PART II
8
it is early in 129 bce, the Feriae Latinae are in progress, and eight friends and relations of Scipio Aemilianus—the conqueror of Carthage and Numantia, twice consul (147, 134) and censor (142)—join him at his villa just outside Rome. Gaius Laelius (consul 140) was Scipio’s closest friend and associate; Lucius Furius Philus (consul 136) was also close to both Scipio and Laelius. Of the remaining six, one is the elderly Manius Manilius (consul 149), a renowned jurisconsult; next in age is Spurius Mummius, never consul, but the brother of Lucius Mummius, the destroyer of Corinth in 146.1 Of the four younger participants two (Quintus Mucius Scaevola, consul 117, and Gaius Fannius, consul 122) were Laelius’ sons-in-law;2 Quintus Aelius Tubero (who never reached high office) was Scipio’s nephew; and Publius Rutilius Rufus (consul 105) had been military tribune under Scipio during the siege of Numantia not long before the dramatic date of the dialogue.3 At the time, a serious political dispute over the effect of Tiberius Gracchus’ agrarian legislation was in progress: the more conservative members of the senate wanted to reduce the redistribution of land by weakening the authority of the Gracchan land commission. The leader of that group of senators was Scipio Aemilianus, a first cousin and political opponent of Tiberius Gracchus; the attempt failed, at least in part because Aemilianus died suddenly shortly after the gathering described here, which is in fact the dramatic setting of Cicero’s De re publica. Cicero believed (probably wrongly) that Scipio’s death was not natural, and the prophecy in Scipio’s dream at the end of the dialogue warns of his imminent danger of violent death at the hands of his relatives.4
That this scene is reminiscent of the setting of De oratore is no accident: despite significant differences between the two works, they are very closely related. They are, to begin with, clearly parallel in setting: both dialogues take place on a holiday (Ludi Romani for De oratore, Feriae Latinae for De re publica) during a political crisis; both exhibit Roman public figures taking advantage of the otium provided by the holiday to explore matters of broad intellectual concern that are relevant to, but not part of, their daily public responsibilities; and the protagonists of both dialogues die suddenly soon after the dramatic date of the dialogue. They are parallel too in their explicit evocations of Platonic dialogues (Phaedrus and Republic, respectively) as models. And they are parallel in the composition of the groups of speakers taking part in the dialogue: each discussion is led by a central pair of friends (Scipio and Laelius; Crassus and Antonius), one of whom is much more practical and down-to-earth than the other, and they are assisted in their exposition by men of their own generation: in De oratore, Caesar Strabo gives a lecture on jokes and Catulus contributes to the discussion of style, while in De re publica, Philus gives the speech against justice.5 In each dialogue there is one representative of the older generation (Manilius; Scaevola), both legal experts, and there are several young men whose function in the dialogue is to ask questions and to provoke their elders to explain things to them. Both dialogues represent through the choice of characters the continuity of transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next; in both dialogues the chain of knowledge and experience extends backward in time to earlier Rome and to earlier encounters with Greece and forward to Cicero himself.
The transmission of knowledge and experience also forms a sequential link between the dialogues: Scaevola takes part in De oratore as an old man and Crassus’ father-in-law, and in De re publica as a young man and Laelius’ son-in-law. Cotta, a junior participant in De oratore and Cicero’s alleged informant about the conversation, was the nephew of P. Rutilius Rufus, a junior participant in De re publica and Cicero’s alleged informant about that conversation. Cicero himself knew not only Rutilius and Cotta, but as a very young man—fifteen at most—he had been a disciple in public life of Crassus, Antonius, and Scaevola. Thus in the two dialogues Cicero creates a pedigree for his own knowledge not only of the (fictional) gatherings represented in the dialogues, but also of the subjects that his characters discuss, tracing his knowledge of public life and political speech back to the leading Roman statesmen of his youth and of the generation before he was born.6
The two dialogues are also sequential to some degree in terms of content: there are elements in De oratore that are taken up in De re publica, and while it seems very unlikely that Cicero planned both dialogues together from the outset, it is fairly evident that he was thinking of writing something like De re publica before he had completed De oratore. One striking indication of this appears at De oratore 1.209–13, where Antonius begins to explain his view of what an orator is. He starts by stating the importance of starting from proper definitions (1.209):7
I will continue, he said, and I will do what I think is appropriate for the start of any argument, namely to clarify the subject of the lecture so that the argument doesn’t get lost, as it will if the people who disagree don’t understand the subject in the same way.
His language in talking about definitions closely resembles that subsequently used in De re publica by Scipio, when he reluctantly begins his discourse on political constitutions (1.38):
I’ll do what you want to the best of my ability, and I’ll begin my discussion with this proviso—something that speakers on every subject need to use in order to avoid mistakes—namely that we agree on the name of the subject under discussion and then explain what is signified by that name; and when that’s agreed on, only then is it right to begin to speak. We’ll never be able to understand what sort of thing we’re talking about unless we understand first just what it is.
After defining as his first example the ars imperatoris (1.210), Antonius then turns to the statesman (211):
But if we’re investigating who the person is who brings his experience and knowledge and interest to bear on the governance of the commonwealth (ad rem publicam moderandam), then I would define him this way: the person who understands, and employs, the tools by which what is useful to the commonwealth is provided and augmented, that is the man who should be considered the guide of the commonwealth and the source of public counsel (rei publicae rectorem et consilii publici auctorem). And I would give as instances Publius Lentulus the princeps senatus and the elder Tiberius Gracchus and Quintus Metellus and Publius Africanus and Gaius Laelius and countless others, both from our own state and from elsewhere.
Antonius’ definition anticipates De re publica in its terminology: ad rem publicam moderandam and rectorem both reappear in De re publica as descriptions of the function of the statesman, and the last two figures named as exemplars of statesmanship are the protagonists of De re publica itself.8 Antonius’ language here is echoed by Crassus in his description not of the statesman, but of the ideal orator (3.63): he speaks of him as auctorem publici consilii et regendae civitatis ducem. Before he had completed De oratore, Cicero had already identified the orator and the statesman as the same person and had anticipated and to some extent shaped in his mind the discussion of political leadership that is elaborated in De re publica. The extent to which De re publica simply assumes the argument of De oratore is shown, in fact, by the almost complete absence in the later dialogue of any discussion of oratorical skill as a central element in statesmanship: that the same person must have both skills has already been demonstrated, and there is no need to repeat it.9
Other passages in De oratore point in the same direction. Thus, at De oratore 2.154–56, Catulus refers not only to the false story about Numa’s Pythagoreanism (which is then elaborated at Rep. 2.28–29),10 but also to the philosophers’ embassy of 155 and its Roman hearers—Scipio Aemilianus, Laelius, and Furius Philus. It is presumably no coincidence that these are the figures who discuss and in part reproduce in Book 3 of De re publica the Carneadean antilogy on justice delivered in Rome on the occasion of that embassy.11 Catulus and Antonius together then provide a third parallel with De re publica: they cite (2.155–56) the contrast between the views about the utility of philosophical learning expressed by Zethus in Pacuvius and Neoptolemus in Ennius—passages that are again cited together by Laelius at De re publica 1.30.12 It may also be intentional that two significant prefigurations of De re publica, the citation of Pacuvius and Ennius and the discussion of definitions, appear in the middle of De oratore (the middle of Book 2 and the end of Book 1), but very early in De re publica: De re publica often seems to assume knowledge of the earlier dialogue, and to take up where it left off. So too with references to the Gracchi: both dialogues begin and end with references to the problems caused by Tiberius Gracchus, but in De oratore that seems somewhat forced, as even Gaius Gracchus had by then been dead for thirty years. Tiberius Gracchus is in the immediate background not of De oratore but of De re publica, and he was closely related to Scipio Aemilianus, not to Crassus. It may be deliberate that the name of Gracchus is first introduced in De oratore by Scaevola—who had of course participated in the discussion about the aftermath of the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus that is reported in De re publica.
One aspect of the relationship between the two dialogues, however, also has an important bearing on the composition and the context of De re publica: the parallelism of their formal structures. De oratore consists of three books, each with a preface spoken by the author, while De re publica has six books, but with only three such prefaces, in alternate books. This parallelism was clearly not part of the original plan of De re publica, as can be seen from Cicero’s report of his conversation with his friend Sallustius in October 54. Up to that point, Cicero had planned a dialogue taking place in nine books over the nine days of the Feriae novendiales of 129, with prefaces in each book. Although the cast of characters remained largely the same between the early draft and the finished work (the addition of Sp. Mummius is the only possible change, and even that is uncertain), the change from nine books to six and from nine prefaces to three clearly aligned De re publica more closely to De oratore, and it could also be argued that the change from the Feriae novendiales, an exceptional observance designed to expiate a portent (probably the double sun from which the conversation begins), to the Feriae Latinae made the parallel to De oratore (which uses the Ludi Romani) somewhat stronger.13
The formal parallelism of structure, moreover, extends beyond the simple fact of division into three units of discussion each introduced by a preface: there are also connections between the sets of prefaces in the two dialogues and in the organization of the conversation itself. As far as the structure of the dialogues is concerned, Cicero, in explaining why Scaevola left De oratore after Book 1, described the latter two thirds of the dialogue as a tekhnologia, and the same pattern—one third general introduction, two thirds more detailed and technical discussion—applies to De re publica as well, even though nobody leaves after the first day’s conversation.14 The first two books of De re publica concern the most familiar aspect of ancient political writing, the theory of constitutions, and that discussion itself falls into three parts, an introductory conversation concerning the omen of the two suns, an exposition by Scipio of the basic theory of constitutions, and (in Book 2) an illustration of how that theory works, as demonstrated through the early history of Rome. In De oratore, the introductory conversation deals with defining the scope and function of oratory; the middle of the first book contains Crassus’ exposition of the basic theory of rhetoric and rhetorical training; and the final portion of Book 1 explores the substantive knowledge required of an orator, as illustrated through Roman civil law and specific legal cases. And in each of these introductory portions of the two dialogues, Rome plays relatively little part in the opening two sections, while it is the focus of the third.
The parallelism seems to apply also to the relationship between Books 3–6 of De re publica and 2–3 of De oratore, although the loss of most of the second half of De re publica makes any judgment speculative. In De oratore, the last two thirds present a vast reworking of the traditional ars rhetorica which was so mangled by Crassus in the central portion of Book 1; in De re publica, in response to the criticism made by Tubero at 2.64 of Scipio’s account of the Roman constitution, the remaining books concern the detailed working of the institutions that support and maintain the constitutional structure sketched in Books 1–2, with an emphasis on the relationship between individual statesmen and the institutions that they shape and which shape them.15
The relationship among the two sets of prefaces is equally striking. That the first preface of each work contains an introduction to the setting and the characters is scarcely surprising (nor that each one also includes statements about the importance of the subject addressed and about Cicero’s own qualifications to write about it); but the parallelism between the prefaces extends beyond that. In the preface to Book 2 of De oratore, Cicero discussed the qualifications of Crassus and Antonius to speak about rhetorical theory: their education and their knowledge of Greek philosophy and culture. While the preface to Book 3 of De re publica is very fragmentary, it certainly included a justification of his speakers’ qualifications to talk about political theory (3.5):16
What, after all, can be more glorious than the conjunction of practical experience in great affairs of state with the knowledge of these arts acquired through study and learning? What can be imagined more perfect than Publius Scipio or Gaius Laelius or Lucius Philus? In order to achieve the highest glory of great men, they added to the traditional knowledge of their own ancestors the imported learning of the Socratic school.
Similarly, the preface to Book 3 of De oratore described the death of Crassus and the aftermath of the dialogue; while only one paragraph of the preface to Book 5 of De re publica survives, it is a lament for the loss of the great men of old, and it almost certainly contained a description of the death of Scipio.17
If the final version of De re publica is closer in structure to De oratore than was the first draft, however, it also displays significant differences in both substance and perspective. De oratore, in its narrative plot at any rate, is a kind of Bildungsroman, both about the heroes of Cicero’s own youth and about the education of Roman culture as a whole: how Rome developed its approach to philosophy and how it gained intellectual independence from Greece. It has a strongly historical perspective, both concerning the changing relationship between rhetoric and philosophy and concerning the relationship between Greece and Rome: the visits by Scaevola, Crassus, and Antonius to Greece described in the opening conversation are the most explicit narrative elements in that story, but much of De oratore is relevant to it—not least the fact that it is Scaevola, not Cicero, who sets their conversation in the context of Plato’s Phaedrus. Cicero’s narrative includes characters who themselves narrate and represent Rome’s intellectual history up to their time, a narrative that is continued by Cicero himself in the prefaces when he writes about the aftermath of the dialogue.
De re publica—at least the portions of it that survive—for the most part seems simply to assume the relationships established in De oratore, above all that Roman intellectual development owes a great deal to Greece but is also parallel to (and not inferior to) Greece: the long account of the training, education, and background of Crassus and Antonius in the preface to De oratore Book 2 and the knowledge of both Greek theory and Roman practice that they display and represent throughout the dialogue is replaced in De re publica by the simple statement quoted above from the preface to Book 3 that the three protagonists knew Greek philosophy as well as Roman history. So too, in De re publica Laelius can introduce the subject of political theory by recalling that Scipio had previously explained it to Polybius and Panaetius (1.34), but in De oratore it requires much more work and explanation to reveal that Crassus’ speech to Scaevola about oratory and philosophy was one that he had previously delivered to Charmadas in Athens (1.57; see above Chapter 5). Both stories are of course fictions, but in De oratore Cicero provides much more corroborative and historical detail to give verisimilitude to his narrative of Roman intellectual expertise, while in De re publica he does not need to do so. In that respect, De re publica is a sequel to De oratore: the earlier dialogue demonstrated the interrelationship of Roman and Greek learning, and the later one relies on the reader’s knowledge of that demonstration.
De re publica is much more explicitly a literary construction than De oratore: it is very likely that it was Cicero in the first preface, not one of his characters, who compared his book to Plato’s Republic. Similarly, while in De oratore the main protreptic encouraging the young to pursue an oratorical career is delivered by Crassus within the frame of the dialogue, in De re publica the protreptic encouraging participation in public life is delivered by Cicero himself, and the dialogue itself is an illustration of its importance. Similarly, the problem that troubled Sallustius about the verisimilitude of a dialogue set so far in the past is more or less ignored: there is an alleged source (Rutilius), but the citation of his report is, at least in the extant portions of the dialogue, fairly perfunctory: it makes no apparent difference that his report includes conversation that took place before he arrived at Scipio’s villa. In that respect, De re publica is much more like De amicitia, in which Cicero in the introduction draws attention to the fictionality of Scaevola as a source for the conversation.18
At the same time that the setting of De re publica is made more fictional and more distant from the time of writing, however, the preface of the dialogue is far more closely tied to the present moment. Even though the first seventeen folia of the manuscript of De re publica are lost, about 40% of what was an unusually long introduction survives: when complete, it was at least twice as long as the preface to De oratore.19 Complete reconstruction of the opening is not possible from the seven surviving fragments. There was a dedication to Quintus as in De oratore;20 there was presumably some explanation of Cicero’s choice of subject, probably (as in De oratore) with reference to Cicero’s current circumstances. But the bulk of the missing part of the preface, like the extant part, probably concerned the obligation to public service and the dubious value of philosophy in civic life. It was largely an exhortation to the young to take part in public life, using Cicero himself as an example of its rewards and drawbacks, but above all of its importance to the res publica.21
Most of the continuous surviving portion of the preface (1.4–11) is devoted to refuting objections to a life of public service. Cicero deals first with the claim that it simply requires too much effort: labores qui sint re publica defendenda sustinendi. That takes little time to rebut: if people are willing to work hard in lesser things, then a fortiori they should be willing to work for their country (1.4). Equally trivial is the objection based on the fear of death: we must die anyway, and it is better to die for your country than of natural causes (4). The claim that one’s country is ungrateful stirs up more eloquence from the shirkers (illo vero se loco copiosos et disertos putant, 4); that gives Cicero the opportunity to cite not only examples from Greek and Roman history but from his own experience (5–7). Not only were the rewards of popular gratitude greater than anything he suffered, but the unpleasantness he incurred was not in fact very serious (not exactly what he thought when he was in exile). The refutation of this whole group of practical objections (toil, death, suffering) is given a ringing conclusion (8):22
Our country did not give us birth or rearing without expecting some return from us . . . but she did so with the understanding that she has a claim on the largest and best part of our minds, talents, and judgment for her own use, and leaves for our private use only so much as is beyond her requirements.
The end of this section suggests what the fragments in fact show, that before dealing with the objections of those who shirk public service Cicero had already put a positive case for civic responsibility. Above all, early in the preface he must have established the priority of the patria over all other relationships and the necessity for citizens to contribute. “Take a brief look at that book On the Commonwealth, from which you drank up that attitude of a patriotic citizen, that ‘there is for good men no limit or end of looking out for one’s country,’ ” wrote Augustine to his correspondent Nectarius (Epist. 91.3), citing the opening of De re publica (1 fr. 1).23 The unlimited quasi-familial obligation of citizen to state is first proposed, and in the corresponding section of rebuttal, objections to it are dismissed.
From fairly simple and practical objections to participation in public life, Cicero moves on to more abstract difficulties, deriving from philosophical beliefs. Those who claim that it is sordidum to take part in public life, and therefore to have to cope with worthless adversaries (nulla re bona dignos) or with the aroused mob, object that such a life is not proper for a sapiens (1.9).24 Cicero’s answer is that dealing with such disreputable characters is less bad than allowing them to rule; it is better for everyone that worthy (rather than unworthy) people should be involved in public life. The contrast he makes is telling, between the sapiens (who shirks the mire of politics) and bonis et fortibus et magno animo praeditis: the shrinking philosopher on the one hand, and the brave citizen on the other. From philosophical fastidiousness, Cicero then moves on to the school against whom the preface is particularly directed, the Epicureans:25
Who, moreover, can be convinced by this proviso, that they say the wise man will take no part in public affairs unless the necessity of a crisis compels him?
Cicero’s answer derives from his own experience: how could he have saved the republic in 63 if he had not already undertaken a political career? Without being qualified to be elected consul, he would not have been in a position to defeat Catiline. The concluding argument (1.11) is directed against all philosophers who think their learning will permit them to serve the republic in a crisis, even without experience of public life; Cicero’s scorn for such an argument is manifest. He concludes the rebuttal of the philosophers by pointing out that political wisdom is a branch of knowledge and therefore appropriate for philosophical study: the philosopher must study in advance anything that he may at some time need to know, whether that knowledge is ever called upon or not.
Again, the rebuttal of the philosophers’ argument against politics seems to correspond to a positive argument earlier in the preface. Philosophers, he says, summon us away from public life (1 fr. 3); and although he announces that he is following Plato (1 fr. 4), he denigrates the value of philosophy in the real world (1 fr. 6):
In fact, although all the discourse of such people contains the richest sources for virtue and knowledge, if they are compared to the actions and accomplishments of the others I’m afraid it seems to have brought less utility to men’s activities than enjoyment to their leisure.
The contrast between abstract knowledge and practical experience and between philosophy and action is basic to the dialogue as a whole (as it is in De oratore too); here it is considered in terms of its utility to the patria to which (as Cicero has already demonstrated) we have a primary obligation. The actions of “the others” mentioned in fr. 6 are found in the opening paragraph of the manuscript, which begins by listing the heroes of Rome’s early wars and then considers the case of the Elder Cato. Cato is the model for Cicero of the ideal novus homo, the exemplar of industria and virtus.26 He could have retired respectably to Tusculum but, Cicero says, he preferred to remain in the storms of public life in his old age rather than indulge in otium. The Epicureans may think him mad (demens): Cicero does not. He concludes his list of exemplary men by stating firmly that nature has inculcated in the human race both the need for virtus and such love of country “that this force has overcome all the enticements of pleasure and ease (voluptatis otique)” (1.1).
As in the final portion of the preface, Cicero alternates between attacks on philosophers in general and Epicureans specifically: the fragments show that he referred to Plato; the extant opening chapter concludes with an attack on Epicurean ideas; and after that Cicero returns to dealing with philosophers at large. Virtue, he says is not some ars capable of being mastered through study: virtus in usu sui tota posita est (1.2). And just as the greatest use of virtus is the governance of states, so too what philosophers expound concerning virtue and morality is merely what was inculcated long before them by the great lawgivers. Even the Platonic philosopher Xenocrates admitted that all that he taught was that his students should do willingly the things that were compulsory under law (3): the noblest and most virtuous form of life is public life, the rule of cities. And, as we are summoned to this task by nature herself, we should not listen to the philosophers’ call to retreat. The rebuttal of Cicero’s opponents follows from this: the work of civic life is ordained by nature, and no objections, either practical or philosophical, have any standing against the natural relationship of civis and patria.
To judge from what survives and what can be reconstructed of the opening of the book from the fragments, the preface to De re publica seems to have focused single-mindedly on the need for all right-minded citizens to participate in public life. In the concluding paragraph, before turning to introduce the dramatic setting of the dialogue, Cicero apologizes for the length of his discussion, but since, he says, the work being introduced is de re publica disputatio, it was necessary first to remove any hesitation readers might have about taking part in the res publica (1.12). Public service and public participation are the highest form not merely of civic life but of virtus itself, as he has shown. Even students of philosophy should recognize that the writers of political philosophy contributed, if only indirectly, to public life, functos esse aliquo rei publicae munere. But the greatest models are the Seven Sages, men of wisdom who were almost all active public servants. The final sentence of the preface before Cicero introduces the historical setting of the dialogue is insistent on the importance of taking part in public life: that is what most associates us with the divine (12):
And there is nothing in which human virtue approaches the divine more closely than in the founding of new states or the preservation of existing ones.
The protreptic aspect of De re publica needs to be taken seriously, and the association of political activity with the divine that ends the preface reappears at the end of the work. In the Somnium Scipionis, Scipio reports the words of his grandfather Africanus in urging him toward public service (6.13):
But so that you may be all the more eager, Africanus, to protect the commonwealth, know this: for all those who have saved, aided, or increased the fatherland there is a specific place set aside in the sky, where they may enjoy eternity in blessedness. There is nothing that can happen on earth that is more pleasing to that leading god who rules the whole world than those councils and assemblages of men associated through law which are called states; the guides and preservers of these have set out from here and here they return.
The dream-figure of Scipio Africanus is imagined telling his grandson about our cosmic responsibility to take part in the governance of states by echoing what Cicero himself had told his readers in the preface. Within the fiction of the dialogue, that relationship is reversed: Cicero, in his preface, is echoing what Scipio Aemilianus reported that his grandfather had told him in his dream, and he is writing De re publica in response to the command—that is addressed to us all—to serve the public good in whatever way we can.
The strong protreptic element in De re publica is different from De oratore; so too is the emphasis in both the preface and the Somnium that the enemy of public service is not just philosophy in general but Epicureanism in particular. De oratore is generally contemptuous of Epicureanism in its accounts of philosophy and rhetoric, but it is not particularly emphatic about it: it is simply that Epicureans are not really interested in rhetorical speech. On the other hand, Epicureans were actively opposed to participation in public life unless (as Epicurus said) it is necessary.27 But there is one particular Epicurean that Cicero has in mind in De re publica, and that is Lucretius, whose poetry Cicero read at just the time he was writing the first draft of De re publica. As a letter to Quintus shows, Cicero had considerable respect for Lucretius’ poetry (QFr. 2.10.3, written February 54); on the other hand, it is abundantly clear that he despised the philosophy that animated De rerum natura. Hence, one may suspect, the emphatic criticism of Epicureanism and voluptas in De re publica; hence also the deliberate contrast made between Scipio’s eschatological Somnium and Lucretius’ report of Ennius’ dream of Homer in the beginning of De rerum natura.28
What is most striking about Cicero’s awareness of Lucretius, however, is that it almost certainly influenced the structure of the final version of De re publica: paradoxically, the shaping that brought De re publica closer to De oratore also brought it closer to De rerum natura. Both Cicero’s dialogue and Lucretius’ poem have six books; in both, the books fall into pairs. Thus, the first two books of De rerum natura concern physics at the atomic level; the middle pair move up to human sensation and the animus/anima; and the last two books are on a still larger scale, the world and the cosmos. Cicero’s dialogue goes in the opposite direction: from the large-scale organization of society through the construction of government, to the institutions that shape and are shaped by societies, to the individual statesmen who are both the products of, and guide, the societies of which they are a part. If De re publica is in some ways shaped as a large-scale response to De rerum natura, it is no accident that it ends with an examination of the place of humans in the cosmos and a proof of the immortality of the immaterial soul.29
But while Cicero’s interaction with Lucretius was certainly a factor in the structure and organization of De re publica, it is a secondary factor: the Somnium is an essential part of the Platonic framework, and the corresponding initial discussion of the omen of the double sun and the importance of astronomy was, as suggested above, originally probably connected to the setting during the Feriae novendiales that Cicero believed took place to expiate the omen itself. So too, the focus on the individual statesman and the direction of the dialogue from constitutions through institutions to individuals may well have been tightened and made more pointed because of Lucretius, but it was always there: in the letter to Quintus, Cicero refers to the subject of De re publica as sermo . . . de optimo statu civitatis et de optimo cive (QFr. 3.5.1), and during his later doubts about what he should himself do during the civil war, he several times refers back to the statesman of De re publica as the model he ought to emulate.30
Both De re publica and De oratore, in addition to their common framework and structure, share a focus on the individual agent, the orator or the statesman; in both cases, this person’s experience is paramount, but it is supplemented by theoretical understanding, and theory without practice is rejected as useless and pointless. But De re publica also modifies the argument of De oratore considerably. Even aside from the concern with Lucretius and Epicureanism, De re publica is focused much more sharply on Rome itself than on the relationship between Rome and its Greek antecedents. As noted above, De re publica assumes the conclusions of De oratore, and it takes them much further. In De oratore, Cicero and his characters are entirely concerned with the internal functioning of Roman public life, as represented by the orator, and use the background of Greek learning to define the distinctiveness of their own culture. In De re publica, on the other hand, Rome is not just a civic structure, and not seen exclusively in relationship to Greece, but it is an empire: the effect of Tiberius Gracchus’ legislation on the allies and the Latins is a central issue; statesmanship is seen to be a quality that is found not just in Romans (or Greeks), but in any organized society; and the issue of justice that is debated in Book 3 concerns not just the internal justice of the constitution but the justice of Rome’s treatment of its empire.31 What is more, while De oratore has very little to say explicitly about morality—a traditional subject in discussions of the power of rhetoric, both in Plato and in Cicero’s own De inventione—De re publica emphasizes the ethics of government.32 Where is one to find the source of moral behavior in political life? Greek philosophy supplied no satisfactory response, and De oratore ends in aporia: let us say no more about the Gracchi. It is not at all clear that De re publica finds a better answer, but Cicero in any case is looking elsewhere for the solution.
1. We know little about Sp. Mummius, but he was intellectual enough to send verse letters to his friends from Corinth. See in general Garbarino 1973: 424–25.
2. There were two men named C. Fannius, and even in Cicero’s time they were hard to distinguish. It seems most likely that Laelius’ son-in-law was C. Fannius M.f., a distinguished orator who became consul in 122; he was also an augur, like his father-in-law. C. Fannius C.f. had a less illustrious career and did not get beyond the rank of praetor; in all probability he is the historian C. Fannius whose works Cicero and other contemporaries knew well. A succinct explanation of the problems and the probable solution in FRHist 1: 244–47.
3. On Scipio Aemilianus, see Astin 1967; Astin 1967: 80–98 is a good introduction to the prosopography. The “Scipionic Circle” allegedly portrayed in De re publica is largely Cicero’s creation, but Scipio’s intellectual interests seem at least to be based in fact: see Astin 1967: 294–306, Zetzel 1972 and 1995: 9–13.
4. Rep. 6.12. L. Crassus, as quoted by Cicero (De orat. 2.170), called Carbo P. Africani necis socius (the same accusation is referred to at Fam. 9.21.3). For other Ciceronian claims of vis against Scipio by C. Gracchus or his supporters, see also Mil. 16, N.D. 3.80, Am. 12, 41. The last two are spoken by Laelius, but in fact the real Laelius in his funeral oration for Scipio appears to have said that his death was natural (morbus): see Badian 1964: 249. For further discussion, see Astin 1967: 240–41; Hodgson 2017a: 77–78.
5. If Mummius played a comparable role, it is not reflected in the surviving text; his few surviving utterances reflect his extreme political conservatism.
6. Bretone 1978: 52–58 discusses the similar transmission of legal knowledge (and thus, in the context of these dialogues, of indigenous Roman wisdom) presented (if less explicitly) by Cicero in De oratore and De re publica beginning with Sex. Aelius and coming down to Scaevola Augur and Scaevola Pontifex and thus to Cicero himself. He rightly emphasizes the role of legal knowledge as a form of cultural heritage and the importance of the various references to Sex. Aelius, Manilius, and other early jurists in the dialogues.
7. Cicero is drawing on the discussion of definitions in Phaedrus 237bc. On this passage, see also above Chapter 6.
8. For moderor and moderator, see Rep. 1.45, 5.8, 6.17, 6.26; for rector, see Rep. 2.51, 5.5, 5.6 [now to be located in Book 4], 5.8, 6.1, 6.13. The exact phrase consilii publici auctorem is not found in De re publica, but auctoritas and consilium are closely linked at 1.3, 1.25, 2.14, and 2.57. On the terminology, see also LPW ad loc. and on De orat. 3.63.
9. Oratory is briefly mentioned, first in Scipio’s praise of Laelius as an orator after the latter’s speech in Book 3 (3.42), then in fragments showing that there was some, not altogether favorable, discussion of rhetorical skill in the description of a statesman’s education (5.11).
10. For the legend of Numa and Pythagoras, see Garbarino 1973: 53–63 and 221–44; Gruen 1990: 158–70.
11. See below Chapter 13.
12. See below, Chapter 10 for the passage in De re publica. Neoptolemus’ philosophari sed paucis appears again at Tusc. 2.1; see Baraz 2012: 15–18.
13. Feriae novendiales (a public version of the private rituals on the ninth day after a birth or death) were traditionally associated with rains of stones (e.g., Livy 30.38.9 In Palatio lapidibus pluit; id prodigium more patrio novendiali sacro . . . expiata; cf. Wissowa 1912: 392, 440), but no such prodigy is recorded for 129, and it is likely that it was in fact intended to expiate the double sun itself. Cicero later (ND 2.14) described the double sun as a portent of the death of Scipio. See also Engels 2007: 348. Cicero’s switch to the Feriae Latinae was an appropriate alternative, in order to make a connection with the violation of Latin rights by Tiberius Gracchus criticized by Laelius at 3.41.
14. It has been suggested that Fannius left, because at De Amicitia 14 Laelius does not seem to know that Fannius was there and because his name is missing from the last four books. But no motivation for his departure is apparent, and nothing is said about it at the end of Book 2.
15. On the overall structure of De re publica, see also Ferrary 1995: 49–51, rightly emphasizing the importance of Tubero’s criticism in the shaping of the dialogue (on which see also below, Chapter 10). Powell’s (2012) reading of the last four books in terms of the four Platonic virtues emphasizes one strand of the dialogue at the expense of the rest and assumes an excessive dependence on Greek philosophy on Cicero’s part.
16. On the preface to Book 3 and its place in the sequence of prefaces in the two dialogues, see also Zetzel 2017b.
17. See below, Chapter 14.
18. On Sallustius’ objections, see above, Chapter 1. On the double explanation of the setting of De Amicitia, see above, Chapter 2, and in general on the limits of historical accuracy in Cicero’s account of Scipio and friends, see the sensible summary of Garbarino 1973: 17–21.
19. For a discussion of the structure of the manuscript and of what survives, see Chapter 9. For a good examination of the philosophical aspects of the preface and on Cicero’s cultural anthropology, see Fuhrer 2017: 19–26.
20. The dedication to Quintus can be inferred from the phrase mihi tibique in 1.13.
21. Atkins 2013: 27–33 analyzes the preface as an “invitation to engage in political philosophy” (27), but although Cicero thinks that political philosophy has its (limited) uses, the preface is an exhortation to take part in public life—which is not at all the same thing as political philosophy.
22. It is sometimes suggested (e.g., Brouwer 2017: 38) that the idea of obligation to one’s country in this passage is based on Plato’s Crito; Cicero is far more likely to have drawn it (to the extent that any source is needed) from Plato’s Ninth Letter, one of his favorite Platonic texts.
23. So too 1 fr. 2, Nonius 426.9: Sic, quoniam plura beneficia continet patria, et est antiquior parens quam is qui creavit, maior ei profecto quam parenti debetur gratia.
24. It is not clear exactly what philosophical schools are meant; the general context is the contrast between the active and the contemplative lives, which seems to have been a Peripatetic preoccupation. On Cicero’s use of Dicaearchus in particular, see McConnell 2014: 115–60.
25. The Epicurean maxim is quoted by Seneca, De otio 3.2: Epicurus ait: “non accedet ad rem publicam sapiens, nisi si quid intervenerit.” On the anti-Epicurean tone of the preface, see also Zetzel 1998.
26. So particularly in Verrines 5.180 (with Wiseman 1971: 109–11); see also van der Blom 2010: 152–65.
27. For Epicureans and their attitude to political engagement in Cicero’s time, see now Volk 2021: 93–110, with full bibliography.
28. On the relationship between De re publica and De rerum natura, see Zetzel 1998; also Lévi 2014: 117–21. The relationship between Cicero and Lucretius is reciprocal: see Gee 2013: 57–109 on Lucretius’ response to Cicero’s Aratea. On the Dream, see further below, Chapter 14.
29. On this, see below, Conclusion. Although the loss of most of the second half of De re publica makes detailed comparison difficult, it may well be that the two works are also parallel in having a division into halves as well as thirds. The definition of res publica from Book 1 is taken up again at the end of Book 3, just as in Lucretius the topics of Epicurus’ On Nature have been rearranged so that the discussion of death at the end of Book 3 matches the plague at the end of Book 6. On the structure of DRN, see Sedley 1998: 134–65.
30. On the importance of the optimus civis in De re publica, see particularly Ferrary 1995; see also below, Chapter 14, on the figure of the statesman. For the importance of this figure to Cicero himself, see Zarecki 2014, and on Cicero’s attempts to use philosophy (including De re publica) to urge a particular course on himself, see Baraz 2012: 46–67 and Volk 2021: 90–93.
31. See below, Chapter 13.
32. On the distribution of discussion of moral character between De oratore and De re publica, see Classen 1986: 50–51.