Lælius. I think so too, but yet it is impossible to despatch the other branches of the question, if you leave this primary point undetermined.
XXXVI. Scipio. We must then, I suppose, imitate Aratus, who, when he prepared himself to treat of great things, thought himself in duty bound to begin with Jupiter.
Lælius. Wherefore Jupiter? and what is there in this discussion which resembles that poem?
Scipio. Why, it serves to teach us that we cannot better commence our investigations than by invoking him whom, with one voice, both learned and unlearned extol as the universal king of all gods and men.
How so? said Lælius.
Do you, then, asked Scipio, believe in nothing which is not before your eyes? whether these ideas have been established by the chiefs of states for the benefit of society, that there might be believed to exist one Universal Monarch in heaven, at whose nod (as Homer expresses it) all Olympus trembles, and that he might be accounted both king and father of all creatures; for there is great authority, and there are many witnesses, if you choose to call all many, who attest that all nations have unanimously recognized, by the decrees of their chiefs, that nothing is better than a king, since they think that all the Gods are governed by the divine power of one sovereign; or if we suspect 387that this opinion rests on the error of the ignorant, and should be classed among the fables, let us listen to those universal testimonies of erudite men, who have, as it were, seen with their eyes those things to the knowledge of which we can hardly attain by report.
What men do you mean? said Lælius.
Those, replied Scipio, who, by the investigation of nature, have arrived at the opinion that the whole universe [is animated] by a single Mind311. * * *
XXXVII. But if you please, my Lælius, I will bring forward evidences which are neither too ancient nor in any respect barbarous.
Those, said Lælius, are what I want.
Scipio. You are aware that it is now not four centuries since this city of ours has been without kings.
Lælius. You are correct; it is less than four centuries.
Scipio. Well, then, what are four centuries in the age of a state or city? is it a long time?
Lælius. It hardly amounts to the age of maturity.
Scipio. You say truly; and yet not four centuries have elapsed since there was a king in Rome.
Lælius. And he was a proud king.
Scipio. But who was his predecessor?
Lælius. He was an admirably just one; and, indeed, we must bestow the same praise on all his predecessors as far back as Romulus, who reigned about six centuries ago.
Scipio. Even he, then, is not very ancient.
Lælius. No; he reigned when Greece was already becoming old.
Scipio. Agreed. Was Romulus, then, think you, king of a barbarous people?
Lælius. Why, as to that, if we were to follow the example of the Greeks, who say that all people are either Greeks or barbarians, I am afraid that we must confess that he was a king of barbarians; but if this name belongs rather to manners than to languages, then I believe the Greeks were just as barbarous as the Romans.
Then Scipio said: But with respect to the present question, we do not so much need to inquire into the nation as into the disposition. For if intelligent men, at a period so 388little remote, desired the government of kings, you will confess that I am producing authorities that are neither antiquated, rude, nor insignificant.
XXXVIII. Then Lælius said: I see, Scipio, that you are very sufficiently provided with authorities; but with me, as with every fair judge, authorities are worth less than arguments.
Scipio replied: Then, Lælius, you shall yourself make use of an argument derived from your own senses.
Lælius. What senses do you mean?
Scipio. The feelings which you experience when at any time you happen to feel angry with any one.
Lælius. That happens rather oftener than I could wish.
Scipio. Well, then, when you are angry, do you permit your anger to triumph over your judgment?
No, by Hercules! said Lælius; I imitate the famous Archytas of Tarentum, who, when he came to his villa, and found all its arrangements were contrary to his orders, said to his steward, “Ah! you unlucky scoundrel, I would flog you to death, if it were not that I am in a rage with you.”
Capital, said Scipio. Archytas, then, regarded unreasonable anger as a kind of sedition and rebellion of nature which he sought to appease by reflection. And so, if we examine avarice, the ambition of power or of glory, or the lusts of concupiscence and licentiousness, we shall find a certain conscience in the mind of man, which, like a king, sways by the force of counsel all the inferior faculties and propensities; and this, in truth, is the noblest portion of our nature; for when conscience reigns, it allows no resting-place to lust, violence, or temerity.
Lælius. You have spoken the truth.
Scipio. Well, then, does a mind thus governed and regulated meet your approbation?
Lælius. More than anything upon earth.
Scipio. Then you would not approve that the evil passions, which are innumerable, should expel conscience, and that lusts and animal propensities should assume an ascendency over us?
Lælius. For my part, I can conceive nothing more wretched than a mind thus degraded, or a man animated by a soul so licentious.
389Scipio. You desire, then, that all the faculties of the mind should submit to a ruling power, and that conscience should reign over them all?
Lælius. Certainly, that is my wish.
Scipio. How, then, can you doubt what opinion to form on the subject of the Commonwealth? in which, if the State is thrown into many hands, it is very plain that there will be no presiding authority; for if power be not united, it soon comes to nothing.
XXXIX. Then Lælius asked: But what difference is there, I should like to know, between the one and the many, if justice exists equally in many?
And Scipio said: Since I see, my Lælius, that the authorities I have adduced have no great influence on you, I must continue to employ you yourself as my witness in proof of what I am saying.
In what way, said Lælius, are you going to make me again support your argument?
Scipio. Why, thus: I recollect, when we were lately at Formiæ, that you told your servants repeatedly to obey the orders of more than one master only.
Lælius. To be sure, those of my steward.
Scipio. What do you at home? Do you commit your affairs to the hands of many persons?
Lælius. No, I trust them to myself alone.
Scipio. Well, in your whole establishment, is there any other master but yourself?
Lælius. Not one.
Scipio. Then I think you must grant me that, as respects the State, the government of single individuals, provided they are just, is superior to any other.
Lælius. You have conducted me to this conclusion, and I entertain very nearly that opinion.
XL. And Scipio said: You would still further agree with me, my Lælius, if, omitting the common comparisons, that one pilot is better fitted to steer a ship, and a physician to treat an invalid, provided they be competent men in their respective professions, than many could be, I should come at once to more illustrious examples.
Lælius. What examples do you mean?
Scipio. Do not you observe that it was the cruelty and 390pride of one single Tarquin only that made the title of king unpopular among the Romans?
Lælius. Yes, I acknowledge that.
Scipio. You are also aware of this fact, on which I think I shall debate in the course of the coming discussion, that after the expulsion of King Tarquin, the people was transported by a wonderful excess of liberty. Then innocent men were driven into banishment; then the estates of many individuals were pillaged, consulships were made annual, public authorities were overawed by mobs, popular appeals took place in all cases imaginable; then secessions of the lower orders ensued, and, lastly, those proceedings which tended to place all powers in the hands of the populace.
Lælius. I must confess this is all too true.
All these things now, said Scipio, happened during periods of peace and tranquillity, for license is wont to prevail when there is little to fear, as in a calm voyage or a trifling disease. But as we observe the voyager and the invalid implore the aid of some one competent director, as soon as the sea grows stormy and the disease alarming, so our nation in peace and security commands, threatens, resists, appeals from, and insults its magistrates, but in war obeys them as strictly as kings; for public safety is, after all, rather more valuable than popular license. And in the most serious wars, our countrymen have even chosen the entire command to be deposited in the hands of some single chief, without a colleague; the very name of which magistrate indicates the absolute character of his power. For though he is evidently called dictator because he is appointed (dicitur), yet do we still observe him, my Lælius, in our sacred books entitled Magister Populi (the master of the people).
This is certainly the case, said Lælius.
Our ancestors, therefore, said Scipio, acted wisely.312 * * *
XLI. When the people is deprived of a just king, as Ennius says, after the death of one of the best of monarchs,
They hold his memory dear, and, in the warmth
Of their discourse, they cry, O Romulus!
O prince divine, sprung from the might of Mars
To be thy country’s guardian! O our sire!
Be our protector still, O heaven-begot!
391Not heroes, nor lords alone, did they call those whom they lawfully obeyed; nor merely as kings did they proclaim them; but they pronounced them their country’s guardians, their fathers, and their Gods. Nor, indeed, without cause, for they added,
Thou, Prince, hast brought us to the gates of light.
And truly they believed that life and honor and glory had arisen to them from the justice of their king. The same good-will would doubtless have remained in their descendants, if the same virtues had been preserved on the throne; but, as you see, by the injustice of one man the whole of that kind of constitution fell into ruin.
I see it indeed, said Lælius, 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 392no 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 Lælius, 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 393the 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 Lælius 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 394from 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, Lælius, 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 395us. 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 Lælius has imposed on me.
XLVII. Lælius. 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.