Authors: Anthony Everitt
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we have already seen, Cicero did not fully appreciate the gravity of the political situation. In his judgment no more was required than a return to tried and tested traditions. “When we inherited the Republic from our forebears,”
he wrote, “it was like a beautiful painting whose colors were fading with age. We have failed to restore its original colors and have not taken the trouble to preserve its overall composition or even its general features.” Cicero probably started
On the State
in May 54 and it was published about 51. Its subject, he told Quintus, was “the ideal constitution and the ideal citizen.” He found the work hard going, for it entailed a good deal of research both in the Greek authorities and in the history of Rome's political development.
He chose to set the dialogue safely in a more glorious and perhaps more authoritative past, making his main speaker Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus, the adopted grandson of the great Africanus, who had defeated Hannibal at Zama outside Carthage in 202. He was a generous patron of the arts and letters and a Hellenophile. The action opens one morning during a public holiday in 129, not long before Scipio's death at the end of a long life. This timing was not accidental, for the stormy career of Tiberius Gracchus was recent history. Cicero believed that his Tribuneship, which “divided one people into two factions,” had introduced the long constitutional crisis which now was coming to a head.
The scene is Scipio's country estate, where the old man is found in his bedroom receiving callers. The conversation touches on the reported sighting of two suns in the sky. More visitors arrive, including his lifelong friend Laelius, whose
cognomen, Sapiens
, is a tribute to his scholarship and philosophical attainments. Scipio rises from his couch, dresses and puts on his shoes. The company moves to a portico of the house, where the talk turns away from the physical nature of the universe, on the grounds that it is unknowable, to the nature of good governance, about which truths can be ascertained.
Scipio's thesis, which can be supposed to be Cicero's, is that there are three basic systems of government: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Each has its strengths and weaknesses and it is the unique distinction of Rome to have devised a constitution which combines elements of all three. Scipio's personal preference is for the good king, father to his subjects, but the tendency towards tyranny is hard to eradicate. So “a moderate and well-balanced form of government which is a combination of the three simple good forms is preferable even to monarchy.” A substantial part of the book is devoted to a constitutional history of the early days of Rome and, through Scipio's words, Cicero nostalgically evokes the Republic in its primitive, pure and thoroughly oligarchical form.
The government was so administered by the Senate that, though the People were free, few political acts were performed by them, practically everything being done by the authority of the Senate and in accordance with its established customs, and the Consuls held a power which, though only of one year's duration, was truly regal in general character and in legal sanction. Another principle that was most important to the retention of the power by the aristocracy was also strictly maintainedânamely, that no act of a popular assembly should be valid unless ordered by the Senate.
This theory of the mixed constitution had a great influence on the development of European political thought during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It retained its appeal until the eighteenth century and the emergence of modern democracy. However, it did not fit the circumstances of the last hundred years of the Republic as neatly as Cicero argued it did. For one thing, it took no account of the political significance of the
equites
, the business class. His ideas also ignored the unpalatable fact that the last attempt to reestablish the mixed constitution, Sulla's reforms, had been dismantled soon after his death and had, in fact, been guaranteed by another power which receives little attention in
On the State
, military force.
Cicero was an acute observer of his times and it seems strange that the book does not reflect a more accurate perception of what was really happening. His analysis was cultural rather than political. Like most of his contemporaries, he saw politics fundamentally in personal rather than
ideological or structural terms. There had been a decline in moral standards and a corruption of old habits of responsibility in public life. All would be well if only there were a return to traditional values, a rediscovery of the “ideal” statesman and citizen. The constitution itself, properly interpreted, was perfect.
On the State
seems to have been an immediate success with the reading public. It contains some of Cicero's most majestic prose. In the sixth book Scipio recalls a dream in which he met the shade of the long-dead Africanus. A virtuous life, Africanus told him,
“is the highway to heaven, to that assembly of all those who have ended their terrestrial lives and been freed from the flesh. They live in that place over there which you now see” (it was the round of light that blazed brightest of all the fires in the sky), “which you mortals, borrowing a Greek term, call the Milky Circle.” When I looked all around me from that point, everything else appeared extraordinarily beautiful. There were stars invisible from earth, all larger than we have ever conceived. The smallest was the most distant and the one closest to the earth shone with a reflected light. The starry orbs were much larger than the earth. In fact, the earth itself seemed so small that I felt scornful of our empire, which is only a kind of dot.⦠Beneath the Moon there is nothing that is not mortal and doomed to decay, except for the souls which, by the grace of the gods, have been conferred on humankind. But above the Moon everything is eternal.
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a literary call to order, the appearance of
On the State
was timely. But it made little or no impact on the political situation.
The book's sequel,
On Law
, also inspired by Plato, was started in 52. Yet Cicero was unable to finish it, if indeed he ever did, until the last year of his life. Only three volumes survive of what may have been intended to be, or were, at least five.
The book is a dialogue, set in the countryside on Cicero's estate at Arpinum, and the speakers are Quintus, Atticus and the author. The conversation opens with a general debate in which Cicero argues that law is inherent in the workings of the universe. Human law is merely a version, and an imperfect one at that, of the wisdom of the natural order. “Law is the highest reason,” he says, “implanted in nature, which commands what
ought to be done and forbids the opposite. This reason, when firmly fixed and fully developed in the human mind, is Law. And so â¦Â Law is intelligence whose natural function it is to command right conduct and forbid wrongdoing.” Later he summarizes: “Virtue is reason completely developed.”
A familiar Ciceronian theme reappears: the moral force of oratory. An important means of fostering virtue is through the art of explanation and persuasionâthe “science of distinguishing the true from the false [and] the art of understanding the consequences and opposites of every statement.” The mind “must employ not merely the customary subtle method of debate but also the more copious continuous style, considering, for example, how to rule nations, establish laws, punish the wicked, protect the good, honor those who excel [and] publish to fellow citizens precepts conducive to their well-being and credit, so designed as to win their acceptance.” This is necessary, for it is abundantly clear to Cicero that the actual legislation of states is not necessarily consistent with natural law. “The most foolish notion of all is the belief that everything is just which is found in the customs or laws of nations.”
Volumes two and three proceed to outline in detail a legal code for an ideal state. Unsurprisingly, it has a close resemblance to the Roman constitution, with its more obvious flaws (as seen by Cicero) ironed out. So, for example, he recommends “two officeholders with royal powers,” very similar to the Consuls, but insists that they should not hold office again except after a ten-year interval, a Roman convention more honored in the breach than in the observance. Elsewhere in his writings, Cicero's skepticism shows that his cast of mind was rational rather than religious and that he gave little credit to the validity of soothsaying and the like, but here he regards religious observance, ritual, the role of priests as the interpreters and controllers of prodigies and ancestral rites as the foundation of governance.
In closing, Cicero examines the functions and powers of public officials. His object, as ever, is to assert his concept of the mixed constitution with rights for the People but with the Senate predominant. Thus, according to one of his proposed laws concerning suffrage, the ballot should be open to all citizens but the votes cast should be scrutinized by the “traditional leaders of the state.” His line is that senior figures in the state should be able to monitor how citizens vote on the grounds that “everyone knows
that laws which provide secret ballots have deprived the aristocracy of all influence.”
Cicero's constitutional writings reveal a humane conservatism. It says a great deal for his intellectual tenacity that he maintained his beliefs during the years when Caesar's astonishing career reached its climax and the pillars of the Republic finally came crashing down.
52â50
BC
D
uring his sole Consulship in 52, Pompey put through a range of reforms. Some were sensibly designed to correct administrative abuses, but others were purely political and suggested that he was considering whether to align himself with Caesar, now within sight of the end of his labors in Gaul, or with the Senate. On the face of it, he still supported Caesar. Despite the displeasure of the
optimates
, he had arranged for legislation which gave Caesar permission to stand for a second Consulship
in absentia
. Caesar intended to hold office in 48âvery properly observing the convention that a second Consulship could not take place until ten years had elapsed since the first.
The law that had appointed Caesar as governor of Gaul did not allow the Senate to discuss his successor before March of 50. The allocation of provinces for a given year was decided in advance, before the Consuls and Praetors who would receive them were elected. This meant that Caesar could be replaced only by the senior officeholders of 49. Although it was technically feasible for a Consul to take up a governorship while still in office, it was unusual and so in all probability Caesar could count on remaining in his post until the beginning of 48, by which time he could expect to be Consul.
It was essential that he be able to stay in his province until then. If any
interval of time arose between the end of his governorship and the start of his Consular term, and if he were compelled to come to Rome and campaign in person, his legal immunity would lapse and his enemies in the Senate, led by Cato, would undoubtedly bring him to trial for alleged breaches of the law during his first Consulship in 59. If he was found guilty, his career would be brought to a rapid premature conclusion. So Pompey's new law was vital for his political survival. Yet even if Caesar lost his immunity, few believed that he would actually appear in court. More probably, the matter would be settled by force: he would lead his legions into Italy.
Meanwhile, Pompey was still governor of Spain. (In fact, he had had his appointment renewed, although he never left Italy and sent out deputies to administer the province in his place.) So he would be in a position, if the Senate asked, to fight an invading Caesar. The terrible truth was dawning on intelligent people that the days of Sulla and Marius could be returning.
Having provided a guarantee for Caesar with one hand, Pompey apparently withdrew it with the other. A
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part of a package of measures designed to clean up public life, he promoted a law providing that candidates for office should canvass in person. When Caesar's friends pointed out that this blatantly contradicted the previous law excusing him from this very obligation, the Consul brushed the matter aside. The new legislation was not aimed at Caesar, Pompey claimed, and, to prove it, he added a codicil excluding him by name. But he did so on his own authority and the exception probably did not have legal validity.
A decision taken in Pompey's private life had equally unfriendly implications. After Julia's death, Caesar had hoped that his son-in-law would marry a young relative of his. Instead, Pompey chose a member of the Metellus clan, Cornelia, the daughter of a leading conservative, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica. He arranged for his new father-in-law to become his fellow Consul during the last months of his sole term. This demonstrated in the most obvious fashion his rapprochement with the Senate and distancing from Caesar.
At about the same time, Pompey enacted another seemingly innocuous law, which imposed a five-year gap between the holding of a senior office and a subsequent governorship. Candidates for office frequently laid out huge bribes knowing that they could recoup the expenditure a year later by
extorting money from their provinces. An immediate payback was now made impossible. In itself, this was a good reform, but it had unpleasant implications for Caesar. When the Senate came to discuss provincial appointments on the due date of March 50, they would not be allowed to choose from the senior officeholders of 49. They could select anyone who had held the Consulship five or more years previously, and their candidate would thus be free to take over the governorship at once rather than wait till the end of 49. The dangerous gap when Caesar would have no official post and so be liable for criminal prosecution had suddenly reappeared. The only escape from the trap was for Caesar to persuade a Tribune to veto any Senatorial decision to accelerate the appointment process in this wayâsomething which in due course he managed to do. From now on he would have to be more vigilant.