Book 3

SECTION 1

[…]

SECTION 3

Chapter 2

[…] and vehicles for slowness; and when that same faculty found human beings uttering something rudimentary and confused in unformed sounds, it cut these sounds apart and divided them into sections, stamped words on things like signs, and bound people, formerly scattered, to one another with the most delightful bond of speech. By a similar intelligence, all the sounds of the voice, which had seemed infinite, were marked and represented through the invention of a few symbols. By these, conversations with the absent, expressions of intention, and records of past events could be preserved. To this was added number, something necessary to life and uniquely unchanging and eternal. This first impelled us also to look up into the heavens, to observe the movements of the stars to some purpose, and, by counting nights and days […]

[…]

SECTION 4

Chapter 3

[…] whose souls rose higher and could accomplish or conceive something worthy, as I said before, of the gods’ gift. Let us therefore regard those who discuss the conduct of life as great men, as indeed they are; let them be learned, let them be teachers of truth and virtue. Only let this other subject—whether discovered by men engaged in the changing affairs of commonwealths or also treated in those thinkers’ leisure and writings—be regarded, as it is, as by no means contemptible: the theory of government and the discipline of peoples, which brings about in gifted natures, as it has already done so very often, the emergence of a virtue almost beyond belief, a divine virtue.

SECTION 5

But if anyone has thought that to the equipment of mind he possessed by nature and through civic institutions he should also add learning and a fuller knowledge of things, as did the very men taking part in the discussion in these books, everyone must place such men above all others. For what can be more glorious than the union of the management and experience of great affairs with the study and knowledge of those arts? Or what can be imagined more accomplished than Publius Scipio, Gaius Laelius, or Lucius Philus? To omit nothing that belonged to the highest distinction of illustrious men, they added to the customs of their own land and ancestors this learning brought from abroad, from Socrates.

SECTION 6

Therefore, the man who both wished and was able to equip himself in both ways, with his ancestors’ institutions and with learning, has, I think, attained everything that makes for glory. But if one of the two paths to wisdom must be chosen, then, even if someone thinks the quiet life devoted to the finest studies and arts happier, the life of public service is certainly more praiseworthy and illustrious. From this life the greatest men derive their distinction, as did Manius Curius,“Whom no one could conquer with iron or gold,”or […]

SECTION 7

Chapter 4

[…] was wisdom; nevertheless, there was this difference in the methods of the two groups: the former fostered nature’s first principles through words and arts, the latter through institutions and laws. This one state has produced more men who, if not wise—since those thinkers restrict that title so narrowly—are certainly worthy of the highest praise, since they honored the teachings and discoveries of the wise. And consider how many states now deserve praise or have deserved it. Since to establish a commonwealth capable of lasting is by far the greatest work of judgment in the world, if we count a single man for each state, what a multitude of outstanding men we shall find! And if we choose to survey in our minds Italy’s Latins, or its Sabine or Volscian people, Samnium, Etruria, or that great Greece in Italy, and then the Assyrians, the Persians, the Carthaginians, if these […]

[…]

SECTION 8

Chapter 5

[…] And Philus said, “A splendid case you are handing over to me, when you want me to undertake the defense of wickedness!” “And of course,” said Laelius, “you must fear that, if you state the usual arguments against justice, people will think those are your own convictions—you, who are almost a unique example of old-fashioned integrity and good faith, and whose practice of arguing on opposite sides is well known, since you think truth is most easily discovered that way.” And Philus said, “Well then, I shall oblige you and knowingly smear myself with dirt. Since those who search for gold do not think they should refuse such a thing, we, who are searching for justice, something far more precious than all gold, must certainly shrink from no discomfort. And if only, just as I am to use another man’s argument, I could also use another man’s voice! As it is, Lucius Furius Philus must say what Carneades, a Greek accustomed to using words as suited his convenience […] […]

SECTION 9

(Non. 263M) “so that you may answer Carneades, who often makes a mockery of the best causes through the captious ingenuity of his arguments.”

SECTION 11

Chapter 7

(Non. 373M) “Justice looks outward, reaching out in its entirety and standing forth.

(Non. 299M) A virtue which, beyond all others, extends and unfolds itself wholly for the benefit of others.”

SECTION 12

Chapter 8

“[…] both discover and uphold, while the other filled four quite substantial books with justice itself. For I expected nothing grand or magnificent from Chrysippus, who speaks in his own peculiar fashion, weighing everything by the slight shifts of words, not by the substance of things. It was for those heroes to lift from the dust that virtue which, if it exists at all, is uniquely generous and liberal, which loves everyone more than itself and was born for others rather than itself, and to place it on that divine throne not far from wisdom.

SECTION 13

“Nor did they lack either the will—for what other reason had they for writing, or what purpose at all?—or the intellect in which they surpassed everyone. But their cause defeated both their will and their resources. For the law we are investigating is a matter of civic enactment, not of nature. If it were natural, justice and injustice would be the same for everyone, just as heat and cold, bitterness and sweetness are.

SECTION 14

Chapter 9

“As things are, if someone could, in Pacuvius’s words, ‘riding in the chariot of winged serpents,’ look down upon and survey with his eyes many different nations and cities, he would see first that among the Egyptians, that exceptionally uncorrupted people who preserve in writing the memory of so many centuries and events, a certain ox is regarded as a god, whom the Egyptians call Apis; and that among them many other monsters and beasts of every kind are consecrated among the gods. Next he would see the magnificent shrines of Greece, as among us, dedicated to images in human form, which the Persians thought impious. Indeed, Xerxes is said to have ordered the Athenians’ temples burned for this reason alone: he considered it sacrilege to keep the gods shut within walls, when their home was this entire universe.

SECTION 15

“Later, however, both Philip, who planned war against the Persians, and Alexander, who waged it, put forward this reason for the war: each wished to exact vengeance for the shrines of Greece. The Greeks had thought these should not even be rebuilt, so that future generations might have before their eyes an everlasting witness to the Persians’ crime. How many peoples—the Tauri on the Black Sea, King Busiris of Egypt, the Gauls, the Carthaginians—have thought human sacrifice both pious and most pleasing to the immortal gods! Ways of life differ so widely that the Cretans and Aetolians consider robbery honorable, while the Spartans repeatedly declared that all the lands they could reach with a spear were theirs. The Athenians even used to swear publicly that all land bearing olives or crops belonged to them. The Gauls think it shameful to get grain by manual labor, and so, armed, they reap other people’s fields;

SECTION 16

“we, however, are supremely just people, who do not allow the nations beyond the Alps to plant olive or vine, so that our own olive groves and vineyards may be worth more. When we do this, we are said to act prudently, not justly, so that you may understand how wisdom differs from fairness. And Lycurgus, that inventor of excellent laws and the fairest justice, gave the lands of the wealthy to the common people to cultivate as though they were slaves.

SECTION 17

Chapter 10

“But if I wished to describe the forms of law, institutions, manners, and customs, I could show not only their variety among so many nations, but their thousand changes in a single city, even this very one. Our interpreter of the law here, Manilius, now states one set of rules about women’s legacies and inheritances, whereas in his youth, before the Voconian law was passed, he used to state another. That very law, proposed for men’s advantage, is full of injustice to women. Why should a woman not possess money? Why may a woman be heir to a Vestal Virgin, but not to her own mother? And if a limit had to be set on women’s wealth, why could Publius Crassus’s daughter, if she were her father’s only child, possess a hundred million asses without breaking the law, while mine could not possess three million asses […]

[…]

SECTION 18

Chapter 11

“[…] had established laws for us, we should all observe the same ones, and the same people would not observe different laws at different times. But I ask: if it is the mark of a just man and a good man to obey the laws, which laws? Whatever laws there happen to be? Yet virtue admits no inconsistency, and nature allows no variation; our laws win acceptance through punishment, not through our justice. Law, then, has nothing natural about it; and from this it follows that people are not just by nature either. Or do they say that laws vary, but naturally good men follow the justice that truly exists, not what is thought to be just? For, they say, it is the mark of a good and just man to give each person what each deserves.

SECTION 19

“First, then, shall we give anything to speechless beasts? For no ordinary men, but the greatest and most learned, Pythagoras and Empedocles, proclaim that all living creatures share one legal standing, and cry out that inexpiable punishments hang over those who have harmed an animal. It is therefore a crime to harm a beast; and that crime, whoever wishes […] […]

SECTION 23

Chapter 13

“[…] For all who hold the power of life and death over a people are tyrants, though they prefer, borrowing the title of Jupiter Best, to be called kings. When certain men control the commonwealth because of wealth, birth, or some other resources, it is a faction, though they are called the best men. If the people possess the greatest power and everything is governed at their discretion, that is called freedom, but is in truth license. But when each fears the other, man fears man and rank fears rank, then, because no one trusts in his own strength, a kind of bargain is made between the people and the powerful. From this arises the combined form of government Scipio was praising. For the mother of justice is neither nature nor inclination, but weakness. Since one of three things must be chosen—to do wrong without suffering it, to do it and suffer it, or to do neither—the best is to do wrong if you can do so with impunity; second best, neither to do it nor to suffer it; most wretched, to be forever fighting, now inflicting wrongs, now receiving them. Thus those who to attain that first […]

[…]

SECTION 24fr

Chapter 14

(Non. 125M,318M,534M) “For when he was asked what criminal impulse had driven him to make the sea unsafe with a single pirate ship, he said, ‘The same one that drives you to make the whole world unsafe.’”

SECTION 24

Chapter 15

“[…] all […]. Wisdom bids us increase our resources, enlarge our wealth, extend our boundaries—for how could that praise engraved on the monuments of the greatest commanders, ‘He extended the boundaries of the empire,’ have arisen unless something had been added from others’ property?—rule as many people as possible, enjoy pleasures, be powerful, reign, dominate. Justice, however, commands us to spare everyone, care for the human race, give each his due, and leave sacred, public, and other people’s property untouched. What follows, then, if you obey wisdom? Wealth, power, resources, honors, commands, kingdoms, for individuals or for peoples. But since we are speaking of the commonwealth, public actions are more conspicuous; and since the principle of justice is the same in both cases, I think we should discuss a people’s wisdom. To pass over others, did this people of ours, whose history Africanus traced yesterday from its roots, and whose empire now holds the whole world, become the greatest from being the smallest of all through justice or through wisdom? […]

[…]

SECTION 25

“[…] except the Arcadians and Athenians, who, fearing, I suppose, that this prohibition of justice might one day arise, invented the story that they had sprung from the earth like those little mice in the fields.

SECTION 26

Chapter 16

“To this, the following reply is commonly made, first by men who are by no means poor disputants. They have the more authority in this case because, when the question concerns a good man, whom we wish to be open and straightforward, they are not sly, cunning, or malicious in debate. They deny that the wise man is good because goodness and justice delight him of themselves and for their own sake. Rather, it is because the lives of good men are free of fear, care, anxiety, and danger, whereas some thorn always lodges in the minds of the wicked, and trials and punishments always hover before their eyes. No advantage, no reward won by injustice is worth so much that you should always be afraid, always think some punishment present, always think it hanging over you, losses […]

[…]

SECTION 27fr

Chapter 17

(Lactant. Div. Inst. 5.12.5) “I ask: suppose there are two men, one the best of men, supremely fair, of the highest justice and extraordinary good faith, the other conspicuous for crime and audacity. Suppose the community is so mistaken that it thinks that good man criminal, wicked, and impious, while it considers the utterly wicked man a model of integrity and good faith; and, in keeping with this opinion of all the citizens, the good man is harassed, dragged away, finally subjected to violence, his eyes gouged out, condemned, chained, burned, driven into exile, left destitute,

SECTION 27

“and finally appears, with every justification, to be the most wretched of all; while the wicked man, on the contrary, is praised, honored, and loved by everyone, all distinctions, all commands, all wealth, and resources of every kind are heaped upon him from every side, and in everyone’s judgment he is considered the very best of men and most worthy of every blessing of fortune—who, then, will be so mad as to hesitate over which of the two he would rather be?

SECTION 28

Chapter 18

“What holds for individuals holds for peoples: no state is so foolish that it would not prefer to rule unjustly rather than serve justly. Nor need I go far for an example. As consul, with you as my advisers, I investigated the treaty with Numantia. Who did not know that Quintus Pompeius had made a treaty, and that Mancinus’s case was the same? One, an excellent man, even supported the bill I proposed at the senate’s direction; the other defended himself most fiercely. If we seek a sense of shame, integrity, or good faith, Mancinus displayed these; if calculation, judgment, and prudence, Pompeius stands ahead. Which […] […]

SECTION 32

Chapter 21

(Gel. N.A. 1.22.8) “I would not press you, Laelius, unless I thought these men wished it and I myself desired you too to take up some part of this conversation of ours, especially since you yourself said yesterday that you would be more than enough for us. But that, of course, is impossible; we all ask that you at least not fail us.”

(Non. 323M, 324M) “but our young men must by no means listen to him. For if he thought as he speaks, he is a vile man; if he thought otherwise, as I prefer to believe, his speech is nevertheless monstrous.”

SECTION 33

Chapter 22

(Lactant. Div. Inst. 6.8.6) “True law is indeed right reason in accord with nature, spread among all, constant, everlasting. By its commands it calls us to duty; by its prohibitions it deters us from wrongdoing. Yet it neither commands nor forbids the good in vain, nor moves the wicked by its commands or prohibitions. It is sacrilege to enact a law against this law; no part of it may be taken away, nor can it be repealed altogether. Neither senate nor people can release us from this law, nor must we seek another to explain or interpret it. There will not be one law at Rome and another at Athens, one now and another hereafter, but one everlasting and unchanging law will bind all nations at all times. There will be one common master, as it were, and commander of all: God, the deviser, judge, and proposer of this law. Whoever disobeys him will flee from his own self and, having scorned his human nature, will by that very act pay the greatest penalties, even if he escapes the other things considered punishments.

SECTION 34fr

Chapter 23

(August. C.D. 22.6) “that no war is undertaken by the best state except to keep faith or defend its safety.”

SECTION 34

“But private individuals often escape those penalties which even the most foolish feel—poverty, exile, imprisonment, flogging—when a swift death offers itself. For states, however, death itself is a punishment, though it seems to rescue individuals from punishment; for a state should be so established that it lasts forever. There is therefore no natural end to a commonwealth as there is to a human being, for whom death is not merely necessary but very often desirable. But when a state is removed, destroyed, extinguished, it is in a way—to compare small things with great—as though this entire universe were to perish and collapse.

SECTION 35afr

(Isid. Orig. 18.1.2sq.) “Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without cause. For no war can be justly waged except to exact redress or repel enemies.

(Isid. Orig. 18.1.2sq.) No war is considered just unless it has been announced, unless it has been declared, unless restitution has been demanded.”

SECTION 35bfr

(Non. 498M) “Our people, however, by defending their allies have now gained possession of the whole world.”

SECTION 36

Chapter 24

(August. C.D. 19.21) “Why, then, does God rule over man, the soul over the body, reason over passion and the other vicious parts of the soul?”

SECTION 37

Chapter 25

(August. c. Iul. 4.12.61) Do we not see that nature herself has given dominion to the best, to the great benefit of the weak? Why else does God rule man, the mind the body, reason desire and anger and the other vicious elements of that same mind?

(August. c. Iul. 4.12.61) But we must also recognize distinctions in ruling and in serving. For as the mind is said to rule the body, so it is said to rule desire; yet it rules the body as a king rules his citizens or a parent his children, but desire as a master rules slaves, since it restrains and breaks it. Thus the authority of kings, commanders, magistrates, fathers, and peoples governs citizens and allies as the mind governs the body; masters, however, keep their slaves under harsh discipline as the best part of the mind, that is, wisdom, does the vicious and feeble parts of the same mind—desires, fits of anger, and the other passions.

(August. C.D. 14.23) that the body’s limbs are ruled like children because they obey so readily, but the vicious parts of the mind are curbed like slaves by a harsher authority?

(Non. 109M) For there is a kind of unjust slavery, when those who could belong to themselves belong to another; but when those serve […]

SECTION 39

Chapter 27

(Prisc. GL 2.399K) in which cases I agree that an anxious and perilous justice does not befit a wise person.

SECTION 40

Chapter 28

(Lactant. Div. Inst. 5.18.4) Virtue certainly desires honor, and virtue has no other reward […]. Yet she accepts it readily, without demanding it harshly […]. What riches will you set before this man? What commands? What kingdoms? He regards those things as human, but judges his own goods divine […]. But if universal ingratitude, widespread envy, or powerful enemies strip virtue of her rewards, she surely delights in many consolations, and above all sustains herself by her own beauty.

(August. C.D. 22.4) Their bodies were not carried up to heaven; for nature would not permit what was of earth to remain anywhere but on earth.

(Non. 125M) Never a very brave man’s courage, tireless energy, endurance […]

(Non. 132M) As though Pyrrhus lacked generosity to offer Fabricius, or the Samnites lacked resources to offer Curius!

(Non. 522M,68M) Our own Cato, when he came to his Sabine estate, used to visit this man’s hearth, as we heard from his own lips. Seated beside it, Curius had rejected the gifts of the Samnites, once his enemies, by then his clients.

SECTION 41

Chapter 29

[…] Asia, Tiberius Gracchus persisted in the case of the citizens, but disregarded the rights and treaties of the allies and the Latin peoples. If this practice and license begin to spread further and turn our rule from justice to force, so that those who until now obey us willingly are held by terror, then, though for us at our age the watch is nearly over, I am troubled for our descendants and for that immortality of the commonwealth, which could have lasted forever had we lived by our ancestral institutions and customs.

SECTION 42

Chapter 30

When Laelius had finished, everyone present showed how greatly he had delighted them; but Scipio, carried away beyond the others by a kind of joy, said, “You have often defended many cases, Laelius, in such a way that I, with you, neither our colleague Servius Galba, whom you placed above everyone while he lived, nor indeed any of the Attic orators, either for sweetness […].”

[…]

(Non. 262M) that he had lacked two things, confidence and a voice, and their absence kept him from speaking before the people and in the Forum […]

(Sch. Iuvenal. Sat. 6.480) the bull bellowed with the groaning of the men imprisoned inside it.

SECTION 43

Chapter 31

[…] bring back. “Then who would call that a people’s affair—that is, a commonwealth—when everyone was crushed by one man’s cruelty, and there was no single bond of law, no agreement and fellowship of an assembly, such as constitutes a people? The same applies to Syracuse. That splendid city, which Timaeus calls the greatest of Greek cities and the most beautiful of all; its citadel, a sight to behold; its harbors flowing deep into the town’s recesses and up to the city’s edges; its broad streets, colonnades, temples, walls—none of these made it a commonwealth while Dionysius held it. Nothing belonged to the people, and the people themselves belonged to one man. Where there is a tyrant, therefore, we must say that there is not a defective commonwealth, as I said yesterday, but, as our reasoning now compels us to say, no commonwealth at all.”

SECTION 44

Chapter 32

“An excellent point,” said Laelius; “I now see where the argument is going.” S. “Then you see that a state wholly in the power of a faction cannot truly be called a commonwealth either.” L. “That is certainly my judgment.” S. “And a perfectly sound judgment it is. For what belonged to the Athenians when, after that great Peloponnesian War, the Thirty ruled their city with such injustice? Did the city’s ancient glory or the town’s splendid appearance, its theater, gymnasiums, colonnades, famous gateways, citadel, the marvelous works of Phidias, or that magnificent Piraeus make it a commonwealth?” “Certainly not,” said Laelius, “since it was not the people’s affair.” S. “What about Rome, when the decemvirs held power without appeal in that third year, when liberty herself had lost her claim to freedom?” L. “Nothing belonged to the people; indeed, what the people did was to recover what was theirs.”

SECTION 45

Chapter 33

S. “I come now to the third kind, where we may perhaps seem to face difficulties. When everything is said to be done by the people and to lie in the people’s power; when the multitude puts anyone it wishes to death; when they do, plunder, possess, and scatter whatever they please—can you then deny, Laelius, that this is a commonwealth? Everything belongs to the people, and we maintain that a commonwealth is the people’s affair.” Then Laelius said, “There is none I would more readily deny to be a commonwealth than this one, which is entirely […]. It was not held that there was a commonwealth at Syracuse or Agrigentum or Athens when tyrants ruled there, or here when the decemvirs ruled. Nor do I see how the name of commonwealth is any more in evidence under the multitude’s domination. First, as you so well defined it, Scipio, I do not regard a group as a people unless it is held together by agreement in law. Rather, such an assembly is as much a tyrant as a single man would be, and more hideous still, since no beast is more savage than this one that assumes the people’s appearance and name. Nor indeed is it consistent, when the property of the insane is legally in the power of their relatives in the male line, because now their […]”

SECTION 46

Chapter 34

[…] “may be said, why that should be a commonwealth and a people’s affair—the arguments made about monarchy.” “And with far greater force,” said Mummius; “for a king, being one man, more closely resembles a master. But where several good men hold power in a commonwealth, nothing can be more blessed than that state. Still, I prefer even monarchy to a free people; for that is the third kind of commonwealth you have left, the most defective of all.”

SECTION 47

Chapter 35

Here Scipio said, “I recognize that habit of yours, Spurius, your aversion to popular government. Although one can take it more gently than you generally do, I agree that none of these three kinds deserves less approval. But I do not agree with you that aristocrats are better than a king. If it is wisdom that governs the commonwealth, what difference, after all, does it make whether it resides in one man or in several? Yet a certain misconception misleads us when we argue this way. When they are called ‘the best men,’ nothing can seem more excellent: what better thing can be imagined than the best? But when a king is mentioned, even an unjust king comes to mind. We are not now speaking of an unjust king, however, when we inquire into the monarchical commonwealth itself. Think, then, of King Romulus or Pompilius or Tullius, and perhaps you will not be so dissatisfied with that commonwealth.”

SECTION 48

M. “What praise, then, do you leave for a popular commonwealth?” S. Then he said, “What? Do you think, Spurius, that the Rhodians, whom we recently visited together, have no commonwealth?” M. “I certainly think they have, and one by no means deserving blame.” S. “You are right. But, if you remember, the very same men were alternately commoners and senators, taking turns so that in some months they performed the people’s duties, in others the senate’s. In both capacities they received a fee for attendance; and the same men judged capital cases and all the others in the theater and in the senate house. The senate had only as much power and standing as the multitude […] […]”

SECTION 1

[…]

SECTION 3

Chapter 2

[…] and vehicles to make up for slowness. And when that same intelligence found people making rough, confused noises with unformed sounds, it broke those sounds up and divided them into distinct parts. It attached words to things like labels, and bound people who'd previously been separate to one another with the very pleasant bond of conversation. Similar intelligence also invented a few symbols to mark and represent all the sounds of the voice, which had seemed endless. These could preserve conversations with people who weren't there, expressions of people's wishes, and records of past events. Then came number, something both necessary for life and uniquely unchanging and eternal. It was also the first thing to prompt us to look up at the sky, to study the movements of the stars with a purpose, and, by counting nights and days […]

[…]

SECTION 4

Chapter 3

[…] whose minds rose higher and could either accomplish or think of something worthy of the gods’ gift, as I said before. So let us regard those who discuss how to live as great men, as they are. Let them be learned men and teachers of truth and virtue. But let us also acknowledge this particular subject, political understanding and the training of peoples. Whether it was invented by men experienced in the changing affairs of states or studied by those thinkers in their leisure and writings, it is certainly not to be looked down on. When applied to good natural abilities, it produces, as it has already done very often, an almost unbelievable and divine excellence.

SECTION 5

But suppose someone thought he should add education and a fuller knowledge of things to the mental resources he'd gained from nature and society's institutions, as the very men taking part in the discussion in these books did. Everyone ought to rank such men above all others. What could be finer than combining the handling of great affairs and practical experience with the study and knowledge of those arts? Or can anyone imagine a more fully developed man than P. Scipio, C. Laelius, or L. Philus? They added this teaching from abroad, which came from Socrates, to their native customs and ancestral traditions, so they wouldn't leave out anything that could bring distinguished men the highest praise.

SECTION 6

That's why I think anyone who wanted and was able to equip himself with both our ancestors' institutions and learning has achieved everything needed to earn praise. But if one of these two paths to wisdom has to be chosen, then even if someone thinks a quiet life spent on the best studies and arts is happier, a life in public service is certainly more praiseworthy and more distinguished. That way of life brings honor to the greatest men, such as M’. Curius,Who no one could defeat with iron or gold,or […]

SECTION 7

Chapter 4

“[…] was wisdom. Still, the two approaches differed in this respect: those men nurtured the beginnings supplied by nature through words and systematic study, while these men did it through institutions and laws. This one state has produced more men who, if not wise—since those thinkers use that name so narrowly—certainly deserve the highest praise, because they put wise men's teachings and discoveries into practice. And think how many states there are, and have been, that deserve praise! Since establishing a government that can last takes by far the greatest judgment in the world, what a huge number of outstanding men we'd find if we counted just one for each state! And if we wanted to survey in our minds Italy's Latium, or its Sabine or Volscian people, or Samnium, Etruria, or that Greater Greece, and then the Assyrians, the Persians, the Carthaginians, or these […]

“[…]

SECTION 8

Chapter 5

“[…].” And Philus: “What a splendid case you're handing me, asking me to take up the defense of wrongdoing!” “Oh yes,” Laelius said, “you should worry that if you repeat the usual arguments against justice, people might think you actually believe them! After all, you're practically the one model of old-fashioned honesty and good faith, and everyone knows your habit of arguing both sides, because you think that's the easiest way to find the truth.” And Philus: “All right, then,” he said, “I'll do what you want and knowingly get myself dirty. Gold miners don't think they should refuse to do that. So when we're looking for justice, something worth far more than all the gold in the world, we certainly shouldn't shrink from any trouble. And I wish that, just as I'll be using someone else's arguments, I could use someone else's mouth too! As it is, L. Furius Philus has to say what Carneades, a Greek who was used to using words however it suited him […] […]

SECTION 9

(Non. 263M) “so that you can answer Carneades, who often uses clever quibbling to make a mockery of the strongest cases.

SECTION 11

Chapter 7

(Non. 373M) “Justice looks outward, projects itself entirely outward, and stands out.

(Non. 299M) This virtue, more than the others, reaches out and extends itself entirely toward other people’s interests.”

SECTION 12

Chapter 8

“[…] could both discover it and defend it, while the other filled four really large books with justice itself. I never expected anything great or grand from Chrysippus. He has his own way of talking, weighing everything by the force of words rather than the weight of facts. It was up to those heroes to lift this virtue from where it lay and place it on that divine throne, not far from wisdom—the one virtue, if it exists at all, that's supremely generous and openhanded, loves everyone else more than itself, and was born for others rather than itself.

SECTION 13

“They certainly did not lack willingness. What other reason or purpose did they have for writing? Nor did they lack talent, in which they surpassed everyone. But their subject defeated both their willingness and their resources. The justice we are investigating is something belonging to a particular community; there is no natural justice. If there were, the same things would be just and unjust for everyone, just as the same things are hot and cold, bitter and sweet.”

SECTION 14

Chapter 9

“As things are, suppose someone could, in Pacuvius’s words, ‘ride in a chariot of winged snakes,’ and look down on and survey many different peoples and cities. First he would see, among that exceptionally uncorrupted Egyptian people, whose writings preserve the memory of so many centuries and events, that a certain ox, whom the Egyptians call Apis, is considered a god. Among them, many other monsters and beasts of every kind are also included among the gods. Then he would see in Greece, as among us, magnificent shrines consecrated to images in human form. The Persians considered these an offense against the gods. Xerxes is said to have ordered the burning of the Athenians’ temples for this reason alone: he thought it wrong to shut up within walls the gods whose home was this whole universe.”

SECTION 15

“Later, both Philip, who planned a war against the Persians, and Alexander, who fought it, gave this reason for going to war: they wanted to avenge Greece's temples. The Greeks had decided not even to rebuild them, so that later generations would always have visible proof of the Persians' crime. How many peoples—the Taurians on the Black Sea, the Gauls, the Carthaginians—and rulers like Busiris, king of Egypt, have thought that sacrificing human beings was a religious duty and especially pleasing to the immortal gods! Ways of life differ so much that the Cretans and Aetolians think robbery is honorable, while the Spartans kept saying that every field a spear could reach belonged to them. The Athenians even used to swear publicly that all land producing olives or grain was theirs. The Gauls think it's shameful to get grain by working with their hands, so they harvest other people's fields with weapons in hand;

SECTION 16

“and we're such just people: we won't let the peoples beyond the Alps plant olives or vines, so that our own olive groves and vineyards will be worth more. When we do that, we're said to act wisely, but not justly. That should show you that wisdom and fairness don't agree. And Lycurgus, who devised those excellent laws and that exceptionally fair legal system, assigned the rich men's fields to the common people to farm as slaves.

SECTION 17

Chapter 10

“If I wanted to describe the different kinds of law, institutions, customs, and practices, I could show not only how they vary among so many peoples, but how they've changed a thousand times within a single city, even this very one. Our legal expert here, Manilius, now says that one set of rules applies to women's legacies and inheritances, whereas he used to say something different when he was young, before the Voconian law had been passed. That very law, introduced for men's benefit, is full of injustice toward women. Why shouldn't a woman own money? Why can she be heir to a Vestal Virgin, but not to her own mother? And if a limit had to be set on women's wealth, why could Publius Crassus's daughter, if she were her father's only child, have a hundred million without breaking the law, while mine couldn't have three million […]

“[…]

SECTION 18

Chapter 11

“[…] had laid down laws for us, and everyone would follow the same ones, and the same people wouldn't follow different ones at different times. But I ask: if it's the mark of a just person and a good man to obey laws, which laws? Whatever laws happen to exist? But virtue doesn't admit inconsistency, and nature doesn't allow variation. And what gives laws their authority is punishment, not our justice. So law has nothing natural about it. It follows that people aren't just by nature either. Or do they say that laws vary, but that good men naturally follow justice as it really is, not as people think it is? For, they say, what makes a man good and just is giving each person what they deserve.

SECTION 19

“So, first of all, will we give anything to the animals that cannot speak? Not ordinary men but great and learned ones, Pythagoras and Empedocles, declare that all living creatures share one legal standing. They cry out that punishments which can never be paid off hang over those who have harmed an animal. So it is a crime to harm a beast, and anyone willing to commit that crime […] […]”

SECTION 23

Chapter 13

“[…] Everyone who has power over a people's life and death is a tyrant, but they prefer to be called kings, taking their title from Jupiter the Best. When certain men control the state because of wealth, birth, or some other source of power, that's a faction, but they're called ‘the best men.’ If the people have the most power and everything is governed by their decisions, that's called freedom, but it's really people doing whatever they please. But when everyone fears everyone else—one person fears another, and one class fears another—then, because no one trusts their own strength, a sort of agreement is made between the people and the powerful. This produces the mixed form of government that Scipio praised. For justice is born not from nature or choice, but from weakness. There are three options: to do wrong without suffering it, to do wrong and suffer it, or to do neither. The best is to do wrong, if you can get away with it. Second best is neither to do it nor suffer it. The most miserable option is to fight it out constantly, now doing wrong and now suffering it. So those who to attain that first option […]

“[…]

SECTION 24fr

Chapter 14

(Non. 125M,318M,534M) “For when he was asked what criminal impulse had led him to make the sea unsafe with a single pirate ship, he said, ‘The same one that makes you do it to the whole world.’

SECTION 24

Chapter 15

[…] all […] Wisdom tells us to increase our power, expand our wealth, extend our borders (after all, how could that praise carved on the monuments of the greatest generals—“He extended the empire’s borders”—have arisen unless something belonging to someone else had been added?), rule over as many people as possible, enjoy pleasures, be powerful, reign as kings, and act as masters. Justice, on the other hand, tells us to spare everyone, look out for the human race, give everyone what belongs to them, and leave sacred property, public property, and other people’s property alone. So what do you get if you follow wisdom? Wealth, authority, power, honors, commands, and kingdoms, for individuals or whole peoples. But since we’re talking about the state, actions taken by states stand out more. And since the principle of justice is the same in both cases, I think we should talk about a people’s wisdom. To leave other peoples aside for now, this people of ours, whose history Africanus traced from its roots in yesterday’s discussion, and whose rule now holds the whole world—has it grown from the smallest of all to the greatest through justice or wisdom? […]

[…]

SECTION 25

[…] except the Arcadians and Athenians, who, I suppose, feared that justice might someday issue this prohibition. So they made up the story that they had sprung from the earth, like these little mice from the fields.

SECTION 26

Chapter 16

The first answer usually given to this comes from people who are far from bad at arguing. Their authority in this case is all the greater because, when discussing a good man, whom we want to be open and straightforward, they don’t argue with cunning, trickery, or bad faith. They say that a wise man isn’t good because goodness and justice please him of their own accord and for their own sake, but because good men live free of fear, worry, anxiety, and danger. Bad men, by contrast, always have some prick of conscience lodged in their minds; trials and punishments are always before their eyes. No advantage, no reward gained through injustice is great enough to make it worth always being afraid, always thinking some punishment is close at hand, always thinking it’s hanging over you, losses […]

[…]

SECTION 27fr

Chapter 17

(Lactant. Div. Inst. 5.12.5) “I ask you to suppose there are two men. One is an excellent man, perfectly fair, completely just, and exceptionally trustworthy. The other is remarkably wicked and shameless. Suppose the community is so mistaken that it thinks the good man is wicked, criminal, and evil, but considers the thoroughly bad man perfectly honest and trustworthy. Because all the citizens hold this opinion, the good man is harassed, seized, and finally physically attacked; his eyes are gouged out; he is convicted, chained, burned, driven into exile, and left in need,”

SECTION 27

finally he seems to everyone, with very good reason, the most miserable of men, while that wicked man, by contrast, is praised, respected, and loved by everyone; every honor, every command, all wealth, and every kind of resource from every quarter are handed to him. In short, everyone judges him the best of men and the one who most deserves every blessing. Who, then, would be so crazy as to hesitate over which of the two he’d rather be?

SECTION 28

Chapter 18

What’s true of individuals is also true of peoples: no state is so foolish that it wouldn’t rather rule unjustly than be enslaved justly. And I don’t need to look far for an example. When I was consul, I investigated the treaty with Numantia, with you sitting on my council. Who didn’t know that Q. Pompeius had made a treaty, and that Mancinus was in the same position? One, a very good man, even spoke in favor of the bill I brought forward on the Senate’s instructions; the other defended himself fiercely. If we’re looking for decency, honesty, and good faith, Mancinus showed them. If we’re looking for calculation, judgment, and shrewdness, Pompeius comes out ahead. Which […] […]

SECTION 32

Chapter 21

(Gel. N.A. 1.22.8) I wouldn’t object, Laelius, except that I think these men want you to take some part in this discussion of ours, and I’m eager for that myself, especially since you said yourself yesterday that you’d even give us more than we needed. But that really can’t happen. We all ask you not to let us down.

(Non. 323M, 324M) but our young people certainly shouldn’t listen to him. If he really thinks what he says, he’s a foul man; if he thinks something else, as I’d prefer, his speech is still monstrous.

SECTION 33

Chapter 22

(Lactant. Div. Inst. 6.8.6) True law is sound reason in line with nature, reaching everyone, consistent and everlasting. Its commands call us to duty, and its prohibitions keep us from wrongdoing. Its commands and prohibitions are never wasted on good people, but they don’t move bad people. It’s wrong to pass a law that overrides this one. No part of it may be repealed, and it can’t be abolished altogether. Neither the Senate nor the people can release us from this law, and we don’t need to look for anyone else to explain or interpret it. There won’t be one law in Rome and another in Athens, one now and another in the future. Instead, one everlasting, unchanging law will bind all peoples at all times. There will be one god who is, so to speak, the teacher and ruler we all share. He is this law’s author, judge, and lawgiver. Anyone who doesn’t obey him will be running away from himself. By rejecting human nature, he’ll suffer the worst penalties in that very act, even if he escapes all the other things people call punishments.

SECTION 34fr

Chapter 23

(August. C.D. 22.6) “that the best state undertakes no war except to keep faith or protect its safety.”

SECTION 34

But individuals often escape the penalties that even the greatest fools can feel—poverty, exile, imprisonment, beatings—when death comes quickly. For states, though, death itself is a punishment, even though it seems to free individuals from punishment. A state ought to be set up so that it lasts forever. So no state’s destruction is natural, as a human being’s death is: for a person, death is not only unavoidable but very often something to wish for. But when a state is wiped out, destroyed, and extinguished, it’s rather like—to compare small things with great ones—this whole universe dying and collapsing.

SECTION 35afr

(Isid. Orig. 18.1.2sq.) Unjust wars are those begun without a reason. No war can be just unless it’s fought to avenge a wrong or drive back enemies.

(Isid. Orig. 18.1.2sq.) No war is considered just unless notice has been given, war has been declared, and a demand has been made for the return of what’s been taken.

SECTION 35bfr

(Non. 498M) “Our people, however, have now gained control of the entire world by defending their allies.”

SECTION 36

Chapter 24

(August. C.D. 19.21) “Why, then, does a god command a human being, the mind the body, and reason desire and the other faulty parts of the soul?”

SECTION 37

Chapter 25

(August. c. Iul. 4.12.61) Don't we see that nature itself has given the best people authority, to the great benefit of the weak? Why, then, does God rule human beings, the mind rule the body, and reason rule desire, anger, and the other flawed parts of that same mind?

(August. c. Iul. 4.12.61) But we need to recognize differences in both ruling and serving. The mind is said to rule the body, and it's also said to rule desire. But it rules the body as a king rules his citizens or a parent his children, while it rules desire as a master rules slaves, restraining and breaking it. In the same way, kings, commanders, officials, fathers, and peoples exercise authority over citizens and allies as the mind does over the body. Masters, on the other hand, drive their slaves hard, just as the best part of the mind—that is, wisdom—does the flawed and weak parts of that same mind: desires, bursts of anger, and other emotional disturbances.

(August. C.D. 14.23) that the body's limbs are ruled like sons because they obey so readily, while the flawed parts of the mind are restrained like slaves under a harsher rule?

(Non. 109M) There is a kind of unjust slavery, when people belong to someone else even though they could belong to themselves. But when people serve […]

SECTION 39

Chapter 27

(Prisc. GL 2.399K) “In these cases I agree that a justice full of anxiety and danger is not for a wise person.”

SECTION 40

Chapter 28

(Lactant. Div. Inst. 5.18.4) “Goodness certainly wants honor, and goodness has no other reward […]. Yet it accepts honor readily and does not demand it harshly […]. What wealth will you put before a man like this? What commands? What kingdoms? He thinks those things belong to the human sphere, but considers his own good qualities divine […]. But if everyone is ungrateful, or many are envious, or powerful enemies rob goodness of its rewards, it certainly finds comfort in many things. Above all, its own worth sustains it.

(August. C.D. 22.4) “Their bodies were not raised into heaven. Nature would not allow something made of earth to remain anywhere but on earth.

(Non. 125M) “Never did the bravest men, of courage, of tireless effort, of endurance […]

(Non. 132M) “Of course Fabricius lacked the chance to enjoy Pyrrhus’s generosity, or Curius the Samnites’ riches!

(Non. 522M,68M) “Our friend Cato used to visit Curius’s hearth when he came to his own place in Sabine territory, as he himself used to tell us. Sitting beside that hearth, Curius had refused gifts from the Samnites, once his enemies and by then his clients.”

SECTION 41

Chapter 29

“[…] Asia, Tiberius Gracchus, persisted in the case of citizens, but ignored the rights and treaties of our allies and the Latin peoples. If this practice and this disregard for restraint begin to spread more widely, and turn our rule from justice to force, those who so far obey us willingly will be held in check by fear. Although we at our age have almost finished our watch, I still worry about our descendants and about the lasting life of our republic. It could have continued forever if people had lived by our ancestors’ institutions and customs.”

SECTION 42

Chapter 30

When Laelius had said this, everyone present showed that they'd thoroughly enjoyed what he'd said. But Scipio, more than anyone, seemed swept up in joy. “You've often argued many cases so well, Laelius,” he said, “that in my eyes, beside you, not only Servius Galba, our colleague, whom you ranked above everyone else as long as he lived, but not even any of the Athenian speakers, whether for charm […].”

[…]

(Non. 262M) that he'd lacked two things needed to speak to the public and in court: confidence and a voice […]

(Sch. Iuvenal. Sat. 6.480) The bull bellowed with the groans of the men shut inside it.

SECTION 43

Chapter 31

“[…] bring back. So who would call that the people's business—that is, a state—when everyone was crushed by one man's cruelty, and there was no common bond of law and no group united by agreement and partnership, which is what a people is? The same goes for Syracuse. That famous city, which Timaeus calls the largest of the Greek cities and the most beautiful of all, had a citadel worth seeing, harbors extending into the town's bays and right up to the city's edges, wide streets, colonnades, temples, and walls. But none of that made it a state while Dionysius controlled it. Nothing belonged to the people, and the people themselves belonged to one man. So where there's a tyrant, we must say there's not a defective state, as I was saying yesterday, but—as our reasoning now forces us to say—simply no state at all.”

SECTION 44

Chapter 32

“That's very well put,” Laelius said. “Now I can see where your argument is going.” Scipio: “So you see that a state entirely under a faction's control can't truly be called a state either.” Laelius: “That's exactly what I think.” Scipio: “And you're absolutely right. What kind of state did the Athenians have when those thirty men ruled their city so unjustly after that great Peloponnesian War? Did the city's old glory, the town's splendid appearance, its theater, gymnasiums, colonnades, famous gateways, citadel, the wonderful works of Phidias, or that magnificent Piraeus make it a state?” “Not at all,” Laelius said, “since it didn't belong to the people.” Scipio: “What about when the ten commissioners at Rome ruled without any right of appeal in that third year, when freedom itself had lost its legal claim?” Laelius: “Nothing belonged to the people. In fact, the people acted to recover what was theirs.”

SECTION 45

Chapter 33

Scipio: “I now come to the third kind, where there may seem to be difficulties. Everything is said to be done through the people and to be under their control. The crowd executes anyone it wants. People do, seize, hold, and squander whatever they like. Can you then deny, Laelius, that this is a republic? Everything belongs to the people, and our definition of a republic is the people’s common concern.” Then Laelius said, “In fact, there is no state I would more readily deny is a republic than one wholly […] It was not accepted that there was a republic at Syracuse, Agrigentum, or Athens when tyrants ruled, or here when the ten commissioners ruled. I cannot see why the name ‘republic’ should apply any more when a crowd rules. First of all, Scipio, as you defined it so well, I do not consider a group a people unless it is held together by agreement about law. That gathering is just as much a tyrant as a single person would be. It is even more repulsive, because no beast is more savage than this crowd that imitates the appearance and name of a people. And it is surely inconsistent, when the law places mad people’s property under their relatives’ control, because their own already […]”

SECTION 46

Chapter 34

“[…] can be said, why that should be a republic and the people’s common concern, as was said about kingship.” “Much more so, in fact,” said Mummius. “A king is more like a slave owner, because he is just one man. But nothing could be happier than a republic in which several good men hold power. Still, I prefer even kingship to a people free to rule itself. That is the third and most defective kind of republic you still have left.”

SECTION 47

Chapter 35

Here Scipio said, “I recognize that familiar attitude of yours, Spurius, opposed to popular government. And although one can put up with it more calmly than you usually do, I agree that none of these three forms deserves less support. But I don't agree with you that rule by the best men is better than a king. If wisdom is what runs the state, what difference does it make whether it's in one person or several? But this way of arguing leads us into a mistake. When people are called ‘the best men,’ nothing can seem preferable. What could anyone imagine that's better than the best? But when a king is mentioned, an unjust king also comes to mind. Yet right now, as we examine government under a king in itself, we're not talking about an unjust king. So think of King Romulus, or Pompilius, or Tullius. Perhaps you won't feel so dissatisfied with that kind of government.”

SECTION 48

Mummius: “Then what praise do you leave for a republic governed by the people?” Scipio: “Well, Spurius, do you think the Rhodians have no republic? We were there together recently.” Mummius: “I certainly think they do, and it deserves very little criticism.” Scipio: “You are right. But if you remember, the same men all served at one time as ordinary citizens, at another as senators. They took turns, with specified months for doing the people’s work and others for doing the senate’s. They were paid to attend in both roles. Both in the theater and in the senate house, the same men judged capital cases and all the others. The senate had as much power and standing as the mass of the people […] […]”