Romans
• Contribution to political thought
• Law & Administration
– Flexibility of Roman law (Republic, Empire,
recuperated after the 15th century to sustain
Absolutist rule, inspired most legal systems in
the West)
• Public/Private realms
750 BC Formation of (Etruscan and Greek) city-states in the Italian peninsula (& Sicily)
735-510 Monarchy in Rome (seven kings)
c.500 – Expulsion of the king – Establishment of the Republic
c. 450 Laws of the Twelve Tables
241-198 First Roman provinces (Sicily, Spain)
168 (end of the Macedonian monarchy) Polybius is brought to Rome
130s Introduction of secret ballot in assemblies
133-122 Gracchi
90-89 Roman citizenship extended throughout Italy
82-1 Dictatorship of Sulla
70 Cicero prosecutes Verres (governor of Sicily)
63-2- Cicero becomes consul
60-59 First Triumvirate (Caesar, Crassus, Pompey)
59 Caesar becomes consul
58 Clodious (tribune)
51-50 Cicero becomes governor of Cilicia and Cyprus
49 Caesar crosses Rubicon River, invades Italy and becomes consul and dictator (48)
(Pompey leaves and is killed in Egypt)
46 Caesar consul and dictator for 10 years
44 Caesar is made perpetual dictator and… assassinated
43-30- Antony vs. Octavian
30 Octavian invades Alexandria; Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide; Egypt
becomes a Roman province
27 Octavian becomes Emperor Augustus
Roman Republic (509 B.C. to 44, 31, 27 B.C.):
Main Institutions
Senate (patricians)
Deliberative body
Assemblies
(legislative, judicial, and
Electoral functions
Tribunes (plebeians)
Consuls (2) (+praetor)
Immunity, imperium, veto
(494 B.C.)
In 88 B.C. Sulla disempowered the popular assemblies (ex: created a judiciary)
Polybius’ interpretation
(misses the assemblies)
Consuls
Senate Tribunes
Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
Born in a wealthy but plebeian family (landed gentry)
Studied philosophy (Athens & Rhodes 79-77 B.C.) and law in Rome
Influenced by the Greek philosophers and Stoicism
Looked back into the past thinking of how to restore the Republic (which
was collapsing under the expansion of Rome)
Aristocrat against popular rule and the democratic party
75 B.C. Quaestor in Sicily (quaestors supervised state finances and had
seats in the Senate)
69 B. C. Aedile
66 B. C. Praetor
63 B. C. Consul
62 B. C. Cicero testifies against Clodius (democratic leader)
58 B. C. Cicero leaves Rome – Clodius declares him exiled
57 B. C. Recalled from exile
51 B. C. Proconsul of Cilicia (until middle of following year)
De Republica, De Legibus
43 B. C. Cicero (and Quintus) proscribed and killed
Hegemony
Plato Aristotle Polybius Cicero
Athens Macedon Rome
Hellenism
The Roman Empire
Cicero’s Works
• Laws (De Legibus) and the Republic (De
Republica, preserved in parts)
– Book VI (Scipio’s dream while being in Africa)
• Many Discourses
– Cicero’s discourses are still a classical
reference in rhetoric
• judicial genre (accusing and defending)
• deliberative genre (the genre of parliamentary and
popular politics)
• demonstrative genre (ceremonies)
Cicero Homepage
http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Cic.html#Images
Philosophy + Law (+ Rhetoric)
• Men are naturally gifted for virtue
• (but) Virtue needs to be practiced/used, and
“its noblest use is the government of the State,
and the realization in fact… of those very
things that the philosophers… are
continuously dinning in our ears. For there is
no principle enunciated by the
philosophers—at least none that is just and
honourable—that has not been discovered
and established by those who have drawn
up codes of law for States.” (131)
• Virtue (prudentia) is linked to rhetoric.
Turning virtue & wisdom into law:
• “Therefore the citizen who compels all
men, by the authority of magistrates and
the penalties imposed by law… to follow
[the philosophers’] rules… must be
considered superior even to the teachers
who enunciated these principles. For what
speech of theirs is excellent enough to be
preferred to a State well provided with law
and custom?” (132)
The philosopher/the statesman
• “For if the philosophers are repaid for the
dangers of travel by the knowledge they
gain, statesmen surely win a much greater
reward int he gratitude of their fellow-
citizens.” (132)
(Against Epicurean) philosophers
• “How can it be reasonable, therefore, for
them to promise to aid the State in case
they are compelled by an emergency to do
so, when they do not know how to rule the
State when no emergency threatens it,
though this is a much easier task than the
other?” (133)
Citizens must engage public life…
• Because it is a duty towards the country.
• “…not to be ruled by wicked men and not
to allow the republic to be destroyed by
them…” (133)
Commonwealth
• “…a commonwealth is the property of a people.
But a people is not any collection of human
beings… but an assemblage of people in large
numbers associated in an agreement with
respect to justice and a partnership for the
common good.” (134)
• “For what is a State except an association or
partnership in justice…?” (136)
– Foundation of the city
Origins of the Commonwealth
“The first cause of such an association… [is
the] social spirit which nature has
implanted in man.” (134)
Auctoritas (the city)
• Foundation
• “For there is really no other occupation in which
human virtue approaches more closely the
august function of the gods than that of
founding States or preserving those already
in existence.” (134)
• Auctoritas/imperium
• Auctoritas—auctor—based upon the foundation
of the city of Rome (magistrates did not use
force… they were invested with auctoritas)
Natural Equality
• “…if bad habits and false beliefs did not
twist the weaker minds… all men would be
like all others. … there is no difference in
kind between man and man…” (139)
• “…there is no human being of any race
who, if he finds a guide, cannot attain to
virtue.” (137)
Translates into legal equality…
• “For if we cannot agree to equalize men’s
wealth, and equality of innate ability is
impossible, the legal rights at least of
those who are citizens of the same
commonwealth ought to be equal.”
(136)
Law
• “True law is right reason in agreement
with nature; it is of universal
application, unchanging and
everlasting…” (138)
Justice
• “Justice is one; it binds all human society, and is based
on one Law, which is right reason applied to command
and prohibition. Whoever knows not this Law, whether it
has been recorded in writing anywhere or not, is without
justice.” (139)
• “…the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law a silent
magistrate..” (140)
• If all men knew the Law, we all would live in peace and
friendship with each other, which originate “in our natural
inclination to love our fellow-men” (139) which lies at the
foundation of Justice
Universal Commonwealth of God/s
& Men
• “...since there is nothing better than reason, and
since it exists both in man and God, the first
common possession of man and God is
reason. But those who have reason in common
must also have right reason in common. And
since right reason is Law, we must believe that
men have Law also in common with the gods.
Further, those who share Law must also share
Justice… Hence we must now conceive of this
whole universe as one commonwealth of
which both gods and men are members.” (138)