Book 2

SECTION 1

Chapter 1

When everyone burned with eagerness to listen, Scipio began to speak as follows: “This is a saying of old Cato, whom, as you know, I loved beyond all others and most deeply admired, and to whom from my youth I devoted myself entirely, both in deference to the judgment of my two fathers and from my own inclination. I could never have enough of his conversation. Such was his experience of public affairs, which he had managed both at home and in war with supreme distinction and for a very long time; such his restraint in speaking, his charm mingled with gravity, his utmost eagerness both to learn and to teach, and the perfect harmony of his life with his words.”

SECTION 2

“He used to say that our state’s constitution surpassed those of other states for this reason: in those states there had generally been single men who each established their commonwealth through laws and institutions of their own—Minos for the Cretans, Lycurgus for the Spartans; for the Athenians, whose constitution had changed so often, first Theseus, then Draco, then Solon, then Cleisthenes, then many others, and finally the learned Demetrius of Phalerum, who had sustained it when it was already bloodless and prostrate. Our commonwealth, by contrast, had been established not by one man’s genius but by many, not in one human lifetime but through several centuries and generations. For, he said, no human mind had ever been so great that nothing escaped it; nor could all the geniuses assembled in one place foresee so much at a single moment that they could embrace everything without experience and the passage of time.”

SECTION 3

“Therefore, as he used to do, my account will now retrace the ‘origin’ of the people; I am glad to use even Cato’s word. I shall achieve our purpose more readily if I show you our commonwealth being born, growing, reaching maturity, and finally strong and vigorous, than if I invent one for myself, as Socrates does in Plato.”

SECTION 4

Chapter 2

When everyone had approved this, he said, “What foundation of an established commonwealth do we possess as glorious and as universally known as the beginning of this city’s founding, proceeding from Romulus? His father was Mars—for let us yield this much to human tradition, especially one not only long established but wisely handed down by our ancestors: that those who had served the common good well should be thought divine in descent as well as genius. He, then, as soon as he was born, is said to have been ordered, with his brother Remus, to be exposed beside the Tiber by Amulius, the Alban king, who feared the undermining of his throne. There, after he had been sustained at a wild beast’s teats and shepherds had taken him up and nourished him amid rustic labor and living, he is reported, on growing to manhood, to have surpassed all others so greatly in bodily strength and fierceness of spirit that all who then inhabited the fields where this city stands today willingly and readily obeyed him. Taking command of their forces—to pass now from legends to deeds—he is said to have overcome Alba Longa, a strong and powerful city in those days, and killed King Amulius.”

SECTION 5

Chapter 3

“Having won this glory, he is said first to have conceived the plan of founding a city under favorable auspices and establishing a commonwealth. For the city he chose a site of extraordinary advantage, something demanding the most careful foresight from anyone attempting to plant a lasting commonwealth. For he did not bring it down to the sea, although with that band and those forces it would have been very easy to advance into the territory of the Rutulians and Aborigines, or to found his city at the Tiber’s mouth, where many years later King Ancus settled a colony. Rather, this man of outstanding foresight perceived and understood that coastal sites were not the most advantageous for cities founded in the hope of endurance and empire: first, because coastal cities were exposed to many dangers, and dangers unseen.”

SECTION 6

“For the mainland gives advance warning of an enemy’s approach, not only when expected but even when sudden, by many signs, by a kind of rumbling and by the very sound. No enemy can swoop upon us by land without our being able to know not only that he is there but who he is and where he comes from. But an enemy coming by sea in ships can be upon us before anyone can suspect that he will come. Nor, when he arrives, does he display who he is, where he comes from, or even what he wants; in short, there is not even any sign by which we can distinguish and judge whether he is peaceful or hostile.”

SECTION 7

Chapter 4

“There is also a certain corruption and alteration of character in coastal cities. They mingle with new languages and teachings; not only foreign goods are imported, but foreign ways, so that nothing in their ancestral institutions can remain untainted. Moreover, those who inhabit these cities do not cling to their own homes, but are always swept farther from home by winged hopes and thoughts. Even when they remain in body, in spirit they are exiles and wanderers. Indeed, nothing did more to overthrow Carthage and Corinth at last, after long undermining them, than this wandering and dispersal of their citizens: through their passion for trade and seafaring they had abandoned the cultivation of their fields and the practice of arms.”

SECTION 8

“The sea also supplies many enticements to luxury, destructive to states, whether taken from it or imported; and its very beauty offers many alluring invitations to costly or idle pleasures. What I have said of Corinth might, I am inclined to think, be said with the greatest truth of all Greece. For the Peloponnese itself is almost entirely surrounded by sea, and no people there except the Phliasians has territory that does not touch the sea; outside the Peloponnese, only the Aenianes, Doris, and the Dolopes lie away from it. Why speak of the Greek islands? Girdled by waves, they almost seem themselves to float, together with the institutions and customs of their states.”

SECTION 9

“These remarks, as I said above, concern old Greece. But of the colonies the Greeks settled in Asia, Thrace, Italy, Sicily, and Africa, which, except Magnesia alone, is not washed by the waves? Thus a kind of Greek fringe seems woven along the territories of the barbarians. For among the barbarians themselves none formerly were seafaring except the Etruscans and Carthaginians, the latter for trade, the former for piracy. Here is an evident cause of Greece’s troubles and revolutions, arising from those faults of coastal cities I touched on very briefly a little earlier. Yet among these faults lies that great advantage: whatever is produced anywhere can float to the city you inhabit, and, in turn, whatever their own fields yield they can carry and send to any lands they wish.”

SECTION 10

Chapter 5

“How, then, could Romulus have shown more divine insight in embracing the advantages of the sea and avoiding its faults than by placing his city on the bank of an ever-flowing, steady river, pouring into the sea through a broad mouth? Through it the city could receive from the sea what it needed and return what it had in excess; and by the same river it could †draw in the things most necessary for nourishment and civilized life, not only from the sea, but also receive them brought down from inland. Thus he seems to me to have divined even then that this city would one day furnish a seat and home for the greatest empire. For scarcely could a city situated in any other part of Italy have more readily maintained this immense dominion over affairs.”

SECTION 11

Chapter 6

“As for the natural defenses of the city itself, who is so heedless as not to have marked them in his mind and thoroughly understood them? The course and line of its wall were determined by the wisdom both of Romulus and of the other kings, along steep and precipitous hills on every side, so that the single approach between the Esquiline and Quirinal hills was enclosed by an immense ditch, with a great rampart thrown across it. And the citadel was so fortified, resting on a steep circuit of rock almost sheerly cut away, that even in that terrible storm of the Gallic invasion it remained safe and untouched. He also chose a place abundant in springs and healthy in an unhealthy region: for its hills are themselves swept by breezes, and bring shade to the valleys.”

SECTION 12

Chapter 7

“All this he accomplished very quickly. He established the city, which he ordered to be called Rome after his own name; and to strengthen the new state he followed a novel and somewhat rustic plan, yet one befitting a great man, even then looking far ahead to secure the resources of his kingdom and people. For at the Consualia he ordered the abduction of Sabine maidens of honorable birth who had come to Rome for the games, which he had then first instituted as an annual celebration in the circus; and he gave them in marriage into the most eminent families.”

SECTION 13

“When the Sabines consequently made war on the Romans, and the contest of battle had been shifting and uncertain, he made a treaty with Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, at the entreaty of the very women who had been abducted. By this treaty he admitted the Sabines to citizenship, making their sacred rites common, and shared his kingdom with their king.”

SECTION 14

Chapter 8

“After Tatius’s death, all sovereignty returned to him. Together with Tatius he had already chosen leading men for the royal council, who were called ‘fathers’ from affection, and had divided the people into three tribes and thirty curiae, under his own name, Tatius’s, and that of Lucumo, who had fallen as Romulus’s ally in the Sabine battle. The curiae he named after those Sabine maidens who, after their abduction, had become petitioners for peace and a treaty. Yet although these divisions had been made while Tatius lived, after he was killed, Romulus governed still more through the fathers’ authority and counsel.”

SECTION 15

Chapter 9

“In doing so, he first perceived and judged the same thing that Lycurgus had perceived a little earlier at Sparta: states are better governed and ruled under a single command and royal power if the authority of all the best men is joined to that sovereign force. Accordingly, supported and fortified by this council, a kind of senate, he fought many wars against his neighbors with the greatest success; and although he brought none of the spoils back to his own house, he never ceased enriching his fellow citizens.”

SECTION 16

“Then Romulus paid the greatest heed to the auspices, a practice we preserve today to the great benefit of the commonwealth. For he himself founded the city under favorable auspices, and that was the beginning of the commonwealth; and for the inauguration of all public undertakings he co-opted one augur from each tribe to assist him with the auspices. He also divided the plebs into groups under the patronage of the leading men—how useful this was I shall consider later—and restrained them by imposing fines in sheep and cattle, not by violence and executions. For wealth then consisted in livestock and the possession of land, hence the names pecuniosi, ‘wealthy,’ and locupletes, ‘land-rich.’”

SECTION 17

Chapter 10

“After Romulus had reigned thirty-seven years and created these two outstanding supports of the commonwealth, the auspices and the senate, he attained such distinction that, when he disappeared during a sudden darkening of the sun, he was believed to have been placed among the gods. No mortal has ever been able to win that belief without an extraordinary reputation for virtue.”

SECTION 18

“This is all the more remarkable in Romulus because the others who are said to have become gods from men lived in less educated ages, so that invention had an easy path, since the ignorant could readily be induced to believe. But we see that Romulus’s age was less than six hundred years ago, when letters and learning were already long established, and all that ancient error arising from humanity’s uncultivated life had been dispelled. For if, as investigation of the Greek annals shows, Rome was founded in the second year of the seventh Olympiad, Romulus’s lifetime fell in an age when Greece was already full of poets and musicians, and less credence was given to fables unless they concerned ancient events. For the first Olympiad was established a hundred and eight years after Lycurgus began to frame his laws; some, through a mistake of names, think it was founded by that same Lycurgus. And those who place Homer latest put him about thirty years before the age of Lycurgus.”

SECTION 19

“From this we can understand that Homer lived very many years before Romulus, so that, with people already learned and the times themselves educated, there was scarcely any room for invention. For antiquity accepted tales invented even, at times,

SECTION 19(fr)

(August. C.D. 22.6) “clumsily; but this already cultivated age, especially scoffing at everything impossible, rejected them.”

SECTION 20

“[…]us, his grandson, as some have said, through a daughter. In the very year in which he died, Simonides was born, in the fifty-sixth Olympiad, so that it can be understood more readily that Romulus’s immortality was believed in when human life was already long established, examined, and understood. But surely so great was the force of his genius and virtue that Julius Proculus, a countryman, was believed when he said of Romulus what for many centuries before people had believed of no other mortal. At the urging of the fathers, to divert from themselves the odium of Romulus’s death, he is said to have declared in an assembly that Romulus had appeared to him on the hill now called the Quirinal; that Romulus had charged him to ask the people to build him a shrine on that hill; and that he was a god and was called Quirinus.”

SECTION 21

Chapter 11

“Do you see, then, that through one man’s judgment a new people was not merely born and left crying in its cradle, but was already grown and almost of age?” Then Laelius said, “We certainly do; and you have begun your discussion by a new method, found nowhere in the Greeks’ books. For their foremost writer, whom no one has surpassed in writing, took a site for himself on which to build a state at his own discretion—splendid, perhaps, but alien to human life and customs,

SECTION 22

“while the rest discussed the types and principles of states without any definite model or form of commonwealth. You seem to me about to do both. For you have begun in such a way that you prefer to attribute your own discoveries to others rather than invent them yourself, as Socrates does in Plato; you refer to a rational plan those matters concerning the city’s site that Romulus carried out by chance or necessity; and your discussion does not roam at large, but is fixed upon a single commonwealth. Go on, then, as you have begun; for, as you follow the remaining kings, I seem already to glimpse a commonwealth almost complete.”

SECTION 23

Chapter 12

“Then,” said Scipio, “when that senate of Romulus, consisting of the best men, to whom the king himself had accorded so much that he wished them to be named fathers and their children patricians, tried after Romulus’s departure to govern the commonwealth itself without a king, the people would not endure it. Longing for Romulus, it thereafter never ceased demanding a king. Then those leading men wisely devised a new method of entering an interregnum, unheard of among other nations, so that until a definite king had been declared the state should neither be without a king nor have one king for long. They would not allow anyone, through long-established power, to become either slower to lay down his command or better fortified to retain it.”

SECTION 24

“Even then, that new people saw what escaped the Spartan Lycurgus: he thought that a king should not be chosen—if indeed this could have been within Lycurgus’s power—but that whoever was born of Hercules’ stock must be accepted, whatever he might be like. Our people, still rustic even then, saw that royal virtue and wisdom, not ancestry, should be sought.”

SECTION 25

Chapter 13

“Since report said that Numa Pompilius excelled in these qualities, the people itself, passing over its own citizens, chose a foreigner for its king on the fathers’ recommendation, and summoned this Sabine from Cures to Rome to reign. When he arrived, although the people had ordered in the assembly of the curiae that he should be king, he nevertheless himself brought before the curiae a law concerning his own command. And when he saw the Romans inflamed with martial zeal by Romulus’s training, he judged that they should be drawn back a little from that habit.”

SECTION 26

Chapter 14

“First he divided among the citizens, man by man, the lands Romulus had captured in war, and taught them that by cultivating their fields they could abound in every comfort without devastation and plunder. He instilled in them a love of leisure and peace, through which justice and good faith most readily grow strong, and under whose protection the cultivation of the fields and the gathering of crops are most securely defended. This same Pompilius, after devising the greater auspices, added two augurs to the original number and set five pontiffs, drawn from the leading men, over the sacred rites. By proposing those laws that we have in our records, he softened through religious ceremonies minds burning with the habit and desire of war. He added, besides, the flamens, the Salii, and the Vestal Virgins, and established every branch of religion with the utmost reverence.”

SECTION 27

“He wished the observance of the rites themselves to be demanding, but their preparation very easy: he established many things to be thoroughly learned and carefully observed, but without expense. Thus he added labor to religious observance and removed its cost. He also instituted markets, games, and every occasion for gathering and celebration. Through these institutions he recalled to humanity and gentleness the minds of men already made savage and fierce by their passion for war. Thus, after reigning thirty-nine years in the deepest peace and concord—for let us follow above all our friend Polybius, whom no one surpassed in the careful investigation of dates—he departed this life, having strengthened two things of the greatest distinction for the commonwealth’s endurance: religion and clemency.”

SECTION 28

Chapter 15

When Scipio had said this, Manilius asked, “Is the tradition really true, Africanus, that this King Numa was a pupil of Pythagoras himself, or at least a Pythagorean? For we have often heard this from our elders, and understand that it is commonly believed; yet we do not see it sufficiently established by the authority of the public annals.” Then Scipio said, “For that whole story is false, Manilius: not merely invented, but ignorantly and absurdly invented. What is truly intolerable in a falsehood is what we see not only to be invented but to have been impossible. For Pythagoras is found to have come to Sybaris, Croton, and those parts of Italy when Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was already in the fourth year of his reign. The sixty-second Olympiad marks both the beginning of Superbus’s reign and the arrival of Pythagoras.”

SECTION 29

“From this, by adding up the years of the kings’ reigns, we can see that Pythagoras first reached Italy about a hundred and forty years after Numa’s death. Among those who have followed the chronology of the annals most carefully, this has never been in doubt.” “Immortal gods!” said Manilius. “How great a mistake people make, and how deeply rooted it is! Still, I am quite content that our education came not from arts brought in from overseas, but from virtues native to our own land.”

SECTION 30

Chapter 16

“You will recognize that far more readily,” said Africanus, “if you watch the commonwealth advancing along a kind of natural path and course toward its best condition. Indeed, you will judge our ancestors’ wisdom worthy of praise on this very ground: you will understand that many things borrowed from elsewhere became far better among us than they had been where they were brought from and where they first arose. And you will understand that the Roman people were strengthened not by chance, but by judgment and discipline—though fortune did not oppose them.”

SECTION 31

Chapter 17

“After King Pompilius died, the people, on the interrex’s proposal, elected Tullus Hostilius king in the assembly of the curiae. Following Pompilius’s example, he put the question of his own supreme command to the people, voting by curiae. His military glory was outstanding, his achievements in war great. He also built and enclosed the assembly ground and the senate house from the spoils of war, and established the law for declaring wars. This institution, inherently most just, he consecrated through the religious observances of the fetial priests, so that any war not formally announced and declared should be judged unjust and impious. And to show you how wisely our kings already understood that some powers must be granted to the people—for we have much to say on that subject—Tullus did not dare even to use the royal insignia without the people’s authorization. For, to obtain permission for twelve lictors carrying the fasces to walk before him […]

[…]

SECTION 33

Chapter 18

“[…] for, in the account you have undertaken, the commonwealth is not crawling but flying toward its best condition.” S. “After him, the people appointed Ancus Marcius, Numa Pompilius’s grandson through his daughter, as king. He too carried a law through the curiae confirming his supreme command. After defeating the Latins in war, he admitted them to citizenship. He also added the Aventine and Caelian hills to the city, divided the lands he had captured, made all the coastal forests he had seized public property, and founded a city at the mouth of the Tiber, strengthening it with colonists. After reigning twenty-three years, he died.” Then Laelius said, “That king too deserves praise. But Roman history is obscure indeed, if we know that king’s mother but not his father.” S. “So it is,” he said. “But of those times, hardly any names except the kings’ have been brought to light.”

SECTION 34

Chapter 19

“But at this point the community seems first to have become more learned through a graft of foreign culture. For what flowed from Greece into this city was no slender stream, but a mighty river of those studies and arts. There was, they say, a certain Demaratus of Corinth, easily foremost in his city in distinction, influence, and wealth. Unable to endure Cypselus, the tyrant of Corinth, he is said to have fled with a large fortune and made his way to Tarquinii, a most flourishing city of Etruria. Hearing that Cypselus’s domination was becoming firmly established, this free and courageous man abandoned his homeland. The people of Tarquinii admitted him as a citizen, and he established his home and dwelling in their city. There he had two sons by a respectable woman of Tarquinii, and educated them in all the arts according to Greek learning […]

[…]

SECTION 35

Chapter 20

“[…] had readily been admitted to citizenship, his culture and learning made him so intimate with King Ancus that he was thought to share all his counsels and almost to share his throne. Moreover, his affability was extraordinary, as was his generosity to every citizen in offering resources, help, protection, and even gifts. Accordingly, after Marcius’s death, Lucius Tarquinius was elected king by the votes of the entire people. For he had adapted his Greek name to that form, so that in every respect he seemed to have adopted this people’s customs. Once he had carried a law confirming his supreme command, his first act was to double the original number of senators. He called the old senators ‘fathers of the greater houses’ and asked their opinions first; those he himself had enrolled he called ‘fathers of the lesser houses.’

SECTION 36

“He then organized the cavalry in the form that has survived to this day. Though he wished to, he could not change the names of the Titienses, Ramnenses, and Luceres, because Attus Navius, an augur of the highest renown, would not sanction it. I find that the Corinthians too were once careful to provide horses at public expense and maintain them through levies on orphans and widows. But by adding second divisions to the existing divisions of cavalry, he brought the cavalry to 1,800 and doubled its numbers. Later he subdued in war the great and fierce nation of the Aequi, which threatened the power of the Roman people. He also drove the Sabines back from the city walls, routed them with his cavalry, and defeated them in war. We are told that he was the first to celebrate the Great Games, called the Roman Games, and that during the Sabine war, in the very thick of battle, he vowed to build a temple on the Capitol to Jupiter Best and Greatest. He died after a reign of thirty-eight years.”

SECTION 37

Chapter 21

Then Laelius said, “Cato’s observation grows clearer now: the constitution of a commonwealth is not the work of one time or one man. For it is plain how many good and useful things are added under each successive king. But next comes the man who, to my mind, saw furthest of all in matters of government.” “That is so,” said Scipio. “For after him Servius Tullius is said to have been the first to reign without the people’s authorization. They say he was born to a slave woman of Tarquinii, who had conceived him by a certain client of the king. Brought up among the household slaves, he used to wait at the king’s table, and the spark of talent already shining in the boy did not go unnoticed: so resourceful was he in every task and conversation. And so Tarquinius, whose children were then quite young, loved Servius so dearly that he was commonly taken for his son. He took the greatest pains to educate him in all the arts he himself had learned, according to the most refined practice of the Greeks.

SECTION 38

“But when Tarquinius had been killed by the treachery of Ancus’s sons, and Servius, as I said before, had begun to reign without the citizens’ authorization, but with their goodwill and consent—for while it was falsely reported that Tarquinius was still alive, ill from his wound, Servius had administered justice in royal robes, freed debtors with his own money, and by his great affability won acceptance for his claim that he was administering justice on Tarquinius’s orders—he did not entrust himself to the senators. Instead, after Tarquinius’s burial, he himself asked the people for their decision about him. Authorized to reign, he carried a law through the curiae confirming his supreme command. First he avenged the wrongs committed by the Etruscans through war; from which, when he […]

[…]

SECTION 39

Chapter 22

“[…] eighteen, with the highest property assessment. Then, after setting apart a large body of cavalry from the whole population, he divided the remaining people into five classes and separated the older from the younger men. He so apportioned them that the votes were in the power not of the multitude but of the wealthy. He took care to secure what must always be maintained in a commonwealth: that the greatest numbers should not have the greatest power. If this division were unfamiliar to you, I would explain it; as it is, you see that the arrangement is this: †the cavalry centuries, including the six voting units, and the first class, with the addition of the century assigned to the carpenters for the city’s most essential service, comprise eighty-nine centuries. If just eight of the hundred and four centuries—for that is the number remaining—join them, the voting strength of the whole people is secured. The remaining and much greater multitude, in ninety-six centuries, would neither be excluded from voting, which would be arrogant, nor possess too much power, which would be dangerous.

SECTION 40

“In this he was careful even in his choice of words and names. He called the wealthy ‘assidui,’ from their giving money, an ‘as’; those who reported for assessment either no more than fifteen hundred asses or nothing at all beyond their own persons he called ‘proletarii,’ so that they seemed to be expected to furnish ‘proles,’ that is, offspring for the community. But in just one of those ninety-six centuries, more people were enrolled at that time than in almost the entire first class. Thus no one was denied the right to vote, and the man whose interest in the best condition of the community was greatest had the greatest weight in voting. Indeed, even the unarmed reserves, the trumpeters, the horn players, the proletarians […] […]

SECTION 41

Chapter 23

(Non. p. 342M) “That the commonwealth is established in the best condition when it is moderately blended from those three forms—kingship, aristocracy, and popular government—and does not by punishment provoke a savage and ferocious spirit.”

SECTION 42

“[…] older by sixty-five years, since it had been founded thirty-nine years before the first Olympiad. And Lycurgus, ancient as he was, saw much the same things. Accordingly, that equitable balance and this threefold form of commonwealth seem to me to have been shared by us and those peoples. But what is peculiar to our own commonwealth, and unsurpassably admirable, I will pursue in greater detail if I can: it will prove to be something for which no parallel can be found in any other commonwealth. For the elements I have so far described were mixed, both in this state and in those of Sparta and Carthage, without being balanced in any way.

SECTION 43

“For in a commonwealth where one man holds permanent power, particularly the power of a king, even though there is a senate—as there was at Rome under the kings and at Sparta under Lycurgus’s laws—and even though the people too possess certain rights, as they did under our kings, still the royal title stands above all. Such a commonwealth cannot fail to be, and to be called, a kingdom. This form of government is especially liable to change for this reason: through one man’s fault, it can most easily be hurled headlong into the most destructive condition. For kingship itself, as a form of government, is not merely beyond reproach; I am inclined to think it far preferable to the other simple forms, if I were to approve any simple form of commonwealth—but only so long as it preserves its proper character. That character is this: the safety, equitable treatment, and peace of the citizens are governed by one man’s permanent power, justice, and consummate wisdom. A people under a king lack many things altogether, above all freedom, which consists not in having a just master but in having none […]

[…]

SECTION 44

Chapter 24

“[…] endured. For a time, indeed, success attended that unjust and cruel master in his undertakings. He subdued all Latium in war and captured Suessa Pometia, a rich and well-stocked city. Enriched by an immense booty of gold and silver, he fulfilled his father’s vow by building the Capitol; he planted colonies and, following the customs of those from whom he sprang, sent splendid gifts to Apollo at Delphi as a kind of first offering from the spoils.

SECTION 45

Chapter 25

“Here that wheel will now begin to turn: learn from the outset to recognize its natural movement and circuit. For the heart of political wisdom, the subject of our whole discussion, is to see the paths and turns of commonwealths, so that, knowing where each development tends, you may hold it back or forestall it. For that king of whom I speak, stained from the first by the murder of an excellent king, was not sound in mind. Fearing the ultimate punishment for his crime, he wanted to be feared himself. Then, propped up by victories and wealth, he ran riot in his arrogance, unable either to govern his own conduct or to curb the passions of his family.

SECTION 46

“And so, when his elder son raped Lucretia, the daughter of Tricipitinus and wife of Collatinus, and that modest and noble woman punished herself with death for the outrage, Lucius Brutus, a man of outstanding intelligence and courage, cast off that unjust yoke of harsh slavery from his fellow citizens. Although a private citizen, he upheld the entire commonwealth, and was the first in this state to teach that, when the citizens’ freedom is to be preserved, no one is merely a private citizen. Stirred at his urging and under his leadership, both by the fresh lament of Lucretia’s father and relatives and by the memory of Tarquinius’s arrogance and the many wrongs done by him and his sons, the community ordered the king himself, his children, and the Tarquinian clan into exile.

SECTION 47

Chapter 26

“Do you see, then, how a king became a master, and through one man’s fault the form of the commonwealth changed from good to the very worst? For this is the master of a people whom the Greeks call a tyrant. By a king they mean someone who cares for his people like a father and maintains those placed under him in the best possible conditions of life. It is, as I said, certainly a good form of commonwealth, but one that leans and, as it were, slopes toward the most destructive condition.

SECTION 48

“For the moment this king bends toward a more unjust domination, he becomes a tyrant at once. No creature can be imagined more loathsome, more foul, or more hateful to gods and men. Though human in shape, in the savagery of his nature he surpasses the most monstrous beasts. For who could rightly call someone a human being who wishes to share neither a bond of law nor a fellowship of humanity with his fellow citizens, or indeed with the whole human race? But there will be another, more fitting place to speak of this kind of man, when the subject itself calls upon us to denounce those who sought dominion even after the state had been set free.

SECTION 49

Chapter 27

“You have, then, the first origin of the tyrant. For the Greeks chose this name for an unjust king; our people, however, called everyone a king who alone held permanent power over a people. Thus Spurius Cassius, Marcus Manlius, and Spurius Maelius were said to have wanted to seize the kingship, and recently Tiberius Gracchus […]

[…]

SECTION 50

Chapter 28

“[…] Lycurgus called ‘elders’ at Sparta—far too few of them, to be sure, twenty-eight. He wished them to hold the highest authority in counsel, while the king held the highest authority in command. Our people, following and translating that same practice, named the body he called ‘elders’ a ‘senate,’ as we have said Romulus had already done when he chose the fathers. Yet the king’s force, power, and title still stand high and preeminent. Give the people too some share of power, as Lycurgus and Romulus did: you will not satisfy them with freedom, but kindle their hunger for it, once you have allowed them merely a taste. And always that fear will hang over them, that the king may turn unjust, as so often happens. Fragile indeed is the fortune of a people when it rests, as I said before, on one man’s will or character.

SECTION 51

Chapter 29

“Let us, then, have discovered this first shape, appearance, and origin of the tyrant in the commonwealth Romulus founded under the auspices, not in the one Socrates painted for himself in that three-part conversation Plato recorded in full. Let us see how Tarquinius, without acquiring any new power, but by using the power he had unjustly, overturned this whole form of royal government. Opposed to him let us place another man, good and wise, versed in the community’s interests and dignity, a kind of guardian and steward of the commonwealth. For that is what we should call whoever directs and pilots the state. Make sure you recognize this man: he is the one who can protect the community by his judgment and action. Since this title is not yet common in our language, and we shall have to discuss this kind of man more often in the rest of our conversation […]

[…]

SECTION 52

Chapter 30

“[…] investigated, and constructed a state to be wished for rather than hoped for, as small as he could make it—not one that could exist, but one in which the principles of political life could be clearly seen. I, however, if only I can achieve it, will strive, with the same principles he discerned, to put my finger, as though with a pointer, on the cause of each public good and evil, not in a shadowy image of a state but in a commonwealth of the greatest stature. For when those two hundred and forty years of kingship, or a little more including the interregnums, had passed and Tarquinius had been expelled, the Roman people were seized by as great a hatred of the royal title as the longing that had possessed them after Romulus’s death—or rather, his departure. Just as then they could not bear to be without a king, so after Tarquinius’s expulsion they could not bear to hear the name of king. Here, when the opportunity […] […]

SECTION 53fr

Chapter 31

(Non. 526M) “And so, when that splendid constitution of Romulus had stood firm for about two hundred and twenty years […]

SECTION 53

“[…] that law was repealed in its entirety. In this spirit our ancestors then expelled the innocent Collatinus because his kinship aroused suspicion, and the remaining Tarquins because their name gave offense. In the same spirit Publius Valerius was the first to order the fasces lowered when he began to speak in a public meeting; and he moved his house down to the foot of the Velia after noticing that the people’s suspicions were being aroused because he had begun to build higher up on the Velia, on the very spot where King Tullus had lived. And in the act that most entitled him to the name Publicola, he proposed to the people the first law carried in the assembly of the centuries: no magistrate should kill or flog a Roman citizen in defiance of an appeal.

SECTION 54

“The pontifical books show that there was a right of appeal even from the kings, and our augural books also indicate it. The Twelve Tables likewise declare in several laws that an appeal is permitted from every judgment and penalty. And the recorded tradition that the ten men who wrote the laws were appointed without appeal should sufficiently prove that the other magistrates were not exempt from appeal. The consular law of Lucius Valerius Potitus and Marcus Horatius Barbatus, men wisely devoted to the people’s cause for the sake of harmony, laid down that no magistrate should be appointed without appeal. Nor, indeed, did the Porcian laws—three laws by three members of the Porcian family, as you know—introduce anything new except the penalty for violation.

SECTION 55

“Accordingly, once that law on appeal had passed, Publicola immediately ordered the axes removed from the fasces. The next day he secured the election of Spurius Lucretius as his colleague and ordered his own lictors to pass over to him because he was older. He was the first to establish that the lictors should precede each consul in alternate months, so that a free people should have no more insignia of supreme command than there had been under the kings. To my mind, this was no ordinary man: by giving the people a measured freedom, he more easily preserved the authority of the leading men. And I am not rehearsing these things, so ancient and so forgotten, without a purpose. Rather, in distinguished persons and times I am defining examples of men and events to guide the rest of my discussion.

SECTION 56

Chapter 32

“In those days, then, the senate maintained the commonwealth in this condition: among a free people, few things were done through the people, most through the senate’s authority and through established practice and custom. The consuls held power limited to a year in duration, but royal in its nature and legal scope. And what mattered most, perhaps, to preserving the nobles’ power was firmly maintained: the decisions of the people’s assemblies were not valid unless the authority of the fathers had approved them. In this very period a dictator was also appointed, Titus Larcius, about ten years after the first consuls. This seemed a new form of supreme command, closely resembling royal power. Nevertheless, the leading men kept control of everything with the highest authority, while the people yielded; and in those days great feats of war were accomplished by the bravest men invested with supreme command, dictators and consuls.

SECTION 57

Chapter 33

“But what the very nature of things demanded—that the people, once freed from the kings, should claim somewhat greater rights for themselves—they attained before long, about the sixteenth year, in the consulship of Postumus Cominius and Spurius Cassius. Perhaps reason was lacking in this, but the very nature of commonwealths often overcomes reason. Hold fast to what I said at the beginning: unless there is this equitable balance in the community of rights, duties, and responsibilities, with sufficient power in the magistrates, authority in the council of leading men, and freedom in the people, this stable condition of the commonwealth cannot be preserved.

SECTION 58

“For when debt threw the community into turmoil, the plebeians occupied first the Sacred Mount and later the Aventine. Not even Lycurgus’s system kept those restraints in place among a Greek people. For at Sparta too, in the reign of Theopompus, five officials whom they call ephors were appointed, and in Crete ten called cosmi, to counter the force of royal power, just as the tribunes of the plebs were appointed to counter the consuls’ command.

SECTION 59

Chapter 34

“†Perhaps our ancestors had some means of remedying that burden of debt, a means that had escaped neither Solon of Athens not long before, nor, somewhat later, our own senate, when all the citizens’ bonds of debt were dissolved because of one man’s lust, and bondage for debt ceased thereafter. Whenever the plebeians, weakened by the expense of a public calamity, were failing, some relief and remedy for this distress was always sought for the safety of all. That policy was neglected then, and the people found cause to diminish the senate’s power and authority by electing two tribunes of the plebs in a revolt. Yet its authority remained weighty and great, as men of the highest wisdom and courage protected the state by arms and counsel. Their influence flourished above all because, though they far surpassed the rest in honor, they fell below them in indulgence and were generally no richer. Each man’s public virtue was all the more welcome because in private affairs they most diligently protected individual citizens with their services, advice, and resources.

SECTION 60

Chapter 35

“While the commonwealth was in this condition, a quaestor accused Spurius Cassius, who was plotting to seize the kingship and enjoyed immense popular favor. As you have heard, after his father declared that he had discovered him guilty of that offense, Cassius was put to death, with the people acquiescing. About the fifty-fourth year after the first consuls, the consuls Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Aternius also carried that welcome law concerning fines and legal deposits in the assembly of the centuries. Twenty years later, because the censors Lucius Papirius and Publius Pinarius had transferred great numbers of cattle from private ownership to the state by imposing fines, a law of the consuls Gaius Julius and Publius Papirius set a low valuation on livestock used in payment of a fine.

SECTION 61

Chapter 36

“But some years earlier, when the senate held the highest authority and the people submitted and obeyed, a plan was adopted whereby both consuls and tribunes of the plebs should resign their offices, and ten men should be appointed with the fullest powers and without appeal, to hold supreme command and write the laws. After drafting ten tables of laws with the greatest fairness and wisdom, they had another ten men elected for the following year, whose good faith and justice did not receive the same praise. Yet one member of that board, Gaius Julius, won exceptional praise for this: although he himself held supreme power as one of the ten, with no appeal, he nevertheless demanded sureties from a nobleman, Lucius Sestius, in whose bedroom, he said, a corpse had been dug up in his presence. For he declared that he would not disregard that splendid law which forbade a decision on a Roman citizen’s life except in the assembly of the centuries.

SECTION 62

Chapter 37

“A third year of the ten men’s rule followed, since the same men remained and had refused to have others elected in their place. In this condition of the commonwealth, which I have often said could not last because it did not treat all ranks of the community equitably, the whole state was in the hands of its leading men. Ten men of the highest birth presided over it; no tribunes of the plebs opposed them, no other magistrates were associated with them, and no appeal to the people against execution or flogging remained.

SECTION 63

“From their injustice, then, there suddenly arose a most violent upheaval and a complete change in the commonwealth. They added two tables of unjust laws, and in these enacted a most inhuman provision forbidding intermarriage between plebeians and patricians—a right commonly granted even to separate peoples. This was later repealed by the Canuleian resolution of the plebs. In every exercise of their power they ruled the people willfully, cruelly, and greedily. The story is, of course, well known and celebrated in many written records: a certain Decimus Verginius killed his virgin daughter with his own hand in the forum because of the unbridled lust of one of those ten men, and fled in grief to the army, which was then on Mount Algidus; the soldiers abandoned the war they had in hand and occupied, under arms, first the Sacred Mount, as had been done before in a similar crisis, and then the Aventine […] […]

SECTION 63fr

(Philarg., Serv. G. 3.125) “when Lucius Quinctius had been appointed dictator.

[…] I judge that our ancestors both approved most heartily and retained most wisely.”

SECTION 64

Chapter 38

When Scipio had said this, and everyone waited in silence for the rest of his discourse, Tubero said, “Since these older men ask nothing of you, Africanus, you shall hear from me what I find wanting in your discussion.” “By all means,” said Scipio, “and I shall gladly hear it.” Then Tubero said, “You seem to me to have praised our commonwealth, although Laelius asked you not about ours, but about commonwealths in general. Nor have I learned from your discussion by what discipline, customs, or laws we can establish or preserve the very commonwealth you praise.”

SECTION 65

Chapter 39

Here Africanus said, “I think, Tubero, that we shall soon have a better place to discuss the founding and preservation of states. As for their best condition, I thought I had answered Laelius’s question sufficiently. First I had specified three acceptable forms of government and an equal number of destructive forms opposed to those three. No one of them, I said, was best; rather, a form moderately blended from the first three surpassed each of them.

SECTION 66

“My use of our own state as an example served not to define the best condition—for that could have been done without an example—but to show in actual practice, in a very great state, the nature of what reason and discourse described. But if you are seeking the essential character of the best constitution without the example of any people, we must use a model drawn from nature, since you this model of a city and people […]

[…]

SECTION 67

Chapter 40

“[…] whom I have long been seeking and whom I wish to reach.” L. “Perhaps you are looking for a man of practical wisdom?” Then he said, “Precisely that man.” L. “You have a fine supply among the very people here, beginning with yourself.” Then Scipio said, “If only the whole senate had a corresponding proportion! Still, there is practical wisdom in the man who, as we have often seen in Africa, sits on an immense and mighty beast, restrains and guides it wherever he wishes, and turns the wild creature with a slight signal, †not a blow.” L. “I know him, and often saw him when I was your lieutenant.” S. “That Indian or Carthaginian, then, restrains a single beast, and one that is teachable and accustomed to human ways. But what lies hidden within human souls, the part of the soul called the mind, reins in and tames more than one creature, and none easy to subdue—if it ever succeeds, as it very rarely can. For that fierce creature too must be held in check […] […]

SECTION 68

Chapter 41

(Non. 300M) “which feeds on blood, which revels so wildly in every cruelty that it can scarcely be sated by the bitter deaths of human beings.

(Non. 491M) but to one who desires and craves and lusts and wallows in pleasures.

(Non. 72M) and the fourth, anxiety, inclined to grief, sorrowing and constantly tormenting itself.

(Non. 228M) but to be crushed by anguish, by misery, or cast down by timidity and cowardice.

(Non. 292M) As an unskilled charioteer is dragged from his chariot, trampled, torn apart, and crushed.”

SECTION 69

Chapter 42

“[…] could be called.” Then Laelius said, “I see now what duty and task you assign to the man I have been waiting for.” “Almost this alone,” said Africanus, “for almost everything else is contained in this one thing: he must never cease to observe and examine himself, must call others to imitate him, and must offer himself to his fellow citizens like a mirror in the brilliance of his soul and life. For just as, in strings or pipes, and in singing itself and voices, a certain harmony must be maintained among distinct sounds, which trained ears cannot bear to hear altered or discordant, and that harmony is made concordant and fitting through the regulation of the most unlike voices, so a state, through the measured ordering of its highest, lowest, and intervening middle ranks as though they were sounds, sings in the accord

(August. C.D. 2.21) of its most unlike elements. And what musicians call harmony in song is concord in a state, the closest and best bond of security in every commonwealth; and without justice it cannot possibly exist.”

SECTION 70

Chapter 44

“[…] to be full of justice.” Then Scipio said, “I agree indeed, and I declare to you that we must think nothing has yet been said about the commonwealth, nor can we advance any further, unless it is established not only that the claim that government cannot be carried on without injustice is false, but that this is utterly true: a commonwealth cannot possibly be governed without the highest justice. But, if you please, let this be enough for today; let us put off the rest—for quite a lot remains—until tomorrow.” When they had agreed to this, the discussion ended for that day.

SECTION 1

Chapter 1

Everyone was burning with eagerness to listen, and Scipio began speaking like this: “This comes from old Cato, whom, as you know, I loved dearly and admired enormously. From my youth I devoted myself entirely to him, whether because of both my fathers’ opinion of him or because of my own enthusiasm. I could never get enough of his conversation. He had so much experience in government, which he’d handled both extremely well and for a very long time, at home and on campaign. There was such restraint in his speaking, such wit mixed with seriousness, such eagerness both to learn and to teach, and such a close match between his life and his words.

SECTION 2

“He used to say that our state's constitution was better than those of other states for this reason. In those states, generally one individual had established each commonwealth with his own laws and institutions. Minos did so for the Cretans, and Lycurgus for the Spartans. At Athens, where the constitution changed very often, it was Theseus, then Draco, then Solon, then Clisthenes, and then many others. Finally, when it was already drained of life and lying helpless, the learned Demetrius of Phalerum supported it. Our commonwealth, on the other hand, was established by the abilities of many men, not one, and over several centuries and generations, not one man's lifetime. He said no mind had ever been great enough for anyone, at any time, to overlook nothing. Nor could all minds combined foresee enough at a single moment to cover everything without practical experience and the passage of time.

SECTION 3

“So my discussion will now go back to the origin of the people, as he used to do. I am glad to use even Cato's own word. I will achieve my purpose more easily if I show you our commonwealth at birth, as it grew, as it reached adulthood, and when it became firm and strong, rather than inventing one myself, as Socrates does in Plato.”

SECTION 4

Chapter 2

Once everyone had agreed, he said, “What state's beginnings are as clear and as familiar to everyone as this city's founding by Romulus? He was said to be the son of Mars. Let's accept the story people tell. It's not just old: our ancestors also had good reason to pass it down. They wanted men who served the community well to be thought divine by birth, not just in talent. The story goes, then, that soon after his birth, Amulius, king of Alba, ordered him abandoned by the Tiber with his brother Remus. The king feared for his throne. There a wild animal fed him at her teats. Shepherds took him in and raised him to a country life of hard work. They say that as he grew up, he outdid everyone in physical strength and fierceness of spirit. So everyone then living in the fields where this city stands today obeyed him willingly and gladly. He took command of their forces. Now, to move from stories to facts, he is said to have crushed Alba Longa, a strong and powerful city then. He is also said to have killed King Amulius.”

SECTION 5

Chapter 3

“After winning this glory, he is said to have first planned to found a city after taking the auspices, and to establish a state securely. He chose an extraordinarily suitable site for the city. Anyone trying to plant a lasting state must give the most careful thought to this. He did not place it beside the sea. With his force of men, he could very easily have advanced into the territory of the Rutulians and Aborigines, or founded the city himself at the Tiber's mouth, where King Ancus established a colony many years later. But this man of exceptional foresight understood and saw that coastal sites are not the most suitable for cities founded in the hope of lasting and gaining power. First, coastal cities face dangers that are not only numerous but also unseen.

SECTION 6

“Land gives advance warning of enemy arrivals, not just expected ones but sudden ones too. It offers many signs, almost making a crash and noise itself. No enemy can rush at us by land without our knowing he's there. We can also tell who he is and where he's from. But an enemy attacking by sea can be there before anyone even suspects he's coming. And when he comes, he doesn't show who he is, where he's from, or even what he wants. In short, no sign lets us tell or judge whether he comes in peace or as an enemy.”

SECTION 7

Chapter 4

“Coastal cities also suffer a certain corruption and change in their ways. They mix with new languages and teachings. Not only foreign goods but also foreign customs are imported, so nothing in their ancestral institutions can remain unchanged. Moreover, the inhabitants of these cities do not stay attached to their own homes. Their restless hopes and thoughts constantly carry them far from home. Even when they remain there physically, their minds live abroad and wander. Nothing did more to weaken Carthage and Corinth over time, and eventually destroy them, than this wandering and scattering of their citizens. Their eagerness for trade and seafaring had made them abandon the cultivation of the fields and the practice of arms.

SECTION 8

“The sea also supplies many temptations to luxury that ruin states. Some are caught there; others are imported. Its beauty itself offers many temptations to expensive pleasures or lazy living. And what I said about Corinth might well be completely true of all Greece. The Peloponnese itself is almost entirely surrounded by sea. Apart from the people of Phlius, no one there has land that doesn't touch the sea. Outside the Peloponnese, only the Aenianes, Doris, and the Dolopes are away from the sea. What should I say about the Greek islands? Waves surround them, and they almost float about themselves, along with their cities' institutions and customs.”

SECTION 9

“These examples, as I said before, concern old Greece. But of the colonies the Greeks founded in Asia, Thrace, Italy, Sicily, and Africa, which one, apart from Magnesia alone, isn’t washed by the waves? Greece seems to form a sort of border stitched onto the lands of non-Greeks. Among the non-Greeks themselves, none had previously been seafarers except the Etruscans and Carthaginians—one for trade, the other for piracy. This clearly explains Greece’s troubles and upheavals, given those faults of coastal cities that I touched on very briefly just now. Still, these drawbacks come with one great advantage: whatever is produced anywhere can reach the city you live in by sea, and in return people can carry and send the produce of their own fields to whatever countries they want.

SECTION 10

Chapter 5

“So how could Romulus have shown more inspired judgment in gaining the advantages of the sea while avoiding its drawbacks than by placing his city on the bank of a river that flows all year, runs steadily, and empties into the sea in a broad stream? The city could receive from the sea whatever it needed and send back whatever it had to spare. By that same river it could not only †take in from the sea the goods most essential for food and everyday life, but also receive them when brought in from inland. It seems to me that even then he foresaw that this city would one day provide a seat and home for supreme power. A city could hardly have held such enormous power more easily anywhere else in Italy.

SECTION 11

Chapter 6

“And who is so careless that he has not noticed and clearly understood the city's natural defenses? Through the wisdom of Romulus and the other kings, the line and course of its wall were laid out along steep, rugged hills on every side. The one approach, between the Esquiline and Quirinal hills, was blocked by a huge earthwork and surrounded by an enormous ditch. The citadel was protected by the steep circuit of rock around it, almost as if the rock had been cut away. It remained safe and untouched even during that terrible storm of the Gauls' arrival. He also chose a place with abundant springs, healthy despite being in an unhealthy region. The hills themselves catch the breezes and provide shade for the valleys.

SECTION 12

Chapter 7

“He accomplished all this very quickly. He founded the city and ordered it to be called Rome after himself. To strengthen the new state, he adopted a novel and rather rough plan. Still, as a way to secure the strength of his kingdom and his people, it showed a great man who was already thinking far ahead. At the Consualia festival he ordered the abduction of young unmarried Sabine women from respectable families who’d come to Rome for the games, which he’d just established as an annual event in the circus. He married them into the most prominent families.

SECTION 13

“When the Sabines went to war against the Romans because of this, and the fighting went back and forth with the outcome uncertain, he made a treaty with T. Tatius, king of the Sabines, at the pleading of the abducted women themselves. Under that treaty he admitted the Sabines as citizens, shared religious rites with them, and shared his rule with their king.

SECTION 14

Chapter 8

“After Tatius died, all the power returned to Romulus. With Tatius, he had selected leading men for the royal council. They were called ‘fathers’ out of affection. He had also divided the people into three tribes and thirty curiae, naming the tribes after himself, Tatius, and Lucumo, an ally of Romulus who had died in the battle with the Sabines. He named the curiae after the abducted Sabine women who had later pleaded for peace and a treaty. These arrangements had been made while Tatius was alive. Still, after Tatius was killed, Romulus ruled even more through the authority and advice of the fathers.

SECTION 15

Chapter 9

“After doing this, he first recognized and accepted what Lycurgus had recognized shortly before at Sparta. Cities are better governed and better ruled by a single king when the best citizens add their authority to his power. Supported and protected by this council—a kind of senate—he fought many highly successful wars against his neighbors. He took none of the spoils home himself, but kept making his citizens richer.”

SECTION 16

“Then Romulus paid the closest attention to the auspices, a practice we still keep today, to the great benefit of the state. He himself founded the city after taking the auspices, and that was the beginning of the state. To assist him with the auspices in every public undertaking, he appointed one augur from each tribe. He assigned the common people to the leading men as their clients—I’ll consider later how useful that was—and kept them in line by imposing fines of sheep and cattle, not by force and executions. Wealth then consisted of livestock and landholdings, which is where the words pecuniosi and locupletes, both meaning ‘wealthy,’ came from.

SECTION 17

Chapter 10

“And after Romulus had ruled for thirty-seven years and established these two outstanding supports for the state—the taking of omens and the senate—he gained such standing that, when the sun suddenly went dark and he disappeared, people thought he'd been given a place among the gods. No mortal has ever won that reputation without being famous for exceptional excellence.

SECTION 18

“This is all the more remarkable in Romulus's case. The others said to have become gods after being human lived in less educated times. That made stories easy to invent, since ignorant people were easily persuaded. But Romulus lived less than six hundred years ago, as we know. Writing and learning were already well established. All the old errors born of humanity's rough early life were gone. Greek records show that Rome was founded in the second year of the seventh Olympiad. If that's right, Romulus lived when Greece was already full of poets and musicians. People were less ready to believe stories, except about the distant past. The first Olympiad was established 108 years after Lycurgus began writing laws. Some confuse the names and think the same Lycurgus established it. Even the shortest estimates place Homer about thirty years before Lycurgus's time.”

SECTION 19

“So we can see that Homer lived many years before Romulus. People were already educated, and the age itself was learned. There was hardly any room left for invention. Earlier ages accepted made-up stories, sometimes even ones put together

SECTION 19(fr)

(August. C.D. 22.6) clumsily. But this more educated age rejected them. In particular, it laughed at anything that couldn't happen.”

SECTION 20

“[…] his grandson through his daughter, as some have said. In the very year he died, Simonides was born, during the fifty-sixth Olympiad. This makes it easier to see when people believed Romulus had become immortal. Human life had already been long established, studied, and understood. But his gifts and courage were certainly so great that people believed Proculus Julius, a man from the country, about Romulus. They hadn't believed anything like it about any other human being for many centuries. The senators urged Proculus on, hoping to escape blame for Romulus's death. He is said to have told a public meeting that he'd seen Romulus on the hill now called the Quirinal. Romulus had told him to ask the people to build him a shrine on that hill. He said he was a god and was called Quirinus.”

SECTION 21

Chapter 11

“So don't you see how one man's planning not only brought a new people into being, but also, instead of leaving it crying in its cradle, left it already well grown and nearly ready for manhood?” Then Laelius said: “We certainly do. And we see that you've begun the discussion with a new approach, one that's nowhere to be found in Greek books. Their leading writer, whom no one has surpassed, took a plot of ground for himself on which to build a state just as he pleased. A splendid one, perhaps, but out of touch with people's lives and habits,

SECTION 22

“while the others discussed the different kinds of states and how they work without any definite example or model of government. You seem to me to be planning to do both. You've begun in a way that shows you'd rather credit others with your own discoveries than invent things yourself, as Socrates does in Plato. You also give a reasoned explanation of things about the city's location that Romulus did by chance or out of necessity. And instead of letting your discussion wander, you keep it focused on one state. So go on as you've begun. As you take us through the remaining kings, I already feel as if I can see a fully developed state ahead.”

SECTION 23

Chapter 12

“So,” Scipio said, “Romulus's senate consisted of the best men, whom the king himself had honored so highly that he wanted them called ‘fathers’ and their children ‘patricians.’ After Romulus's departure, this senate tried to govern the state itself without a king. The people would not tolerate it, and from then on never stopped demanding a king because they missed Romulus. The leaders wisely devised a new way of arranging an interregnum, unheard of among other nations. Until a definite king was announced, the state would neither be without a king nor have any one king for long. They would not let anyone hold power so long that he became either slower to give up command or more securely placed to keep it.

SECTION 24

“At that time, this new people nevertheless saw what Lycurgus of Sparta missed. He thought a king should not be chosen—if the matter really was within Lycurgus's power—but that anyone born from Hercules' line should be accepted, whatever sort of person he was. Our people, still country folk at that time, saw that they should look for the excellence and wisdom of a king, not his ancestry.

SECTION 25

Chapter 13

“Since Numa Pompilius was said to stand out for these qualities, the people themselves passed over their own citizens and, on the senators' recommendation, chose a foreigner as their king. They summoned him, a Sabine, from Cures to Rome to rule. When he arrived here, although the people had ordered that he should be king through a vote in the assembly of the curiae, he still personally proposed a law in that assembly to grant him command. When he saw that Romulus's example had fired the Romans with enthusiasm for war, he thought they needed to be drawn back a little from that habit.

SECTION 26

Chapter 14

“First, he divided the land Romulus had captured in war among the citizens, giving each man a share. He taught them that by farming they could have plenty of everything, without laying waste to land or plundering it. He gave them a love of quiet and peace, which most readily strengthen justice and good faith, and offer the best protection for farming and gathering crops. This same Pompilius introduced the higher forms of taking omens and added two augurs to the existing number. He also put five pontiffs, chosen from the leading men, in charge of religious rites. By laying down the laws we have in our records, and through religious ceremonies, he calmed spirits fired by the habit of war and the desire to fight. He also added the flamen priests, the Salian priests, and the Vestal Virgins, and gave every part of religion the most sacred standing.

SECTION 27

“He wanted the proper performance of the rites themselves to require great care, but their equipment to be very simple. He laid down many things to be thoroughly learned and observed, but they cost nothing. So he added effort to religious practice and removed expense. He also established markets, games, and every kind of occasion for gatherings and public celebrations. Through these institutions he brought people's minds, already made savage and fierce by enthusiasm for war, back to civilized and gentle ways. He ruled for thirty-nine years in complete peace and harmony. Let us follow our friend Polybius above all, since no one investigated dates more carefully. Then he died, having firmly established two outstanding supports for the state's lasting survival: religion and kindness.

SECTION 28

Chapter 15

After Scipio had said this, Manilius asked, “Is it really recorded, Africanus, that King Numa was a student of Pythagoras himself, or at least a follower of his teaching? We've often heard this from older people. We understand that it's the common belief. Yet we don't find it firmly established by the official records.” Then Scipio said, “The whole story is false, Manilius. It's not just made up, but made up ignorantly and absurdly. The really intolerable lies are the ones we can see aren't just invented, but couldn't possibly have happened. We find that Pythagoras reached Sybaris, Croton, and that part of Italy when Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was already in his fourth year as king. The sixty-second Olympiad marks both the start of Superbus's reign and Pythagoras's arrival.”

SECTION 29

“Counting up the years of the kings’ reigns shows that Pythagoras first reached Italy about 140 years after Numa’s death. People who have studied the yearly records most carefully have never had any doubt about this.” Manilius said, “Immortal gods! What a great mistake people have made, and for how long! Still, I am quite happy that our education came not from skills imported from overseas but from good qualities native to our own country.”

SECTION 30

Chapter 16

“And you will see that much more clearly,” Africanus said, “if you watch our state develop and reach its best form by a kind of natural progress. In fact, you will decide that our ancestors’ wisdom deserves praise for this very reason: you will see that even many things borrowed from elsewhere were made much better here than they had been in the places they came from, where they first appeared. You will see that the Roman people grew strong not by chance but through planning and training, though fortune did not work against them.”

SECTION 31

Chapter 17

“After King Pompilius died, the people elected Tullus Hostilius king in the assembly of the curiae, on the motion of the interim king. Following Pompilius’s example, he asked the people, voting by curiae, to authorize his command. He gained outstanding military fame and achieved great things in war. With the spoils he also built and enclosed the assembly place and the senate house. He established rules for declaring war. This was an entirely just invention in itself, and he gave it religious force through the fetial priests. Any war that had not been announced and formally declared was to be considered unjust and offensive to the gods. Notice how wisely even our kings understood that some powers had to be given to the people—we will have a great deal to say about this. Tullus did not even dare to use the royal insignia without the people’s permission. For, to obtain permission for twelve lictors carrying the rods of office to walk in front of him […]

[…]”

SECTION 33

Chapter 18

“[…] In the account you've begun, the state isn't crawling toward its best form. It's flying there.” Scipio: “After him, the people made Ancus Marcius king. He was Numa Pompilius's grandson through his daughter. He too had the curiate assembly pass a law granting his command. After defeating the Latins in war, he made them citizens. He also added the Aventine and Caelian hills to the city. He divided up the land he'd captured and made all the coastal forests he'd taken public property. He founded a town at the mouth of the Tiber and strengthened it with settlers. He died after ruling for twenty-three years.” Then Laelius said, “That king deserves praise too. But Roman history is obscure: we know that king's mother, yet don't know his father.” Scipio: “That's right,” he said. “But from those times, it's mostly just the kings' names that are well known.”

SECTION 34

Chapter 19

“But this seems to be when learning from abroad first made the community better educated. What flowed into our city from Greece wasn't a little stream. It was a huge river of Greek learning and skills. They say a man called Demaratus of Corinth was by far his city's leading man in status, influence, and wealth. Unable to bear Cypselus, the tyrant of Corinth, he is said to have fled with a large sum of money. He went to Tarquinii, a most prosperous city in Etruria. When he heard that Cypselus's rule was becoming firmly established, this free and brave man fled his homeland. The people of Tarquinii made him a citizen, and he settled down and made his home there. With a wife from Tarquinii, he had two sons. He gave them a Greek education in all the arts […]

[…]”

SECTION 35

Chapter 20

[…] “had been readily accepted as a citizen, his culture and learning made him a close friend of King Ancus. He was thought to share in all his plans and almost to be his partner in ruling. He was also extremely friendly and very generous to all the citizens, offering his resources, help, and protection, and even gifts. So, when Marcius died, Lucius Tarquinius was unanimously elected king by the people. That was how he had changed his Greek name: he appeared to follow this people’s customs in every way. Once he had brought forward a law authorizing his command, his first act was to double the former number of senators. He called the original senators members of the greater families, and asked them for their opinions first; those he himself had added he called members of the lesser families.”

SECTION 36

“He then organized the cavalry in the form still kept today. He wanted to change the names Titienses, Rhamnenses, and Luceres, but couldn't. Attus Navius, a highly respected augur, wouldn't approve. I see that the Corinthians, too, once carefully managed the assignment and feeding of publicly owned horses. They paid for this through taxes on orphans and widows. Still, he added a second set of cavalry units to the original ones. This doubled their number, bringing the cavalry to 1,800. Later he defeated the Aequi, a large and fierce people threatening Rome's interests. He also drove the Sabines back from the city's walls. His cavalry routed them, and he defeated them in war. We are told he was the first to hold the great games called the Roman Games. During the actual fighting in the Sabine war, he promised Jupiter Best and Greatest a temple on the Capitol. He died after reigning for thirty-eight years.”

SECTION 37

Chapter 21

Then Laelius said, “Now Cato's point becomes more certain. A state isn't put together in a single age or by one man. It's clear how much each king added that was good and useful. But next comes the man who, I think, understood government best of all.” “That's right,” said Scipio. “After him, Servius Tullius reportedly became the first king to rule without the people's authorization. They say his mother was a slave woman from Tarquinii. His father was one of the king's dependents. He grew up among the servants and waited on the king at meals. The spark of talent already shining in the boy didn't go unnoticed. He was so quick at every task and in every conversation. Tarquin's own children were then very young. He loved Servius so much that people generally thought Servius was his son. He took great care to teach him all the skills he'd learned himself, following the Greeks' most refined educational practices.”

SECTION 38

“But Tarquinius was murdered in a plot by Ancus’s sons. As I said before, Servius began to reign without an order from the people, but with the citizens’ goodwill and consent. They were falsely told that Tarquinius was alive but ill from his wound. Meanwhile Servius, dressed as king, had administered justice and freed people from debt with his own money. Through many friendly acts he had persuaded people that he was administering justice on Tarquinius’s orders. He did not put his case in the senators’ hands. Instead, once Tarquinius was buried, he himself asked the people to decide about him. When they authorized him to reign, he brought before the curiae a law authorizing his command. First, he avenged the wrongs done by the Etruscans by going to war. As a result, when […]

[…]”

SECTION 39

Chapter 22

“[…] eighteen with the highest property assessment. Then he separated a large cavalry force from the whole population. He divided the remaining people into five classes, separating older men from younger men. He made their voting power unequal, so the rich controlled the vote, not the mass of people. He made sure the largest number didn't have the most power. Every state must always keep to that rule. If you didn't know this arrangement, I'd explain it. As it is, you see how the numbers work. The †cavalry voting groups, with the six voting units, and the first class make eighty-nine groups, counting the extra group assigned to carpenters for the city's most essential needs. Only eight of the remaining 104 groups needed to join them. That settled the vote of the whole people. The much larger number of people in the other ninety-six groups weren't shut out of voting. That would have been arrogant. But they didn't have too much power, either. That would have been dangerous.”

SECTION 40

“He was careful even about the words and names he used. He called the wealthy assidui, from paying a copper coin. Those who reported no more than fifteen hundred copper coins in property, or nothing at all apart from their own person, he called proletarians. This suggested that what was expected from them was, so to speak, offspring—in other words, a new generation for the state. At that time, just one of those ninety-six centuries had more citizens on its rolls than almost the entire first class. So no one was denied the right to vote, but the person with the greatest stake in the state's being in the best possible condition had the most voting power. What's more, for the unarmed reservists, trumpet players, horn players, and proletarians […] […]

SECTION 41

Chapter 23

(Non. p. 342M) “A state has the best constitution when it is a balanced combination of those three forms—royal, aristocratic, and popular—and does not stir up a savage, brutal spirit by punishment.”

SECTION 42

[…] “sixty-five years older, because it was founded thirty-nine years before the first Olympiad. And Lycurgus, who lived so long ago, saw much the same things. So I think we shared this balance and this three-part form of government with those peoples. But there is something special about our state, something that could not be better. If I can, I will explain it more closely. It is something you will not find in any other state. The elements I have described so far were combined in this community, in Sparta, and in Carthage, but they were not balanced in any way.”

SECTION 43

“In a state where one man holds permanent power, especially royal power, the royal position is still supreme. There may be a senate, as there was at Rome under the kings, and at Sparta under Lycurgus’s laws. The people may even have some rights, as they did under our kings. But such a state cannot fail to be a monarchy or to be called one. This form of government is particularly liable to change for this reason: one man’s failings can very easily push it over into the most destructive form. Monarchy itself is not only free from blame; I am not sure it should not be ranked far above the other simple forms, if I approved of any simple form of government. But that holds only as long as it keeps its proper character. Its character is this: the safety, fair treatment, and peace of the citizens are directed by the permanent power, justice, and complete wisdom of one man. A people living under a king lacks many things altogether, especially freedom. Freedom does not mean having a just master, but having none […]

[…]”

SECTION 44

Chapter 24

“[…] they endured. For some time, good luck helped that unjust and harsh master succeed. He defeated all Latium in war. He captured Suessa Pometia, a rich city stocked with supplies. An enormous haul of gold and silver made him wealthy. By building the temple on the Capitol, he fulfilled his father's promise. He also founded colonies. Following the customs of the people he came from, he sent magnificent gifts to Apollo at Delphi. They were like first offerings from the spoils.”

SECTION 45

Chapter 25

“Now that cycle will begin to turn. Learn to recognize its natural movement and course from the start. The central task of political understanding—the subject of this whole discussion—is to see the paths and turns that states take. When you know the direction each situation is taking, you can hold it back or head it off. The king I am speaking of was, to begin with, stained by the murder of an excellent king and was not sound of mind. He himself feared the severest punishment for his crime, and wanted others to fear him. Then, supported by his victories and riches, he became wildly arrogant. He could control neither his own behavior nor the desires of his own people.”

SECTION 46

“So his elder son raped Lucretia, Tricipitinus's daughter and Collatinus's wife. This respected woman of noble birth punished herself with death for that outrage. Then Lucius Brutus, a man of outstanding intelligence and courage, freed his fellow citizens from that unjust burden of cruel slavery. Although he held no public office, he took responsibility for the whole state. He was the first in this city to teach this lesson: when citizens' freedom needs defending, nobody is merely a private person. At his urging and under his leadership, the citizens rose up. Lucretia's father and relatives stirred them with this fresh complaint. They also remembered Tarquin's arrogance and the many wrongs he and his sons had done. They ordered the king himself, his children, and the Tarquin family into exile.”

SECTION 47

Chapter 26

“So do you see how a king became a master, and how one man’s failings changed a form of government from good to the worst of all? This master of the people is what the Greeks call a tyrant. By ‘king’ they mean someone who looks after the people like a parent, and keeps those in his care in the best possible living conditions. As I said, it is certainly a good form of government. But it leans toward, and is almost ready to fall into, the most destructive condition.”

SECTION 48

“As soon as this king turns toward more unjust domination, he immediately becomes a tyrant. No living creature can be imagined more disgusting, more repulsive, or more hated by gods and humans. Though he has a human shape, the brutality of his behavior outdoes the most savage beasts. Who could rightly call someone human if he wants no legal bond or human fellowship with his fellow citizens, or indeed with the whole human race? But we will have a more suitable place to discuss this sort of person when the subject itself calls on us to speak against those who sought absolute power even after the community had been freed.”

SECTION 49

Chapter 27

“So there you have the first appearance of a tyrant. The Greeks chose this name for an unjust king. Our people, however, called everyone a king who alone held permanent power over a people. So Spurius Cassius, Marcus Manlius, and Spurius Maelius were said to have wanted to seize royal power, and recently Tiberius Gracchus […]

[…]”

SECTION 50

Chapter 28

[…] “Lycurgus called them ‘elders’ at Sparta. There were certainly too few of them, twenty-eight. He wanted them to have the final say in deliberation, while the king held supreme command. Our people followed and translated that same usage. What he called elders they named a senate, as we have said Romulus had already done after choosing the fathers. Still, the king’s strength, power, and title stand out above the rest. Give the people some power too, as Lycurgus and Romulus did. You will not satisfy their desire for freedom. You will inflame it, since you have only given them a chance to taste it. There will certainly always be the fear that the king will turn unjust, as happens very often. So the people’s well-being is insecure when, as I said before, it depends on one man’s wishes or character.”

SECTION 51

Chapter 29

“So let's first find this form, shape, and origin of a tyrant in the state Romulus founded after taking the auspices. Not in the one Socrates pictured for himself in that three-part conversation, as Plato recorded it fully. Let's see how Tarquin overturned this whole form of king-led government. He hadn't gained any new power. He simply used the power he had unjustly. Against him, set another man: good and wise, who understands the community's interests and honor. He acts as a guardian and manager of the state. Let's call anyone who leads and guides the state by that name. Make sure you recognize this man. He can protect the community through his judgment and work. Since this name is still less familiar in our language, and we will often have to discuss this kind of man in the rest of our talk […]

[…]”

SECTION 52

Chapter 30

“[…] sought and created a state people could wish for rather than expect. He made it as small as possible. It wasn't a state that could exist, but one that showed how government works. If I can only manage it, I'll use the same principles he recognized. But I'll work with a vast republic, not a state's shadow and image. I'll try to point out the cause of every public good and evil, as if touching it with a little rod. Those 240 years of kingship had passed—a little longer, roughly, counting the intervals between kings—and Tarquin had been expelled. The Roman people then hated the title of king as deeply as they had missed Romulus after his death—or rather, his departure. Back then, they couldn't bear being without a king. After Tarquin's expulsion, they couldn't bear even hearing the title. Here, an opportunity, when […] […]”

SECTION 53fr

Chapter 31

(Non. 526M) “So that excellent constitution of Romulus, after it had stood firm for about 220 years […]”

SECTION 53

[…] “that law was entirely repealed. It was in this spirit that our ancestors expelled the innocent Collatinus, suspected because of his family ties, and the other Tarquinii because their name gave offense. In the same spirit, Publius Valerius was the first to order the rods of office lowered when he began to address a public meeting. He also moved his house below the Velia. He had begun building higher up on the Velia, on the very site where King Tullus had lived, and realized that this was making the people suspicious. His greatest act as ‘Publicola,’ the people’s friend, was to bring a law before the people—the first passed in the assembly of the centuries—forbidding any magistrate to kill or flog a Roman citizen against his appeal.”

SECTION 54

“The pontiffs' books show that appeals were possible even against kings. Our augurs' books indicate this too. Several laws in the Twelve Tables also show that appeals were allowed against any judgment or penalty. Tradition says the ten men who wrote the laws were appointed without a right of appeal. That should sufficiently show that other magistrates weren't exempt from appeals. Lucius Valerius Potitus and Marcus Horatius Barbatus wisely supported the people's interests to promote harmony. Their law as consuls forbade appointing any magistrate without a right of appeal. As you know, there are three Porcian laws, passed by three members of the Porcius family. They added nothing new except penalties for breaking the law.”

SECTION 55

“Once Publicola had passed that law on appeals, he immediately ordered the axes removed from the bundles of rods. The next day he appointed Spurius Lucretius to fill the vacant consulship alongside him. Since Lucretius was older, Publicola ordered his own lictors to go over to him. He first established the practice of having lictors lead each consul in alternate months. A free people should have no more symbols of authority than they had under kings. As I see it, this was no ordinary man. By giving the people a measured amount of freedom, he more easily maintained the leading men's authority. I'm not going over these ancient, forgotten things for no reason. I'm identifying examples of people and events from famous lives and times. These will guide the rest of my discussion.”

SECTION 56

Chapter 32

“At that time, then, the senate kept the state in this condition: the people were free, but few things were done by the people. Most were done by the senate’s authority, following established practice and custom. The consuls’ power was limited to a year, but in its nature and legal scope it was royal. There was also a firmly maintained rule that did more than almost anything to preserve the nobles’ power: decisions in the people’s assemblies were not valid unless the fathers had given their authoritative approval. In this same period, about ten years after the first consuls, a dictator was appointed, Titus Larcius. This was seen as a new kind of command, very close to royal power. Still, the leading men held everything under their very great authority, with the people giving way. And in those days very brave men holding supreme command, dictators and consuls, achieved great things in war.”

SECTION 57

Chapter 33

But the very nature of things made it inevitable that the people, once freed from kings, would claim a little more power for themselves. They got it not long afterward, around the sixteenth year, when Postumus Cominius and Spurius Cassius were consuls. Sound judgment may have been missing in this, but the very nature of governments often gets the better of sound judgment. Remember what I said at the beginning: unless a state has this even balance of rights, duties, and burdens, with enough power for the officials, enough authority for the council of leading citizens, and enough freedom for the people, this stable political order can't be preserved.

SECTION 58

“For when debt threw the community into turmoil, the common people occupied first the Sacred Mount and then the Aventine. Even Lycurgus’s system did not keep the Greeks under those restraints. At Sparta, too, during Theopompus’s reign, five officials called ephors were established; in Crete there were ten called ‘cosmoi,’ or directors. Just as our tribunes of the people were set against the consuls’ command, these were set against royal power.”

SECTION 59

Chapter 34

†There may have been some way for our ancestors to deal with that debt problem. Such a remedy hadn't escaped Solon of Athens not long before, or our own Senate some time afterward, when one man's lust led to the ending of all the citizens' debt bondage, and people stopped being bound for debt after that. Whenever the common people, weakened by expenses during a public disaster, could no longer keep going, some relief and remedy has always been sought for people in that position, for everyone's safety. Neglecting that policy then gave the people grounds, once two tribunes of the plebs had been elected in an uprising, to reduce the Senate's power and authority. Still, its authority remained strong and considerable, with the wisest and bravest men protecting the state both with weapons and with their judgment. Their authority was especially strong because, although they stood far above everyone else in honor, they indulged in pleasures less and generally weren't any richer. Each man's worth in public life was all the more appreciated because in private matters they took great care to help individual citizens with their work, advice, and money.

SECTION 60

Chapter 35

“Under this form of government, Spurius Cassius was plotting to seize the kingship. He enjoyed enormous popularity, but a quaestor brought charges against him. As you've heard, his father said he had discovered his son's guilt, and Cassius was put to death while the people stood aside. About 54 years after the first consuls, the consuls Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Aternius passed another welcome law. They put it through the centuriate assembly, covering fines and deposits in lawsuits. Twenty years later, the consuls Gaius Julius and Publius Papirius passed a law setting low values for livestock paid as fines. This followed the censors Lucius Papirius and Publius Pinarius taking large numbers of cattle from private owners into state hands through fines.”

SECTION 61

Chapter 36

“But some years earlier, the senate held supreme authority, and the people accepted and obeyed it. A plan was agreed on: both the consuls and the people's tribunes would resign. Ten men would then be appointed with the greatest power, without a right of appeal. They would hold supreme command and write the laws. They drew up ten tables of laws with great fairness and good judgment. Then they appointed another group of ten for the following year. Their honesty and fairness didn't earn the same praise. Still, one member of that group, Gaius Julius, deserves exceptional praise for this action. He said a dead man had been dug up in the bedroom of a nobleman, Lucius Sestius, in his presence. Julius had supreme power because he was one of the ten, with no appeal against his decisions. Even so, he demanded bail guarantors from Sestius. He said he wouldn't disregard that excellent law which protected a Roman citizen's life. It forbade decisions in capital cases anywhere except the centuriate assembly.”

SECTION 62

Chapter 37

“A third year of the ten men’s rule followed. The same men remained in office and would not appoint replacements. I have already said several times that this condition of government could not last, because it was not balanced fairly among all the community’s ranks. The entire state was in the hands of the leading men. Ten men of the highest birth headed it, with no tribunes of the people to oppose them, no other magistrates alongside them, and no appeal to the people left against execution and flogging.”

SECTION 63

“So their injustice suddenly brought enormous turmoil and a complete change of government. They added two tables of unfair laws. One utterly inhumane law forbade marriage between commoners and patricians—a right usually granted even between separate peoples. The Canuleian vote of the commoners later repealed it. They used all their power to rule the people as they pleased, harshly and greedily. The following story is certainly well known and recorded in many written accounts. A certain Decimus Verginius killed his unmarried daughter with his own hand in the forum because one of those ten men couldn't control his lust. Grieving, he fled to the army, which was then on Mount Algidus. The soldiers abandoned the war they were fighting. They occupied under arms first the Sacred Mount, as had happened earlier in a similar situation, and then the Aventine […] […]”

SECTION 63fr

(Philarg., Serv. G. 3.125) “after Lucius Quinctius had been appointed dictator.

[…] I think our ancestors approved most strongly and preserved most wisely.”

SECTION 64

Chapter 38

When Scipio had finished, everyone waited silently for him to continue. Then Tubero said, “Since these older men aren't asking you for anything more, Africanus, you'll hear what I find missing in your discussion.” “Certainly,” Scipio said, “and gladly.” Then Tubero said, “You seem to have praised our republic. But Laelius asked you about government in general, not about ours. And your discussion still hasn't taught me something. What education, customs, or laws can we use to establish or preserve this very republic you're praising?”

SECTION 65

Chapter 39

At this Africanus said, “Tubero, I think we will soon have a better opportunity to discuss how to establish and preserve communities. As for the best form of government, I thought I had answered Laelius’s question well enough. First, I identified three acceptable types of community and the same number of destructive ones opposed to them. None of them on its own was the best. What surpassed each of them was a balanced mixture of the first three.”

SECTION 66

“My use of our own community as an example did not help to define the best form of government. That could have been done without an example. Its purpose was to let us see, in a very great community in actual life, what our reasoning and discussion were describing. But if you are looking for the best form itself, without an example from any people, we must use nature as our model, since, as for this picture of a city and a people, you […]

[…]”

SECTION 67

Chapter 40

“[…] who I've been looking for all this time and want to get to.” Laelius: “Maybe you're looking for a man with good judgment?” Then he said, “That's exactly who I mean.” Laelius: “You have a fine choice among the very people here. You could even start with yourself.” Then Scipio said, “If only the Senate as a whole had its fair share of such people! But still, a man who sits on a huge, wild beast, as we often saw in Africa, knows what he's doing. He holds the beast in check and guides it wherever he wants. He turns that wild animal with a light signal, †not force.” Laelius: “I know him, and I often saw him when I was your deputy.” Scipio: “So that Indian or Carthaginian controls just one beast, and a tame one used to human ways at that. But what's hidden in human souls—the part of the soul called the mind—doesn't rein in and tame just one beast, or one that's easy to subdue, if it ever manages it at all, which it very rarely can. For that fierce one too must be kept in check […] […]

SECTION 68

Chapter 41

(Non. 300M) “which feeds on blood and delights so much in every act of cruelty that even people’s painful deaths can hardly satisfy it.

(Non. 491M) but to someone eager, seeking, lustful, and wallowing in pleasures.

(Non. 72M) and fourth, anxiety, inclined to mourning, grieving, and constantly troubling itself.

(Non. 228M) but to be crushed by distress, to be crushed by misery or cast down by fear and cowardice.

(Non. 292M) Like an untrained driver, he is dragged from the chariot, trampled, torn apart, and crushed.”

SECTION 69

Chapter 42

[…] “could be said.” Then Laelius said, “I now see what duty and task you are assigning to that man I have been waiting for.” Africanus said, “Almost this one alone, of course—for practically all the others are contained in it: never to stop watching and examining himself, to invite others to follow his example, and through the brilliance of his character and life to offer himself to the citizens like a mirror. On stringed instruments and pipes, and in singing and voices themselves, a certain harmony must be kept among the different notes. Trained ears cannot stand it when this is changed or out of tune. By balancing very different voices, that harmony is nevertheless made unified and consistent. In the same way a community, reasonably balanced out of the highest, lowest, and intermediate ranks, like notes, through the agreement

(August. C.D. 2.21) of very different people makes a harmony. What musicians call harmony in singing is agreement in a community. It is the strongest and best bond of security in every state, and it cannot possibly exist without justice.”

SECTION 70

Chapter 44

[…] to be full of justice. Then Scipio: “I agree. And I tell you, we should consider nothing said about the state so far. Nor can we go further until we've established two things. It's false that we can't run a state without injustice. More importantly, it's absolutely true that we can't run one without the greatest justice. But let's stop here for today, if you agree. Let's leave the rest for tomorrow; there's still quite a lot.” Everyone agreed, and the discussion ended for that day.