12
the ratio of early statesmen, particularly Romulus, went a long way toward establishing a lasting res publica, but the early kings did not finish the job: the cycle of constitutions rolled on, and the best and most enduring form of the Roman mixed constitution was not established until 449. In discussing the establishment of the tribunate in 493, Scipio explains his acceptance of a less than ideal solution to the social problems after the end of the monarchy by stating what appears to be a general maxim of political life (2.57):
This development was perhaps not completely rational, but the nature of commonwealths often overcomes reason.
What this natura actually is and does remains undefined; natura, as always, has many meanings, and that is as true in De re publica as elsewhere.1 In the context of politics, it applies to two things at once: on the one hand, the progression of constitutions through the cycle or toward the mixed constitution is seen as a natural phenomenon of political life; on the other hand, the tendency of individuals and groups to seek their own advantage is a natural effect of human character. The latter sense of natura (greed, self-interest) tends to distort the desirable distribution of resources and responsibilities among the three classes, but that in turn unintentionally brings about the former sense of natura: the progression of constitutions is in fact a constant process of rectifying imbalances within the structure of government, and those imbalances are, for the most part, caused by human nature.
The first half of Scipio’s account of the history of Roman government discussed above is for two reasons the easier part to explain. One is that the narrative of the reigns of the first six kings tells of the development of the monarchic constitution, and while the basic system of Romulus is refined and improved, the underlying constitution is unchanged. From Scipio’s point of view, Servius Tullius’ reform of the comitia was the culmination of the regal process of refinement: by creating a formal structure that embodied the mixed constitution through the weighting of votes, Servius ordained in law the patterns of social relations and authority developed by Romulus and his successors. But just as the Servian constitution represents the telos of monarchy in Rome, so too it is in a more literal sense the end of the monarchy: Servius was murdered by his daughter and her husband Tarquinius Superbus, who represents, in the Polybian scheme, the metamorphosis of monarchy into tyranny. After that point, Scipio’s story involves more changes in government, and he must discuss change and the reasons for it rather than simply describing the gradual development of the best of the simple constitutions.
The other reason that the second half of Scipio’s narrative is more difficult to discuss is that the end of Servius’ reign marks a change in the text: the account of the first six kings (2.4–40) occupied approximately 33.5 folia in P, of which only five are lost; the remainder of the constitutional narrative (2.42–63) was longer, forty-one folia, but of those fully twenty-two are lost, including gaps of six folia after 2.51 and eight after 2.52. Reconstruction, therefore, is considerably more tentative.2 Despite the losses, however, the general structure of the narrative is clear: after describing the Servian constitution, Scipio offers a comparison between the mixed constitution of Rome and those of Sparta and Carthage (42–43), and then presumably described the murder of Servius and the accession of Tarquinius.3 The narrative of Tarquinius’ reign and fall follows (44–46) and is in turn followed by what was once a much longer discussion of the change from monarchy to tyranny and from tyranny to republican government (47–52), including an important but frustratingly incomplete description of the figure contrasted with the tyrant, the rector et gubernator rei publicae (51) and some comparisons (51, 52) between Scipio’s procedure and Plato’s. The description of the foundation of the Republic is lost in the lacuna of eight folia after 52; and after an account of the actions of the first consuls (53–56), Scipio discusses the changing relations between senate and people in the early Republic (57–60) before returning to the chronological conclusion of his narrative with the appointment and fall of the Decemvirate (61–63). The very end of the account is missing in a lacuna of four folia; it is clear, however, that like Polybius and Cato, Scipio takes the legislation of Valerius and Horatius in 449—specifically the restoration of the tribunate and of provocatio—as the definitive establishment of the republican mixed constitution.
By the time of Servius Tullius, all the elements of the mixed constitution—the monarchy itself, a form of senate, and a form of popular assembly—are in place, even though monarchy predominates; but because they are all present, even if in a rudimentary or attenuated form, there is very little further need for Scipio to describe new constitutional forms. Instead, what is needed is analysis: in the first part, of the nature of constitutional change in the cycle and of the relationship between monarchy proper and other forms of individual domination; and in the second, of the means to attain a proper balance among the three types of constitution within a republican framework.
In terms of the Servian constitution, the issue is also one of balance: if it was such a satisfactory form of government, then why did it go wrong? From a teleological point of view, and in terms of the Polybian cycle, the answer is simply that the constitution needed to take the natural next step, from monarchy (via tyranny) to aristocracy. But within that overarching scheme, there are two immediate explanations, one institutional, the other personal. In the first place, as Scipio explains in 2.42–43 (and again, more briefly, at 2.50), the idea of a mixed monarchic constitution is in effect a contradiction in terms.4 The Servian constitution, in common with the Lycurgan system at Sparta and the Carthaginian constitution, is a triplex rerum publicarum genus that displays aequabilitas (42); but while all three are mixed (mixta), none of them is blended (temperata), for the simple reason that the presence of a king makes any constitution monarchic, even if there is also a senate and some popular participation (populi ius, 43). The fact that the constitution of Servius was fundamentally monarchic, moreover, means that it had two drawbacks: on the one hand, although monarchy is in itself the best of the simple constitutions, it is (like all simple constitutions) inherently unstable and prone to degenerate into its evil twin, tyranny. On the other hand, even though a good monarchy can provide for salus et aequabilitas et otium civium (43), at least one essential civic attribute, libertas, is completely lacking. As Scipio says, in line with both his own and the democratic arguments of Book 1 (2.43):
The people that’s ruled by a king lacks a great deal, and above all it lacks liberty, which does not consist in having a just master, but in having none.
The argument from the institutional weakness of monarchy appears again at 2.50: after having described the events and end of Superbus’ tyranny, Scipio once again discusses the impossibility of mixed monarchy, this time adducing both comparisons with Lycurgus and the specifics of the attempt of the Roman kings to include both aristocratic and popular elements. Even if one gives some power to the people (potestatis aliquid), as both Lycurgus and Romulus did, it is still unsatisfactory: on the one hand, all it does is whet their appetite for more liberty; but on the other hand, they still have no security against the monarch’s character.
Character provides the other explanation of the degeneration of Rome into tyranny. Like Cicero/Scipio, both Plato and Polybius see the degeneration of constitutions as a matter of morality (Polybius, of course, also in terms of institutional instability); but in each of their accounts, the change in character takes place over more than one generation. It is the offspring who grow arrogant in power and transform a government from monarchy to tyranny or from aristocracy to oligarchy in Plato’s and Polybius’ versions; in Cicero, the change takes place within the psyche of particular individuals. That difference is what Scipio emphasizes in contrasting his own account of the origins of tyranny with that of Plato (2.51):
How Tarquinius, not by the acquisition of new power but by the unjust use of power he already had, entirely overturned monarchic government.
Before that, he concludes his description of the insufficiency of monarchic cooptation of the other elements by saying that “the fortune of a people is fragile that rests, as I said before, on a single person’s wishes or character” (2.50). So too in the treatment of the failure of monarchy at 2.42–43: the institutional comparison with Sparta and Carthage gives way to moral considerations. Monarchy is the most mutable of constitutions, because it takes only one person’s viciousness (unius vitio, 2.43) to turn it into the worst of all governments.
The role of the monarch’s character in the degeneration from kingship to tyranny is precisely what had been emphasized in Scipio’s outline of the cycle of constitutions in Book 1: under the exterior of the good Cyrus lurks a Phalaris, “at the whim of a change of his mind” (1.44). So too, in discussing the fall of Superbus both in Book 1 (1.62, 64) and here, he stresses that change is caused by failings of character, not of the constitution. After describing the successful activities of the beginning of Superbus’ reign (2.44)—ending with the embassy to Delphi on which (although Scipio does not say so) Brutus correctly interpreted the priestess’ prophecy about the succession—Scipio states that this is the moment at which the cycle of constitutions turns: hic iam ille uertetur orbis (45).5 Superbus’ actions become wicked, but the primary cause of change lies in his mind: he is insane (integra mente non erat) from guilt at the murder of Servius and afraid of punishment; and because his successes have led to hubris (exultabat insolentia), he could control the character neither of himself nor of his family. The ruler cannot rule himself; more specifically, he can regulate neither mores nor libidines. The result—his son’s rape of Lucretia—is a foregone conclusion, and it is no surprise that Brutus, the person who takes action leading to Superbus’ overthrow, is characterized not only by ingenium, but by virtus (46).
The expulsion of the Tarquins leads to more general reflections about monarchy and tyranny on Scipio’s part (47–49). The passage is framed by terminological distinctions: the Greeks call “tyrant” the dominus populi, whose vice (unius vitio again) changes the constitution from best to worst, and they distinguish him from the rex, who behaves as a parent to his people. The difference between Greek and Roman terminology concludes the passage (49): we Romans use rex only pejoratively, and it comprises “everyone who had sole and perpetual power over their people”; that includes not only the kings themselves but also those who have sought domination through popular agitation, such as Sp. Cassius, M. Manlius, Sp. Maelius and—although his name is lost in a lacuna—the very recent instance of Tiberius Gracchus.6 It is true enough that (at least for some people) all these men were believed to have aimed at monarchy; but even so, Scipio’s argument about the meaning of rex involves more than political propaganda. By severing the office from the monarchic-seeming actions of normal citizens, “monarchy” (including, as it does in Roman terminology, tyranny as well) becomes a disposition, a monarchic state of mind, rather than a formal constitutional position. Cicero perhaps follows Plato in this, but it is closely tied to Scipio’s larger argument: government is less a matter of constitutional form than of personal character.
That is made clear in the description of the tyrant that falls between these two discussions of the meaning of “tyrant” and “king.” The moment a king becomes unjust, he becomes a tyrant (2.48):
As soon as this king has turned to a more unjust form of mastery, he immediately becomes a tyrant; no living creature can be imagined that’s more awful or foul or more hateful to gods and men alike.
By abandoning the king’s proper concern for the people, he not only ceases to be a king, he ceases to be human at all: he may appear human, but in the vileness of his character vastissimas vincit beluas. By abandoning the characteristics of civil society, defined here as iuris communio and humanitatis societas, the tyrant is an outcast from the human community.7 Scipio postpones discussion of this subject to a later point, probably in a lost passage of Book 6, but like a great deal in this portion of Book 2, it points ahead to the larger issues of the central books of the dialogue: the relationship between one’s humanity and one’s place in civil society and the ethical underpinnings of government in general.
Just as there are several discussions in this passage of the role of moral failure in the degeneration of government, so too there is more than one reference to the virtues that can preserve it. At the moment of transition between Superbus as king and Superbus as tyrant, Scipio inserts an important reference to the cycle of constitutions (2.45):
At this point you’ll see the political circle turning; you should learn to recognize its natural motion and circuit from the very beginning. This is the essential element of civic prudence (the topic of our whole discussion): to see the paths and turns of commonwealths, so that when you know in what direction any action tends, you can hold it back or anticipate it.
As in his discussion of the more variable cycles described at 1.45, Scipio draws attention to the practical value for the statesman of knowledge of constitutional theory.8 Constitutional change is a given: he describes its motion as naturalis.9 To recognize and cope with it, however, explicitly requires prudentia (sapientia at 1.45) and implicitly (relying on the argument of the preface to Book 1) the ability to take action at the proper time. Action is stressed in the second reference to virtuous political behavior in the discussion of Superbus’ fall (2.46):
Then Lucius Brutus, a man of outstanding talent and virtue, threw off from his fellow-citizens the unjust yoke of harsh slavery. Although he was a private citizen, he upheld the whole commonwealth; he was the first in this state to show that in preserving the liberty of citizens no one is a private person (esse privatum neminem).
The repeated privatus . . . privatum and the concluding neminem are emphatic: the safety of the res publica is the concern of every good citizen, and the obligation to preserve the constitution cannot be left to magistrates.10 Brutus is, as Scipio says, the first figure in Roman history to demonstrate this truth; as Cicero had said in the preface, the patria has the first call on our efforts and abilities, and Brutus’ actions on this occasion are both the product and a demonstration of his ingenium and virtus.
The third reference to the virtuous statesman is far the most important, but—since it is incomplete and is followed by a lacuna of six folia—it is impossible to judge its extent or, to a degree, its content. Just as Brutus and Superbus are contrasted as individuals in a particular historical moment, so too in the general reflections on tyranny that follow the historical narrative there is an opposition between the tyrant in the abstract and the contrasting ideal statesman. The description of the tyrant alludes to Plato’s account of tyranny in the Republic, but it emphasizes (as noted above) his transformation through injustice from king to tyrant in contrast to the Platonic tyrannical character from birth. Scipio opposes to this figure one that is explicitly his own invention (2.51):11
Let there be opposed to this man another, who is good and wise and knowledgeable about the interests and reputation of the state, almost a tutor and manager (quasi tutor et procurator) of the commonwealth; that, in fact, is the name for whoever is the guide and helmsman of the state (rector et gubernator civitatis). Make sure you recognize this man; he’s the one who can protect the state by his wisdom and efforts. And since this concept hasn’t yet been treated in our conversation, and we’ll have to consider this type of man often in our remaining discussion*
And here the manuscript breaks off.
This very fragmentary description of the statesman is unfortunately the fullest treatment in the extant text of De re publica of the figure who stands at the heart of Cicero’s (Scipio’s) political theory; and because this description is fragmentary, it has lent itself to very divergent interpretations. Although few scholars today would see this person as a kind of extra-constitutional charismatic leader who appears at moments of crisis to take absolute control of his state,12 the exact role of this tutor et procurator is not exactly clear: is it one person, or many? Someone who holds political office or not? A figure with a temporary role, or a permanent sort of guardian who stands outside the regular administration of government? Although the answers are nowadays fairly clear—and the basic interpretation was established by Richard Heinze nearly a century ago—it is necessary to offer a few brief comments on the subject.13
Scipio says in what is left of this passage that this nomen has not yet come up in their conversation. That is technically true: Cicero/Scipio has said nothing about this particular set of titles or descriptions, invoking the presence of someone who can be described either as tutor et procurator (qualified because of the novelty of the language by quasi) or as rector et gubernator. Both pairs of terms are metaphorical, although in this context rector and gubernator are more familiar metaphors for the leader of a state; the helmsman appears metaphorically in both Cicero’s preface and the discussion of constitutions in Book 1, and while this is the first instance of rector with this meaning in De re publica, Scipio had used the pair of ideas as verbs in comparing Romulus’ organization of government to Lycurgus’ wise provision for a senate (2.15):
In doing this he first recognized and approved the same policy that Lycurgus at Sparta had recognized slightly earlier, that states are guided and ruled better (melius gubernari et regi civitates) under the sole power of a king if the authority of the most responsible citizens (optimi cuiusque . . . auctoritas) is added to the monarch’s absolute rule.
The variation in terms here (from gubernari et regi to vim dominationis) shows that guiding and ruling are not descriptions of monarchy as such but simply of anyone who must steer the ship of state. Tutor and procurator are considerably more metaphorical, but they also make clear that these are not descriptions of an official holder of power: a tutor is the legal guardian of someone not competent to manage his or her own affairs, and a procurator is the manager of an estate.14 This figure is called a tutor because his task (as the next sentence states etymologically) is civitatem tueri, and both terms designate someone without independent authority: these two figures always act on behalf of, and in the interest of, someone else; and the “someone else” in this case is the res publica seen as a whole.
The mysterious figure of the statesman, the person who guides public affairs, runs through De re publica: Cicero in the preface certainly sees himself as one in his actions to save the state from Catiline in 63. He was of course consul then, and the same is true of the consul P. Valerius whose moderate actions did a great deal to maintain harmony in the state (2.53–55; see below). But holding office is by no means necessary: as the parallel between this passage and 2.46 makes clear, the tutor is the genus of which L. Brutus is a species, the private citizen acting on behalf of the public good. Although Cicero’s statesman clearly owes something to Plato’s politikos in the Statesman, there are important differences: the Ciceronian figure is not in any sense a professional expert on public affairs; he is never intended to be a permanent ruler or official, and whatever unusual position of authority he may hold in a moment of crisis is temporary—except in the very important sense that, in the political universe of De re publica, every responsible citizen is permanently obligated to act on behalf of the community whenever it should be necessary. Consequently, every citizen (at least optimus quisque) must at all times be prepared to act on behalf of the res publica: there is no such thing as a privatus when it comes to public safety. The concept of active citizenship that this passage develops is a very Aristotelian one: the virtue of a good citizen consists in, and comes from, knowing how to rule and to be ruled when it is appropriate.
What seems unusual about the figure of the rector in terms of Roman governmental procedure is that although there must always exist a substantial class of citizens who are ready to act on behalf of the res publica, more than once Cicero/Scipio speaks of this person in the singular. In Book 4 (5.6 Ziegler), he speaks of ille rector rerum publicarum—multiple res publicae, perhaps, but only one rector establishing the social order;15 in Book 5 (5.5) noster hic rector is expected to study law. In the concluding discussion of Book 2, after the comparison between the order of society and the order of the soul (and the mahout and the elephant), the person in charge of society—not described in one of the familiar set of terms, but simply as the man in charge (2.69)—seems to be a singular figure, but one who controls more as a conductor than a magistrate, and who influences those he controls as a model and example rather than through the use of power.16 In the grand metaphor of the solar system as a society, the sun is at the center of the rings of planets and is described as dux et princeps et moderator luminum reliquorum, mens mundi et temperatio (“the ruler, leader, and guide of the remaining celestial bodies, the mind and balance of the universe,” 6.17), but this is clearly a delegated authority (if not a temporary one), because the mundus as a whole is ruled by the summus ipse deus of the outer sphere of the cosmos, the true master of the system. At the same time, however, the population of souls in the Milky Way contains the plural rectores et conservatores of states (6.13). The unfulfilled prophecy that Scipio will become dictator and restore the commonwealth does not indicate that the rector is a dictator, but it does indicate that the statesman may, at times, hold a singular form of authority.17 We always need to have some people capable of taking charge when necessary, but we do not often need someone to do it.
Being capable of leadership is not the only important characteristic of this tutor et procurator. Before introducing the terminology describing his statesman at 2.51, Scipio has already shown him in action in the person of Brutus, and in Book 1, in talking about the importance of being able to recognize constitutional changes in advance, he introduces such a figure without any formal title (1.45).18 Wisdom, foresight, and almost divine greatness are his attributes; so too in a fragment of Book 6 Cicero refers to the prudentia of the rector, quae ipsum nomen hoc nacta est ex providendo (“which derives its name from seeing ahead,” 6.1)—but in the next fragment he is simply called a civis. There is one more characteristic: Scipio at 2.51 describes the tutor not only as experienced in public life but as bonus as well as sapiens. Whatever action this person takes must be for the public good; he must know what the right action (both morally and politically) will be. On the other hand, his sapientia is like that of Romulus and the other early founders and preservers of Rome: it is practical wisdom, not philosophical; and above all, it is moral. It is the ethical element of leadership that Cicero stresses in the second half of the dialogue, and we will return to it shortly.
In the narrative, the section on the statesman is something of a digression, but it is here to anticipate the later direction of the dialogue. Scipio, however, has more to say about the early Republic, although our ability to follow his account is diminished by the gap that follows his reflections on tyranny: an entire quaternion is lost between chapters 52 and 53. When the text returns, Scipio is describing the events of the first year of the Republic (508/7 on the Polybian chronology followed by Cicero). While the earlier parts of the narrative fall into distinct chronological sections marked off from one another by broader discussions of method and theory,19 the final section, on aristocratic and oligarchic rule in Rome, is itself subdivided into three parts in which narrative and analysis are combined, organized thematically rather than chronologically. The account of Year 1 of the republic concerns popular demands for libertas after the overthrow of Superbus (53–55); the next part views the relationship between senate and plebs from a senatorial perspective and chronologically goes beyond the terminus of the narrative proper in 449 bce to describe a law concerning debt from the year 430 (56–60); and the final section concerns the establishment, conduct, and fall of the Decemvirate (61–63). The issue throughout is that of the balance of power between the senate (together with the magistrates representing the monarchic element) and the people: the goal of the account is the establishment of the proper relationship of powers within the mixed constitution.
At the outset, as Scipio had already described briefly in Book 1 (cf. also 2.50 on libertas under the monarchy), the people once liberated from the tyrant attempted to take more power than was proper: thus the expulsion of Tarquin’s relative Collatinus, even though he had no role in the tyranny, and the insistence on moderate behavior by the first consuls. The danger of excessive democracy was met by P. Valerius Publicola, whose actions to safeguard the liberty of the people included (2.53–55) the passage of the first law ever passed by the comitia centuriata, a law on provocatio, as well as removing axes from the fasces and having the use of lictors alternate between the consuls month by month, “so that there wouldn’t be more symbols of power in a free republic than there had been under the monarchy” (55). Scipio’s positive verdict on Publicola’s conduct is emphatic (55):
To my understanding Publicola was a man of no average talent: by giving a moderate amount of liberty to the people he more easily maintained the authority of the aristocracy.
Excessive liberty destroys the balance of the constitution, while moderate liberty protects it: Publicola’s prudent actions ensured the satisfaction of the plebs while maintaining the importance of the senate, always central in Cicero’s view of Roman government.
In Scipio’s view (and Cicero’s), the right of provocatio is an essential element of popular liberty, and hence of constitutional balance. He emphasizes that by interrupting the narrative of Publicola’s actions to give a history of provocatio, tracing it back to the regal period and forward to the Valerio-Horatian laws of 449 and the leges Porciae of later date.20 Valerius and Horatius receive praise comparable to that of Publicola himself: “men who were wisely democratic (popularium) for the sake of harmony” (2.54). The right of appeal to the popular assembly is a relatively passive form of libertas, a negative right not to be punished without popular vote rather than a positive right to be exercised, but in Scipio’s conception of a workable mixed constitution, that is all the more important. Popular liberty includes the active right of participation in the comitia; but that right is very limited, because the value of votes in the comitia centuriata was weighted in favor of the upper classes. Before the establishment of the tribunate, this passive right of provocatio is the only protection available to the people against misuse of power by the other orders, and hence it is an important check against the aristocracy. It is only with the institution of the tribunate that the people acquire a different form of active liberty.
Precisely the question of the proper limits of liberty is at issue in the central section of Scipio’s account of the early Republic. As his summary of the effect of Publicola’s actions makes clear, the wise granting of limited rights to the people served to maintain the leading role of the senate.21 As Scipio says, the people had little scope for action (pauca per populum . . . gererentur, 2.56), the senate was in charge of most things on the basis of auctoritas and custom, and there were annual consuls with temporally limited monarchic power: in other words, a mixed constitution. This is, in a sense, the ideal for Scipio: the senate is generally in control, with the use of dictators in emergency and the people giving way (cedente populo, 2.56) to the senate.
But, he says, that state of affairs could not last: it was in accordance with natura rerum—restated in the next sentence as rerum publicarum natura—that the people should seek to extend their rights: in other words, the cycle of constitutions has a natural tendency to progress toward democracy (57). The result, only a few years later, was the establishment of the tribunate of the plebs because of the excessive debts of the people; Scipio draws a parallel to the establishment of the ephors at Sparta and the cosmoe in Crete (58).22 What is in question in the account of the origins of the tribunate and the problem of debt is Cicero’s/Scipio’s attitude toward the tribunate and in general toward the element of popular democracy which it represented.23 In the parallel text in De legibus (3.19–26), Cicero defends Pompey’s restoration in 70 of the powers of the tribunes against his brother Quintus and Atticus, who both thoroughly approve of Sulla’s restrictions on the tribunate. From Cicero’s point of view, Pompey did the right thing: a populus without some representation through the tribunes is more likely to progress to real disturbance, and the majority of tribunes, like the majority of consuls, exercise their powers responsibly. Atticus and Quintus, on the other hand, reject anything populare. In De re publica, Scipio’s attitude is similar to Cicero’s: he is not actively in favor of tribunician powers, but he considers the tribunate a necessary means of including in the constitution a democratic element in a form that is relatively stable.
As noted at the beginning of this chapter, Scipio’s comment on the events leading to the establishment of the tribunate (2.57) is that ratio is often defeated by rerum publicarum natura. He thus considers that the secession of the plebs and the establishment of the tribunate were contrary to the plans or expectations of the senate; but he also believes that something of the sort was inevitable as a result of rerum publicarum natura. He follows this statement by explaining more fully what he means by that phrase, using an emphatic future imperative to underline the significance of these events (57):
You must bear in mind (tenetote) what I said at the outset: if there isn’t an equitable balance in the state of rights and duties and responsibilities, so that there’s enough power in the hands of the magistrates and enough authority in the judgment of the aristocrats and enough freedom in the people, then the condition of the commonwealth can’t be preserved unchanged.
The description of the events which followed (the secession and the establishment of the tribunate) is introduced by nam: the extent of debt and the resulting secession are meant to be seen as a sign of imbalance in the res publica, and the establishment of the tribunate thus simultaneously changes the status rei publicae and also preserves its balance. In other words, popular debt must be recognized as limiting popular libertas, and any such weakening of libertas destroys the balance of the constitution.
The next two paragraphs (59–60) elaborate on the question of debt and its role in the balance of government. Our ancestors, Scipio says, could have excogitated some means of dealing with the problem (fuerat fortasse aliqua ratio . . .), as Solon had previously done; and later on—presumably having learned their lesson on this occasion and in 450/49—nexum was abolished. On every later occasion when debt was a serious problem, in fact, some relief was found salutis omnium causa (59); but the first time debt was a problem, nothing of the sort was done: quo tum consilio praetermisso. The result was the secession, the establishment of the tribunate, and—most important—the reduction of the potentia and auctoritas of the senate. Potentia is never a favorable term: by allowing the plebs to sink into debt-slavery, the senate was attempting to consolidate aristocratic rule by diminishing libertas. Thus, although the tribunate may represent a greater popular power than Scipio would like, it is necessary for the preservation of balance and thus for the longevity and success of Rome’s constitution. After the establishment of the tribunate, senatorial power remained considerable: “the wisest and bravest men, both in warfare and in directing the government, were protecting the state” (59). It represents, in fact, an ideal condition of the commonwealth, because the aristocrats combine virtus with the rule of consilium. Because they are virtuous, the people allow them to rule, even acquiescing in the execution of a popular leader, Spurius Cassius; because its members used consilium, moreover, the senate itself passed laws that benefited the people—and consequently the res publica as a whole.
It is within the context of intelligent senatorial domination of the mixed constitution that Scipio places the final episode in his story, the establishment, corruption, and fall of the Decemvirate (61–63). Unlike Livy, Scipio views the appointment of the Decemvirs as an exercise of unbridled aristocratic power on the part of the senate rather than the result of conflict between consuls and tribunes;24 the transformation of the res publica comes at the fall of the Decemvirate, seen as the turn of the cycle from oligarchy to democracy, rather than with their appointment. The first group of Decemvirs exercise unlimited aristocratic power, with even provocatio suspended; their government works well because even without the compulsion of law, they (like Romulus) know that the support of the other elements in society is necessary. As in Livy’s account, the second Decemvirate is evil; but Cicero does not emphasize the predominance of the arrogant Appius Claudius (who is not even named), but the anti-popular behavior of the second board: not only the absence of provocatio, but the wicked law prohibiting intermarriage between patricians and plebeians. And, as in the case of Tarquinius Superbus, the constitutional failure of oligarchy is manifested in the moral failure of the oligarchs: “In all their public actions they ruled the people greedily and violently and with an eye to their own passions” (63). And as in that case, loss of self-control results in loss of political control.
As the plebeian secession after the death of Verginia moves from the Mons Sacer to the Aventine, P once again gives out; after a lacuna of four folia, only the final clause of Scipio’s speech is preserved: “. . . I judge that our ancestors both approved most highly and preserved most wisely” (2.63). Although the narrative of the restoration of the Republic in 449 is lost, Scipio, like Polybius and probably Cato, clearly views the achievement of settled government as essentially complete at this point; in terms of the cycle of constitutions, Rome has passed from aristocratic government—at its most pure in the first year of the Decemvirate, just as the monarchic constitution reached its peak under Servius Tullius—to oligarchy, to democracy. But just as each of the previous forms contained at least an adumbration of the mixed constitution, so when the cycle reaches the stage of democracy, the constitution actually incorporates all three forms: monarchic in the magistracies, aristocratic in the power of the senate, democratic in the right of provocatio, the role of the tribunes, and the limited but real voting powers of the assemblies. With the Valerio-Horatian laws, moreover, the mixture achieves a proper balance. Scipio ends his story, as he ended his discussion of constitutional theory, with a formal sententia (iudico): the mixed constitution is the best form of government in the abstract, and the best historical instantiation of that form is the governmental structure attained in Rome in 449.
Even if Rome’s government was the best possible example of the mixed constitution in practice, however, that moment of near-perfect balance was more than three centuries before Scipio is describing it, and if one thing is made clear by Scipio’s narrative of the history of the early republic, it is that rerum publicarum natura does not stand still. Polybius suggests that even if the balanced blending of constitutional forms stabilizes the cycle, it can only slow it down, not stop it; Scipio’s account of the conflict between ratio and (rerum publicarum) natura shows that instability in action. At the beginning of the republic, the populus naturally sought excessive liberty; the nobility naturally sought to extend their control over the populus; ambitious individuals like Sp. Maelius naturally sought sole power. Self-interest and self-aggrandizement are natural forces, and while at times they act as agents of that larger natural system of constitutional change, they also serve to disrupt the balance that is the only means of preserving good government.
Against the disruption caused by human nature, the remedy of ratio is there but not altogether reliable.25 Scipio/Cicero uses a range of terms to describe the attributes of the statesman, the tutor et procurator identified at 2.51: consilium, sapientia, and peritus are the most significant terms used for intellectual capacity, but there are moral ones, bonus and virtus, as well, and they are at least as important as mere intelligence and experience. It is in the positive moral attributes required of the tutor that Scipio seems to differ from Polybius, and indeed from Plato as well: while in Plato and Polybius the turning of the constitutional cycle is caused by moral failings, the more positive possibility, that good government can be preserved or restored by good citizens, goes unmentioned. In Polybius, the Roman constitution’s balance and mixture were created by chance and by good decisions and in Plato the Kallipolis may be guided by leaders who are both wise and virtuous (the same thing in Plato), but neither one recognizes the possibility that the continuous application of moral sense can maintain the balance against the regular and repeated damage caused by natura. Cicero’s statesman is no philosopher king of perfect wisdom in the Platonic style, nor can his presence and effectiveness be left to chance, as it would appear from Polybius. We need to ensure a constant and steady supply of potential leaders, not merely a constant form of government.
Given the nature of Scipio’s presentation of Rome, with its emphasis on individuals, on morality, and on fallibility, Tubero’s criticism of Scipio’s account as being a panegyric seems rather obtuse, and perhaps it should be understood to apply only to Scipio’s praise, at the very end of his speech, of the balance and mixture of constitutions achieved in 449. But while Tubero is wrong about what Scipio has said, he is more justified in his comments about what Scipio has omitted: we have not learned about the institutions or laws or customs that keep a constitution going, and Scipio has emphasized the role of individuals, not the framework within which they must act on behalf of the commonwealth. Simply to say that every private citizen has the responsibility to act when necessary as if he were in authority, or to describe his role in metaphorical terms, does not explain how citizens of such knowledge or courage or virtue can be fostered or trained. That omission can be seen as an element in Tubero’s criticism of Scipio’s speech, and it is also an element in the discussion that follows it.
The conversation at the end of Book 2 is far too fragmentary to allow a full and coherent reconstruction, but it clearly plays a crucial role in the further development of De re publica. We can see where the conversation begins, with Scipio’s development of the analogy from nature that can be used to explain the res publica: a state is like the organization of a human being, which must have reason in control in order to subdue the unruly passions of the soul.26 As the last paragraph of Book 2 survives, we can also see where this conversation ends: with the agreement of the participants that, before any further discussion of states, it is necessary to show “that the commonwealth cannot possibly function without the highest degree of justice” (2.70). That statement leads directly to the debate about justice performed by Philus and Laelius at the outset of the next day’s conversation, but before that final paragraph, some eleven folia of P are missing.
Even given that loss, the last paragraph of Book 2 makes one thing quite clear: the discussion of justice in Book 3 is, formally at least, a digression. That does not mean that it is not a very significant part of the argument of De re publica: as will be seen in the next chapter, the idea of justice in states that is developed in Book 3 is what permits a radical reinterpretation of the definition of the res publica. The organization of the argument here is a clear echo and reversal of the structure of Plato’s Republic, in which the discussion of education and metaphysics, including some of the most memorable passages of the dialogue, is in fact a digression from the discussion of justice and happiness that precedes and follows the central books on the training of the rulers. Cicero has inverted this structure, at least to the extent that justice, the topic that frames the Republic, is the subject that is framed in De re publica.27 The difficulty is to define what frames it, and that is partly hidden in the long lacuna between 2.69 and 2.70.
The last surviving paragraph before the lacuna is about the leadership of the res publica, and it offers more than one image to explain the character of civic leaders. The paragraph begins with the final two words of a speech by Scipio (probably), but continues with a comment by Laelius and another speech by Scipio (2.69):
Laelius: Now I see what kind of responsibilities (officio et muneri) you’re placing in the charge of that man I’ve been waiting for.
Scipio: There’s really only one, because practically all the rest are contained in this one alone: that he never cease educating and observing himself, that he summon others to imitate him, that through the brilliance of his mind and life he offer himself as a mirror to his fellow-citizens. In playing the lyre or the flute, and of course in choral singing, a degree of harmony has to be maintained among the different sounds, and if it’s altered or discordant a trained ear can’t stand it; and this harmony, through the regulation of very different voices, is made pleasing and concordant. So too the state, through the reasoned balance of the highest and the lowest and the intervening orders, is harmonious in the concord of very different people. What musicians call harmony with regard to song is concord in the state, the tightest and the best bond of safety in every republic; and that concord can never exist without justice.
There is a clear connection between the use of the human being as an analogy for the state, exercising rational control over an unruly population of emotions, and the particular human being who is himself exercising just that kind of rational control over an unruly human population within a state. The connection at the other end is equally clear: harmony and justice are closely linked in Plato, and hence the image of harmony serves as a suitable introduction to the question of justice.28
The person who stands in the middle is somewhat more complicated. When Laelius introduces the question, he talks about this person’s role as an officium and munus; the former is a private obligation (the counterpart to beneficium), while the latter could refer to either a public role or to a task undertaken by an individual. The task of this individual is neither military nor civil administration; it does not involve holding political office. The political leader’s sole task, as Scipio sets it out, is to work toward perfection, constantly to monitor his own progress, and through his own excellence to serve as a mirror to the population at large. The manner of performing this task is perhaps clarified by the musical analogy which follows it: the performer on a lyre or flute stands outside the harmony of the music; the conductor of singing is not also performing. The statesman being described here does not represent any of the three bodies of society (whose concordia is analogous to a musical chord) which he brings together in harmonious unity: the creator of social order is not himself part of that order, he stands outside it and is looked to for leadership, just as one looks at a mirror or an object of imitation.
One can push the details of metaphors like this too far; it is obvious, from all that is said elsewhere about the statesman, that he is a part of the society which he shapes; but the language Cicero uses to describe his function is deliberately varied so as not to pin the statesman down to a single position in a fixed governmental structure. He is, in certain ways, a Weberian charismatic figure standing outside the accepted structure of authority; but it is also important that there be many people capable of taking this role. What may be most significant in Scipio’s description of this person is that he never stops educating himself and studying himself: the true statesman requires continuous self-improvement. And how that is done, how it comes about, is very clearly a central issue in the remainder of De re publica.
The figure of the rational statesman, whether seen as an analogy to the organization of the res publica as in 2.67–68 or as the agent of its well-being as in 2.69, is elaborated in the preface to Book 3, which does several things at once. As noted before, the preface is in part an explanation of the ability of Scipio, Philus, and Laelius to conduct the analysis of Roman government that De re publica presents,29 but it also serves to expand on the images of statesmanship employed at the end of Book 2 and lays the groundwork for the discussions of justice and institutions that follow. Thus, it emphasizes nature’s gift of reason and stresses the extraordinary nature of statesmen like Scipio and his friends who combine traditional Roman moral knowledge (ad domesticum maiorumque morem) with Socratic philosophy (etiam hanc a Socrate adventiciam doctrinam adhibuerunt). They are also, however, examples of a broader tendency to expansive self-education (3.5):
But if anyone has thought to add scholarly learning and a richer knowledge of affairs to the intellectual equipment which he acquired from nature and from civil institutions . . .
The four varieties of sources for such excellence are significant. Scipio and others like him add doctrina (Greek theoretical learning) and rerum cognitio (presumably experience in public life) to a base that consists of the instrumenta animi given by nature—which Cicero has been explaining throughout this preface—and by civilia instituta—that is to say, the kind of mental and moral equipment that is fostered by the social institutions of civil society. The active verb putavit is also worth noticing: any individual who wishes to reach a high level of understanding and civic eminence must make an active choice to do so. This is, quite clearly, the statesman of 2.69: someone who never stops educating himself and never stops reflecting on his own character and responsibilities.
Three of the four elements of the self-education of the statesman are relatively straightforward. Natura may refer either to the general gift of ratio or to the particular natural abilities of a given person (as in the case of natura/ingenium in rhetoric), but it is in either case the base on which any person must build. The doctrina that comes from studying Socratic philosophy is one desirable part of a statesman’s equipment, and so, of course, is the kind of knowledge of affairs that comes from taking part in public life. It is the fourth one that deserves elaboration: instituta civilia are part of the underpinnings without which no outstanding statesman can be created. Toward the end of the preface to Book 3, Cicero divides the possessors of sapientia into the two familiar categories of theoretical and practical wisdom, the first cultivating wisdom verbis et artibus, the second institutis et legibus (3.7). These last two are, in reverse order, the topics of the two books devoted to the second day of the conversation, but—in terms of the creation of people capable of the role of tutor/rector—there is no doubt that the instituta examined in Book 4 are far more important than leges. Cicero underlines that subsequently in Book 5: not only does Scipio remind the over-enthusiastic lawyer Manilius that while the statesman has to know something about justice and law, he does not have to be a jurist (5.5), but Cicero in the preface to Book 5 makes ancestral mos and instituta the basis of civic greatness (5.1):
And so, before our time, ancestral morality provided outstanding men, and great men preserved the morality of old (veterem morem) and the institutions of our ancestors (maiorum instituta).
So too, the shaper of these instituta believed that instituta do more than laws to make societies work:30
But they aren’t frightened so much by the fear and penalties established by law as by a sense of shame (verecundia) which nature has given men as a sort of fear of criticism that is not undeserved. The leader of commonwealths (rector rerum publicarum) strengthened this sense of shame by his opinions, and he brought it to perfection by institutions and education (institutis et disciplinis), so that shame might do as much as fear to keep citizens from crime.
Mores and instituta are central to the working res publica that Scipio and his friends seek to describe. The last sentence of Laelius’ speech on justice makes this clear: the immortality of Rome would not be in danger si patriis viveretur institutis ac moribus (3.41). So too, when Tubero complains that Scipio has given a panegyric of Rome’s constitution rather than an analysis, what he finds lacking is an explanation qua disciplina, quibus moribus aut legibus the Roman res publica can be preserved (2.64). Disciplina, mores, and leges also appear together in Cicero’s preface, when he asks what the real source is of the moral values espoused by philosophers (1.2):31
What is the source of piety and religion? of international or civil law? . . . Surely they derive from the men who established such things through education (disciplinis informata) and strengthened some by custom and ordained others by law.
When Scipio announces his intention of illustrating constitutional theory through the example of Rome, he praises it as the best aut constitutione aut discriptione aut disciplina (“its organization or its structure or its manner of education and training,” 1.70), and Laelius, in urging him on, begins by saying that nobody could speak more authoritatively de maiorum institutis (1.71). The Spartan regime of Lycurgus is called disciplina (2.58), and the corruption of mores that comes from sea-borne commerce is explained by admiscentur enim novis sermonibus ac disciplinis (“they are exposed to new languages and practices,” 2.7).
In general, disciplina is the overarching term that Cicero employs in De re publica for the practices of education and socialization that constitute the moral and political structure of a society; instituta and mores are shaped by that disciplina and at the same time define it; leges are a part of that shape as well, but a smaller part. As the preface to Book 5 makes clear, a res publica survives and flourishes if and only if its disciplina and instituta and mores are maintained and supported in a way that produces citizens of such a character as to support them: citizens and social institutions are the mutually supporting pillars of the res publica. In the structure of De re publica, that preface stands between these two mutually reinforcing aspects of society: Book 4 is about instituta, while Book 5 is about the men who shape and are shaped by them.
Book 4 has few fragments and the order of the argument cannot be reconstructed with any certainty at all.32 Like the other even-numbered books, it had no preface; like Book 2, it begins with Scipio speaking. His starting point, as far as one can tell, was praise of nature’s beneficence to humans. Nature has given humans the seasons and the alternation of night and day; and it has also given man rationality, the ability to remember the past and plan for the future. His opening speech also contained some discussion of the relationship between mind and body, although little of that survives other than Lactantius’ (definitely unreliable) comment that it was superficial. Scipio’s discussion is meant to be read together with Cicero’s preface to Book 3: there Cicero had talked about natura noverca, the stinginess of nature in giving man a weak and unreliable body the failings of which had to be made up for by the power of reason, which itself was a gift from nature, while in Book 4 Scipio seems to have made human mental abilities one more instance of nature’s bounty. In both places, nature permits man to overcome his own nature; but in Book 3 it would appear to be physical failings that need to be overcome, while in Book 4 it is far more likely that it is moral ones as well—the passions, whose threats to reason were described at the end of Book 2. That is made clear in the fragment just quoted in which we not only see the role of the rector in shaping institutions but in the use of a natural sense of shame as an enforcement of morality: institutions were evidently also designed to avoid the bad influences of popular acclaim and a misdirected desire for the wrong kind of glory.33
Within the book, although the structure cannot be discovered, certain elements of social order seem to be emphasized. On the one hand, there is praise of, or even extension of, Roman social institutions as they exist or at least once existed (whether in reality or by later reconstruction does not matter): Scipio started his account with the customs governing the family (5.7; part of the same leaf of the palimpsest as the mention of the rector and the praise of verecundia as a means of social control), but he also included the censorship (4.6), the inculcation of suitable relations among social classes (2–3), education (3), and frugality (7). On the other hand, there is criticism of various Greek institutions in contrast to Roman ones, including public nudity and the toleration of pederasty (3–4), the supervision of women (6), and the license permitted to theatrical performances (7–14). The goal of the entire discussion (again, so far as we can tell) is to establish what both Scipio and Cicero had already said: that, on the one hand, the native institutions of the Romans (perhaps not unlike the native institutions of some other non-Greek peoples, but nothing survives to show that one way or the other) were outstanding in themselves and, on the other, that Greek institutions and Greek philosophical theorizing, particularly Plato’s, were distinctly less than ideal.
In the last surviving lines of Book 4 in P, Laelius comments on Scipio’s treatment of Greek materials in his account of institutions (4):
I understand very well, Scipio, that in speaking of the Greek customs of which you disapprove you prefer to strive with the greatest nations rather than with your beloved Plato, whom you do not even mention, especially since *
Scipio has avoided mentioning Plato; it is his preference, as it is Cicero’s throughout De re publica, to emphasize the importance of social wisdom rather than philosophical wisdom—even when he is criticizing or rejecting it. A fragment preserved in Nonius is presumably a part of Scipio’s response to Laelius’ observation about his omission of Plato (5):
I the same way he treats Homer: he sends him out of the city which he invented for himself, decked in garlands and covered in perfumes.
Plato, as always, is elegant but unrealistic, and although some of the customs Scipio derides (nudity and communism are certainly mentioned) were Platonic, he sees no reason to draw attention to the folly of a great writer; Laelius apparently thought that he should have done so. On the other hand, all the participants in the dialogue seem to know quite a lot about Greek philosophy, and the structure of Scipio’s analysis of social institutions seems to owe more than a little to Stoic theories of character and character formation. Only in one section of De re publica, however, is there explicit and extended employment of Greek theories; and that is in the discussion of justice in Book 3.
1. On natura, see Zetzel 2019. The conflict of ratio and natura in Book 2 has been much discussed; cf. particularly Perelli 1972, Müller 2017: 65–68; and Volk 2021: 205–9.
2. Note also that 2.41 belongs after 2.68e. For the purpose of these calculations, I have considered the two folia lost between 2.40 and 2.42 as part of the second part of the narrative.
3. In the lacuna of one leaf after the discussion of Sparta and Carthage also falls the fragment (2.53a) including the sum of 220 years for the “good” Roman monarchy.
4. See also above, Chapter 11.
5. The remainder of this sentence, on the statesman’s ability to recognize such changes, is discussed below.
6. That it is Tiberius Gracchus whose name is lost is certain: on the grouping of Tiberius Gracchus with Maelius and the others, cf. also Am. 36–37 with Volk and Zetzel forthcoming ad loc.
7. In Laelius’ speech in Book 3, ceasing to be human is the penalty for violating the natural law (3.33; also 4.1c, which should be located after 3.33); so also Off. 3.32. For the political implications of the tyrant’s inhumanity, see below, Chapter 13.
8. In this he is following Polybius (6.4.12) and perhaps Aristotle (Pol. 4.1.1288b28–1289a7). See also above Chapter 11.
9. See also Gallagher 2001: 510–13 on the possible parallel of heavenly motion.
10. Livy’s narrative makes Brutus a magistrate (tribunus celerum), and we cannot tell whether that version was known to Cicero; each is consonant with the author’s general emphases, Livy’s on the use of proper procedures (his Brutus has the legal authority to convene an assembly), Cicero’s on the necessity of civic responsibility for all citizens. The language used here is almost certainly meant to assimilate Brutus to Scipio Nasica, who led the mob that killed Tiberius Gracchus; see Gaillard 1975: 522–27.
11. I have translated sermone nostro as “in our conversation,” the usual Ciceronian meaning of the phrase (more than fifteen examples). The broader meaning of “our language” (De or. 2.17 in sermonis nostri consuetudine; 3.182 in orationem sermonemque nostrum; Am. 21 ex consuetudine vitae sermonisque nostri) is always clarified by the presence of another noun. At Orat. 146 in sermone nostro means “the way I talk.”
12. Note particularly Reitzenstein 1924: 362: “Das Wort [princeps] aber sollte nur den Führer und die ‘Führernatur’ bezeichnen, die auch wir jetzt für die Regeneration unsres Volkes ersehnen.”
13. On the statesman in Cicero there is an immense bibliography, but the single best discussion remains Heinze 1960: 141–59 (originally published 1924). Of more recent scholarship, see particularly Ferrary 1995, to which I am much indebted and who gives a succinct account of the most important earlier scholarship. See also Powell 1994; Zarecki 2014: 77–91; Hodgson 2017a: 160–62.
14. See, for instance, Berger 1953: 654, 747–48, entries for Procurator (2), Tutela impuberum.
15. See further below in this chapter on Book 4.
16. On this figure, see further below.
17. The possibility that there was a genuine attempt to make Scipio dictator (based entirely on this passage) has been much argued, but even those who think that some major political action on Scipio’s part was in the air recognize that the Somnium is scarcely reliable historical evidence. See, with copious bibliography, Beness 2005: 42–48 and Stevenson 2005. The latter’s comment in his final paragraph (152) shows just how tenuous any such argument is (italics mine): “There is a good chance that it contains evidence of historical value with respect to moves of uncertain nature which might have aimed at a dictatorship for Scipio Aemilianus in 129.”
18. On the statesman in 1.45, see above Chapter 11 where the passage is quoted.
19. Notably Romulus followed by Laelius’ discussion of Scipio’s method, 2.21–22; the discussion of monarchy and tyranny after the description of Servius’ reform of the assembly, 42–43; and the contrast between the tyrant and the statesman after the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus, 47–52.
20. This is the only reference to there being three leges Porciae; elsewhere (e.g., 2Verr. 5.163) Cicero knows only one.
21. The verb used here is tenuit, a form that occurs in Rep. only in this book, with overtones of both “maintaining” and “keeping a grip on”: cf. 2.52, 55, 56, 68.
22. Cicero is here drawing on Plato and Aristotle; cf. Zetzel 1995 ad loc. The passages comparing Roman solutions of problems to Greek ones at 2.36 and 2.58 are wrongly deleted by Powell.
23. I have discussed this in Zetzel 2013b. See also Volk 2021: 206–9.
24. Cf. Livy 3.32.6–7, with Ogilvie 1965: 452.
25. On ratio and its limits in the argument of De re publica, see particularly Atkins 2013. It should be clear, however, that ratio in Cicero has more than one meaning; Atkins assumes (5) that “reason” is always “substantive and prescriptive,” as in much Greek philosophy; but in many passages it simply means the ability to think intelligently and plan accordingly—not necessarily in relationship to some true logos.
26. On this, see above, Chapter 10.
27. Cf. Sharples 1986: 30–31.
28. On this passage and on the following image of the mirror, see particularly Ferrary 1995: 64–66.
29. See above, Chapter 11, where 3.5 is quoted at greater length.
30. Note that the location of this fragment has been disputed: it is printed by Ziegler as 5.6–7 and by Powell as 3.3. It was correctly placed in the opening of Book 4 by Büchner; see Zetzel 2017b. I have slightly modified my translation in Zetzel 2017a.
31. On the meanings of disciplina as referring to both mos and lex (and more broadly to an educational system that reinforces or shapes both), see particularly ThLL 5.1 s.v. sections IA, IIB1, IIB2, all citing examples from Rep.
32. I have discussed the interpretation of Book 4 more fully in Zetzel 2001; I have modified what I said there only in connection with the palimpsest leaf that can now be shown to belong there (see above, n. 30) and in connection with one citation from Augustine (see next note). On Book 4, see also Brüllmann 2017.
33. Graver forthcoming has shown that Augustine, CD 2.14 (Rep. 4.9), which has traditionally been interpreted as part of Cicero’s criticism of the theater, was in fact a more general statement about false glory and belonged early in Book 4.