king should not be chosen (if indeed that lay within Lycurgus’ power), but should be accepted, whatever he was like, provided he was a descendant of Hercules. But our peasant ancestors perceived even then that one should look for valour and good sense in a king rather than noble lineage.

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  As Numa Pompilius was reputedly outstanding in these respects, the people passed over its own citizens, and on the Senate’s recommendation brought in a king from outside, inviting a Sabine from Cures to reign at Rome. When he arrived here, although the people had already held an Assembly of Voting Districts* to appoint him king, he still had a law passed by that same body to confirm his regal powers. Then, as he saw that the Romans, following the precedent set by Romulus, were intensely keen on military pursuits, he thought they should be diverted a little from that way of life.