A 1984 Mitchell

Cicero on the moral crisis of the late Republic
Author(s): T. N. Mitchell
Source: Hermathena, No. 136 (Summer 1984), pp. 21-41
Published by: Trinity College Dublin
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23041986
Accessed: 04-02-2016 06:09 UTC
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Cicero on the moral
of the late Republic
by T. N. Mitchell
Modern analyses of the decline and fall of the Roman Republic offer
a multiplicity of explanations for the system's collapse and trans
formation to a monarchy. A variety of deficiencies in internal
are identified — the weakness of a constitution domi
government
nated by a senate whose role derived not from law but from
convention and whose power depended on the unity of the ruling
class and the support of the people; the lack of a police force or of
any adequate means to control public agitation or open political
violence; the failure to integrate the allies fully into the state after
their enfranchisement and to adapt the institutions of government
to take account of a vastly expanded citizenry.
Many recent studies have focused on social and economic issues
and have highlighted a range of economic woes — rural depopula
tion through bankruptcy and conscription; the displacement of free
labor by slaves; a growing impoverished proletariat in the towns; a
massive imbalance in the distribution of wealth with resultant social
unrest and alienation of the lower classes. Other accounts give
prominence to inadequacies in Rome's city-state institutions from
the standpoint of imperial government, and stress in particular the
lack of an effective system of provincial administration, the unsuit
ability of the military system for the defense of a far-flung empire
and its susceptibility to manipulation by popular and ambitious
commanders, the absence of a state bureaucracy, which forced
overreliance on private enterprise to supply essential goods and
services and led to the emergence of a powerful interest-group with
political influence but no responsibility for the common good.
Alongside these many causes of decline there is generally some
reference to moral degeneration and to a weakening of spirit and
commitment among the aristocracy that brought corruption and
selfish ambition and indifference to the public welfare. The subject
of moral decay, however, tends to be treated with a certain diffidence
and to be seen as a precarious basis on which to explain the course
of a nation's history. Few modern historians would be content to
accept it as a principal cause of the fall of the Republic.1
In this and in the general complexity of their view of historical
forces, modern analyses of late republican history present a striking
21
T. N. Mitchell
contrast to the perceptions of antiquity. Those who lived during the

final generations of the Republic viewed the problems of their era
almost exclusively in ethical terms and saw one overriding cause for
the downward trend in their history — a moral decline ultimately
rooted in the security and prosperity and contact with foreign
opulence that resulted from Rome's conquests and that accustomed
Romans to a life of ease and luxury, eroding the dedication to public
service and the self-discipline of the old morality. There was, of
course, a certain awareness of shortcomings in the political system
and of economic hardship and injustice, as the rhetoric and pro
posals of populates from the Gracchi to Caesar illustrate very well,
but the reformist movements of the late Republic were merely
sporadic responses to particular problems, and their programs
amounted to little more than tinkering with the political and eco
nomic structure of the state. There is no reason to believe that any
popular leader envisioned a radical overhaul of the republican
constitution or a significant redistribution of wealth. Even Caesar,
although his ultimate intentions after he found himself in sole
control of the state cannot be definitely known, devoted most of his
life to promoting minor reforms compatible with his own ambitions
and he gave no indication that he was seeking a real alternative to
the status quo.
The Romans were, in many respects, an extraordinarily conserv
ative people. They had a deep pride in their past and a reverence
for the mos maiorum, and that meant a strong attachment to the
constitution that had been shaped by their ancestors and to the
political and social assumptions on which it was based. The prop
aganda and the rhetoric of confrontation of the late Republic show
this attachment. All sides professed allegiance to the great central
principle of republicanism, libertas, and all invoked tradition to
justify their stands and to vilify the behaviour of their opponents.
No one was proposing to jettison the past and establish a radical
new order. The Republic still stood for greatness and glory, and its
preservation or the restoration of its true character remained the
stated aim of all politicians. As a consequence, its problems were
not traced to any fundamental flaws or inadequacies in the system
but presented as the fault of those who had perverted or were
seeking to pervert the Republic's principles and traditions. In other
words, they were the result of a failure of men rather than of
institutions.2
There were other reasons also for the narrowness and particular
emphasis of Roman explanations of the Republic's decline. Besides
22
Cicero on the moral crisis
their reluctance to seek or recognise faults in the fabric of the

Republic itself, they shared a general assumption of antiquity that
history was mostly made by its leading figures. Broader forces of
change deriving from economic, social, or cultural factors had little
place in their view of historical causation. They focused on the great
personalities and saw the chief cause of a nation's success or failure
in their abilities and character.
This concentration on individuals and on the characters of not
able figures encouraged moralistic interpretations of history, and
such interpretations were a prominent feature of much of ancient
historiography.3 But in the case of the Romans this tendency was
greatly accentuated by the degree to which they equated political
ability and achievement with virtue and, as a result, attributed their
success to a moral superiority in their political leaders. They exalted
political activity as the highest form of human endeavour and the
noblest use of human talent, and adopted virtus as the term to
represent the qualities that moved men to pursue, and enabled them
to achieve, political greatness. Their moral code evolved around
this concept of moral excellence, promoting as the cardinal virtues
those attributes that best fitted citizens to serve the state. In the
early establishment of this code as the national ethos and in its
careful preservation and dissemination they saw the chief source of
Rome's strength and the chief reason for her dominance. Ennius
expressed the view succinctly in the Annals: moribus antiquis res stat
Romana virisque. The sentiment, variously amplified, recurs in many
later writers. Its essence was that Rome's fortune had been built
and depended on good men raised to a special eminence by an
exemplary moral training directed towards high political
achievement.4
Concern about the erosion of this cherished moral tradition
appears in our sources as early as the censorship of Cato the Elder
in 184 B.C. Cato became notorious for his attacks on luxury and
extravagance, which he apparently denounced as leading to avarice
and corruption and as a threat to the toughness and austerity
central to the old morality.5 There were many who shared his views
and anxieties, and from the time of his censorship onwards there is
evidence of a widespread and continuing belief that a moral decay
had set in at Rome and was affecting the standards of public as well
as private life. There are variations in the sources, depending on
the date and particular concerns of the author, about the real
starting-point and the precise character and causes of the decline,
23
T. N. Mitchell
but there is agreement that it was a deeply-rooted and progressive

problem and a serious danger to the health of the Republic.
The annalistic historians of the second century traced the begin
ning of the downward trend of the Asian War against Antiochus
(191-188 B.C.) and placed the blame on contact with oriental luxury
and the importation of its trappings to Rome.6 Polybius, although
he gives indications that he saw signs of deterioration in earlier
periods, believed that the significant change did not come until
after the war with Perseus. He too blames contact with foreign
dissoluteness — this time Greek — and the transfer to Rome of
luxury-generating spoils of war. He adds a third factor that he

believed was contributing to the growing moral laxity, a conviction
among the Romans that, with the fall of Macedon, they had
undisputed dominion over all. Earlier in his history, in his discussion
of the mixed constitution and analysis of the Roman system, he
spelled out the ultimate consequences to any state of this type
of prosperity and self-assurance-extravagance in private life and
excesses in the pursuit of public office, culminating in unrestrained
behaviour and extreme demands for power by the people and the
degeneration of the state into ochlocracy.7
Polybius' fears about the corrupting effects of wealth, especially
when joined to the feeling of security that came from uncontested
sovereignty, are echoed in the political debates of his period. Most
famous was the debate between Cato the Elder and Scipio Nasica
about the destruction of Carthage, in which Nasica allegedly argued
that it should be preserved so as to buttress a flagging Roman
discipline through fear of an enemy. Variations on this theme of the
need for a military challenge, or, to use Sallust's phrase, for metus
hostilis, to sustain the ancient discipline and cohesion are recorded
in other political discussions of the mid-second century and indicate
an ongoing belief that the mores antiqui were being steadily under
mined by peace and prosperity.8
The destruction of Carthage in 146, bringing, as it did, the final
removal of Rome's most dreaded enemy, provided later writers with
a new turning point in the tale of moral decline. Sallust is the first
extant source to present this date as the true beginning of the
degeneration, but it is entirely possible that historians of the first
century , whose views on this issue are unknown, had already given
it that status well before him. In any event, for Sallust, 146 brought
an end to the metus hostilis and allowed the vices fostered by leisure
and wealth to flourish, unrestrained by the need for harmony and
moderation that had been imposed by an external threat. There
24
followed a lust for money and for power. Sallust is self-contradictory

on which came first, but makes clear that it was the lust for power
that initially had the greater impact on politics. It caused the
nobilitas to abuse their high position and become unjust and tyran
nical, and the people to abuse their freedom. Harmony was at an
end, and even within the nobilitas dissension arose, as men like the
Gracchi, who preferred true glory to unjust power, sought to expose
the crimes of the oligarchy.
The crowning blow to the old morality came, in Sallust's account,
with Sulla, who demoralized his army by exposing them to the
luxury of Asia and further accelerated the growth of avarice by the
pillaging and injustice that marked his victory in the civil war. All
that virtus represented had now faded. Riches had become the
honored goal of the young, directing them towards greed and waste
and depriving them of all principle and moderation.9
Such, in broad outline, is the gloomy tale of progressive moral rot

and accompanying deterioration in the social and political life of
Rome that emerges from the remains of contemporary historians of
the late Republic. We have, however, one further important con
temporary commentator on the moral crisis in Cicero, who has left
us by far the most extensive analyses of the nature of Roman
republicanism and of th„ political developments of his time, and
who claimed, by virtue of his practical experience and devotion to
learning and teaching, unique expertise as an interpreter of political
events and systems. He has a great deal to say on the subject of
Rome's moral decline, though he seldom figures prominently in
modern discussions of it, and his views not only give a fuller picture
of the ancient perception of the issue but also provide valuable
insight into his own general political ideas and objectives.
He stays close to the tradition in his analysis of the root cause of
the Republic's problems and presents them as primarily due to a
failure of leadership arising out of an abandonment of the assump
tions and precepts of the old morality. At no stage in his career did
he find any critical flaws in the basic social and political structure
of the Republic itself. His conservative heritage gave him a strong
instinctive attachment to the system, which was confirmed by an
intellectual conviction that it represented a practical embodiment
of the political and economic principles that he considered the
foundation of efficient and stable government. He found in the
division of power between senate and people achieved in the long
evolutionary process that produced the final form of the republican
25
T. N. Mitchell
constitution an ideal balance between the rights of all citizens to

equality before the law and to some say in government and the need
to give greater political power to those whose virtus and dignitas
indicated their greater capacity to exercise it. In the economic
sphere, he considered that the traditional republican commitment
to the rights of private property upheld basic and essential principles
of equity in relations between citizens and between the state and
the individual and insured the unified support of honest and pro
ductive citizens for the constitution and the government. In its
recognition and protection of these vital principles of political and
economic justice Cicero was convinced that the Republic had
achieved a form of political organisation that was superior to any
other ancient system.10
The depth of his commitment to the Republic's constitution is
clearly shown in his unyielding opposition throughout his consul
ship in 63 to any proposal that would change its functioning, and
is even more strikingly evident in his political writings, especially in
the detailed code of law for his ideal state contained in the De
Legibus. Although written late in his career when the republican
system had come close to collapse and the hopes of 63 had vanished
utterly, it has few departures, as Cicero states himself, from Roman
statutory law and custom and makes no attempt to confront the
many inadequacies of the republican constitution that had become
glaringly evident in the fifties in relation to such basic problems as
political violence and control of the military. Such changes as are
proposed show a conservative not a reforming spirit; they look
backward, seeking to restore or strengthen, not alter, the traditional
regime."
It is not surprising therefore that Cicero cast the reasons for the
mounting woes of the Republic in moral rather than political or
economic terms. His writings are dotted with descriptions of the
moral degeneracy of his time and its harmful political consequences,
but perhaps the clearest expression of his view occurs in the preface
to the fifth book of the De Republica, where he enlarges on the line
of Ennius quoted earlier and declares that the ancient values pre
sented by the poet as the props of the state have been consigned to
oblivion. Vice had replaced them and reduced the Republic to a
word without substance.12
Cicero is less close to the tradition when he speaks about the
causes of the moral decline. He makes no mention of the theory of
the metus hostilis. He did not believe that war or the threat of war
was necessary to sustain virtus. On the contrary, he was opposed to
26
militarism and suspicious of the judgement and motives of great

military leaders. In his view, the chief concern of any political
community must be to create for its citizens a well-ordered society
that made possible a secure and civilised way of life in conformity
with the dignity and social instincts of human nature. Such a society
could only be achieved when men's minds had been turned from
brutish habits of war to gentler ways and to a love of peace and the
arts of peace. Only in such conditions could justice and good faith,
the chief bonds of a respublica, prevail, and so, Cicero maintained,
it was to the creation and preservation of those conditions that the
energies of a people and the talents of its leaders should be primarily
directed.13
Cicero was also out of sympathy with the idea that the decline of
virtus was spurred by contact with the way of life and moral values
of the Greek world. He shared a range of common Roman prejudices
against the Greeks and frequently portrays them as lazy, decadent,
untrustworthy, irresponsible, tactless, incapable of any worthwhile
practical achievement, and wholly inferior to the Romans in every
sphere except learning. But in learning they surpassed all, and they
brought it to the Romans, who singularly lacked it, and it is this
cultural and intellectual legacy rather than any moral contamina
tion that Cicero emphasizes when he speaks of the impact of the
Greeks on his fellow-countrymen.14
The moral degeneration that he saw spreading and threatening
the Republic he was content to blame on the Romans themselves,
though he accepted that its roots lay in the two closely related by
products of Rome's success emphasized in Polybius and repeated in
Sallust — wealth and the love of power. The coming of wealth
brought a common accompanying desire to use and display it in
extravagant ways. This gave rise to the vice of luxuria, by which
Cicero meant an immoderate attachment to physical pleasures and
to material splendor. Luxuria showed itself in an addiction to opulent
surroundings such as the sumptuous villas and other ostentatious
symbols of wealth for which Cicero severely criticized many of his
contemporaries. This spirit of extravagance extended to matters of
food, drink, and dress, and ultimately resulted in a general sen
suality preoccupied with pleasure and unwilling to place any limit
on self-indulgence. Cicero gives many specific examples of the
licentiousness and prodigality that resulted, lavish banquets, drink
ing parties, adulterous love-affairs, and the beach parties, boat
parties and orgiastic revels associated with notorious resorts such
as Baiae.15
27
T. N. Mitchell
Such preoccupation with material possessions and physical grat

ification was, to Cicero's mind, directly at variance with the tradi
tional Roman concept of virtus. First of all, it brought an erosion of
the desire and capacity to undertake the serious responsibilities
required of the good citizen. Luxuria abhorred toil and hardship and
drew men to desidia, a spirit of idleness that was the antithesis of the
vigorous courage and initiative fundamental to political virtue. A
further consequence was fiscal irresponsibility, reckless spending of
money that led to indebtedness and disregard for a primary concern
of the old morality, the protection and careful management of one's
patrimony.16
But the most serious effect of luxuria, in Cicero's opinion, was the
growth of avaritia, a greed for money that inevitably accompanied
addiction to the things that money could buy. Cicero presents
avaritia as the antithesis of one of the great pillars of the antiqui mores,
the virtue of continentia. Continentia was the equivalent of the Greek
EyXQ&Teia, and indicated a general mastery over the passions.
Cicero, however, used it in a more particular sense in political
contexts to describe a spirit of asceticism that set little value on
physical gratification or comfort or on material possessions, and
was, in consequence, immune to the allurements of pleasure and
wealth. This resulted in an incorruptibility that insured loyal ded
ication and efficiency and prevented misuse of the state's resources,
or unjust treatment of subjects and allies. This cleanhandedness
and freedom from self-interest and self-indulgence Cicero consid
ered the hallmark of Rome's greatest military heroes such as M.
Camillus, C. Fabricius, Manius Curius, and Scipio Aemilianus, and
the chief reason for Rome's consistent success in the building of her
empire."
Avaritia on the other hand unleashed all the evils that continentia
held in check. It undermined efficiency, eroded loyalty and good
faith, incited injustice and oppression, and worst of all, generated
audacia, a reckless and irresponsible daring receptive to any form of
criminality. In short, Cicero considered avarice the commonest
cause of political wrongdoing, and he rated it the foulest of
political
vices and the one most likely to bring about the collapse of a nation.18
In the spread of luxuria and avaritia Cicero found the source of
several of the serious problems that he saw besetting the
Republic.
In external affairs, he believed that addiction to money had
brought
a degree of corruption and abuse of power that was
endangering
the stability of the empire. It was leading to oppression and plun
dering of the vanquished to enrich individuals, in contrast to the
28
clemency that had marked Rome's earlier treatment of defeated

enemies. It was producing generals who misused public resources,
subordinated the best interests of the state to the pursuit of personal
gain, and often did more harm to those they were charged to defend
than to the enemy. More serious still, it was destroying the tradi
tional Roman view that the greatest glory of magistrates and gen
erals lay in defending the provinces and allies with justice and good
faith, and was creating a breed of provincial administrators who
were intent only on plundering those they ruled and who saw office
solely as a means to self-enrichment. The result was that the
government of the empire had been transformed from a benevolent
protectorate into an oppressive despotism. Rome had lost the trust
and goodwill of her subjects and allies; her rule had become based
on fear, a situation that had proved fatal to many similarly tyran
nical regimes in earlier history.
Cicero believed that this dangerous degeneration in the admin
istration of the empire and in the general conduct of external affairs
had also adversely affected the course of domestic politics. Abuses
in provincial government brought the extortion court and the begin
ning of divisive trials and of controversy surrounding the criminal
courts. Cicero viewed this as a source of serious and ongoing division
and goes so far as to blame the outbreak of the Social War on fears
associated with criminal prosecutions and the workings of the
system of criminal justice.19
He saw more dangerous threats to Rome's internal government,
however, from other effects of luxuria and avaritia. First of all, he
believed, as did many of his generation, that the addictions fostered
by luxuria were diverting the young from the central concern of the
old morality, the pursuit of glory and pre-eminence in the service of
the state. They were also eroding the toughness of spirit and
disciplined dedication necessary to achieve success in public life.
Cicero had, in general, a low opinion of the iuvenes of his day and
had an uneasy relationship with many of them. He welcomed
opportunities to denounce their licentiousness and prodigality, and
liked to present them as foppish and affected, heroes of the sympos
ium and the boudoir, their wit and smartness attuned to such
frivolous diversions, but feeble and absurd when faced with the
tough demands of real life. It was an image that showed all the
ravages of luxuria, a far cry from the old ideal of virtus and from the
portrait of the optimate statesman ready to endure sweat and
injustice and danger in defence of otium cum dignitate that he sum
moned the youth to emulate in the Pro Sestio.20
29
T. N. Mitchell
But Cicero believed that the contagion of luxuria had also sapped
the spirit of many of Rome's older statesmen, even of those who
regarded themselves as stalwart champions of the values and tra
ditions of the old Republic. Lucius Lucullus offered a prime exam
ple, whom Cicero greatly admired but believed had surrendered to
luxuria, with great harm to the state. Lucullus, however, was but
one of many. Cicero found little of the old-time virtus surviving
anywhere among his optimate colleagues. He repeatedly decries
their selfishness and apathy, and absorption in extravagant frivoli
ties and exotic trappings of wealth. He complained to Atticus that
they showed more concern for their fishponds than for the welfare
of the Republic, and believed they had touched heaven itself if their
bearded mullets fed from their hands. Only two statesmen of his
generation won high admiration from Cicero, Catulus and Cato the
Younger, though the latter's integrity and dedication he considered
flawed by a harsh rigidity and lack of political judgement.
This undisciplined extravangance and open self-indulgence
among those who liked to style themselves boni or optimates Cicero
regarded as a danger not only to the altruism and spirited commit
ment necessary for good government, but to the moral health of the
entire state. Political leaders, he maintained, set the moral tone of
a society; their character was represented in the character of the
state to its benefit or detriment. He found this illustrated in the
early Republic, in which, he believed, an eminent leadership had
created an exemplary society. He feared that the decadence of
contemporary principes was achieving the opposite effect, producing,
in addition to bad government, a morally depraved citizenry.21
But, serious though he considered all these trends in Roman
political life and society, for Cicero the most destructive conse
quences of the moral decline lay elsewhere, in the activities of the
class of politicians he called populares and in the disruptive popular
movements they fomented. He defined populares in the Pro Sestio as
those who wished all that they said and did to be pleasing to the
people. He included among them all who sought social or political
change and were prepared to achieve it by appeal to the extra
senatorial elements in the state. He allowed no real distinction
between the many disparate segments that comprised this
opposi
tion to the status quo, but grouped them all together and presented
them as self-seeking, opportunistic demagogues who had lost all
concern for the common good and whose only aim was their own
advantage.
30
Many of them he considered were primarily motivated by greed,

especially those, such as Catiline, who found themselves in desperate
financial straits because of their extravagant and licentious life
style, and whose only hope of rescue lay in civil unrest and attacks
on the property of honest citizens. But the most dangerous of them,
like Julius Caesar, he believed were driven not so much by the love
of money as the love of power, though he regarded the acquisition
of wealth as an ever-present goal, if only as a means to the building
of power.22
An excessive drive for personal power, nimia cupiditas principatus,

as he termed it in the De Officiis, was, in Cicero's view, a particularly
sinister force in politicians. He regarded it as a perversion of one of
the greatest political virtues, magnitude animi, the term by which he
described the impulse to great political endeavours that constituted
the very heart of the old ideal of virtus. In his strictest use of magnitudo
animi he presents it as a subdivision of the cardinal virtue of fortitudo,
signifying a loftiness of spirit that showed itself in an energetic
courage that moved men to action and welcomed difficult and
dangerous undertakings for worthwhile ends. Cicero admits that
this quality was a close neighbour to a self-willed pride that could
lead to an uncontrolled drive for success and for unrivalled power,
and he stresses that the more spirited a leader the greater the risk
that this would happen and that his ambition would exceed the
bounds of law and justice. The risk became greater still in circum
stances of success and prosperity, which further inclined men to
arrogance.
Because such ambition was a perversion of a great virtue it
generally surfaced in individuals of high ability and strong deter
mination. These talents, freed from the moral anchor provided by
a commitment to justice, and misdirected to the pursuit of personal
interests rather than the common good, produced a particularly
dangerous form of audacia, which Cicero regarded as the most
alarming manifestation of moral degeneration in Roman politics
and blamed for many of the greatest internal upheavals of his era,
most notably the civil war of 49.23
These threats from the motivations and often times high capaci
ties of populates Cicero saw further magnified by their political
methods and programs. They appealed to the unfortunate and
discontented present in every society, the criminals, the
elements
disgraced, the ne'er-do-wells, the debtors and the chronically disen
chanted. Cicero also includes the urbanjblebs, whom he considered
easily led to support anyone who promised to improve their lot.
31
T. N. Mitchell
These various groups populates sought to rally by highlighting

grievances and exploiting every source of division and discontent,
and by promising extravagant benefits through political and eco
nomic reforms. In the political sphere they posed as champions of
the rights and liberties of the people and pledged to defend their
interests against the tyrannical designs of the ruling elite. In the
economic sphere they tried to win the hearts of the masses by the
promise of unlimited largesse, promoting schemes such as land
distribution or colonization, grain doles, and remission of debts.24
Cicerobelieved that these political and economic aims seriously
endangered the very foundations of the respublica, since they sought
to destroy the careful balance between the role of senate and people
on which stability rested, and to set aside the strongest binding
principle of any society, namely that the state should not enrich one
at the expense of another but should insure that each has secure
and untroubled possession of what is his. Populates substituted for
these basic rules of equity an appeal to greed, and greed of the most
debased and socially destructive kind, that which coveted the goods
of others. The result, as Cicero perceived it, was the spread of a
most iniquitous form of moral degeneracy fatal to the ideal of a
respublica as a fellowship of justice, and culminating in the horror of
the Sullan proscriptions, when citizen plundered citizen, and in a
disposition towards civil war fed by the hope of similar plunderings
after future victories.25
In this portrayal of the aims and consequences of the activities of

populates Cicero stands in sharp contradiction to Sallust, ana the
contrasting views of these two contemporary sources provide an
interesting illustration of the divergent perspective of the different
sides of the political spectrum on the internal confrontations of the
late Republic. Sallust presents the chief political consequence of the
moral decline as a tyranny of the nobilitas, who used all their
resources to cement their power and build their wealth. They were
resisted by well-motivated statesmen such as the Gracchi, who
sought to defend the freedom of the people and to expose and check
the crimes of their Mlow-nobiles. For Cicero on the other hand, the
chief effect of the moral crisis on the nobilitas was to enervate them
and weaken their capacity to provide strong and efficient govern
ment, while the real danger to freedom and the republican tradition
came from an opposition propelled by greed and ambition into
vigorous pursuit of personal ends without regard for the common
welfare. In other words the sins of the boni were largely those of
32
omission, while the evil of populates was positive, involving active

onslaughts on the structures of the Republic.
The one aspect of the moral crisis that is never directly addressed
by Cicero is when precisely the decline took hold and how it
progressed in the early stages. What evidence there is suggests that
he saw it as a problem that developed very gradually though
steadily, and whose beginnings could be vaguely set in the middle
of the second century. He regarded the establishment of the extor
tion court in 149 as an important early sign that avarice was gaining
a foothold. The era of the Gracchi he considered another important
landmark. It first taught Romans to lay designs against the property
of fellow-citizens. It brought division and sedition into the state and
set in train all the evils entailed in the emergence of populates. He
also saw other signs of deterioration in the political life of the late
second century in the discord surrounding criminal trials and in the
disputes over the courts. He regarded none of these developments,
however, as indicative of any widespread or endemic decay. The
respublica was still intact, its problems contained. It continued to
produce men of the calibre of Scipio Aemilianus, whose virtue
Cicero emphasizes was a mark of the age as well as of the man.
Statesmen still put glory before gain and preferred to adorn the
state rather than their villas.26
It was only in his own lifetime that he saw the full measure of the
moral crisis and its full destructive impact emerging. The develop
ment that he believed brought it to full maturity was the civil wars
of the eighties. This was the time, he states, when elder statesmen
began to despair of the Republic and the old order was thrown into
disarray. The evils slowly developing but mostly latent in earlier
decades suddenly burst forth, as pride and ambition, characteristic
of so many populates, moved men like Sulpicius and Cinna to an
audacia that extended even to civil war. There followed the victory
of Sulla, who defiled a noble cause by his cruelty and injustice and
added further to the diminishment of the moral awareness of
Romans. Here Cicero is in broad agreement with Sallust. He alleges
that Sulla's excesses added new dimensions to greed and made
thinkable the most extreme forms of injustice. Significantly, Cicero
calls Sulla a master of luxuria, avaritia, and crudelitas. These were the
vices that spawned such evils and the ones transmitted by the Sullan
era to later generations.27
From this point onwards Cicero saw the full array of evils that he
linked to the abandonment of the antiqui mores operating in Roman
society. By the mid-fifties he believed that they had all but destroyed
33
T. N. Mitchell
the true character of the Republic. He summarized the sad history

of his era as follows in the preface to the fifth book of the De
Republica:
our age having inherited the respublica as it were an outstanding painting,
though one already fading with age, not only failed to restore its original
hues, but did not even trouble to preserve its configuration or even its
general outlines.28
The question naturally arises as to what Cicero thought could or

should be done to resolve what he undoubtedly believed was the
most critical problem confronting the Roman Republic. No other
ancient writer suggested any practical solution to the moral crisis,
and Polybius made it clear that he regarded moral corruption as an
inevitable consequence of prosperity and supremacy, and part of
the pattern of growth and decay that ran through all nature. Cicero
makes it clear that he did not accept this point of view, though in
his practical statesmanship he made no attempt, apart from exhor
tation, to arrest the spread of the moral decline or eliminate its
causes.29 But in his theoretical writings he gave more attention to
solutions, and in the De Legibus in particular he indicates clearly the
lines along which he thought the solutions might lie.
He saw an important role for religion, and gives extensive treat
ment to the subject of religious law in the second book of the De
Legibus. The code of religious law that he proposes is, by and large,
a reaffirmation of traditional structures and rituals, but it contains
a strong new emphasis on the moral nature of the gods and the
links between religion and morality. The gods are to be seen as
benevolent lords and directors of all things, who carefully observe
the character and behaviour of each individual and punish the
impious. They demand purity of spirit from worshippers and cannot
be placated by gifts that are offered by the unrighteous. Heroes of
great virtue may be recognised as having found a place in heaven
and may be worshipped as gods, as may the qualities that give
access to heaven, but vices or evil forces must not be deified or
worshipped. Modes of worship must be free of material extravagance
and under the control of the public priests, and any practice or
ritual, especially in connection with nocturnal or alien rites, that
might encourage superstition or lead to excesses of any kind is to
be abolished.
Cicero makes clear his purpose in all this. He saw religion as a
potent moral force that could produce a more upright and respon
sible citizenry strong in the social virtues essential to a stable society.
34
The closer its links to morality the greater he believed would be its
civilizing and stabilizing effects. If men believed that the gods were
not merely all-powerful but also moral beings who observed the
behaviour of mortals and punished wrongdoers while offering even
heaven itself to the truly virtuous, they would have a powerful
incentive to right conduct and noble endeavours in both their public
and private lives. Cicero was therefore intent on promoting a form
of religion that was centred on moral deities and on compliance
with the moral law, and he hoped such a system would give added
strength to the foundations of the moral code.30
He also hoped that the moral probity and political integrity of
the ruling class could be strengthened by subjecting their public
and private lives to rigorous and continuous scrutiny and the threat
of swift retribution for depravity or malfeasance. To this end he
proposed in the De Legibus significant changes in the office of the
censors. The office was to be made continuous and, in addition to
their traditional responsibility to safeguard public morality and to
expel senators found guilty of moral wrongdoing, the censors were
to be commissioned to review the conduct in office of magistrates
on the expiry of their term and to give a preliminary judgement
about their administration.31
Cicero was aware, however, of the limited effect of supervision
and sanctions on morality, and, as he admits in the De Legibus, he
did not expect his proposals to have any great impact on his
contemporaries. His greatest hopes for moral regeneration lay else
where, in the area of education. Unfortunately, Cicero's discussions
of education in the De Republica and De Legibus are lost, but enough
information about his educational ideas can be gleaned from his
other writings to enable us to form some estimate of the place of
education in his political thought. In marked contrast to the general
attitude of his countrymen, Cicero strongly held the view that broad
learning, doctrina, was a vital ingredient of the art of statesmanship,
and for several reasons. He argued that it formed the heart of what
he termed prudentia civilis, the practical expertise and theoretical
understanding of the ways of societies and governments that com
was the foundation of political
prised the science of politics and
foresight and good judgement. He regarded it as an equally impor
tant part of eloquence, which he maintained was another leading
attribute of the good statesman, giving him a necessary capacity to
and implemen
explain his policies and to secure their acceptance
tation. Finally, he believed that doctrina was the surest way to virtue
and to the qualities that especially fitted man to live in society. Even
35
T. N. Mitchell
the instinctively virtuous, he argued, needed the formative benefits

and the enlightenment bestowed by learning to achieve the full
potential of their native qualities.32
The doctrina Cicero was thinking of involved all the studies that
he classified as artes liberates, a term under which he included at one
time or another geometry, astronomy, music, rhetoric, dialectics,
literature, history and philosophy. All of these comprised a doctrina
that was essentially one. All had a bearing on human life and
contributed to man's understanding of himself and of the universe
and of man's place in it. Their systematic character and formative
power also contributed to the student's intellectual growth, nurtur
ing and expanding his mental capabilities.33
Cicero attached special importance to the study of history and
philosophy. History offered valuable lessons about human behav
iour and the ways of nations and governments. It was, in Cicero's
phrases, 'the witness of the ages', 'the lifeblood of tradition', 'the
messenger of antiquity'. It set forth the course and character of
events, and the nature and life of the principal figures. It was,
therefore, 'a teacher of life' and 'a beacon of truth', and. severed
from what it taught about what man had done, man lacked maturity
and understanding of himself. Cicero made the point memorably in
a well-known passage in the Orator: 'to be ignorant of what happened
before you were born is to remain forever a child. For what is the
life of man if it is not interwoven with the life of earlier generations
through the recollection of past events?' Like many before him and
since, he saw a constancy and continuity in human experience that
made man inseparable from his past and left all inquiry into human
affairs in need of the illumination of history.34
Philosophy he believed offered still greater rewards, particularly
the study of ethics and its subdivision, political theory. These were
the studies, centred on man himself, that could both benefit people
personally and make them useful to the state. They confronted the
fundamental questions relating to the establishment and governance
of political communities — the social and
political instincts that
gathered men into states, the principles of justice on which human
fellowship was founded, the rights and liberties that justice entailed,
and the forms of government that were compatible with them. They
also gave an understanding of human nature and were the means
to self-knowledge and to the discovery of the morally right and of
the moral duties associated with it. Through this insight that they
gave into both political justice and personal probity they provided
the best guarantee that both would be safeguarded. Cicero believed
36
there was no other training that was more likely to lead to virtue or
more likely to deter from the arrogance that threatened to overstep
justice and descend into audacia. He recounts a saying of Scipio
Aemilianus that men who had become unrestrained and over-con
fident through prosperity should be forced back into the training
ring of reason and learning so that they might come to see the frailty
of human affairs and the changeability of fortune.35
Cice a took it for granted that those who had received extensive
training in the liberal arts would have a high sense of moral
responsibility and would reflect it in their behaviour. In a letter to
Quintus in 60 B.C. he exhorted him to govern Asia with integrity
and self-restraint as befitted a man doctrina atque optimarum artium
studiis eruditus. His most extravagant claim about the moral value of
doctrina came after the death of his daughter, Tullia, when he
declared that the nature of the learned is closest to the nature of
god, and assigned Tullia a place in heaven as the most learned of
her sex.36
But, in addition to its moral benefits, Cicero further believed that

doctrina brought with it social and cultural attributes of the highest
importance to the creation of a just and civilized society. These
were the attributes that he saw contained in the concept of humanitas.
This was the word he used to describe the refining or humanizing
effects of a broad education in the liberal arts. It represented the
nature of man at his most civilized, when he had been molded and
polished by the studies appropriate to his human qualities and
capacities.
The specific attributes of humanitas, in Cicero's conception of it,
were first of all a cultural and intellectual sophistication and savoir
f aire that showed themselves especially in wit and elegance of speech
and in the urbane gentility and social gracefulness of erudite litterati
such as Lucius Crassus, the Catuli, and Caesar Strabo. Scipio
Aemilianus and C. Laelius he considered earlier examples of human
issimi, men who combined eloquence and intellectual brilliance with
a deep graciousness and civility.37
But humanitas meant more to Cicero than high culture or refined
manners. It also implied a loftiness of mind reflected in worthy
aspirations and high ideals that prized dignity and moral worth and
and gain that preoc
placed honour and virtue before the pleasures
cupied boorish and uneducated minds. It further represented the
social spirit that came from a maturation of man's innate sense of
fellowship and gentleness and that extended beyond social graces
and good manners and humanism to a broader humaneness and
37
T. N. Mitchell
sociability that made possible a secure and civilized way of life in

an orderly and harmonious society. Cicero goes so far as to present
humanitas as the difference between primitive, ill-ordered societies
with brutish concerns and brutish habits of violence and aggression
and those where moral idealism had a place and where unity and
order prevailed, protected by justice, laws, courts, rights, and a
concern for peace. With reference to political leaders it was the
quality that put a human face on the old-fashioned strictness and
austerity, tempering the forceful exercise of power with a gentleness
and good nature that removed harshness and cruelty, and insured
that those who were ruled desired no other ruler. It was, therefore,
to his mind, a most important force in the creation and administra
tion of a proper political community, and another barrier to the
onset of political and moral decline.38
Doctrina would therefore seem to have been Cicero's chief solution
to the moral crisis. It was an integral aspect of his concept of
political virtus, as is amply illustrated by the fact that his highest
admiration was reserved, not for the rugged men of rustic mores,
such as the Camilli, Fabricii, and Curii, that he so often cites as
exemplars of the old morality, but for statesmen like Scipio Aemi
lianus and L. Crassus, whose intellectual training and attainments
were exceptional. They combined the dedication and general moral
soundness characteristic of earlier leaders with doctrina and humani
tas, which gave them a superior excellence and the ideal gifts with
which to lead the state in peace towards the well-ordered, civilized
way of life that Cicero considered the true goal of statesmanship.39
The pity was, in his view, that Rome had not produced more leaders
like them. Then the moral crisis would never have happened.
Notes
1. R.E. Smith [ The failure of the Roman Republic (Cambridge 1955)] does strongly emphasize
moral factors, but is exceptional in this. Cf. A.E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus (Oxford
1967); E.
Badian, Foreign clientelae, 264-70 B.C. (Oxford 1958); Roman imperialism in the late Republic
Publicans and sinners (Oxford 1972); P.A. Brunt, Italian —
(Ithaca 1968); manpower 225 B.C.
a.d. 14 (Oxford 1971); Social conflicts in the Roman Republic (New York E.
1971); Gabba,
Republican Rome, the army and the allies trans. P.J. Cuff (Berkeley 1976); M. Gelzer, Cicero: Ein
biographischer Versuch (Weisbaden 1969); E.S. Gruen, The last generation of the Roman Republic
(Berkeley 1974); A.W. Lintott, Violence in Republican Rome (Oxford 1968); C. Meier, Respublica
amissa (Weisbaden 1966); E. Meyer Caesar's Monarchic und das Principat des Pompeius (Stuttgart
1922); R. Seager, The crisis of the Roman Republic (Cambridge 1969); R. Syme, The Roman
revolution (Oxford 1939); L.R. Taylor, Party politics in the age of Caesar (Berkeley 1949).
38
2. Cf. Cicero, Leg. Agr. 1.26-27; 2.7-10, 102. Sest. 51, 98-101, 137-139. Rab. 33. Caesar, BC
1.7, 8, 22; Bell. Afr. 22. Sallust, Cat. 38; Jug. 42, 85; Appian, BC 5, 17. Res Gestae 1. Ch.
Wirszubski, Libertas as a political idea at Rome during the late Republic and early Empire (Cambridge
1960) 31-65. R. Syme (above, note 1) 152-61.
3. Isocrates, Antidosis 76; Evagoras 76. Cicero, De Or. 2.36, 62-63. Arch. 14. Fin. 5.5-6.
Sallust, Cat. 5-13; Jug. 4, 41-42. Livy, Praef. 9-12. Tacitus, Agr. 1. Ann. 3.65. Cf. P.G. Walsh,
Livy: his historical aims and methods (Cambridge 1963), 20-45. F.W. Walbank, Polybius (Berkeley
1972) 32-65. T.P. Wiseman, Clio's cosmetics (Leicester 1979) 27-40. D.C. Earl, The moral and
political tradition of Rome (London 1967) 16-20.

4. CIL l2. 10, 15. Pliny, NH 7.139. Cicero, Rep. 1. 1-2, 33; 5.1-2; 6.13. Off. 1.19, 28-29,
70-72, 92, 153-55; 2.85. Sest. 86, 136-137. Mur. 17. Balb. 51. Verr. 2.5.181. Leg. 3.31. Cael. 39.
Polybius 6.52-56. Sallust, Cat. 7-10. Livy, Praef. 11. Cf. D.C. Earl, Sallust (Amsterdam 1966)
18-27.
5. H. Malcovati, Oratorum Romanorum fragmenta3 (Turin 1967). Cato frs. 93, 96, 98, 133,
139, 146, 177, 185, 224-26. Polybius 31.25.5a. Livy, 39.44.1. Nepos, Cato 2.3. Plutarch, Cato
Maior 16-19. Gellius, NA 11.2.2,5; 13.24.1. Cf. A. Astin, Cato the censor (Oxford 1978) 91-97.
6. Cf. Livy 39.6.7. L. Piso singled out the year 154 B.C. as well as the end of the war
against Antiochus. Pliny NH, 17.244; 34.14. Valerius Maximus (9.1.3) speaks of growing
licentiousness after the Second Punic War and the defeat of Philip.
7. Polybius 31.25.2-7; 6.57.5-9. Cf. 1.64.1; 18.35.1. Walbank (above, note 3) 154. C.O.
Brink and F.W. Walbank, 'The construction of the Sixth Book of Polybius' CQ 4 (1954)
108-10.
8. Plutarch, Cato Maior 27. Florus, 1.31.4-5. Appian, Lib. 69. Diodorus 34.33. 4-6. Orosius
4.23. Cf. Cato, frs. 163, 164 Malcovati (above, note 5). Polybius 32.13.6-7. M. Gelzer,
'Nasicas Widerspruch gegen die Zerstorung Karthagos', Philologus 86 (1931) 261-99 (= Kleine
Schriften2, 39-72). Livy (1.19.4) presents the notion of the metus hostilis as a concern in Roman
politics from the time of Numa.
9. Sallust, Jug. 41-42. Cat. 10-13. Hist. 1. frs. 11, 12, 16, M. Cf. Tacitus, Ann. 3.54.5.
Sallust's emphasis on the metus Punicus is generally believed to derive from Posidonius. Cf. F.
Klinger, 'Uber die Einleitung der Historien Sallusts', Hermes 63 (1928) 165-92. The emphasis
NH 33. 147-50. Velleius 2.1. Florus
persisted in later analyses of the moral decline. Pliny,
1.47.2. St. Augustine, Civ. Dei 1.30. Orosius 5.8.2. Cf. Earl (above, note 4) 42-52. T.J. Luce,
Livy: The composition of his history (Princeton 1977) 250-295. A.W. Lintott, 'Imperial expansion
and moral decline in the Roman Republic,' Historia 21 (1972) 626-38. S. Uttschenko, Der
Weltanschaulich-Politische Kampf in Rom am Vorabend des Sturzes der Republik (Berlin 1956) 88-106.
10. Cf. Rep. 1.70; 2.2, 56-59. Leg. 3.'24, 28. Sest. 137. Off. 1.21, 42, 51; 2.72, 78-81; 3.21
24. Cat. 4.15, 22. Phil. 13.8, 16. Att. 1.16.6; 1.19.4. 8.1.3. T.N. Mitchell, Cicero: the ascending
years (New Haven 1979) 199-202.
11. Leg. 2.23. Cf. C.W. Keyes, 'Original elements in Cicero's ideal constitution', AJP 42
(1921) 309-23. K. Sprey, De M. Tullii Ciceronis politica doctrina (Zutphen 1928). E. Rawson,
'The interpretation of Cicero's De Legibus', Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischenWelt 1.4 (Berlin
1973) 334-56.
12. Rep. 5.1-2. Cf. Leg. 3.29-30. Verr. 2.2.7; 2.3.218. Cat. 2.11. Cael. 29, 40, 42. Man. 37-38.
Off.2.27, 75-76.
13. Off. 1.34-35, 74-79. Rep. 1.3; 2.26-27. Sest. 92, 98-99. Att. 8.11.1. De Or. 1.33. Cicero,
of course, acknowledged that wars were often necessary and that generals rendered services
was the state to be
of the highest importance (cf. Mur. 22. Man. 32. Phil. 8.12), but peace
preferred, Off. 1.35.
14. Flacc. 9-12, 16-20, 23-24, 57, 61-66, 71. De Or. 1.47, 221; 2.75, 265; 3.93-95. Tusc. 1.1
Fam.
3, 86; 2.5; 4.70. Verr. 2.2.7. Phil. 5.14; 13.33. Sest. 110. Mil. 55. Cael. 40. QF 1.1.16.27.
39
T. N. Mitchell
16.4.2. Cf. J.P.V.D. Balsdon, Romans and aliens (London 1979) 30-54. H. Guite, 'Cicero's
attitude towards the Greeks', Greece and Rome 9 (1962), 142-159. Cicero distinguished between
vetus Graecia, which he considered exemplary in almost all respects, and more recent Greeks
who, he believed, had seiious defects of character. Cf. QJ 1.1.16. Tusc. 2.5.
15. Fin. 2.21-23, 30, 70. Mur. 13, 76. Cael. 35, 43-44. Balb. 56. Cat. 2.25. Rose. 6, 39. Verr.
2.2. 134; 2.5.87. Flacc. 71. Pis. 66-67. Leg. Agr. 2.95. Off. 1.106. Leg. 2.2; 3.30-31. Alt. 1.18.6;
1.19.6; 1.20.3; 2.1.7.
16. Rep. 2.8. Flacc. 71. Verr. 2.2.7, 76. Cael. 43-47.
17. Inv. 2.164. Leg. 3.30. Cael. 39, 72. Verr. 2.2.10; 2.4.115. Plane. 3, 9. Cat. 2.25. Off.
2.76-77, 86; 3.116. Sen. 55. Tusc. 5.99. Par. St. 12, 48. Prov. Cons. 11. Flacc. 28. Man. 41, 67.
Phil. 9.13. Q.F. 1.1.32.
18. Off. 1.24-25; 2.75-77. Tusc. 4.24, 26. Leg. 1.51. Verr. 2.1.87, 128; 2.2.134, 192; 2.3.219
21; 2.5.24, 189. Man. 37-40. Quinc. 26. Rose. 75,87-88,101,118. Pis. 86. Prov. Cons. 11.
19. Off. 1.35; 2.23-28, 76-77. Man. 37-38. Verr. 2.5.38-39; 2.3.217-219.
20. Cael. 29-30, 33. 67. Pis. 82. Alt. 1.14.5; 1.16.1, 11. 1.18.2; 1.19.8; 2.7.3; 7.7.6. Sest. 102,
136, 138-39.
21. Leg. 3.29-32. Off. 1.140. Att. 1.18.6; 1.19.6; 1.20.3; 2.1.7-8; 8.16.1; 9.5.3; Fam. 1. 7.10;
1.8.4; 1.9.17. Rep. 1.52, 54; 2.69. Phil. 8.29. Cicero's criticisms of the boni become especially
evident after his consulship and they persisted to the end of his life.
22. Sest. 96, 99-100, 139. Leg. Agr. 1.23-27; 2.8, 10, 15, 102. Rab. 33. Cat. 1.11; 2.10-11,
18-23. Off. 1.25-26; 3.82. Att. 7.3.4.; 8.11.2; 10.4.2,4; 10.7.1. Phil. 2.116.
23. Off. 1, 13, 15, 26, 61-73, 90; 3.100. Rep. 5.9. Tusc. 1.71; 2.32. Fin. 4.17. Sest. 99, 139,
141. Mil. 1.61, 69. Har. Resp. 43. Phil. 12.2. Att. 7.3.5; 7.7.6; 7.13.1. Cael. 13. Cf. U. Knoche,
Magnitude animi (Ph. Suppibd. 27, 3 Leipzig Dieterich 1935). Ch. Wirszubski. 'Audaces: a study
in political phraseology',JRS 51 (1961) 12-22.
24. Sest. 99, 103, 139. Att. 7.3.5; 7.11.1. Leg. Agr. 2.10. Off. 2.72, 78, 84. Am. 41. Tusc. Disp.
48.
25. Cf. Rep. 1.69-70; 2.55-59. Leg. 3.24, 28. Sest. 137. Off. 1.42-43, 51; 2.27-29, 73, 78-81;
3.21-24. Fam. 4.3.1.
26. Off. 2.75-76. De Or. 1.38. Rep. 1.31-32. Har. Resp. 41. Cat. 1.3. Dom. 24. Leg. 3.20, 24.
Acad. 2.15 Am. 41.
27. Off. 2.27. De Or. 1.3; 3.8. Fam. 2.16.6. Font. 6. Fin. 3.75. Sulla 72. Dom. 43. Lig. 12.
Fam. 4.3.1. Att. 9.10.3. Cf. Mitchell (above, note 10) 64, 82-87.
28. Rep. 5.2. Cf. Att. 4.18.2; Q.F. 3.4.1; 3.6.4; Fam. 2.5.2; 5.18.1.
29. Rep. 3.34 asserts that a state should be so firmly founded as to be eternal. Cf. Rep.
3.41.
30. Leg. 2.15-43. N.D. 1.4. Har. Resp. 18-19. Cf. Varro, Antiquitates rerum humanarum et
divinarum ed. R. Agahd, fahrbiicher fur Philologie (Leipzig 1898) I fr. 55. Poiybius 6.56. R.J.
Goar, Cicero and the state religion (Amsterdam 1972) 78-96. A. Du Mesnil, Cicero: De Legibus
(Leipzig 1879).
31. Leg. 3.7, 11, 46-47. Cf. E. Rawson (above, note 11) 352-54.
32. Leg. 3.29. De Or. 1.5,17,20, 48,50, 72,85; 2.1-7, 68, 333-36; 3.55-61, 72, 122, 132-42.
Off. 1.4,153, 156; 2.5-6, 33-34. Rep. 1.45; 2.45, 67. Div. 1.24. Leg. 1.62. Arch. 15.
33. De Or. 1.20, 72-74, 158, 187; 3.21, 127, 140. Arch. 2,15-16. Rep. 1.26-27. Leg. 1.60-61.
34. De Or. 1.18, 158-59, 187, 256; 2.36. Orator 120. Arch. 14. Fin. 5.5-6.
35. De Or. 1.42, 68-69, 219; 2.68-69; 3.60-61, 72, 122-23. Off. 1.4,90; 2.5-6. 3.5. Leg. 1.58
62. Rep. 1.26-27. Fin. 1.2. Tusc. 3.6; 5.5. Sen.2. Div. 2.1.3.
36. Q.F. 1.1.22. Lactantius, Div. Inst. 1.15. 20; 3.19.6. Cf. Arch. 15. De Or. 3.57-58.
37. De Or. 1.27, 32; 2.40, 154; 3.58, 94. Off. 1.144-45. Rep. 1.28; 2.35. Fin. 5.54. Tusc. 5.66.
Arch. 2-4. Phil. 2.7. Cael. 24. Mur. 61. Verr. 2.4.98. Cf. R. Reitzenstein, Werden und Wesen der
40
Humanitdt im Altertum (Strasbourg 1907). K. Biichner, 'Humanum und humanitas in der

romischen Welt', Studium Generate 14 (1961), 636-46. M.L. Clarke, The Roman Mind (London
1956) 135-45.
38. Part. Or. 90. De Or. 1.33. Leg. 2.36. Ref 2.27. Off. 3.32. Cael. 26. Sest. 92. Mur. 65-66.
Q.F. 1.1.21-23.
39. Att. 8.11.1. Rep. 1.3. Leg. Agr. 1.23-24; 2.9, 102. Sest. 98. For his opinion of Scipio and
Crassus cf. Mur. 58, 66. Verr. 2.4.73, 81, 98. Off. 1. 76, 90; 2.76. Top. 78. Arch. 16. De Or. 2.1
4, 6; 3.2-7, 74-77. Brut. 82-85, 143, 159, 296-98. Off. 2.47.
41

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Cicero on the moral crisis of the late Republic

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contrast to the perceptions of antiquity. Those who lived during the

their reluctance to seek or recognise faults in the fabric of the

but there is agreement that it was a deeply-rooted and progressive

luxury-generating spoils of war. He adds a third factor that he

followed a lust for money and for power. Sallust is self-contradictory

Such, in broad outline, is the gloomy tale of progressive moral rot

constitution an ideal balance between the rights of all citizens to

militarism and suspicious of the judgement and motives of great

Such preoccupation with material possessions and physical grat

clemency that had marked Rome's earlier treatment of defeated

Many of them he considered were primarily motivated by greed,

An excessive drive for personal power, nimia cupiditas principatus,

These various groups populates sought to rally by highlighting

In this portrayal of the aims and consequences of the activities of

omission, while the evil of populates was positive, involving active

the true character of the Republic. He summarized the sad history

The question naturally arises as to what Cicero thought could or

the instinctively virtuous, he argued, needed the formative benefits

But, in addition to its moral benefits, Cicero further believed that

sociability that made possible a secure and civilized way of life in

political tradition of Rome (London 1967) 16-20.

Humanitdt im Altertum (Strasbourg 1907). K. Biichner, 'Humanum und humanitas in der

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