The Republic and The Laws (Oxford World's Classics) (33 page)

Salii
: a highly aristocratic religious fraternity responsible for certain rituals connected with Mars, including ceremonial war-dances, whence the name (
salire
— to jump or dance).

rituals
: ritual formulae had to be recited with absolute precision; if a mistake was made, the whole ritual had to be repeated from the beginning, together with an expiatory sacrifice.

senate house
: the senate-house of the Republic was called the
Curia Hostilia
and was supposed to have been built by Tullus Hostilius. The present building on the site dates from the reign of Diocletian.

place for the people’s assembly
: the Comitium, the open area in front of the senate-house.

fetials
: priests responsible for the rituals of declaring war and concluding treaties; cf.
L
. 2. 21.

lictors
: attendants who walked before the king or, in republican times, the higher magistrates, carrying the
fasces
(bundles of rods) which symbolized regal or magisterial power. Consuls in the Republic were entitled to twelve lictors, as the kings were supposed to have been.

greater families, lesser families
: on the rather shadowy distinction between the ‘greater’ and ‘lesser’ patrician families, see R. E. Mitchell, 134 n. 11 and 153–4.

knights
: see Appendix.

I notice, incidentally, that. . . maintaining them
: this parenthesis explains the origin (via Tarquinius Priscus’ Corinthian father) of a Roman custom of supporting the cavalry by means of a tax on the childless and on unmarried women, doubtless to compensate for the fact that they were not providing manpower (though others take
orhorum et viduarum
to mean ‘widows and orphans’: Nicolet 36–45).
But Livy t.
43. 9 attributes the introduction of this tax (on
viduae
alone) to Servius Tullius, not Tarquinius Priscus, and the present passage in Cicero is the only evidence that such a tax existed at Corinth. In addition to its possibly dubious content, the sentence breaks up the narrative so abruptly as to suggest that it may be an interpolation; see Nicolet 29–31.

twelve hundred
: there is doubt about the number; in Livy 1. 36. 7, which deals with the same event, the number appears in some manuscripts as 1,800, in others as 1,300. Clearly 1,300 is wrong, as the number must be divisible into six equal ‘centuries’. 1,200 is written in our MS as ∞ACCC, i.e.
M ac
(= ‘and’) CC. A correction to ∞DCCC (1,800) would be very easy, but since the reading in Livy is not absolutely certain either, we have retained the MS reading.

Roman Games
: the
Ludi Romani
lasted a fortnight in September.

Jupiter Optimus Maximus
: the temple of Jupiter ‘Best and Greatest’ on the Capitol was the destination of triumphal processions, where captured spoils were dedicated. The letters ‘D.O.M.’
(Deo Optimo Maximo)
in Christian dedicatory inscriptions represent a Renaissance classicizing revival.

a slave
: there may be a connection between the name Servius and the word
servus
, a slave; cf. Cornell 131–2.

official fabrication
: cf. Livy 1. 41, according to whom this episode was masterminded by the queen, Tanaquil.

39: this section is an account of the institution of the
comitia centuriata
, the assembly which elected the higher magistrates throughout the republican period. Cicero clearly brings out the main point in connection with this assembly:
’the preponderance of votes should be in the hands, not of the masses, but of the wealthy.’
The population was divided into ‘classes’ on the basis of individual wealth, as assessed at the five-yearly census. Each ‘class’ contained a certain number of ‘centuries’, each with one vote, but the centuries of the poor were much larger than those of the rich, and the individual votes of the poorer citizens counted for relatively little. The highest class of all was that of the equestrians. To the original six centuries of publicly endowed cavalry established by Tarquinius Priscus (cf. 2. 36) Servius Tullius was supposed to have added twelve more, making eighteen (the number in historical times). The rest of the people, originally the infantry, were divided into five classes. The first class comprised citizens with property valued at 100,000 sesterces or more. According to Livy and Dionysius there were originally eighty centuries in the first class, but in the third century
BC
this was reduced to seventy, to produce a correlation with the new system of thirty-five tribes. It is the newer system that Cicero describes here. The vote of each century was announced openly as it was cast; voting was in descending order of wealth, and stopped as soon as a majority (i.e. 97 centuries out of 193) was reached. Cicero here envisages a situation, apparently not uncommon, in which the first class together with the equestrians and ‘carpenters’ all voted the same way. In such a case, only eight more centuries were needed to secure a majority. The effect was that whenever there was near-unanimity among the rich, the mass of the poorer citizens did not get the chance to vote at all. The centuriate assembly was not only based originally on military organization, but was actually referred to formally as
exercitus
(the army); it met in the Campus Martius, the traditional parade-ground of the Roman people (though civilian dress was worn). The preponderance given to wealth may astound a modern democrat: the Roman argument was that in matters of war and peace, which were originally the main business of this assembly, the views of those with most to gain or lose should carry the greatest weight. Cf. Livy 1. 43; Dion. Hal. 4. 16–18; Cornell 179–97; Staveley 123–9; Taylor (2) 85–106.

original six
: the
sex suffragia
(lit. ‘six votes’) representing the six original equestrian centuries established by Tarquinius Priscus.

carpenters (fabri tignarii)
: they were allotted a separate century, doubtless owing to their special function in the army; it voted with the first class of propertied citizens. Some sources speak of a second century of
fabri
(perhaps metalworkers). There were also special centuries for
accensi
(reservists, who acted as servants when not called for military duties), trumpeters and horn-players, cf. 2. 40 below, but these voted after the fifth class and before the ‘proletarians’.

the total is eighty-nine
: the number 89 must be correct. The manuscript originally read VIIII but the correcting hand added LXXX above the line. It is probable that the word
octoginta
dropped out after the previous word,
data
; the scribe’s eye will have slipped from one word ending in
-ta
to the next.

(
have no say . . . mass of the people
): the construction changes abruptly here, and a gap in the text seems likely; we have supplied a likely restoration of the sense.

assidui
: the word is the same as the ordinary Latin word
assiduus
(whence our ‘assiduous’) and means ‘settled’; but Cicero offers an implausible etymology connecting it with
as
, the name of a coin.

proletarii
: the ‘proletarians’, i.e. all citizens with no property (Cicero’ setymology is right in this case:
proles
‘children’), were all grouped together in a single ‘century’, which voted last of all (and therefore only when the votes of the previous 192 centuries produced a tie).

Fr. t (printed at the end of Book 2) may belong here.

Sparta, and Carthage
: standard examples of the mixed constitution from Aristotle’s
Politics
onwards.

without balance
: the Latin word is
temperata
, ‘tempered’ or ‘controlled’ (cf. 2. 65 and the musical image in 2. 69). It is not clear that Cicero here has a fully developed theory of constitutional ‘checks and balances’, though something more like it emerges in the discussion of tribunes at 2. 57–9 below; and he is certainly not talking about constitutional monarchy in the modern British sense. The main difference between a king like Servius Tullius and a Republican magistrate is the latter’s limited term of office. The Servian constitution could still be subverted by a bad king (as it was by Tarquinius Superbus).

cycle
: cf. above, 1. 45; 1. 64–8.

men who have tried to seize despotic power
: named in the next section. It is almost certain that Tiberius Gracchus was the target of censure in the lost passage that follows. Cf.
Laelius
3 6 ff.

Presumably the argument here is that distribution of power to Senate and people is not in itself enough to prevent a monarchy from turning into a tyranny.

the other figure
: in view of the fragmentary state of the text it is not
altogether clear whether this ‘figure’ is specifically meant to be Brutus (as Zetzel takes it) or is merely a type of the wise statesman, the opposite of a tyrant. Either way, it is used as the means whereby the concept of the ideal statesman is introduced for the first time. As the context makes clear, there was no adequate word for ‘statesman’ in Latin before, and Cicero had recourse to a number of different images (helmsman, guardian, etc.) to convey the idea. Cf. Powell (2).

52: the gap will have contained a summing-up of the regal period. Fr. 2 (printed at the end of Book 2) may belong here, or in the next gap; others place it at 2. 43.

that law
: owing to the gap in the text, it is not at all clear what law there being nis referred to.

‘the people’s friend’
:
Publicola
, Valerius’ surname.

appeal
: the right of appeal
(provocatio)
to the popular assembly against the decision of a magistrate was a vital element of the Roman citizen’s rights. Cicero here argues that the right had existed already in the regal period, although it was embodied explicitly in Valerius Publicola’s law as well as in the later
lex Valeria Horatia
and
leges Porciae
. On
provocatio
in general see Lintott (2) 226–67.

axes to be removed
: the
fasces
(2. 34 above) in historical times contained axes only when the magistrate was exercising his authority outside the walls of Rome.

alternate months
: during the Republic the consuls took it in turns to be attended by the twelve lictors for a month at a time; the consul who came top of the poll usually had the first turn.

Remember . . . authority of the consuls
: these two sentences (one in Latin) interrupt the narrative, and the phrase ‘on so tight a rein’ is puzzling in context. An interpolation may be suspected.

because of one man’s sadistic lust
: this refers to the event described by Livy, 8. 28. The old custom in cases of insolvency was
nexum
, i.e. debt bondage. One Lucius Papirius so maltreated a youth bonded to him on account of an inherited debt that the Senate resolved to abolish the system.

burden
: reading
oneri
(Moser) for MS
generi
.

fines and forfeits
: cf. 2. 16 above.

ten men
: the
decemviri
appointed to draw up the laws of the Twelve (originally Ten) Tables; Cornell 272–6.

Gaius Julius
: Cicero clearly thinks Julius was one of the second set of Decemviri, although Livy (3. 33) places him in the first.

63: a gap of a mere four leaves is left for the end of Scipio’s historical narrative (p. 56). He must have said that the Roman republican constitution reached more or less its present form after the fall of the Decemvirs. This is in tune with Polybius’ statement (6. 11. 1) that the
Roman state was ‘well managed’ from 449
BC
. There is no reason to assume that Cicero’s account depends in detail on a lost portion of Polybius (cf. Walbank 147–8); both writers justifiably took the fall of the Decemvirate as the beginning of continuous republican government. Neither Cicero nor Polybius implies that no improvements could take place thereafter; Polybius explicitly says that the Roman system reached its full perfection only at the time of the Hannibalic War.

model presented by nature
: it is not in the least clear what this image was; speculation is fruitless.

wild beast
: the elephant.

just as with string instruments . . .
: the musical image comes from Plato,
Republic
443 d; the reader should note that ‘harmony’ in ancient musical terminology means what we mean by ‘tuning’, there being no well-developed system of ‘harmony’ in our sense in ancient music. The passage (including some lines that are missing from our MS) is quoted by Augustine,
De Civitate Dei
2. 21, who also provides a summary of the context; the notion of justice as harmony in the state (similar to Plato’s concept of justice in his
Republic
) provided the transitionfrom the theory of constitutions to the debate on justice in the next book.

B
OOK
3

3: part of the preface to the second pair of books. Cicero (speaking in his own person) is discussing the origins of civilization, culminating in the development of the art of politics.

changeless and eternal
: this reflects Platonic conceptions of mathematical entities as belonging to the eternal realm of Ideas.

8: this section introduces the debate on justice between Philus and Laelius. On the reconstruction of the arguments of the two speeches see Ferrary (1) and (2).

you needn’t worry
: reading
verendum (non) est
(Leopardi).

your habit of arguing both sides of a case
: this, if taken at its dramatic face value, implies that Philus followed Academic methods of disputation; whether he did or not, Cicero certainly did.

Carneades
: this refers to the notable deputation of three Greek philosophers to Rome in T55
BC
. Carneades the Academic, Critolaus the Peripatetic, and Diogenes of Babylon, the Stoic, were chosen to plead on behalf of the Athenians for remission of a fine imposed for ill-treatment of the neighbouring community of Oropus. As well as conducting the official business, Carneades also gave public lectures. On one day he argued that justice was indispensable in government; on the following day he argued the contrary case that government was necessarily based on injustice (this second speech, especially coming from an official ambassador, naturally shocked traditionally-minded Romans). This is the inspiration for Cicero’s pair of opposing speeches here, but Cicero has reversed the order so that the case for justice is seen to be the stronger: Cicero’s first speech (that of Philus) is based on Carneades’ second, and Laelius then rebuts the arguments of Philus.