Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
one individual's perpetual power, and justice, and universal wisdom
should regulate the safety, equality, and tranquillity of the whole
people. But many privileges must be wanting to communities that live
under a king; and, in the first place, liberty, which does not consist
in slavery to a just master, but in slavery to no master at all[323]
* * *
XXIV. * * * [Let us now pass on to the reign of the seventh and last
king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus.] And even this unjust and cruel
master had good fortune for his companion for some time in all his
enterprises. For he subdued all Latium; he captured Suessa Pometia, a
powerful and wealthy city, and, becoming possessed of an immense spoil
of gold and silver, he accomplished his father's vow by the building of
the Capitol. He established colonies, and, faithful to the institutions
of those from whom he sprung, he sent magnificent presents, as tokens
of gratitude for his victories, to Apollo at Delphi.
XXV. Here begins the revolution of our political system of government,
and I must beg your attention to its natural course and progression.
For the grand point of political science, the object of our discourses,
is to know the march and the deviations of governments, that when we
are acquainted with the particular courses and inclinations of
constitutions, we may be able to restrain them from their fatal
tendencies, or to oppose adequate obstacles to their decline and fall.
For this Tarquinius Superbus, of whom I am speaking, being first of all
stained with the blood of his admirable predecessor on the throne,
could not be a man of sound conscience and mind; and as he feared
himself the severest punishment for his enormous crime, he sought his
protection in making himself feared. Then, in the glory of his
victories and his treasures, he exulted in insolent pride, and could
neither regulate his own manners nor the passions of the members of his
family.
When, therefore, his eldest son had offered violence to Lucretia,
daughter of Tricipitinus and wife of Collatinus, and this chaste and
noble lady had stabbed herself to death on account of the injury she
could not survive--then a man eminent for his genius and virtue, Lucius
Brutus, dashed from his fellow-citizens this unjust yoke of odious
servitude; and though he was but a private man, he sustained the
government of the entire Commonwealth, and was the first that taught
the people in this State that no one was a private man when the
preservation of our liberties was concerned. Beneath his authority and
command our city rose against tyranny, and, stirred by the recent grief
of the father and relatives of Lucretia, and with the recollections of
Tarquin's haughtiness, and the numberless crimes of himself and his
sons, they pronounced sentence of banishment against him and his
children, and the whole race of the Tarquins.
XXVI. Do you not observe, then, how the king sometimes degenerates into
the despot, and how, by the fault of one individual, a form of
government originally good is abused to the worst of purposes? Here is
a specimen of that despot over the people whom the Greeks denominate a
tyrant. For, according to them, a king is he who, like a father,
consults the interests of his people, and who preserves those whom he
is set over in the very best condition of life. This indeed is, as I
have said, an excellent form of government, yet still liable, and, as
it were, inclined, to a pernicious abuse. For as soon as a king assumes
an unjust and despotic power, he instantly becomes a tyrant, than which
nothing baser or fouler, than which no imaginable animal can be more
detestable to gods or men; for though in form a man, he surpasses the
most savage monsters in ferocious cruelty. For who can justly call him
a human being, who admits not between himself and his
fellow-countrymen, between himself and the whole human race, any
communication of justice, any association of kindness? But we shall
find some fitter occasion of speaking of the evils of tyranny when the
subject itself prompts us to declare against them who, even in a state
already liberated, have affected these despotic insolencies.
XXVII. Such is the first origin and rise of a tyrant. For this was the
name by which the Greeks choose to designate an unjust king; and by the
title king our Romans universally understand every man who exercises
over the people a perpetual and undivided domination. Thus Spurius
Cassius, and Marcus Manlius, and Spurius Maelius, are said to have
wished to seize upon the kingly power, and lately [Tiberius Gracchus
incurred the same accusation].[324] * * *
XXVIII. * * * [Lycurgus, in Sparta, formed, under the name of Elders,]
a small council consisting of twenty-eight members only; to these he
allotted the supreme legislative authority, while the king held the
supreme executive authority. Our Romans, emulating his example, and
translating his terms, entitled those whom he had called Elders,
Senators, which, as we have said, was done by Romulus in reference to
the elect patricians. In this constitution, however, the power, the
influence, and name of the king is still pre-eminent. You may
distribute, indeed, some show of power to the people, as Lycurgus and
Romulus did, but you inflame them, with the thirst of liberty by
allowing them even the slightest taste of its sweetness; and still
their hearts will be overcast with alarm lest their king, as often
happens, should become unjust. The prosperity of the people, therefore,
can be little better than fragile, when placed at the disposal of any
one individual, and subjected to his will and caprices.
XXIX. Thus the first example, prototype, and original of tyranny has
been discovered by us in the history of our own Roman State,
religiously founded by Romulus, without applying to the theoretical
Commonwealth which, according to Plato's recital, Socrates was
accustomed to describe in his peripatetic dialogues. We have observed
Tarquin, not by the usurpation of any new power, but by the unjust
abuse of the power which he already possessed, overturn the whole
system of our monarchical constitution.
Let us oppose to this example of the tyrant another, a virtuous
king--wise, experienced, and well informed respecting the true interest
and dignity of the citizens--a guardian, as it were, and superintendent
of the Commonwealth; for that is a proper name for every ruler and
governor of a state. And take you care to recognize such a man when you
meet him, for he is the man who, by counsel and exertion, can best
protect the nation. And as the name of this man has not yet been often
mentioned in our discourse, and as the character of such a man must be
often alluded to in our future conversations, [I shall take an early
opportunity of describing it.][325] * * *
XXX. * * * [Plato has chosen to suppose a territory and establishments
of citizens, whose fortunes] were precisely equal. And he has given us
a description of a city, rather to be desired than expected; and he has
made out not such a one as can really exist, but one in which the
principles of political affairs may be discerned. But for me, if I can
in any way accomplish it, while I adopt the same general principles as
Plato, I am seeking to reduce them to experience and practice, not in
the shadow and picture of a state, but in a real and actual
Commonwealth, of unrivalled amplitude and power; in order to be able to
point out, with the most graphic precision, the causes of every
political good and social evil.
For after Rome had flourished more than two hundred and forty years
under her kings and interreges, and after Tarquin was sent into
banishment, the Roman people conceived as much detestation of the name
of king as they had once experienced regret at the death, or rather
disappearance, of Romulus. Therefore, as in the first instance they
could hardly bear the idea of losing a king, so in the latter, after
the expulsion of Tarquin, they could not endure to hear the name of a
king.[326] * * *
XXXI. * * * Therefore, when that admirable constitution of Romulus had
lasted steadily about two hundred and forty years. * * * The whole of
that law was abolished. In this humor, our ancestors banished
Collatinus, in spite of his innocence, because of the suspicion that
attached to his family, and all the rest of the Tarquins, on account of
the unpopularity of their name. In the same humor, Valerius Publicola
was the first to lower the fasces before the people, when he spoke in
the assembly of the people. He also had the materials of his house
conveyed to the foot of Mount Velia, having observed that the
commencement of his edifice on the summit of this hill, where King
Tullius had once dwelt, excited the suspicions of the people.
It was the same man, who in this respect pre-eminently deserved the
name of Publicola, who carried in favor of the people the first law
received in the Comitia Centuriata, that no magistrate should sentence
to death or scourging a Roman citizen who appealed from his authority
to the people. And the pontifical books attest that the right of appeal
had existed, even against the decision of the kings. Our augural books
affirm the same thing. And the Twelve Tables prove, by a multitude of
laws, that there was a right of appeal from every judgment and penalty.
Besides, the historical fact that the decemviri who compiled the laws
were created with the privilege of judging without appeal, sufficiently
proves that the other magistrates had not the same power. And a
consular law, passed by Lucius Valerius Politus and Marcus Horatius
Barbatus, men justly popular for promoting union and concord, enacted
that no magistrate should thenceforth be appointed with authority to
judge without appeal; and the Portian laws, the work of three citizens
of the name of Portius, as you are aware, added nothing new to this
edict but a penal sanction.
Therefore Publicola, having promulgated this law in favor of appeal to
the people, immediately ordered the axes to be removed from the fasces,
which the lictors carried before the consuls, and the next day
appointed Spurius Lucretius for his colleague. And as the new consul
was the oldest of the two, Publicola ordered his lictors to pass over
to him; and he was the first to establish the rule, that each of the
consuls should be preceded by the lictors in alternate months, that
there should be no greater appearance of imperial insignia among the
free people than they had witnessed in the days of their kings. Thus,
in my opinion, he proved himself no ordinary man, as, by so granting
the people a moderate degree of liberty, he more easily maintained the
authority of the nobles.
Nor is it without reason that I have related to you these ancient and
almost obsolete events; but I wished to adduce my instances of men and
circumstances from illustrious persons and times, as it is to such
events that the rest of my discourse will be directed.
XXXII. At that period, then, the senate preserved the Commonwealth in
such a condition that though the people were really free, yet few acts
were passed by the people, but almost all, on the contrary, by the
authority, customs, and traditions of the senate. And over all the
consuls exercised a power--in time, indeed, only annual, but in nature
and prerogative completely royal.
The consuls maintained, with the greatest energy, that rule which so
much conduces to the power of our nobles and great men, that the acts
of the commons of the people shall not be binding, unless the authority
of the patricians has approved them. About the same period, and
scarcely ten years after the first consuls, we find the appointment of
the dictator in the person of Titus Lartius. And this new kind of