Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
I see it indeed, said Laelius, and I long to know the history of these
political revolutions both in our own Commonwealth and in every other.
XLII. And Scipio said: When I shall have explained my opinion
respecting the form of government which I prefer, I shall be able to
speak to you more accurately respecting the revolutions of states,
though I think that such will not take place so easily in the mixed
form of government which I recommend. With respect, however, to
absolute monarchy, it presents an inherent and invincible tendency to
revolution. No sooner does a king begin to be unjust than this entire
form of government is demolished, and he at once becomes a tyrant,
which is the worst of all governments, and one very closely related to
monarchy. If this State falls into the hands of the nobles, which is
the usual course of events, it becomes an aristocracy, or the second of
the three kinds of constitutions which I have described; for it is, as
it were, a royal--that is to say, a paternal--council of the chief men
of the State consulting for the public benefit. Or if the people by
itself has expelled or slain a tyrant, it is moderate in its conduct as
long as it has sense and wisdom, and while it rejoices in its exploit,
and applies itself to maintaining the constitution which it has
established. But if ever the people has raised its forces against a
just king and robbed him of his throne, or, as has frequently happened,
has tasted the blood of its legitimate nobles, and subjected the whole
Commonwealth to its own license, you can imagine no flood or
conflagration so terrible, or any whose violence is harder to appease
than this unbridled insolence of the populace.
XLIII. Then we see realized that which Plato so vividly describes, if I
can but express it in our language. It is by no means easy to do it
justice in translation: however, I will try.
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. I dare say you recollect the
passage.
Yes, said Laelius, it is familiar to me.
_Scipio._ Plato thus proceeds: Then those who feel in duty bound to
obey the chiefs of the State are persecuted by the insensate populace,
who call them voluntary slaves. But those who, though invested with
magistracies, wish to be considered on an equality with private
individuals, and those private individuals who labor to abolish all
distinctions between their own class and the magistrates, are extolled
with acclamations and overwhelmed with honors, so that it inevitably
happens in a commonwealth thus revolutionized that liberalism abounds
in all directions, due authority is found wanting even in private
families, and misrule seems to extend even to the animals that witness
it. 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.
Then Laelius said: You have very accurately rendered the opinions which
he expressed.
XLIV. _Scipio._ Now, to return to the argument of my discourse. It
appears that this extreme license, which is the only liberty in the
eyes of the vulgar, is, according to Plato, such that from it as a sort
of root tyrants naturally arise and spring up. For as the excessive
power of an aristocracy occasions the destruction of the nobles, so
this excessive liberalism of democracies brings after it the slavery of
the people. Thus we find in the weather, the soil, and the animal
constitution the most favorable conditions are sometimes suddenly
converted by their excess into the contrary, and this fact is
especially observable in political governments; and this excessive
liberty soon brings the people collectively and individually to an
excessive servitude. For, as I said, this extreme liberty easily
introduces the reign of tyranny, the severest of all unjust slaveries.
In fact, from the midst of this unbridled and capricious populace, they
elect some one as a leader in opposition to their afflicted and
expelled nobles: some new chief, forsooth, audacious and impure, often
insolently persecuting those who have deserved well of the State, and
ready to gratify the populace at his neighbor's expense as well as his
own. Then, since the private condition is naturally exposed to fears
and alarms, the people invest him with many powers, and these are
continued in his hands. Such men, like Pisistratus of Athens, will soon
find an excuse for surrounding themselves with body-guards, and they
will conclude by becoming tyrants over the very persons who raised them
to dignity. If such despots perish by the vengeance of the better
citizens, as is generally the case, the constitution is re-established;
but if they fall by the hands of bold insurgents, then the same faction
succeeds them, which is only another species of tyranny. And the same
revolution arises from the fair system of aristocracy when any
corruption has betrayed the nobles from the path of rectitude. Thus the
power is like the ball which is flung from hand to hand: it passes from
kings to tyrants, from tyrants to the aristocracy, from them to
democracy, and from these back again to tyrants and to factions; and
thus the same kind of government is seldom long maintained.
XLV. Since these are the facts of experience, royalty is, in my
opinion, very far preferable to the three other kinds of political
constitutions. But it is itself inferior to that which is composed of
an equal mixture of the three best forms of government, united and
modified by one another. I wish to establish in a commonwealth a royal
and pre-eminent chief. Another portion of power should be deposited in
the hands of the aristocracy, and certain things should be reserved to
the judgment and wish of the multitude. This constitution, in the first
place, possesses that great equality without which men cannot long
maintain their freedom; secondly, it offers a great stability, 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. In this united and mixed
constitution, however, similar disasters cannot happen without the
greatest vices in public men. For there can be little to occasion
revolution in a state in which every person is firmly established in
his appropriate rank, and there are but few modes of corruption into
which we can fall.
XLVI. But I fear, Laelius, and you, my amiable and learned friends, that
if I were to dwell any longer on this argument, my words would seem
rather like the lessons of a master, and not like the free conversation
of one who is uniting with you in the consideration of truth. I shall
therefore pass on to those things which are familiar to all, and which
I have long studied. And in these matters I believe, I feel, and I
affirm that of all governments there is none which, either in its
entire constitution or the distribution of its parts, or in the
discipline of its manners, is comparable to that which our fathers
received from our earliest ancestors, and which they have handed down
to us. And since you wish to hear from me a development of this
constitution, with which you are all acquainted, I shall endeavor to
explain its true character and excellence. Thus keeping my eye fixed on
the model of our Roman Commonwealth, I shall endeavor to accommodate to
it all that I have to say on the best form of government. And by
treating the subject in this way, I think I shall be able to accomplish
most satisfactorily the task which Laelius has imposed on me.
XLVII. _Laelius._ It is a task most properly and peculiarly your own, my
Scipio; for who can speak so well as you either on the subject of the
institutions of our ancestors, since you yourself are descended from
most illustrious ancestors, or on that of the best form of a
constitution which, if we possess (though at this moment we do not,
still), when we do possess such a thing, who will be more flourishing
in it than you? or on that of providing counsels for the future, as
you, who, by dispelling two mighty perils from our city, have provided
for its safety forever?
FRAGMENTS.
XLVIII. 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. * * *
Nor would Carthage have continued to flourish during six centuries
without wisdom and good institutions. * * *
In truth, says Cicero, 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.
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND BOOK,
BY THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATOR.
In this second book of his Commonwealth, Cicero gives us a
spirited and eloquent review of the history and successive
developments of the Roman constitution. He bestows the
warmest praises on its early kings, points out the great
advantages which had resulted from its primitive monarchical
system, and explains how that system had been gradually
broken up. In order to prove the importance of reviving it,
he gives a glowing picture of the evils and disasters that
had befallen the Roman State in consequence of that
overcharge of democratic folly and violence which had
gradually gained an alarming preponderance, and describes,
with a kind of prophetic sagacity, the fruit of his political
experience, the subsequent revolutions of the Roman State,
which such a state of things would necessarily bring about.
BOOK II.
I. [When, therefore, he observed all his friends kindled with the
de]sire of hearing him, Scipio thus opened the discussion. I will
commence, said Scipio, with a sentiment of old Cato, whom, as you know,
I singularly loved and exceedingly admired, and to whom, in compliance
with the judgment of both my parents, and also by my own desire, I was
entirely devoted during my youth; of whose discourse, indeed, I could
never have enough, so much experience did he possess as a statesman
respecting the republic which he had so long governed, both in peace
and war, with so much success. There was also an admirable propriety in
his style of conversation, in which wit was tempered with gravity; a