10
just as the first book of De oratore provides a broad introduction to the place of rhetoric in Rome, so too the opening pair of books of De re publica sets the scene for the more detailed analysis of political institutions that follows. The first day’s conversation starts with the discussion of the portent of the double sun, leading to the choice of a more relevant subject for the group to discuss, namely, the res publica, and to Scipio’s reluctant and limited agreement to speak about it (1.14–38); that in turn is followed by Scipio’s discussion of constitutional theory, beginning with his definition of the res publica and description of its origins leading to the cycle of constitutions and the mixed constitution, occupying the remainder of the book (39–69). After Scipio’s brief apology at the end of Book 1 for sounding like a teacher (70), he launches into his explanation of the Roman constitution itself, describing its growth from the foundation of the city by Romulus to the restoration of constitutional government after the fall of the Decemvirate in 449 (2.1–63). The final and highly fragmentary portion of the first day’s conversation makes a transition to the discussion of the next two days, concerning both the institutions of the res publica and the qualities of leadership the res publica requires (2.64–70). It is only after that, beginning in Book 3, that De re publica begins to develop a theory of government that applies specifically to Rome and moves beyond the survey of constitutions and Roman political history to grapple with serious questions about the moral and social organization of a successful society.
Unfortunately, it is at that point, about a third of the way into Book 3, that the palimpsest gives out almost entirely. It is unfortunate for a number of reasons. In the first place (as has been said previously), it has long been recognized that the material presented in the first two books is the most familiar and therefore least interesting part of the work; and while (as will be seen below) there are aspects of Cicero’s accounts of constitutional theory and Roman history that depart significantly from other versions of the same subjects, they are on the whole not very original and probably not meant to be seen as such. Second, probably because it is much easier to talk about what survives of a work than what does not, the theory of constitutions has often been central to modern discussions of Cicero’s political philosophy. And yet it needs to be remembered that although it bulks large among the extant remains of the dialogue, it was not that significant when the dialogue was complete. If one looks at the entire surviving remains of De re publica now, 1.39–69 make up about 17% of the whole; but on the most plausible estimate of the size of the complete work, the theory of constitutions occupied only 8% of the text. It is simply not that important and, as will be suggested below, it is provisional and quite deliberately partial—in both senses of that word.
The motive force of dialogues, at least dialogues in a Platonic vein, what makes the conversation progress in its argument and move from one topic to another, is dissatisfaction.1 Plato’s earlier and shorter dialogues, those in which someone’s unexamined beliefs are shown to be false, simply end with that dissatisfaction; we no longer know what we thought we knew. Some of the dialogues to which Cicero is most indebted, particularly Gorgias, Phaedrus, and Republic, go further, constructing positive arguments to replace our former beliefs. Thus Gorgias uses the arguments with Gorgias himself and with Polus to create the dissatisfaction that leads Callicles to enter the fray, which in turn leads to Socrates’ explanation of rhetoric’s lack of true knowledge; similarly in Phaedrus Socrates stops and rejects his own initial position before advancing his more elaborate account of the soul and of what a true rhetoric would look like. In the Republic, there is a sequence of three unsatisfactory discussions (with Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus) in Book 1, at the end of which Socrates breaks off and demands that the conversation begin anew. The preliminary conversations in these dialogues are important as preliminary stages of the reader’s education about the subject, but in context they are made to seem unsatisfactory and unsatisfying, thus propelling the conversation toward different and perhaps better arguments. If there were no dissatisfaction with the general understanding of a given topic, there would of course be no need to have the conversation or write the dialogue at all, but within the written dialogue, dissatisfaction works as a method of transition and revision. That is not the only possible mode of constructing dialogue; Aristotle’s dialogues apparently consisted of balanced pairs of speeches, and many of Cicero’s later dialogues, such as De finibus and De natura deorum, followed that model. But Cicero’s two early dialogues, like many of Plato’s, are exploratory rather than expository: they seek to discover what one should know rather than setting out what is already known.
In using this technique of dissatisfaction, as in much else, Cicero in De oratore and De re publica is a close student of Plato. De oratore begins, both in the author’s preface and in the discussion of Book 1, with everyone expressing dissatisfaction both with the standard approaches to rhetorical training and with the inconsistency with which philosophers and rhetoricians alike define and explain the orator’s role; the discussion proceeds after that through his hearers’ dissatisfaction with Crassus’ very cursory first explanation of rhetoric. De re publica works similarly: the dialogue is moved forward by repeated criticisms by the participants of the insufficiency of whatever has just been said. Just as the first book of De oratore ends with Crassus expressing his disappointment with the narrow portrait of the orator that Antonius has just given and looking forward to the renewed, more ambitious, and much more substantive discussion of the officia and praecepta of oratory that begins in Book 2, so too it is the disappointment that is felt with Scipio’s narrative in Book 2 of De re publica that leads to the detailed, and much more original, discussion of social institutions in the books that follow. And even though it comes a third of the way through De re publica, the reaction to Scipio’s speech is a very useful place to begin.
The last extensive continuous portion of the palimpsest comes to an end in the middle of the secession of the plebs which brought an end to the decemvirate (2.63); the restoration of republican government marked the end of Scipio’s narrative. The restoration itself is lost in a gap of four folia after the plebeians occupy the Aventine, and at the end of that gap there is a portion of one last sentence of Scipio’s speech: “I judge that our ancestors both approved most highly and preserved most wisely” (64). From this, it is clear that Scipio believed that the Roman constitution attained its perfection in 449 and that it was a mark of ancestral wisdom not to have made significant changes in it after that.2 But in the silence following the end of Scipio’s narrative, Aelius Tubero asks permission to offer a criticism of Scipio’s account, and then does so (64):
You seem to me to have praised our commonwealth, although Laelius had asked you not about our commonwealth, but about commonwealths in general. Nor did I learn from your speech by what training or customs or laws we can establish or preserve that commonwealth which you praise.
Tubero, one of the junior participants in the conversation of De re publica, plays a small but important role in the extant remains of the dialogue: it is he who begins the dialogue by asking about the portent of the two suns (1.14–16), and other than a few minor interjections (1.23, 1.26, 1.31) his only other contribution to the dialogue appears in this passage.3
Tubero’s fairly harsh criticism (perhaps not untypical of the real Tubero, whose Stoic rigor kept him from political success) is in fact somewhat unfair.4 In the first place, as will be suggested below, Laelius’ original question (1.33) was indeed about Rome, not about commonwealths in general, although Scipio interpreted it as a general question. Second, Tubero’s memory seems very short: the first half of Scipio’s discourse is in fact about commonwealths in general, and it is only when he wants to illustrate the theory of constitutions with a particular example that he begins to speak about Rome. However, Scipio’s long discourse does respond only to the first part of Laelius’ request, that they consider the best form of government first: he never reaches the rest of what Laelius had asked for, “other subjects,” eventually reaching “the significance of the current situation” (1.33). To the extent that Scipio’s account is an incomplete answer to Laelius, Tubero is right, and in essence he is doing no more than (somewhat rudely) reminding Scipio of what the original request had been.5 But Tubero is also oversimplifying when he calls Scipio’s speech (Book 2 only) a panegyric; Scipio’s account of Rome ends with praise of the mixed constitution that came into being in 449, but his narrative is a mixture of praise and blame: it contains serious criticisms of some of the choices made by Rome’s earlier rulers, not to mention the obviously negative accounts of those figures whose actions led to the end of the monarchy and then of aristocratic rule. But even if Tubero’s criticism is inaccurate, and perhaps because it is inaccurate, it plays an important role in the structure of the dialogue as a whole: his dissatisfaction underlines the fact that Scipio’s long account of constitutions, even in his own view, is not nearly a complete answer to Laelius’ question, and his reference to disciplina (consisting of mores and leges) as a necessary element in any account of the res publica makes Laelius’ request for “other subjects” more concrete and points ahead to the following books.6
Tubero’s complaint thus leads to a reconsideration of how the argument is to proceed: before his criticism, the explanation of good government has been largely a diachronic account of how a constitution is shaped; after the reconsideration at the end of Book 2, Book 3 begins a renewed discussion, again lasting for two books, looking synchronically at the moral and social underpinnings of such a constitution—how it is preserved, not how it is formed. Too little survives of this section of the dialogue to reconstruct with any certainty just how the transition is made. When complete, Book 2 occupied some ninety-six folia of the manuscript, and fifty-six of them survive. Seventy-six of those folia contained Scipio’s narrative; fifty-one of them survive.7 Of the following discussion, however, only five of the original twenty folia still exist. Thus, the beginning of Scipio’s reply to Tubero survives (2.65), but after that, two leaves of the palimpsest are missing; after one more leaf, there is another gap of probably two lost leaves, followed by a very large gap of probably eleven leaves, after which the very last sentences of Book 2 survive.8
But although this section of Book 2 is very scrappy, some guesses about the argument are reasonable. In responding to Tubero (2.65), Scipio first summarizes in one sentence the argument of Book 1, that the best form of government is a constitution blended from the three simple forms; in a second sentence (66), he says that he used Rome simply because it illustrated the argument about constitutions using the greatest possible state; and in a third, incomplete sentence he says that, if no particular state is to be used as an exemplum in order to find the genus of the ideal state, one must use an image from nature (naturae imagine, 66). When the text breaks off, however, Scipio has not yet defined what that image is, and several different suggestions have been advanced. One possible identification of this image is simply the idea of nature itself, the rational and hierarchical system that is made evident in human affairs as it is in the ordering of the physical world and in the cosmos itself.9 That would be consistent with the argument made for monarchy in Book 1 by Scipio and with the argument for natural slavery and empire made later by Laelius at 3.36. A second possibility is that the image of nature refers more specifically to the cosmos as a completely rational system which is perfect and unchanging and, as the Somnium at the end of Book 6 will make clear, has in the sun a kind of organizing figure, a rector and moderator.10 But, at least at this point in the dialogue, the cosmos as described in the Somnium is not a suitable analogy for the mixed constitution: it is essentially a monarchic structure, or at best one that emphasizes the role of the prudens or rector over any constitutional structure.
The third and most likely candidate for the image of nature is the construction of the individual human being as an analogy for the construction of a society.11 That is made particularly probable because of the structure of the manuscript at this point: if, as seems likely, there was only a short gap of two folia between the mention of the imago naturae in 2.66 and the discussion of the human soul and passions that begins in 2.67, there is little room for the exposition of an image of nature different from what appears after the gap. When the text resumes in 2.67 Scipio is talking about the man of foresight, the prudens, who is immediately compared to the mahout who can control an elephant (67). Before the text breaks off again, Scipio has made it clear how much more complex and difficult it is to control the variety of human passions than it is to control a single animal; and four fragments (68a–d) that belong in the gap after 2.67 describe those passions, while another (68e) describes an inexperienced charioteer being dragged from his chariot and killed. That is almost certainly meant to evoke the soul/chariot of Plato’s Phaedrus.12 Platonic too is what follows (69) after the next short gap, a comparison of concord among the various elements of society to musical harmony and (although the surviving text does not say so explicitly) of the prudent statesman to the conductor of such harmonious orchestration.13 Such harmony, says Scipio, can never exist without justice; and indeed Plato in the Republic had used the metaphor of harmony to define justice itself (4.443de). After that comes the long gap of eleven lost folia; the conclusion of Book 2 which follows the gap reinforces the necessity of justice and points ahead to the debate about justice that takes place in the next book.
The transition made in the last part of Book 2 from the end of Scipio’s precise and historical account of the development of Roman government through Tubero’s criticism, the image of nature, the analogy (probably) between the order of government and the management by reason of the human passions, and ultimately reaching the idea of justice as harmony is perhaps not quite so swift as the loss of three quarters of this part of the palimpsest makes it seem, but it is still an impressively rapid move from concrete to abstract and from history to ethics. Tubero’s criticism and Scipio’s response set the agenda for the remainder of the dialogue (or at least what we can see of it): the fundamental question of the justice of any government (Book 3); the institutions that shape the moral order of society (Book 4); and the individuals who are shaped by, and themselves shape, those institutions (Books 5–6). The discussion in those books is not nearly so abstract—again, so far as we can tell—as what remains of the end of Book 2, but it is very different from what has come before Tubero’s criticism: above all, with very few exceptions, it has relatively little to do with the theory and history of constitutions that has occupied most of the previous discussion.
Even if Tubero’s criticism of Scipio at 2.64 is not entirely fair, it nevertheless points out a genuine weakness in what has come before: the narrative of Roman history in Book 2 in particular is a narrative of constitutional changes that largely focuses on individual kings and leaders and the effects of their actions and mistakes and says little about the underlying mechanisms of stability or constitutional change. Both the account of constitutional theory and the narrative of early Roman history in Books 1 and 2 are preliminary and provisional, and their limitations are revealed not only in retrospect or in Tubero’s comments at 2.64, but within the first two books themselves. Thus, at least one participant, generally Laelius, finds each of the arguments of the first day either superficial or inadequate, and that is as it should be: both the participants in the conversation and the reader refine their understanding of the subject as the book progresses.
The conversation in De re publica does not in fact start out being about the res publica, and it takes a certain amount of effort to steer it in that direction.14 The dialogue begins with Tubero’s question to Scipio about the recent portent of the two suns; even from Scipio’s initial response, however, it is clear that Scipio is not so interested as Tubero in talking about natural philosophy.15 After the initial description of the portent, and as the various interlocutors arrive, Laelius expresses open contempt for wasting time talking about celestial phenomena rather than public policy (1.19):
Is that so, Philus? Do we know so much about the things that concern our homes and the commonwealth that we’re asking questions about what’s going on in the sky?
Laelius believes there is a sharp division between practical problem solving and airy speculation: our houses and commonwealth on the one hand, the sky on the other. Philus, as a Stoic, sees no such distinction: for him, our homes are not the physical constructions of our houses but the entire mundus, “this whole universe, which the gods have given us as a home and a country to be shared with them” (19).
The ensuing discussion reformulates the two perspectives in more scientific and practical terms, emphasizing the knowledge of astronomy rather than the interpretation of portents or the Stoic cosmopolis. Philus first (21–22) uses the example of Sulpicius Galus to show that great statesmen have not been averse to knowledge of astronomy—in this case the explanation of Archimedes’ orrery—and Scipio then offers examples (23–25), both Greek and Roman, of the practical use of astronomy to relieve troops of the fear of eclipses.16 In response to a (fragmentary) comment by Tubero, Scipio changes perspective once more, showing in very broad terms how knowledge of the grandeur of the universe and of intellectual matters in general provides a necessary context for the petty concerns of mundane political life (26–29).17
How relevant is the universe to the well-being of Rome? The very interpretation of natural phenomena as omens (whether unique occurrences such as the double sun or the regular Roman practices of augury and haruspicy) entails a link between the two, a form of communication between the gods and the Romans. Stoicism saw divination as part of a larger cosmic sympathy, an aspect of the cosmic city to which both gods and men belong. On the other hand, the use of astronomy to explain eclipses makes the understanding of celestial activity an indication and instrument of human intelligence, while Scipio’s vision of the grandeur of the universe sees it, more broadly, as providing a cosmic perspective on human concerns. All these elements of the discussion of the double sun play an important part in structuring De re publica. The eclipse at the death of Romulus is referred to by Scipio at 1.25; it reappears not only in Scipio’s narrative at 2.17 but in the Somnium as well (6.24). The Stoic cosmopolis provides the framework for Laelius’ speech on justice in Book 3; the study of the heavens as a mark of human intelligence is part of Cicero’s preface to Book 3 (3.3); and in addition to providing a physical as well as metaphysical cosmic context for human endeavors and making the sun central to the ordering of both the celestial and terrestrial worlds, the Somnium repeats Scipio’s view of the heavens as providing a salutary glimpse of the transitory nature of human glory.
But while the astronomical discussion has an important role in De re publica as a whole, in the immediate context, as a starting-point for conversation, astronomy and the heavens are simply a red herring, at least to the pragmatic Laelius. Laelius sees no point in looking upward; he draws a sharp contrast between the philosophical erudition of Tubero and the practical wisdom of Tubero’s ancestor Sextus Aelius Catus, who dealt as a jurisconsult purely with matters of direct use to those who consulted him.18 He adduces Catus’ response to the same astronomically inclined Sulpicius Galus to whom Scipio had referred, in which Catus had quoted lines from Ennius’ tragedy Iphigenia about the irrelevance of astronomy. But Catus was not entirely opposed to philosophy: he said that he preferred the opinion of Ennius’ Neoptolemus, whose maxim was philosophari . . . sed paucis, to the anti-intellectual views of Zethus in Pacuvius’ Antiope. Laelius agrees with that and proposes a middle course: if one must study Greek theories, they should at least be relevant to public life (30):
But if you like Greek learning that much, then there are other studies, more suitable to free men and more widely applicable, that we can bring to the needs of everyday life or even to public affairs.
When asked by Tubero what precisely he means, Laelius returns to the omen of the two suns: it is better to deal with the division in the commonwealth between the Gracchans and Scipio, a matter of genuine significance for their lives, rather than with a putative division between two suns, which is neither comprehensible nor relevant to their lives (32):
Therefore, my young friends, if you’ll listen to me, you won’t be afraid of that second sun: either it’s nothing at all, or—granting that it is as it appeared, so long as it isn’t causing trouble—we can know nothing about such things or, even if we knew all about them, such knowledge could make us neither better nor happier. But it is possible for us to have one senate and one people, and if we don’t we’re in real trouble; we know things aren’t that way now, and we see that if it can be brought about, then we will live both better and happier lives.
There are enough problems here in Rome without worrying about the cosmos.
Like Antonius in De oratore, Laelius is very much down-to-earth, in the initial conversation quite literally so; also like Antonius, Laelius cites Ennius and Pacuvius, and he puts his quotations within an argument drawn from Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias.19 At the same time, however, even Laelius believes that a very narrow view of political action is wrong, because it does not address the larger context within which any action needs to be determined or justified. Laelius pays little attention to the largest context, the universe itself, but he recognizes that public affairs require some knowledge of the res publica. The discussion of the prodigy taken as a whole, however, provides a first glimpse of the larger contexts that the dialogue will develop subsequently. How should we define the res publica in which we are to act: the immediate civic world of Rome, or the entire cosmos? Is our true “home” the patria to which Cicero in the preface says that our greatest obligation lies, or is it a much larger world? Even celestial knowledge has more than one use and more than one context: there is the practical knowledge of eclipses, as used by Pericles and Sulpicius Galus to calm their troops; there is the understanding of cosmic unity, which Philus proposes; and finally there is the universe itself, the cosmic context that gives the statesman a proper perspective on the world in which he acts.
The end of the introductory discussion leaves the direction of the conversation undecided, and after Laelius’ emphatic statement about the irrelevance of the two suns, Scaevola finally asks him directly what they should talk about. The answer, in harmony with Laelius’ impatient practicality, is that they should examine “the skills that make us useful to the state,” as representing the greatest possible contribution of either philosophy (sapientia) or of virtue (1.33).20 The question of how an individual may be a useful constituent of the commonwealth, taken in a broad sense, is the ultimate concern of the dialogue as a whole: who is the statesman, and how can he guide the res publica? As so often with statements in Book 1, however, Laelius means something less grand and much more precise: he is interested in the here and now, the particular practical actions that should be taken to deal with the Gracchans. One cannot, however, come to the aid of the commonwealth without a clear idea of what the commonwealth is or should be. In order to provide utilissimos rei publicae sermones (33), Scipio should be asked initially to give his opinion of the best constitution (optimum statum civitatis), and then the discussion should move to “other things” (alia quaeremus) and eventually come to a consideration of current issues and an exploration of the immediate crisis.
Laelius is understandably vague about the subsequent direction of the conversation: it would be difficult for anyone interested in exploring solutions to the present political crisis to anticipate the development of Scipio’s argument as far as the cosmos and the afterlife in order to offer a true context and rationale for responsible political action. Laelius’ role, particularly in Book 1, is to provide a skeptical and questioning voice and to prod Scipio to refine and clarify his argument. It is Laelius at 1.46, after Scipio’s initial summary of the theory of the mixed constitution, who asks him to say which of the simple constitutions he prefers. It is again Laelius at 1.54, after Scipio has reported the arguments in favor of their respective ideal forms of government by democrats and aristocrats, who repeats the same question, leading to a Socratic dialogue between them on the virtues of monarchy. And although it is not his own skepticism, it is Laelius who voices agreement with Scipio’s own dissatisfaction with his account of constitutional theory at 1.70–71, leading to the Roman constitutional history in Book 2.21
Laelius’ initial request at 1.33 that the assembled group ask Scipio to explain what he thinks is the optimus status civitatis is the starting point for the entire discussion of government and statesmanship in De re publica, but as with the language used about speech in the opening conversation of De oratore,22 his words have more than one meaning. When the pragmatic Laelius suggests the optimus status civitatis as a topic for discussion, he is presumably talking about the condition of one particular civitas, Rome: nothing he has said before in the previous discussion indicates that his frame of reference goes beyond his own political world. Rather, it is Scipio who, as in his earlier speech about the importance of the cosmos (1.26–29), chooses to interpret Laelius’ phrase more broadly to mean the best possible form of government anywhere. Laelius’ request is set squarely in the context of Roman history and Roman political behavior, not in that of political theory in general. He says that it is for Scipio to speak about the res publica for two reasons: in the first place, he is a princeps rei publicae;23 and second, Laelius recalls (1.34) that Scipio had previously argued, in the presence of Panaetius and Polybius, that the best form of government was the ancestral one inherited by the Romans. Hence, he concludes, Scipio will be doing them all a favor in explaining de re publica quid sentias.
Laelius’ question is a simple one: he is seeking the sententia of a leading statesman about his understanding of Roman government and policy, as if in the senate. He has no expectation at all of the long and theoretical discussion of government that Scipio produces.24 What is more, Laelius’ point in referring to Scipio’s previously having talked about Roman government to the Stoic philosopher Panaetius and the historian Polybius does not mean that the discourse which follows is based on their work: Laelius’ point is exactly the opposite.25 I remember, he says, that you used to discuss this with Panaetius in the presence of Polybius, and that you used to show them that the best government was our inherited constitution. Far from indicating that Scipio used Greek philosophy to construct a version of Roman government, the anecdote displays Scipio explaining Rome to the Greeks—presumably in terms of Roman values and traditions, not in terms of Greek philosophy.26 And at least as far as Polybius is concerned, that is probably close to the truth: what Polybius knew about the Roman constitution and wrote in Book 6 of his histories he had clearly learned in Rome, and possibly from Scipio himself.27
The contrast between what is Roman, practical, and traditional and what is Greek, theoretical, and speculative is not emphasized in this passage, but it is the basis of Laelius’ objection to discussion of the prodigy in the earlier part of the conversation, and it is fundamental to understanding Scipio’s subsequent account of political theory and Roman history. Scipio does not entirely agree with Laelius’ point of view; that is evident from his earlier speech about the importance of knowledge of the heavens. At the same time, in accepting Laelius’ proposal (1.35–36) to speak de re publica, he begins from within the Roman senatorial framework offered by Laelius. Scipio first alludes to his inherited expertise and intense interest in the res publica—both practical participation in public affairs (procuratio atque administratio rei publicae, 35) and the abstract consideration of what a res publica is and implies—and then to his dissatisfaction with Greek theoretical writings on the subject. What he proposes is a blend: he is not ignorant of the Greeks, and he does not think that his own ideas are better than theirs, but he does not elevate them over the Romans; he speaks of himself as unum e togatis, a simple Roman citizen, who has been educated in Greek theory, but educated even more by his experience and his family: usu . . . et domesticis praeceptis multo magis eruditus quam litteris (36). He echoes and reinforces this just before beginning his formal account of the res publica by disclaiming any wish to imitate the excessive precision and detail of docti homines (i.e., Greeks), since he is an experienced statesman speaking about public affairs to men of comparable experience and interests (38).
The conversation between Scipio and Laelius (1.33–38) that leads up to Scipio’s speech on constitutional forms provides direction to the discussion that is to follow: whatever is said about government in general is intended to provide the basis for understanding the present crisis and for the interlocutors to know what to do and how to behave at the present moment. It makes some important connections as well: it makes an explicit link between the useful actions a statesman may take (ut usui civitati simus, 1.33) and the useful instruction Scipio is about to give (utilissimos rei publicae sermones). That in turn owes a great deal to his education usu . . . et domesticis praeceptis, and it also connects Scipio’s imminent sententia about the best constitution to his lifelong habit of participation in the res publica itself. That, moreover, looks back to Cicero’s own sentiments expressed in the preface, that writing de re publica is itself a contribution to the well-being of the res publica.28 That the basis of Scipio’s account of government lies in his experience of public life, usus, rather than in his reading and study needs to be stressed: he has, as he says, read Greek philosophy; he has had discussions with Polybius, as we know not only from De re publica but from Polybius himself; but nothing he has learned from any Greek is so relevant as what he has learned from his family and from his own public service. In other words, he has no intention at all of saying something that would satisfy a Greek philosopher, although he has read their books: he is talking to Roman statesmen in language that they know and share. That does not mean that Cicero intended the philosophical content of the dialogue as a whole to seem inadequate; but the starting point of the analysis is marked as coming from experience and not from books, and from Rome, not Greece.
Once Scipio agrees to speak de re publica, his first statements demonstrate just how he is limiting his topic to fit his audience. After stating the importance of defining one’s terms at the outset of a discussion,29 he immediately clarifies his goals by refusing to follow the traditions of learned discourse about government and take its origins back to the first intercourse of man and woman (1.38); in so doing, he rejects the starting point used by Aristotle in the Politics and by Polybius in Book 6 of the Histories.30 He also announces that he will not bother with repeated definitions and lists of synonyms. Instead, he says, he will bear in mind that he is speaking to men of experience and knowledge; he is not some magister and will not worry about every small detail. And having disclaimed philosophical precision, he proceeds to offer the definitions without which, he has said, useful discussion cannot take place. And they are, unsurprisingly, notably imprecise.
Scipio starts by defining the res publica: est igitur . . . res publica res populi (1.39); that in turn is followed by a more complex definition of populus in order to clarify the first definition.31 Scipio’s definition of res publica as res populi is almost certainly intended to be understood in the simplest possible way, as an etymology: the word publicus is derived from the word populus, and hence res publica means the same thing as res populi. The etymology is both traditional and true; even if Mai’s statement that he found the same definition ascribed to Varro in a scholiast is false (no one else has ever seen it), most Romans would probably have accepted it.32 But the definition is too lapidary and lacks detail; it suggests, but does not state, meanings beyond the etymology that lies at its heart. Thus, although Scipio offers explanations only of publica and then of populus (see below), the repetition of res indicates that political organization is being defined as a form of property: “the res publica is the people’s property”; res publica is implicitly contrasted with res privata.
The idea of the res publica as public property implicit in the definition leads to a third possible meaning: if the res publica in some sense is a kind of property that belongs to the people as a whole, then that common ownership implies some notion of popular sovereignty. That is not an argument for democratic government, but the analysis of constitutions that follows, the account of Roman constitutional history in Book 2, and the revised analysis of the legitimacy of governments at the end of Book 3 all suggest that there is a notion of popular consent involved and that citizens have a legitimate, if limited, share in both power and rights.33 Finally, by choosing to define res publica as res populi rather than as populus simply, Cicero distinguishes between res populi and populus: the commonwealth is not simply equated with its citizens but is seen as a construction of the citizens. There is no abstract conception of “the state” involved (although it is often convenient to translate civitas in that way), but Cicero does distinguish between the members of the civitas and the type of organization—the res publica—in which at any given moment they happen to be structured.
The definition of res publica does not stand alone; in the closely linked definition of populus which follows immediately, Scipio defines populus as “not every group of men assembled in any way, but an assemblage of some size associated with one another through agreement on law and community of interest” (non omnis hominum coetus quoquo modo congregatus, sed coetus multitudinis iuris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatus, 1.39).34 These two attributes, agreement on law and community of interest, are both common elements in accounts of the origin of society, but they are quite different, and Scipio’s explanation of them is very perfunctory. Shared benefit or utility is a fairly transparent idea and is an aspect of self-interest: people are united by having needs or goals in common. What is more opaque is how collective self-interest actually distinguishes a populus from any other mutually useful grouping of individuals. Does it suggest that when cooperation ceases to have shared benefits, then the res publica that this group of people collectively defines ceases to exist? Do the members of such a populus, individually or collectively, have the right to dissolve it? That would seem to be entailed by the most obvious meaning of utility, and in fact such an interpretation would coincide with Epicurean theories of law and justice;35 but Scipio presumably means something different, since his emphasis throughout is on finding a form of government that will be, if not perpetual, at least very long-lasting, and a system based on temporarily shared interests would not meet his needs.36
If utilitatis communione points in more than one direction, so does iuris consensu. Scipio uses it, as he does all his other terms, in its most transparent meaning (and in a grammatical construction parallel to utilitatis communione) of “agreement on law”; but does that mean simply acceptance of the same set of statutes or legal principles, or does it entail the shared recognition of what proper legal principles are or of what law itself is?37 The phrase paired with it, utilitatis communione, probably means no more than the common idea that government is for the common good; it may be pushing it too far to suggest that it includes a more utilitarian (and Epicurean) idea of “a shared idea of what is useful”—in other words, that ius is defined by immediate utility rather than some more general standard. It is, in any case, a very vague phrase open to more than one interpretation and assignment (by modern scholars) to more than one philosophical model.38 On the other hand, the implications of the words iuris consensu go well beyond simple agreement: they imply some mechanism for achieving and identifying consensus, in other words some form of popular sovereignty. Consensus also points to some sort of contractual basis for government; it perhaps suggests the Aristotelian idea that the difference between good and bad governments lies in whose interest the governing body rules—that of the people as a whole, or of the governing body itself.39
Teasing out the possible meanings of Scipio’s definition is perhaps unfair. In context, the two-part definition of res publica and populus is clear and straightforward, and it requires knowledge of no particular Greek philosophical tradition; it is simply a starting point, a temporary scaffolding, for discussion of the optimus status civitatis, and the possible interpretations or ramifications of the definition are left unexpressed and unexamined. On the other hand, the implications suggested here, although definitely not a part of the initial definition, are in fact very important to the later argument of De re publica, but it is not until the end of Book 3—the end of the first half of the dialogue—that the audiences of De re publica both internal and external are made to recognize just how unsatisfactory Scipio’s initial definition is.
That, however, will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 13. What matters here is first, that Scipio’s definitions in Book 1 are sketchy and ambiguous, and second, that they are in fact corrected, amplified, and made more precise as the conversation progresses. In the immediate dramatic context, Scipio’s definition is simple and serviceable: res publica, he says, is a synonym for res populi, and a populus is a certain kind of organization of human beings. Only later, after a great deal of history and much argument about the justice of states, do the implications of these definitions become clearer. The idea of res as property; the idea that legitimate government resides ultimately in the rights, or sovereignty, or interest of the populus; indeed the idea of legitimacy itself—none of these is present in Book 1. Scipio is speaking as a senator, not a philosopher, and the very lack of clarity in his definitions provides an important mechanism for Cicero’s development of the argument about just government and the role of the statesman; but of all that, in the dramatic context of Book 1, nothing is said.
It is not surprising, then, that the next stage of Scipio’s argument in Book 1 is similarly vague. From the definition of a res publica, Scipio turns to a very brief account of its origins, one that is unfortunately incomplete owing to the loss of one folium of the palimpsest. The last sentence before the lacuna contains Scipio’s description of the prima causa coeundi (“the first cause of assembly,” 1.39) of humans. It is not so much (non tam . . . quam) weakness as it is a natural herd instinct of mankind. The secondary place allotted to weakness as a cause of the origins of society is a rejection of Epicurean utilitarianism; the preference for natural instinct is Aristotelian, and Scipio goes on to suggest (as the fragments that belong in the lacuna imply) that nature itself compels humans to unite in society: in Lactantius’ paraphrase, human nature shuns solitude and seeks community and society.40 The first sentence after the lacuna, and the last before Scipio turns to the organization of res publicae, is fragmentary (1.41), but it seems fairly clear that Scipio is saying that there are, in humans, natural seeds of justice (*dam quasi semina), and the next, complete clause states that there is no formal establishment (institutio) of either the other virtues or of the res publica itself. In terms of the later development of the dialogue, where Cicero makes use of Stoic theory, that is indeed important: the idea that there is a natural basis for human morality is central to the conception of justice and society developed in Book 3 and later.41 And yet, in the context of Scipio’s discussion of the origins of society, conceived in historical or anthropological rather than moral terms, Scipio gives no basis at all for his assertion. What is more, Scipio’s language in this passage is puzzling: his cautious description of human sociability as quasi congregatio apparently contradicts the first part of his definition of the populus as not being any gathering quoquo modo congregatus. That contradiction is minor, but the use of one word in two senses in consecutive sentences is at least imprecise. Even more striking is that in 1.41 Scipio in one sentence says that there is no institutio of the res publica (probably meaning, in an Aristotelian sense, that the res publica is somehow according to nature and logically prior to the individuals who compose it), while in the next sentence he returns to his more historical account of origins by talking about hi coetus . . . instituti.42
From the foundation of states, Scipio moves rapidly to the possible forms of constitution (1.41). Once the populus comes into being, for whatever cause, the first act, taken by the populus collectively, is the physical foundation of a city.43 From that, Scipio turns to organization and identifies the two essential characteristics of a government. In the first place, it must embody some form of consilium; and second, it must be designed for longevity: omnis res publica . . . consilio quodam regenda est, ut diuturna sit (41). What Scipio means by consilium—a term with a wide range of meanings—is left open: all he says is that it must be in some way connected to the causa that brought the commonwealth into being.44 Again, the discussion is cursory; and again, there is a surface meaning, presumably what the internal audience (and perhaps, initially, the reader) is meant to understand at the moment: that the particular circumstances in which a given commonwealth comes into being entail a particular form of government, whether it be for the division of labor (as in the origins of the polis in Plato’s Republic), for defense (as in many sources), for the administration of law (as in the story of Deioces in Herodotus and possibly in Manilius’ speech in Book 5 of De re publica), or any other plausible reason. On the other hand, in the larger context of the dialogue, causa has several meanings. It can, for instance, refer to the more general explanation of the origin of states, the prima causa coeundi of 1.39, there identified as the natural gregariousness of humans.45 Similarly, it can refer to the “natural seeds” of justice and virtue (1.41) that underlie the formation of human communities. In 1.41, the causa of society and the consilium that rules it are, like the populus and the res publica itself, ambiguous terms that have an apparently simple meaning but have more complex and abstract conceptions embedded in them.
Throughout this section, then, Scipio’s definitions and explanations are brief and elliptical. He claims to be giving a matter-of-fact, historical account of the origins of res publicae; but what he says implies a broad spectrum of approaches to the subject, ranging from the contractual ideas implicit in the definition of populus, to the utilitarian ideas of shared benefit, to Stoic or Platonic ideas of natural virtue, to Aristotelian views about the naturalness of society. Similarly, Scipio moves from a quasi-historical, or at least chronological, approach to the origins of states to a philosophical argument about the reasons for which states do, and must, exist. From Scipio’s point of view, his lack of philosophical rigor does not matter: in the dramatic context, and for Cicero’s construction of that dramatic context, it makes no difference that he has blended several philosophical approaches and combined them with an anthropological one. Scipio is not a philosopher and not a professor; his goal is to explore the practical advantages and disadvantages of various forms of government. It is only when one turns from description and history to morals and teleology that greater precision becomes necessary, and that does not even begin to happen until the end of Book 2.
What Scipio says in 1.39–41 can mean something very simple: “commonwealths are formed when people agree to do so because of their natural sociability, and agree on a form of government that meets their immediate needs”; it can also mean something far more abstract and complex, that “a commonwealth is an organization based on invariable principles of justice, the proper direction of which requires both knowledge of those principles and the ability to apply them in specific circumstances.” A considerable portion of the argument of De re publica, in fact, moves our understanding of government from the first of these summaries to the second. When the conversation returns to various aspects of the opening of Book 1, those aspects are seen to be something very different: from the atmospheric phenomenon of the double sun in Book 1 to the cosmic order of the universe with the sun as rector in Book 6, or from the pragmatic definition of res publica that Scipio uses to begin his explanation of government to the moral imperatives of just res publicae at the end of Book 3. This is a dialogue, not a textbook, and it works through gradually developing ideas and gradually educating its audiences, both internal and external. We know enough from Scipio’s initial definitions and statements to start learning more.
1. For general bibliography on dialogue, see above, Chapter 2, nn. 3–4.
2. There was obviously significant modification over the centuries, notably the lex Hortensia of 287 giving plebiscita the same status as laws passed by the comitia tributa, the various ballot laws discussed in De legibus, and more, but the fragmentary nature of the text makes it impossible to know how much, if anything, was said about such topics in De re publica.
3. He may have said more in the second half of the dialogue; in the first two books, Laelius is by far the most important interlocutor, but other participants seem to speak more after that. But Tubero’s two questions, about the double sun and about Scipio’s speech, clearly frame the major part of the first day’s conversation.
4. On Tubero’s Stoicism and philosophical seriousness, see Garbarino 1973: 436–40.
5. For similar abrupt criticism, compare Sulpicius at De orat. 3.147 with Hall 1994: 219–20; see also above, Chapter 3 n. 24.
6. On disciplina, see below, Chapter 12.
7. It should be noted, however, that there is a considerable disparity between the first part of Scipio’s narrative, of which a high portion survives, and the last part, which is much less well represented; see below, Chapter 12.
8. The order of the gaps in the palimpsest is probable but not completely certain; an entire quaternion is missing, which is generally believed to be Q. 25 rather than Q. 24.
9. So Büchner 1984 ad loc.
10. That is the solution I adopted in 2017a: 55 n. 83, following Ferrary 1984: 97–98 and also followed by Atkins 2013: 64–65; following Ferrary 1995: 59–60 I no longer think it correct.
11. So, for instance, Pöschl 1936: 120–27; Ferrary 1995: 60–66.
12. It should be noted that while Cicero’s imagery is, as often, Platonic, his psychology is not: his division of the soul here into two parts (rational and irrational) is Stoic, while Plato’s soul is tripartite. See most recently Graver forthcoming.
13. On the statesman, see below, Chapter 12.
14. It may be useful to mention here a few general interpretations of De re publica. The most important older study is Pöschl 1936. Of more recent treatments, Ferrary 1995 (with his earlier articles) is fundamental; Atkins 2013 is a substantial contribution, and I cite it often below; see also now Schofield 2021: 63–104. My own brief account of the political theory of De re publica is in Zetzel 2013b: 182–95. For a good philosophical introduction, see Woolf 2015: 94–113; also useful is Asmis 2005. Most other important studies focus on particular aspects or passages of De re publica and are cited when relevant.
15. The connection between Tubero’s question and the occasion for the conversation reported in De re publica was probably more immediate in the first version of the dialogue, which took place on the feriae novendiales probably occasioned by the portent itself; see above, Chapter 8. On the opening discussion, see also Atkins 2013: 49–54; on the importance of astronomical imagery in the political discussion of De re publica, see Zetzel 1995 on 1.69, Gallagher 2001.
16. The story of Galus’ explanation of the eclipse in advance is of dubious authenticity; for the various versions, and for Galus’ knowledge of Greek science, see Garbarino 1973: 416–23.
17. On Scipio’s speech, see the careful analysis of Perelli 1971; on its relationship to the Somnium, see also below, Chapter 14.
18. Laelius refers to Sex. Aelius Catus again in the context of the natural law, which needs no exegete like him: cf. 3.33.
19. See above, Chapters 7 and 8.
20. For the emphasis on utility, see also Fuhrer 2017: 30.
21. The fragmentary state of the text makes it hard to understand Cicero’s intentions in the distribution of roles. Most striking is the assignment of the two speeches on justice in Book 3, where the Stoic Philus attacks justice while the skeptical Laelius gives the Stoic response. And although it is Laelius who voices skepticism about Scipio’s rationalizing account of Romulus at 2.21–22 (to be discussed below) and who generally plays the role of yes-man to Scipio’s Socratic questioning both in Book 2 and in the discussion at the end of Book 3, the truly significant complaint about Scipio’s account of Rome at 2.64, discussed above, is voiced by the young Tubero.
22. See above, Chapter 4.
23. That is to say, one of the principes, not the (sole) princeps, a usage never found in Cicero. He uses the term simply to mean one leading statesman among others: see the classic discussion of Heinze 1960: 144–48.
24. So also Asmis 2004: 571–73. Note that the idea of a senatorial sententia frames Scipio’s account of constitutional theory: mea sententia (1.69) and even more sic enim decerno, sic sentio, sic affirmo (1.70) place his statement squarely in the world of the Curia. On sententia, see also above, Chapter 5 n. 12.
25. Rightly understood by Müller 2017: 50–52. The sentence is wrongly given as a fragment of Panaetius by van Straaten (fr. 119) and by Long and Sedley 1987: 433 and is still misinterpreted, for example, by Fox 2007: 92 and Bishop 2019: 115; some earlier scholarship attributed Scipio’s whole account to Panaetius, who is said to explain the prima causa coeundi (1.39) “in der Maske des Scipio Africanus” (Stark 1969: 181). For a careful account of the importance of Polybius’ and Panaetius’ ideas to the real Scipio and his contemporaries, see Garbarino 1973: 24–46, 380–412.
26. Whether it shows that Cicero used Panaetius, or any other specific Greek model, in constructing Scipio’s theory of constitutions is a very different question, but the answer must again be negative. See below, Chapter 11.
27. Polybius 31.23.6–25.1 is his famous account of his relationship to Scipio; see also Astin 1967, particularly 19–20, 288–93.
28. On this subject, see particularly Baraz 2012, who also usefully compares (23–27) Sallust’s attitude about writing and action at BC 3.1–2.
29. Like Antonius in De oratore, he is here following Plato’s Phaedrus 237bc on the importance of definitions.
30. Cf. Aristotle, Pol. 1.2.1252a24–31, Polybius 6.6.2. Whether or not Cicero knew the Politics directly is irrelevant; sensible observations with bibliography in Atkins 2013: 130 n. 45.
31. Pöschl 1936: 16 n. 10 succinctly calls the definition “eigentümlich ciceronisch, zumindest aber [ . . . ] ungriechisch.” The bibliography is immense and repetitive; the most important modern treatment is Schofield 1995. Other worthwhile recent studies include Asmis 2004 and Atkins 2013: 120–54 (both rightly emphasizing the Roman elements in Scipio’s ideas); Straumann 2016: 168–78; Brouwer 2017; Hodgson 2017a: 6–11, 52–54; Moatti 2018: 186–203; Schofield 2021: 49–52, 64–69. Cancelli 1973: 193–203 has a detailed examination of the terminology (but with emphasis on De legibus).
32. Mai 1822: 69 n. 2: “In codice autem alio uaticano quidam scholiastes eam definitionem tribuit Varroni: res publica est, ut Varro breuiter definit, res populi. Num igitur hanc definitionem Cicero e Varrone arcessiuit?”
33. Cf. Zetzel 2013b: 187–90 .
34. For “law” as the translation of ius here, see below, n. 37.
35. Cf. Epicurus, Principal Doctrines 38: “If objective circumstances have not changed and things believed to be just have been shown in actual practice not to be in accord with our basic grasp [of justice], then those things were not just. And if objective circumstances do change and the same things which had been just turn out to be no longer useful, then those things were just as long as they were useful for the mutual associations of fellow citizens; but later, when they were no longer useful, they were no longer just” (transl. Inwood and Gerson).
36. For long-lasting government as a theme, cf. 1.41, 2.5, 2.27, 2.62, 3.7.
37. On iuris consensus as its meaning develops later in De re publica, see further below, Chapter 13. Atkins 2013:130–37 takes it to refer to equal rights and Schofield 2021: 66–69 translates it as “through the consensus of justice,” which does violence to the Latin (similarly Cancelli 1972: 250–58). Such interpretations are rightly rejected by Brouwer 2017: 36–38. Latin ius often refers to rights, occasionally to justice; but to assume such an ethical meaning presupposes a more complex interpretation of the passage than is justified in context. Ius has a wide range of meanings, including many for which English “law” is the appropriate translation, as here; see Zetzel 2017a: xxxiii–iv. Cancelli 1973: 205–39 provides a useful collection of Ciceronian materials concerning the various meanings of ius and lex.
38. The idea of government as instituted for the common good in some sense is common to Plato (cf. Laws 4.715b4 and elsewhere), Aristotle (Pol. 3.7, 1279a28), the Stoics (cf. Cic. Fin. 3.64) and Cicero himself (cf. Sest. 91). For Epicurus, cf. Principal Doctrines 31: “The justice of nature is a pledge of reciprocal usefulness, neither to harm one another nor be harmed” (trans. Inwood and Gerson).
39. See Politics 3.6–7 (1278b6–1279b9). The contractual basis of government that Cicero may have in mind is not as formal as the Hobbesian or Lockean versions; however, to reject an implied reference to some sort of social contract—and it is only one implicit possibility in 1.39—because Scipio does not view political society as a purely instrumental good (Atkins 2013: 149) requires a degree of philosophical precision that Scipio explicitly rejects. For Cicero’s ideas about societas and contract, see Zetzel 2013a and below, Chapter 13.
40. Lactantius DI 6.10.18 = 1.40; the other fragment that belongs here (Nonius 321.16 = 1.39b) refers to nature compelling something, which must be the creation of communities.
41. See also Graver forthcoming and Chapter 13 below.
42. On the inconsistencies and internal contradictions in Scipio’s account, see also Cornell 2001: 50–52.
43. Scipio says here that the foundation of a res publica is the work of the coetus; that seems to imply a (democratic?) consensus of some sort. It is thus quite different from the description of the foundation of Rome itself in Book 2, where it is the first act of Romulus as king, and thus parallel to Polybius’ account (6.5–6) of the monarchic origins of society. The contradiction is presumably a result of Scipio’s general vagueness in this section and may not be significant.
44. By consilium here Cicero means “plan” or “deliberation”; Büchner 1984 ad loc. translates it as “Herrscherweisheit, Steuerkunst” and Pöschl 1936: 17 describes the constitutions as “Formen der Ausübung und Verwirklichung des consilium.” It should not be taken as equivalent to concilium, as for instance do Asmis 2004: 576 (“deliberative body”), Marquez 2012: 196 (“a part of the community . . . to which the care of the community as a whole is entrusted, and which thus ‘represents’ it”), Barlow 2012: 228 (“deliberative body”), and Atkins 2013: 140 (“deliberative element”). On the meaning of the word in De re publica, see Zetzel 2017a: xxxii.
45. Prima causa coeundi reappears at 4.3, where it is defined in far more Aristotelian terms (cf. Pol. 1.1 1252b27–30) as ad illam civium beate et honeste vivendi societatem (“to promote the citizens’ shared association in a happy and honorable way of life”)—yet another instance of the way in which Cicero modifies key phrases or refines their meaning as the dialogue progresses. Schofield 2021: 76–77 assumes that it must have a single consistent meaning and that causa can have only one referent.