The Republic and The Laws (Oxford World's Classics) (32 page)

Aratus
: his poem began in Cicero’s version with the words
Ab love Musarum primordia
; this opening formula was adapted by other poets including Virgil
(Eclogues
3. 60).

Homer’s words
:
Iliad
1. 530.

57: some editors here insert fr. 1 (printed at the end of Book 1), but others place it in the gap at section 34. It seems impossible to determine which placing is right. The speaker is probably Laelius.

a proud one
: alluding to the name of Tarquinius Superbus, ‘Tarquin the Proud’.

A very just one
: Servius Tullius (cf. 2. 38).

Greece was already growing old
: an exaggeration; Romulus supposedly lived in the eighth century
BC.

ship’s captain and doctor
: these analogies were so familiar from Plato that Cicero passes over them lightly here.

dictator
: see Appendix: Notes on the Roman Constitution. It is peculiar that Cicero ignores the obvious derivation of
dictator
as ‘one who dictates’, and instead concentrates on the fact that the dictator ‘is appointed’
(dicitur)
.

our augurs’ books
: Scipio addresses Laelius as a fellow-member of the augural college, of which Cicero himself became a member in 53
BC
(while he was writing the
Republic)
. These books were manuals of procedure; their extent and availability to those outside the college is uncertain.

As Ennius says
: on the quotation from Ennius see Skutsch 105–9.

Plato
:
Republic 8
. 562cff.

something else
: retaining MS reading
aliud
.

two dangers
: Carthage and Numantia.

you yourself
: reading
ipse
, Watt’s conjecture for MS
esse
(the two words sounded similar or identical in late Latin pronunciation; cf. Italian
esso
from
ipsum)
.

Fr. 1: see on i. 57 above.

Fr. 3: attributed to Book 1, but its placing is quite uncertain.

B
OOK
2

Most of what survives of the second book is taken up with an account of the development of the Roman constitution. The purpose is not mere antiquarianism, although there appears to be an element of that in some of the details (as Cicero makes Scipio virtually acknowledge in 2. 55). As Scipio says several times in the dialogue, the aim is to provide an actual historical example both of what is meant by the mixed constitution in its best form, and of the various changes that can take place in the government of a state, instead of discussing these matters in purely theoretical terms or, as Plato did, with reference to an imaginary ideal state. The early history of Rome, as understood by Cicero, provides him with examples of
(a)
pure monarchy (the reign of Romulus), which nevertheless soon acquired aristocratic and democratic elements;
(b)
tyranny (Tarquinius Superbus, and the subsequent attempts of Sp. Cassius, Sp. Maelius, M. Manlius to gain control of the state); (c) pure aristocracy (the decemvirate) which within a very short time was corrupted into oligarchy (the second set of decemvirs);
(d)
if not pure democracy, at any rate a period in which the people demanded more rights for itself (immediately after the expulsion of the kings) and two popular revolts (the two Secessions of the Plebs); (e) an imperfect version of the mixed constitution parallel to that of Sparta or Carthage (the constitution of Servius Tullius); and (/) the fully-fledged republican constitution, a better version of the mixed constitution than any other yet devised. As soon as
(f)
is reached, the narrative ends. This does not mean that Cicero saw the republican constitution of 449
BC
as ideal or perfect, merely that, granted the conceptual framework of Greek political theory, no further significant and radical changes took place thereafter. Although, therefore, this account happens to be the earliest surviving narrative of the regal period and the beginnings of the Republic, it has no pretensions to completeness; little is said, for example, of the ‘struggle of the orders’ or of Rome’s rise as a Mediterranean power. It is clear that Cicero was reasonably careful with his historical research, but much of the material came not from authentic records but from tradition and legend, or else from antiquarian attempts to explain the origins of existing institutions. Cicero’s main point of reference, in fact, was the Roman constitution as it existed in his own time. His account may be compared with our other main sources for the period, Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, both of whom wrote somewhat later but give much fuller historical narratives. See further Cornell; E. Rawson (1) 36–7; Ferrary (3); Hathaway. On the problem of Cicero’s relation to Polybius see Walbank 147–8.

two fathers
: Scipio’s real father, L. Aemilius Paulus, and his adoptive father, P. Cornelius Scipio (son of Scipio Africanus).

no genius of such magnitude
: the style of this passage is ponderous in the Latin, probably reflecting Cato’s own style. Scipio prefaces his narrative with the observation that the Roman constitution is the result of gradual evolution, and is better that way: an implicit condemnation of suggestions for radical change.

‘origin’
: Cato’s historical work was entitled
Origines
; the first part of it did indeed deal with the origins of Rome and the other communities of Italy (Nepos,
Cato
3. 3). It is possible, though unprovable, that Cicero drew on this work as a source.

Romulus
: the Romulus story here appears in a simplified form, without the murder of Remus, which, whatever its true significance, was irrelevant to Cicero’s purposes here. The she-wolf appears merely as ‘an animal from the forest’; Cicero distances himself from folk-tale.

augury
: cf. 2. 16 below. According to the legend, Romulus and Remus took auspices to find out which of them should be king. Remus ascended the Aventine and saw six vultures; Romulus ascended the Palatine and saw twelve. This decided the issue in Romulus’ favour. Cicero again omits the element of competition with Remus, and regards Romulus as the founder of the Roman institution of augury, an institution which (as an augur himself) he constantly praises, although he had philosophical difficulties with the concept of divination (cf.
L
. 2. 31 ff., and
De Divinatione
2).

a colony
: Ostia; cf. 2. 33.

coastal sites were not particularly suitable
: the Greeks debated whether cities should be founded near the sea: cf. Plato,
Laws
7043–705b, Aristotle,
Politics
7. 6. Livy very probably recalls this passage in 5. 54. 4 (the speech of Camillus persuading the Romans not to abandon the city).

Carthage and Corinth
: both ruthlessly destroyed by Rome in the mid-second century
BC
. Carthage was, of course, destroyed by the Scipio who speaks here; Corinth, by L. Mummius, brother of the Spurius Mummius who is a minor character in this dialogue. Cf. Purcell.

apart from Phlius . . .
: Cicero discusses this passage in a letter to Atticus (6. 2. 3). Atticus had queried the statement that all Peloponnesian communities had a sea-coast: what about Arcadia? Cicero replied that he had himself been surprised to find it in a work of Dicaearchus, a careful researcher who himself lived in the Peloponnese, but had consulted his learned slave Dionysius, who was at first equally puzzled but then pointed out that Arcadia had an outlet to the sea at Lepreon, and that some other apparently landlocked communities were late foundations. ‘So’, says Cicero, ‘I transferred the passage in so many words from Dicaearchus.’ Phlius is in the north-east Peloponnese.

Dorians
: not in the wider sense of speakers of the Doric dialect, but in the narrower sense of inhabitants of the area called Doris in northern Greece.

a novel and somewhat crude plan
: for the Rape of the Sabines cf. Livy 1. 9–13.

‘Fathers’
: the senators were called
patres
or ‘fathers’ in certain contexts. ‘Patricians’ were supposedly descendants of the senators of the regal period (2. 23 below).

three tribes
: the Roman citizen body was anciently divided into three tribes called
Ramnes, Titles
, and
Luceres
(cf. 2. 36 below); the present context provides an explanation (philologically rather implausible) for these names. They may reflect early ethnic divisions (Latin, Sabine, Etruscan). Each tribe was divided into ten ‘voting-districts’ or
curiae
. The assembly of the Roman people thus divided was called the
comitia curiata
(cf. Appendix). These divisions still existed for ceremonial purposes in the late Republic, but the three ancient tribes had long been superseded for all practical functions by a newer system of thirty-five tribes (Cornell 173; Staveley 122–3; Taylor (2) 3–5).

Sparta
: the parallel was often drawn between the Roman ‘Senate’ and the Spartan ‘Gerousia’: both words mean ‘assembly of elders’; cf. 2. 50 below.

explained later
: not in the extant parts of the text. On the client system see Cornell 289–92.

livestock etc.
: Cicero is right in deriving the word
pecunia
‘money’ from
pecus
‘cattle’. The same semantic shift is apparent in the English word ‘fee’; cf. German
Vieh
‘cattle’, from a Germanic root cognate with
pecus
.‘Cattle’ went the opposite way; it originally meant ‘property’ generally, cf. ‘chattels’, ‘capital’.

eclipse of the sun
: cf. above, 1. 25.

second year of the seventh Olympiad
: the first Olympiad began in 776/5
BC;
the date given here is therefore 751/0, which is also the date given by Polybius (cf. 2. 27 below). The now conventional date of 753 was established by Cicero’s friend Atticus; its popularization by Varro leads to its modern designation as the ‘Varronian’ dating. See Zetzel 175–6; Bickerman 76–8.

confusion over the name
: another Lycurgus, king of Elis, was supposed to have founded the Olympic games.

sometimes clumsily conceived
: the rest of this paragraph is absent from the MS but is preserved by St Augustine. The missing portion will have contained a mention of the poet Hesiod who was supposed to be the grandfather of Stesichorus.

doyen of writers
: Plato.

best men (optimates)
: cf. Introd. n. 14.

‘Patricians’
: cf. above, note on 2. 14.

interregnum
: under the Republic, the consuls had responsibility for conducting the election of their successors. If both consulships were vacant, the Senate appointed an official known as
interrex
(lit. ‘between-king’) who held office for five days only. Successive
interreges
were appointed until the elections could be held; the period during which
interreges
held office was known as an
interregnum
. The Romans believed, as indeed the name of the office implies, that this procedure went back to the regal period.

Assembly of Voting Districts
: see Appendix and 2. 14 above. Cicero’s point here is that the appointment of the king was in two stages. First the king was chosen by the
comitia curiata
; then the same body formally passed a law to confer the regal power on him. This statute was called
lex curiata
. Under the Republic, the election of the higher magistrates was no longer in the hands of the
comitia curiata
but in those of the
comitia centuriata
, on which see below, 2. 39 ff., but their position was still formally confirmed by a
lex curiata
. The
lex curiata
had been the subject of controversy from time to time during Cicero’s career. It is very unclear precisely what it enabled a magistrate to do that he could not, in practice, do without it. At one point Cicero implies that it concerned the right to command an army
(De Lege Agraria
2. 30). In 54
BC
, at the time -when Cicero was conceiving the plan of the
Republic
, there was apparently obstruction of the normal procedure in connection with the appointment of Appius Claudius to govern the province of Cilicia. Appius declared that he would go to his province even without the law, at his own expense
(Fam
. 1. 9. 25,
Att
. 4. 18. 4,
Q. fr
. 3. 2. 3). However, it is not clear that Cicero is here alluding directly to these political squabbles. It is more likely that he has in mind a general concern for legitimacy, and that his purpose is to trace democratic elements in the Roman constitution right from the beginning, and to highlight the function of the popular assembly as the legal source of political power. He mentions the
lex curiata
again in connection with each of the four succeeding kings, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, and Servius Tullius.

divided . . . the territory
: conquered territory was, in the first instance, public property
(ager publicus populi Romani)
. Two things could be done with it: it could be leased to tenants who would pay a rent to the treasury, or it could be divided up and allocated to private owners. In historical times, as most notably in the case of the Gracchi, such allocations always stirred up violent controversy, because they invariably involved land that had already been leased, and thus entailed both dispossession of existing landholders and loss of state revenue. Cicero himself was strongly opposed to such measures (cf. Introd. pp. xviii–xix). But here he envisages an ideal, primitive situation, in which the land is simply lying unused and may be allocated to individuals without offending anyone, as happened in the case of some early Greek colonies.

priests
: the pontifices; see Appendix.

laws
: the so-called
leges regiae
or royal laws, regulating religious procedures, were supposed to derive from the reign of Numa.