The Republic of Cicero — Book Review & Quotes

Review

The second book our group picked as we try and read more of the Classics; Cicero was front of my mind because over the last year or so I’ve read biographies of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson, all of whom were big Cicero fans. So it felt worthy of further investigation.

As I read these words, you get a sense of intruding on an ongoing conversation. Partially, Cicero’s writings are only preserved in parts with major sections lost, but also second because these are not an organized, ‘general audience,’ tract but rather an ‘in-the-action- piece of writing that Cicero used in making his arguments.

As we’ve read through the Classics, the thing I’ve realized is that often, while they have an essence that lasts the test of time, they also have a period-pertinent specificity that made them so powerful at the time. Cicero writes for a group of people, and you can tell he’s writing for them very specifically and personally.

While I want to read more of Cicero, it almost feels like what I really need is a history lesson, a guide of context to put this words into perspective that I might better understand the points he was making and attempt to more fully show appreciation for the work.

Highlighted Quotes From The Book

“Cicero introduces his subject by showing that men were not born for the mere abstract study of philosophy, but that the study of philosophic truth should always be made as practical as possible, and applicable to the great interests of philanthropy and patriotism.”

“Maxim of Plato — ” Happy is the nation whose philosophers are kings, and whose kings are philosophers.”

“Nor is it sufficient to possess this virtue as if it were some kind of art, unless we put it in practice. An art, indeed, though not exercised, may still be retained in knowledge; but virtue consists wholly in its proper use and action. Now, the noblest use of virtue is the government of the Commonwealth, and the carrying-out in real action, not in words only, of all those identical theories which those philosophers discuss at every corner.”

“Moreover, it is reported of Xenocrates, one of the sublimest philosophers, that when some one asked him what his disciples learned, he replied, “To do that of their own accord which they might be compelled to do by law.” That citizen, therefore, who obliges all men to those virtuous actions, by the authority of laws and penalties, to which the philosophers can scarcely persuade a few by the force of their eloquence, is certainly to be preferred to the sagest of the doctors who spend their lives in such discussions.”

“For I was one who, though it was in my power to reap more profit from leisure than most men, on account of the diversified sweetness of my studies, in which I had lived from boyhood — or, if any public calamity had happened, to have borne no more than an equal share with the rest of my countrymen in the misfortune — I nevertheless did not hesitate to oppose myself to the most formidable tempests and torrents of sedition, for the sake of saving my countrymen, and at my own proper danger to secure the common safety of all the rest.”

“For our country did not beget and educate us with the expectation of receiving no support, as I may call it, from us; nor for the purpose of consulting nothing but our convenience, to supply us with a secure refuge for idleness and a tranquil spot for rest; but rather with a view of turning to her own advantage the nobler portion of our genius, heart, and counsel; giving us back for our private service only what she can spare from the public interests.” — I can tell that John Adams liked Cicero

“Those apologies, therefore, in which men take refuge as an excuse for their devoting themselves with more plausibility to mere inactivity do certainly not deserve to be listened to; when, for instance, they tell us that those who meddle with public affairs are generally good-for-nothing men, with whom it is discreditable to be compared, and miserable and dangerous to contend, especially when the multitude is in an excited state.” — Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.

“And what most surprises me in the discourses of learned men, is to hear those persons who confess themselves incapable of steering the vessel of the State in smooth seas (which, indeed, they never learned, and never cared to know) profess themselves ready to assume the helm amidst the fiercest tempests.”

“Whereas before us many have been skilful in theory, though no exploits of theirs are recorded; and many others have been men of consideration in action, but unfamiliar with the arts of exposition.”

“Do you think, then, that it does not concern our houses to know what happens in that vast home which is not included in walls of human fabrication, but which embraces the entire universe — a home which the Gods share with us, as the common country of all intelligent beings? Especially when, if we are ignorant of these things, there are also many great practical truths which result from them, and which bear directly on the welfare of our race, of which we must be also ignorant.”

“Who does not see that those men are in reality more solitary who, in the midst of a crowd, find no one with whom they can converse congenially than those who, without witnesses, hold communion with themselves, and enter into the secret counsels of the sagest philosophers, while they delight themselves in their writings and discoveries?”

“As to these abstract sciences, their utility, if they possess any, lies principally in exciting and stimulating the abilities of youth, so that they more easily acquire more important accomplishments.”

“This is the reason, young men, if you will listen to me, why you should regard this new sun with less alarm; for, whether it does exist, or whether it does not exist, it is, as you see, quite harmless to us. As to the manner of its existence, we can know little or nothing; and even if we obtained the most perfect understanding of it, this knowledge would make us but little wiser or happier. But that there should exist a united people and a united senate is a thing which actually may be brought about, and it will be a great evil if it is not; and that it does not exist at present we are aware; and we see that if it can be effected, our lives will be both better and happier.”

“For the human race is not a race of isolated individuals, wandering and solitary; but it is so constituted that even in the affluence of all things [and without any need of reciprocal assistance, it spontaneously seeks society].”

“And if the tie of social affection, which originally united men in political associations for the sake of public interest, maintains its force, each of these forms of government is, I will not say perfect, nor, in my opinion, essentially good, but tolerable, and such that one may accidentally be better than another: either a just and wise king, or a selection of the most eminent citizens, or even the populace itself (though this is the least commendable form), may, if there be no interference of crime and cupidity, form a constitution sufficiently secure.”

“There is a fourth kind of government, therefore, which, in my opinion, is preferable to all these: it is that mixed and moderate government which is composed of the three particular forms which I have already noticed.”

“And each commonwealth corresponds to the nature and will of him who governs it. Therefore, in no other constitution than that in which the people exercise sovereign power has liberty any sure abode.”

“But if the people knew how to maintain its rights, then they say that nothing could be more glorious and prosperous than democracy; inasmuch as they themselves would be the sovereign dispensers of laws, judgments, war, peace, public treaties, and, finally, of the fortune and life of each individual citizen; and this condition of things is the only one which, in their opinion, can be really called a commonwealth, that is to say, a constitution of the people.”

“Wherefore, since the law is the bond of civil society, and the justice of the law equal, by what rule can the association of citizens be held together, if the condition of the citizens be not equal? For if the fortunes of men cannot be reduced to this equality — if genius cannot be equally the property of all — rights, at least, should be equal among those who are citizens of the same republic. For what is a republic but an association of rights?”

“But they say this aristocratical State is destroyed by the depraved opinions of men, who, through ignorance of virtue (which, as it belongs to few, can be discerned and appreciated by few), imagine that not only rich and powerful men, but also those who are nobly born, are necessarily the best. And so when, through this popular error, the riches, and not the virtue, of a few men has taken possession of the State, these chiefs obstinately retain the title of nobles, though they want the essence of nobility. For riches, fame, and power, without wisdom and a just method of regulating ourselves and commanding others, are full of discredit and insolent arrogance; nor is there any kind of government more deformed than that in which the wealthiest are regarded as the noblest.”

“But when virtue governs the Commonwealth, what can be more glorious? When he who commands the rest is himself enslaved by no lust or passion; when he himself exhibits all the virtues to which he incites and educates the citizens; when he imposes no law on the people which he does not himself observe, but presents his life as a living law to his fellow-countrymen; if a single individual could thus suffice for all, there would be no need of more; and if the community could find a chief ruler thus worthy of all their suffrages, none would require elected magistrates.”

“For as to that equality of rights which democracies so loudly boast of, it can never be maintained; for the people themselves, so dissolute and sounbridled, are always inclined to flatter a number of demagogues; and there is in them a very great partiality for certain men and dignities, so that their equality, so called, becomes most unfair and iniquitous. For as equal honor is given to the most noble and the most infamous, some of whom must exist in every State, then the equity which they eulogize becomes most inequitable.”

“Thus, the kings attract us by affection, the nobles by talent, the people by liberty; and in the comparison it is hard to choose the best.”

“Archytas, then, regarded unreasonable anger as a kind of sedition and rebellion of nature which he sought to appease by reflection.”

“You can imagine no flood or conflagration so terrible, or any whose violence is harder to appease than this unbridled insolence of the populace.”

“When, says Plato, the insatiate jaws of the populace are fired with the thirst of liberty, and when the people, urged on by evil ministers, drains in its thirst the cup, not of tempered liberty, but unmitigated license, then the magistrates and chiefs, if they are not utterly subservient and remiss, and shameless promoters of the popular licentiousness, are pursued, incriminated, accused, and cried down under the title of despots and tyrants.”

“Then the father fears the son, and the son neglects the father. All modesty is banished; they become far too liberal for that. No difference is made between the citizen and the alien; the master dreads and cajoles his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters. The young men assume the gravity of sages, and sages must stoop to the follies of children, lest they should be hated and oppressed by them. The very slaves even are under but little restraint; wives boast the same rights as their husbands; dogs, horses, and asses are emancipated in this outrageous excess of freedom, and run about so violently that they frighten the passengers from the road. At length the termination of all this infinite licentiousness is, that the minds of the citizens become so fastidious and effeminate, that when they observe even the slightest exertion of authority they grow angry and seditious, and thus the laws begin to be neglected, so that the people are absolutely without any master at all.”

“While the particular separate and isolated forms easily fall into their contraries; so that a king is succeeded by a despot, an aristocracy by a faction, a democracy by a mob and confusion; and all these forms are frequently sacrificed to new revolutions.”

“As our country is the source of the greatest benefits, and is a parent dearer than those who have given us life, we owe her still warmer gratitude than belongs to our human relations.”

“Although the reasonings of those men may contain most abundant fountains of science and virtue; still, if we compare them with the achievements and complete actions of statesmen, they will seem not to have been of so much service in the actual business of men as of amusement for their leisure.”

“And the mind itself, which sees the future, remembers the past.”

“Well did Marcus Tullius say, In truth, if there is no one who would not prefer death to being changed into the form of some beast, although he were still to retain the mind of a man, how much more wretched is it to have the mind of a beast in the form of a man! To me this fate appears as much worse than the other as the mind is superior to the body.”

“Consider, now, how wisely the other provisions have been adopted, in order to secure to the citizens the benefits of an honest and happy life; for that is, indeed, the grand object of all political association, and that which every government should endeavor to procure for the people, partly by its institutions, and partly by its laws.”

“Consider, in the first place, the national education of the people — a matter on which the Greeks have expended much labor in vain, and which is the only point on which Polybius, who settled among us, accuses the negligence of our institutions. For our countrymen have thought that education ought not to be fixed, nor regulated by laws, nor be given publicly and uniformly to all classes of society.” — Note: John Adams wrote the Massachusetts state constitution and it’s the only one that mentions the necessary role of government in ensuring the education of the broader population. And Massachusetts has one of the best educational systems in the country.

“For I do not approve of the same nation being the ruler and the farmer of lands. But both in private families and in the affairs of the Commonwealth I look upon economy as a revenue.”

“Our laws of the Twelve Tables, on the contrary — so careful to attach capital punishment to a very few crimes only — have included in this class of capital offences the offence of composing or publicly reciting verses of libel, slander, and defamation, in order to cast dishonor and infamy on a fellow-citizen. And they have decided wisely; for our life and character should, if suspected, be submitted to the sentence of judicial tribunals and the legal investigations of our magistrates, and not to the whims and fancies of poets. Nor should we be exposed to any charge of disgrace which we cannot meet by legal process, and openly refute at the bar.” — ***Maybe I’m misreading and he’s being facetious, but feels like he’s sincere and there are some interesting takeaways here: (1) compare to John Adams “sedition’s” laws that suck, and (2) is there something to be said about how public shaming and baseless speculation can damage people’s character in an indefensible way? Because the alternative case (in the event he’s being sarcastic) is that freedom of speech ought to be protected at all costs (don’t think freedom of speech was as rampantly believed or defended in the old republic)

“It is not easy to resist a powerful people, if you allow them no rights, or next to none.”

“Cicero says that comedy is an imitation of life; a mirror of customs, an image of truth.”