The Republic and The Laws (Oxford World's Classics) (31 page)

Plato
: this passage provides one of the most explicit pieces of ancient evidence on the relation of the views expressed by ‘Socrates’ in Plato’s dialogues to those of the historical Socrates—or at least on how it was regarded in Cicero’s time. On the reported journeys of Plato see Riginos; the evidence for a journey to Egypt is regarded as suspect, though the Italian voyages are generally accepted as historical.

Numantia
: this Spanish fortress was captured by Scipio in 133
BC
, thus bringing to an end the war in Spain.

Laelius
:
on the
friendship of Scipio and Laelius see further Powell (1) 9.

old enough to have been quaestors
: on Fannius and Scaevola, see note on
Laelius
3, Powell (1) 77–8.

universe
: the idea that the whole universe is our home is a Stoic one; cf.
L
. 1. 23,
De Finibus
3. 64,
De Natura Deorum
2. 154, Seneca,
De Otio
4. 1.

some decree
: Manilius was an eminent lawyer, and this passage (like many in Cicero) makes facetious use of very precise Roman legal terminology. The decree referred to is the
interdictum uti possidetis
, which was the first step in a procedure used in cases of disputed possession of land. The Roman law of actions required that one party should be in actual possession and the other should bring the action; the onus of proof lay with the bringer of the action. It was therefore necessary first to determine who actually had possession. The interdict, granted by the praetor, prohibited either party from disturbing the other’s possession while the preliminary issue of fact was decided. See Gaius 4. 160; Justinian,
Institutiones
4. 15. 4;
Digest
43. 17. 1; Jolowicz 273–4.

Sulpicius Galus
: his astronomical interests are mentioned also by Cicero in
Cato Maior
50. His demonstration with the globe was in fact quite irrelevant to the phenomenon of the double sun, except in so far as it established the principle that celestial phenomena in general could be explained rationally.

globe
: this passage gives us most of the information we have on the ‘Archimedean sphere’, which was evidently a mechanism for demonstrating the movements of the heavenly bodies, similar to what has in modern times been called an ‘orrery’, although the exact details of its construction remain somewhat obscure. It could well have been as mechanically sophisticated as the first-century
BC
clockwork calendar of which remains were discovered in a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera (see Peterson 21–32). According to Cicero,
De Natura Deorum
1. 88 the philosopher Poseidonius also had such a sphere. In what follows it must be remembered that Archimedes’ model of the solar system would have been geocentric.

temple of Valour (Virtus)
: near the Porta Capena at the southern entrance to Rome; vowed by M. Marcellus after his triumph over the Gauls in 222, and dedicated by his son seventeen years later (Livy 29. 11. 13).

that other globe
: presumably an ordinary geographical globe, made to demonstrate the sphericity of the earth; Eudoxus will have made a celestial globe marked with the constellations (showing the sky inside out, as it were), whereas Archimedes’ ‘sphere’ or ‘globe’ was presumably not solid but based on a framework of interlocking rings or bands (what is called an armillary sphere).

cone-shaped shadow
: causing an eclipse of the moon; this is quite correct astronomically as regards the relative positions of sun, moon and earth. To demonstrate this properly, the Archimedean sphere would have needed to incorporate a lamp to represent the sun, which would cast a shadow on the other side of the globe that represented the earth. An eclipse of the sun, at new moon, is often followed two weeks later by an eclipse of the moon, because both happen when the moon’s orbit is in the same plane as the earth’s. Cf. Cic.
De Divinatione
2. 17; Pliny,
Natural History
2. 7.

in the great war . . . between Athens and Sparta
: this eclipse happened on 3 August 431
BC
; Bickerman 87; cf. Thucydides 2. 28; Plutarch,
Pericles
35. 2.

the moon and night
: this phrase, odd-looking at first sight, is in fact appropriate, as the eclipse referred to took place at sunset (Skutsch ad loc). By our reckoning it was apparently on 21 June 399
BC.

Major Annals
: the
Annates Maximi
were a chronological record of official events, based on the archives of the Pontifex Maximus. Their style was apparently laconic (cf. L. 1. 6). Events such as eclipses, which were thought to be of religious significance, were naturally included in them. Cf.
De Oratore z
. 52; Cornell 13–15; Frier.

July the seventh in the reign of Romulus
: it seems that this eclipse has not been identified with certainty; not surprisingly, since the dates of Romulus’ reign are purely legendary and it is impossible to identify the year or to determine the degree of inaccuracy in the calendar at that time.

Romulus
: the deification of Romulus is here treated in a rationalistic manner; cf. 2. 17–20; in the Dream of Scipio, however, we learn that the souls of all good statesmen ascend to heaven (6. 13, 6. 16). There is a gap in the text here, but it is possible to see roughly what the train of thought must have been. Tubero remarks that Scipio appears to have changed his mind (presumably from 1. 15). Scipio will then have responded that he did not mean to disparage scientific study (cf. 1.30 below). On the speech which follows see Powell (4); Zetzel 117. The ideas derive from philosophical ‘protreptic’, i.e. exhortations to philosophical study.

citizen’s . . . right (lus Quiritium)
: the legal term for civil-law ownership as opposed to mere possession. Cicero plays on the technical language of Roman law.

necessary rather than desirable things
: cf. Plato,
Republic
347c-d (Lee’s translation): ‘That [the prospect of being governed by someone worse than themselves] is what, I believe, frightens honest men into accepting power, and they approach it not as if it were something desirable out of which they were going to do well, but as if it were something unavoidable, which they cannot find anyone better or equally qualified to undertake.’

doing nothing
: i.e. not taking part in public business; this is the language of the Roman senator for whom even the busiest people were living a life of ‘leisure’
(otium)
if they were not involved in politics and warfare.

him
: Q.
Aelius
Tubero, here assumed to be related to Sextus
Aelius
Paetus Catus.

Iphigenia
: by Ennius (Jocelyn fr. 95, pp.
TO
8, 324–8), based on Euripides’
Iphigenia in Aulis
.

Zethus
: the debate between the warrior Zethus and his brother Amphion the musician in the
Antiope
of Euripides (on which Pacuvius’ play of the same name was based) is mentioned by Plato in his
Corgias
; cf.
De Oratore z
. 155.

three commissioners
: the commission set up under Tiberius Gracchus’ law to reassign the public land, dispossessing the Italian landowners in favour of poorer Roman citizens. The issue split both the Senate and the people, as is made clear here. Scipio supported the
status quo
and the interests of the Italian landed classes (‘allies and Latins’). This whole passage is written (not surprisingly) from the point of view of the supporters of Scipio and opponents of Gracchus; after all, it is Scipio’s greatest friend who is talking; but Cicero himself also took very much the same line.

Panaetius . . . Polybius
: both men were recipients of Scipio’s patronage. The reference to them here has tended to be taken as a coded message that Cicero is about to make detailed use of some work of Panaetius or Polybius or both, but this goes beyond what may legitimately be deduced from the text. It is clear that Cicero’s political theory and account of the Roman constitution has much in common with that of Polybius, but there are also considerable differences (see Zetzel 22–4), and definite influence from Panaetius is difficult to detect. The mention of the two names here is, more than anything else, a piece of imaginative scene-setting.

craftsman
: the Socratic analogy (cf. above, note on 1. 2 ‘moral excellence’); Cicero again insists that politics is an art. His emphasis here on the hereditary duties of the Roman ruling class is worth reflecting on: Cicero himself was not born into the Roman senatorial order but made his own way into it.

toga-wearing people
: ‘The Romans, lords of the world, the toga-wearing nation’, as Virgil
(Aeneid
1. 282) was later to put it. We are not to think here of the toga as symbol of civilian as opposed to military life, but as a symbol of nationhood.

the meaning of the name
: to begin with definitions is a familiar technique in philosophical expositions, doubtless inspired by the habits of Socrates in Plato’s dialogues; cf.
De Finibus
1. 29.

initial union
: Greek philosophical accounts of politics tended to do just this; e.g. Aristotle,
Politics
1252
^a
.

property of the public (res populi)
: the word ‘republic’,
res publica
, literally means ‘public property’ (although
res
has a wider meaning, embracing also at least ‘affairs’, ‘business’).
Res publica
approximately represents Greek πóλις and πoλιτεία, but the definition given here is based on the etymology of the Latin term: see M. Schofield, ‘Cicero’s Definition of
Res Publica’
, in Powell (3).

not every kind of human gathering
: cf. Aristotle,
Politics
7. 1328
^b
, the
polls
must be self-sufficient; the Stoics (quoted by Dio Chrysostom 36. 20) included law in the definition.

weakness
: the explanation of the origin of society as a contract for mutual protection was familiar in antiquity. It was associated particularly with the Epicureans (cf. Lucretius 5); Polybius also believed it, and in 6. 5. 7 actually cites ‘weakness’ as the reason for the
development of societies. Cicero here rejects this view in favour of the Aristotelian and Stoic line that it is part of human nature to form communities regardless of utility.

decision-making process
: the word used here,
consilium
, means both ‘policy’ (cf. ‘counsel’) and ‘deliberative body’ (cf. ‘council’; the English spelling is influenced by a mistaken connection with another Latin word
concilium
‘assembly, gathering’).

aristocracy (optimates)
: see Note on the Translation.

nod and wish
: we have accepted Castiglioni’s conjecture
nutu ac (voluntate; eodem) modo
.

depraved version
: it was standard in Greek political theorizing since Plato to divide the possible constitutions into good and bad versions, the bad sometimes being seen as the result of corruption of the good, but sometimes as arising in other ways. Thus tyranny is seen as the perversion of monarchy, oligarchy as that of aristocracy, and mob rule as that of democracy.

cruelly capricious
: we retain
ad immutandi animi licentiam
and take it as adverbial, qualifying
crudelissimus
.

cycles
: the concept of cycles of political change was prominent in Plato’s
Republic
and, in a more elaborate form, was an important element in Polybius’ constitutional theory: see Walbank 131–2, 139–46. For the development of this theme see below, 1. 64–8, 2. 45.

mixture
: this is the first mention of the ‘mixed’ constitution, which is to be a key concept in the ensuing discussion. The theory of the mixed constitution is again associated especially with Polybius: for his version and its antecedents see Walbank 132, 135–7. However, Cicero first deals with the question of whether any of the simple constitutions, monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, is to be preferred to the others. Scipio successively presents the arguments for democracy and aristocracy in the section that follows. He does not endorse these arguments himself; still less should we assume that Cicero endorsed them.

Rhodian
: the constitution of Rhodes was more purely democratic even than that of Athens: Cicero describes it below at 3. 48.

Ennius
: this quotation is used by Cicero also in
De Officiis
1. 26, but there is no information as to its original context: Jocelyn fr. 169, p. 141.

50: this section almost certainly comes from the democrats’ speech. Büchner and others have attempted to show that it comes instead from a lost speech in favour of monarchy; but the content of this section would hardly fit an expression of monarchist views, since the argument is that
all
kings are equivalent to tyrants.

a royal family
: Sparta had a dual kingship; one of the kings always came from the family of the Agids, the other from the Eurypontids.

chosen by lot
: many of the Athenian officials were appointed by lot,
considered a more ‘democratic’ procedure than popular election, although the choice of candidates was made in such a way as to prevent the appointment of anyone thoroughly unsuitable.

But what about yourself, Scipio?
: pressed further by Laelius, Scipio now puts the arguments for monarchy in his own person. There are six arguments: (1) Jupiter rules the universe; (2) Rome had kings not long ago; (3) monarchy is like the domination of reason over the passions; (4) it is common practice to have a single individual in charge of an estate or a household, etc.; (5) the Romans in time of crisis commit the state to the power of a single dictator; (6) a just king such as Romulus leaves nothing to be desired. However, Scipio is presented as approving of monarchy only in theory and by comparison with the other two simple forms, not unconditionally (cf. more clearly still 2. 47–8); note also that Scipio in this passage does not elicit full agreement from the other speakers. It is made quite clear that he regards monarchy as a dangerous form of government because of the ease with which it can turn into despotism, whereas the mixed constitution offers safeguards against this contingency.