Timothy Maradeo

Anna Peterson

Plato Republic

6 May 2022

Plato and Cicero: The Same Politics for Different Reasons

The relationship between the Classical Greek philosopher Plato and the Roman

Republic’s senator Cicero often receives trite comparisons due to the seeming ease with which

one may compare the names of the two’s works when translated from Greek and Latin: the

Republic and the Laws. Frequently cited is Cicero’s promotion of Plato as deus ille noster (“that

man our god”) (Hosle 2008, 145). One assumes the mimicry of Plato to be self-evident, and

discussions typically follow the paradigm of comparing-and-contrasting the two authors for

similarities and differences with the underlying assumption that Cicero’s aim is pedagogical – to

translate Plato for a Roman audience. By inserting one’s self into the conversation surrounding

the interpretation of these two authors through scholars such as Atkins, Degraff, Gregory, Hosle,

and Powell, it will become possible to see the manner in which modern scholarship dances

around the problem of Cicero’s contribution to the tradition of philosophy, often pointing to

much of the evidence for an authentic – Roman – philosophy, without explicitly stating it.

The greatest contention on this topic is the degree to which Cicero accepts the political

idealism of a supposed Kallipolis. As Degraff believes, there was no necessity for Cicero to

consider an ideal state when it was already, according to his view, embodied in the government

of Rome (149). It therefore follows that his interest in Platonic concepts such as the φύλακες, or
the manner in which music may enhance or damage a state, serves as a means of researching

positive state-building policies, rather than philosophy for its own sake (Degraff 1967, 149).

Likewise, the greatest criticism Cicero lays upon Plato is his primary focus on philosophy

when, in Cicero’s perspective, it must be serving an essential function. The De Re Publica opens

with an attack against Greek philosophers, not for their philosophy, but for their lack of political

achievement:

in disputationibus perpoliti, quorum res gestae nullae invenirentur… Rep. 1.13 (Cicero

1889)

[philosophers who are] polished in discussions, from which no achievements may be

found…

Such an indictment against the philosophers is not easily taken with Cicero’s obvious respect for

the Greek tradition without presupposing the nuance that Cicero values the product and utility of

philosophy independently of the discipline’s agents. In this manner he can serve as the heir of the

whole philosophical tradition while maintaining that there must be a pathway for the abstract to

become practical (Powell 2013, 41).

Aside from this theme purported by modern scholars like Powell, Macrobius of the 5th

century A.D. also comments on Cicero’s motivations and differentiation from Plato as part of his

commentary on the Dream of Scipio:

hoc interesse prima fronte perspeximus. quod ille rem publicam ordinauit. ille retulit.

alter qualis esse deberet. alter qualis esset instituta a maioribus disseruit. In Somn. 1.2

(Macrobius 1931)
 We perceive this difference first of all. That one arranged a Republic, and one described

it. The former described how it ought to be. The latter described how it was established

by prior generations.

According to Macrobius, Cicero’s goal in his translation of the Republic was not to contribute to

the possibility of how one may create a new Kallipolis, but rather, he was proceeding from the

assumption that the Roman Republic was already embodying the ideal state, and that Plato’s

political philosophy could only be useful in so far that it enriches this pre-standing government.

As Powell explains, Cicero’s approach to Greek philosophy is not entirely inconsistent

with the Hellenistic period. At this time, it was much more common to view Plato and his

successors – Aristotle, Theophrastus, the Stoics, and the Academics – as building upon a

tradition, making improvements and corrections when necessary to the tradition, rather than to

the work itself (Powell 2013, 43). Cicero has inherited a number of problems implicit to the

interpretation of The Republic, such as the question of whether or not its Pythagorean elements

were a product of Socrates’s own belief or Plato’s attribution of Pythagorean knowledge to

Socrates. Rather than attempting to become an authority on the matter, Cicero provides both

viewpoints through his two characters – Scipio and Tubero (Powell 2013, 44). In this manner

both methods of analysis are preserved in Latin without favoring either position.

It is rather typical for Cicero to operate in this way: taking inspiration from a Platonic

work, providing the original concepts or philosophical debate through his characters, and finally

incorporating his own view on the topic. For instance, while presenting Plato’s concept of the

fixed order of changes a society undergoes – from oligarchy to democracy to monarchy, etc. – he

switches up the formation by suggesting that power shifts between all three with no particular
order (Powell 2013, 47). In this way, he is able to maintain the philosophical argument while

allowing for the possibility for it to be expressed in Roman history.

Since it is clearly not Cicero’s goal to rewrite The Republic, scholars have turned to his

occupation as a source of inspiration for his perspective. Similar to Socrates’s distrust of poets,

Cicero takes aim at the public theater – and Athenian comedy in particular, questioning whether

it is fair for a public figure to be scrutinized without proper defense. Drawing upon experience as

a defense lawyer, Cicero would rather relegate attacks on moral character to the court and legal

systems of Rome (Powell 2013, 50). Much like Socrates, Cicero seeks to find in the performing

arts a utility, and if that utility is counteractive to the betterment of the government, which, as a

senator weary of public criticism, he would believe to be the case with the theater, then it is

better restricted, just as in the case of poetry in the Kallipolis.

Powell’s reading of Cicero does not entirely articulate the motivating factor driving

Cicero in this manner, but he does establish clearly the ground-work which Cicero used in

developing his own unique political philosophy. Book 1 of The Republic includes a discussion

between Socrates and Thrasymachus in which Socrates argues that ruler acts to benefit the

government over which he is a part of:

οὐκοῦν, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ὦ Θρασύμαχε, οὐδὲ ἄλλος οὐδεὶς ἐν οὐδεμιᾷ ἀρχῇ, καθ᾽ ὅσον ἄρχων

ἐστίν, τὸ αὑτῷ συμφέρον σκοπεῖ οὐδ᾽ ἐπιτάττει, ἀλλὰ τὸ τῷ ἀρχομένῳ… Resp. 1.344e

(Plato 1903)

“Therefore,” I said, “Oh Thrasymachus, nobody else in any rule, in as much as he is a

ruler, thinks and orders for his own advantage, but for the advantage of the one being

ruled…”
Socrates later additionally discusses that one rules out of necessity, in order to avoid being ruled

by those who are less fitting or corrupt (Powell 2013, 46). The primacy of ‘necessity’ and

‘advantage’ continue in Cicero’s De re publica when he has Scipio say qui imperia

consulatusque nostros in necessariis, non in expetendis rebus… (“Our commanders and

consulships are to be trained in things necessary, not in things desirable…”) (Rep. 1.27; Cicero,

1889).

It may very well be the case that Cicero’s political philosophy derives in part from

Plato’s promotion of the necessary advantage of the state. The second chapter of his De Officiis

is dedicated to the idea of expediency, or the easiest and most beneficial path a political entity

may take. Enlightenment thinkers such have John Locke have attributed the concept of

expediency to such principles as industriousness and rationality. Cicero, on the other hand, made

an addition to the concept of expediency which seems more Platonic, and it differentiates his

political philosophy from that of its later offshoots:

Immo vero honestas utilitatem secuta est. Off. 3.19 (Cicero 1913)

On the contrary, honesty in fact has followed expediency.

Interesting, one finds figures in early American history, such as William Paley and Francis

Wayland, who used the concept of expediency without honestum in order to justify such policies

as Indian removal, slavery, and eventually the Convict Lease System. While expediency comes

to be understood in terms of commerce and wealth, Cicero understood the pursuit of whatever

benefits most a society to be the moral obligation of consulship. Socrates, in his heated argument

with Thrasymachus, rejects the idea that injustice has any utility that may be beneficial to the

state; therefore, both Cicero and Socrates would find the idea that expediency could entail
negative moral externalities to be completely misguided. While our five secondary scholars

certainly point out the philosophical similarity in both authors’ understanding of utility toward

the state, they fail to link this directly with expediency, or utilitatem.

Cicero is in such agreement with Plato’s concept of expediency that he styles his

discussion of occupations after Socrates. The statesman, called rector rei publicae, translated as

“helmsman of the state,” brings forth the image of one aiming for the benefit of the state as a

navigator does on the open seas (Powell 2013, 46). Powell makes the important point that much

of his Roman audience unfamiliar with the Platonic dialogues would see this terminology as

entirely new and rather odd (46). For Cicero to specifically make such an allusion, then, would

seem to call on a direct reference to Plato’s Republic.

In the De re Publica, Laelius’s attitude toward the philosophers is also consistent with

Cicero’s overall insistence that philosophy must serve the state some benefit through political

expediency. He mocking asks a company, when they take up the topic of astronomy, whether or

not they’ve settled all their domestic and political problems at home. The affairs of the state take

such a presidency in the order of all philosophical topics that must be discussed in such a way

that any discussion to the contrary requires mockery (Powell 2013, 45). Scipio even goes so far

to suggest that astronomy could be politically useful, as in the case of his father Aemilius Paulus

who was able to calm the superstition of his troops during a lunar eclipse (Powell 2013, 45). On

account of these examples, Gregory suggests that the applicability of philosophical principles to

the Roman Republic is the underscoring principle that Cicero uses to determine whether he ought

to strengthen or weaken the emphasis that Plato gives to particular topics (Gregory 1991, 640).

Aside from the urgency of philosophical matters, part of the problem surrounding the

debate taken up by these five scholars is that one may equally find stylistic choices that support
Cicero’s mimicry of Plato just as much as one may find instances that contradict it. Scipio is

often seen taking a Socratic role, interrogating Laelius as interlocutor, and character often take

up issues in parallel to Plato’s Republic, such as Philius speaking against justice as formerly seen

between Socrates and Glaucon (Powell 2013, 45). Platonic images and metaphors are included,

such as the comparison of the search for justice as a search for gold. On the other hand, Hosle

points out stylistic differences that appear very different from that of a philosopher – “he often

heaps examples on examples without much sense for their logical structure” (147). He suggests

this was because, while appropriating Plato, he knew that he “did not have [his] philosophical

originality” (Hosle 2008, 147). Indeed, it has become somewhat of a classical tradition to

discredit Cicero’s originality, which Cicero himself was not unaware of:

Non eram nescius, Brute, cum, quae summis ingeniis exquisitaque doctrina philosophi

Graeco sermone tractavissent, ea Latinis litteris mandaremus, fore ut hic noster labor in

varias reprehensiones incurreret. Fin. 1.1 (Cicero 1915)

For I was not ignorant, Brutus, when I delivered these things into Latin Literature, things

which philosophers with the greatest minds and with beautiful doctrine had handled in

Greek discourse, that this, our work, would run into different criticisms.

Powell raises the question of why Cicero would seek to “clothe an anti-Platonic message

in a Platonic literary form” (Powell 2013, 40). There are many ways to answer this question:

perhaps Cicero was trying to establish authenticity by appealing to philosophical and rhetorical

traditions, he was not entirely diverging from the Platonic message, or even that he believed the

style was the most expedient for effectively communication issues of political philosophy.
 Furthermore, the greatest difficulty in understanding Cicero’s view of Plato is whether or

not he saw Plato’s Republic and Laws as mutually coherent. One perspective of the Laws is that

it was written in order to make the regime of the Kallipolis more obtainable for humanity – more

practical (Atkins 2013, 16). If this is the case, Cicero would see in this transition his own goal, to

make political philosophy more practical and therefore applicable to the Roman Republic.

Additionally, in seeing Plato’s process of writing about the best government and also law, and

that it was beneficial for future generations, Cicero has precedent to emulate the work (Atkins

2013, 18).

In order to bring this discussion into modern terms, Degraff considers the manner in

which Plato and Cicero both attempt to handle the issue of poverty. Because the system is set up

in such a way that rulers organize for the benefit of the inferior, Plato’s system avoids “extremes

of wealth and poverty” (Degraff 1967, 7). On the other hand, Cicero does not find the need to

include educational responsibilities under the state. Perhaps this difference mostly arises because

the Roman Republic did not provide state education. It is easy to imagine, then, a situation where

Cicero is more likely to reject those Platonic principles which are not easily integrated into the

current regime of Rome.

Overall, scholarship on Cicero’s take on philosophy has always been consciously aware

of his connection with Plato and the Republic; however, that focus tends to overshadow his

contributions and popularization of the concept of expediency and how it must be implemented

with honestum. While Plato writes about politics from the perspective of a philosopher, Cicero

reads philosophy from the perspective of a senator. If we are to view all of Classics together and

take Plato’s dictum to heart that ideally one man ought to perform one task, then we are
inevitably left with the conclusion that these two authors have written with their occupations in

mind, and they have written well at that.

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