As a result of that, the law that the gods gave to the human race has been correctly praised: it is the reason and mind of a wise being, suitable for ordering and deterring. M: And correctly, especially since they were repealed in one moment by one little line of the senate. ], Bold numbers in brackets indicate the standard divisions in Cicero’s texts in which are found in whole or part the sections reproduced here. The absence of a written law at Rome concerning defilement during the reign of Lucius Tarquinius does not mean that Sextus Tarquinius did not bring force to bear upon Lucretia, daughter of Tricipitinus, contrary to that everlasting law. Plato. [48] What follows—to conclude my whole speech—is before our eyes from what has been said, that both right and everything honorable should be desired for their own sakes. M: Moreover, shouldn’t a city lacking law be recognized to exist in no place for that very [reason]? Cicero: On the Commonwealth and On the Laws. [19] And so they think that law is prudence, the effect of which is to order persons to act correctly and to forbid them to transgress. And of course reason, by which alone we excel the beasts, through which we are effective in [drawing] inferences, through which we prove, disprove, discuss, demonstrate something, make conclusions—it certainly is in common, differing in education, while decidedly equal in the capacity to learn. The Influence of the Scottish Enlightenment. Quintus. The authors, Yves LASSARD and Alexandr KOPTEV, are historians of the Roman period and more particularly, specialists in the sources of Roman law. [28] A: Immortal gods, how far back you trace the beginnings of right! Not only a mode of commanding for them must be prescribed, but also a mode of complying for the citizens. Moreover, they obey this celestial system, the divine mind and very powerful god, so that now this whole universe should [be] thought to be one city in common between gods and human beings. Q: I understand very clearly, and I now think that any other law must be neither recognized as nor even called a law. M: Indeed these are important things that are now briefly taken up. Therefore, the similarity between human being and god is natural. Nevertheless, each one is appropriate to law. And the fact that in cities positions are distinguished by blood relations of families—according to a method that will be spoken of in a suitable place—is all the more magnificent and splendid in the nature of things, so that human beings are held to be in the “blood relation” and “race” of the gods. They represent Cicero's vision of an ideal society, and remain his most important works of political philosophy. What is so great as the law of the city? M: Well, Quintus, from childhood we have learned to name “If he calls into court” and other things of that sort laws. Of his speeches, 88 were recorded, but only 58 survive. Now if justice is compliance with the written laws and institutions of peoples, and if (as the same men say) everything ought to be measured by advantage, he who thinks that it will be enjoyable for himself will neglect and break through those laws if he can. Bracketed words or phrases usually represent Professor Fott’s efforts to supply a missing or unclear part of the text. For reason existed, having originated from the nature of things, both impelling toward doing correctly and calling away from transgression. [2] You see, then, that this is the significance of the magistrate, that he should rule over and prescribe things that are correct, advantageous, and linked to the laws. 2 0 obj Press in English zzzz. Now as true and false things are judged on their own terms, not by other terms, and the same with logical and illogical things, so also a constant and continual manner of life, which is virtue, and also inconstancy, which is vice, will be tested according to their nature. Now since god [thus] begot and adorned the human being—that is, he wanted him to have precedence over other things—it is clear (so that not everything must be discussed) that nature itself proceeds further by itself: even with no one teaching it, it has taken its start from those things the characteristics of which it recognized from its first, rudimentary intelligence; it alone strengthens and fully develops reason. In fact we prescribe not only that they should comply with and obey the magistrates, but also that they should respectfully remember and cherish them, as Charondas establishes in his laws. Q: Of course you need to say very little. Our man who is just and good by nature will even speak with him, help him, lead him on his way. [10] Well, the divine mind cannot exist without reason, nor can divine reason not have this force in prescribing by law things that are correct and depraved. For I see that your dear, famous Plato did so, at whom you marvel, whom you rank ahead of all [others], whom you greatly cherish. It so happens that [text missing] the mother of all good things, wisdom (from the love of which philosophy found its name in a Greek word). That is far off the mark. [missing text] Whatever good thing that is praiseworthy necessarily has in itself that for which it is praised; for good itself is not by opinions but by nature. Since this is so, please let us now come to the laws themselves. Sometimes bracketed material represents my effort to clarify a term or reference, and I do so at times with the benefit of material Professor Fott presents in the notes accompanying his translation. Cicero: The Republic, the Laws (translation). And so nature has generously given such a richness of things for human convenience and use that things that are given birth seem to have been donated to us by design, not originated by chance—not only those things that are poured out as the produce of the earth [laden] with crops and fruits, but also animals, which it is clear have been procreated partly for human use, partly for enjoyment, partly for feeding on. [35] A: Could it seem otherwise to me?—since these things have already been fully developed: first, that we have been furnished and adorned as if by gifts of the gods; second, that there is one equal, common manner of living for human beings among themselves; then that all human beings are held together by a certain natural indulgence and goodwill among themselves, as well as by a fellowship of right. text Ver. All persons are captivated by pleasure, which, although it is an enticement to disgrace, has a sort of similarity to a natural good; for it delights through its frivolity and sweetness. introduction to the Treatise on Laws, which we now translate for the first time into English. But if it is thus correctly said, as indeed it mostly and usually seems to me, the beginning of right should be drawn from law. [4] And so that I may come to things “nearer home” and more known to us: All ancient nations formerly obeyed kings. Q: Then of course you will propose laws that may never be repealed? Moreover, what nation does not cherish kindness, benevolence, or a soul that is grateful for and mindful of a benefit? lx + 212. ��� ��Um6'����z�;&��@�LA�m ����t+�o The instructions of physicians cannot be truly so called if in ignorance and inexperience they prescribe deadly things in place of salutary ones. [27] For the expressive eyes say beyond measure how we have been affected in the mind; and what is called the countenance, which can exist in no animate being besides the human being, indicates character. But if the perverting of habits and the vanity of opinions did not twist weak minds and bend them in whatever direction they had begun, no one would be so similar to himself as all persons would be to all persons. Selected works by Cicero, 1928, W. Heinemann edition, in Latin ... with an English translation: Pro Publio Quinctio - Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino - Pro Quinto Roscio Comoedo - De lege agraria 1., 2., 3. But since we are giving laws for free peoples, and since I have previously spoken in a book what I feel about the best republic, at this time I will tailor the laws to the form of city that I approve. What will he do in a deserted place if he has found someone whom he can deprive of much gold, someone weak and alone? [62] And he will fortify all these things as if by a sort of barrier through the method of discussing, the knowledge of judging true and false, and a certain art of understanding what follows each thing and what is opposite to it. What can be called fouler than avarice, what more monstrous than lust, what more scorned than cowardice, what more despicable than dullness and foolishness? Will irregularities of the body, if they are very remarkable, give some offense, and deformity of the mind give none? The Laws, moreover, presents the results of Cicero's reflections as to how the republic needed to change in order not only to survive but also to promote justiceDavid Fott’s vigorous yet elegant English translation is faithful to the originals. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Cicero: The Republic, the Laws (translation). When I have said a very little bit about this, I will come to civil law, from which this entire speech originated. English Title: The republic of Cicero Translated from the Latin; and Accompanied With a Critical and Historical Introduction. So to what do you call me, or what are you urging on me? Translated by David Fott. But if a penalty, if fear of punishment and not the disgrace itself, deters from a wrongful, criminal life, then no one is unjust, and instead the wicked should be held to be incautious. There exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. And if that is so, honorable and disgraceful things should also be distinguished by nature. That I produce pamphlets on the law about rainwater falling from the eaves of houses and [the law] about walls of houses? Nevertheless, none of them was ever so daring that he did not either deny that he was guilty of a crime or fabricate some reason for his own just indignation and seek a defense of the crime in some right of nature. [17] A: So you don’t think that the discipline of law should be drawn from the praetor’s edict, as many do now, or from the Twelve Tables [archaic set of basic Roman laws], as earlier men did, but from within the profoundest philosophy? M: Then do you want this: As with Clinias the Cretan and Megillus the Spartan [fictional characters in Plato’s Laws], as he describes it, during a summer day in the cypress groves and woodland paths of Cnossos, often stopping, occasionally resting, he argues about the institutions of republics and about the best laws, so let us, walking and then lingering among these very tall poplar trees on the green and shady bank, seek something fuller concerning these same matters than the practice of the courts requires? Book 1 [In the section that follows the discussion among Cicero (M for Marcus), Atticus Pomponius (A) and Quintus (Q) is turning to the topic of the law and, as the reader will see, with a zealous interest in the true foundations or bases for any good legal order. M: Toward the end of good things, by which all things are judged and for the sake of obtaining which all things should be done—a disputed matter and one full of disagreement among highly educated men, but it must nevertheless be judged at some time. A REVIEW of the HISTORY OF CICERO’S TREATISE ON THE LAWS. Can we say that those persons are chaste who are kept from defilement by fear of infamy, although infamy itself follows from the disgrace of the matter? What is called the virtue of a tree or a horse (in which cases we misuse the name) is founded not on opinion but on nature. But of all the things involved in the debate of educated men, surely nothing is preferable to the plain understanding that we have been born for justice and that right has been established not by opinion but by nature. And among human beings themselves there is no nation either so tame or so wild that it does not know that it should have a god, although it may be ignorant of what sort it ought to have. Nature makes common conceptions for us and starts forming them in our minds so that honorable things are based on virtue, disgraceful things on vices. Are persons innocent and shameful in order to hear good things [about themselves], and do they blush in order to collect good hearsay? M: Therefore, as that divine mind is the highest law, so too when it is in man, it has been fully developed in the mind of the wise man. English] On the commonwealth; and, On the laws/Cicero; edited by James E. G. Zetzel. It is the first to appear since publication of the latest critical edition of the Latin texts. All rights reserved. On the Laws. This type of command was first entrusted to the most just and wisest men, and that was extremely effective in our own republic as long as regal power ruled over it. �1�)[��e$�4=[n\fh�#��uI>�`�\��I9#�3�4W]OH����˝��(�[�aM6�:�@���3����:1O����6M�����s����K,�==���_��O^hڞ��I��v�� ������������� �e�?�I~�-�uZG��)�|XXw����(53���-�6�J�9R�M�]�� ��rsB4�Y<. All [sorts of] plots are directed against our minds, either by those I just listed, who have taken them when they were delicate and unrefined and who stain and bend them as they want, or by that which occupies a place entangled within our every sensation, pleasure, that imitator of the good and that mother of all bad things. So many and so great are the things that are clearly seen to be present in a human being by those who want to know themselves. Introduction. Or that I compose formulas for covenants and judicial decisions? Surely we will have no lack of delight as we inquire into one topic after another. And so it is proper both for him who obeys to hope that he will command at some time, and for him who commands to think that in a brief time he will have to obey. Do we say about those who are conspicuous for their individual vices, or even many vices, that they are wretched because of losses or damages or tortures, or because of the significance and the disgrace of their vices? xliii ed. [14] M: Then you think that the Titian and the Appuleian laws are not laws? Copyright David Fott. Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106–43 BCE), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era which saw the rise, dictatorship, and death of Julius Caesar in a tottering republic. Since that is law, we should also consider human beings to be united with gods by law. I omit the fitness and abilities of the rest of the body, the control of the voice, the force of speech, which is the greatest matchmaker of human fellowship (not all things are for this debate and time, and, as it seems to me, Scipio expressed this point sufficiently in the book [On the Republic] you have read). {�╵uؕO2�\iu�[�L���& No more, I suppose, than the one that our interim ruler provided, that the dictator could kill whatever citizens he wanted with impunity, even without a hearing. VIII). Where is the benefactor if no one acts benevolently for another’s sake? But before you come to laws concerning the organization of the people, please explain the significance of that law of heaven, so that the tide of habit may not swallow us and drag us according to the usual manner of conversation. M: Then do you want us to trace the birth of right itself from its source? When we have discovered it, there will be no doubt how to judge what we are seeking. ORATORIA. That can be said again in the opposite [direction] as praise of virtue. Translated from the original, with Dissertations and Notes in Two Volumes. [missing portion of text] Don’t we do the same with young persons’ character? [text is missing] And Socrates correctly used to curse the person who first separated advantage from right, for he used to complain that this was the source of all disasters. - Volume 70 Issue 2 . Then it shaped the appearance of his face so as to portray in it the character hidden within. But what is so tiny as this service of those who are asked for advice, even though it is necessary to the people? Features a lucid Introduction, a Table of Dates, notes … A: Certainly nothing for us, if I may respond for both of us. If you approve these things, I will continue to the remaining matters. [14] M: Then why don’t we proceed to our paths and seats? Nothing given to human life by the immortal gods is richer, nothing is more illustrious, nothing is preferable. And although human beings have taken the other things of which they are composed from mortal stock, and those things are fragile and frail, the soul has been implanted by god. The disgrace of the latter can be very easily perceived from its vices? Quintus is speaking initially in this excerpt.]. << /Length 4 0 R /Filter /FlateDecode >> M: We also must now take the beginnings of our discussion from the same [Jupiter] and from the other immortal gods. The Republic and The Laws Cicero Translated by Niall Rudd and Edited by Jonathan Powell Oxford World's Classics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017 (first edition 1999). Or is it—what is most disgraceful to say—pleasure? Publication date 1913 Publisher London Heinemann Collection robarts; toronto Digitizing sponsor Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Contributor Robarts - University of Toronto Language Latin . But if rights were established by peoples’ orders, if by leading men’s decrees, if by judges’ verdicts, there would be a right to rob, a right to commit adultery, a right to substitute false wills, if those things were approved by the votes or resolutions of a multitude. Or if law can make right out of wrong, can’t the same law make good out of bad? / Rudd, WJN. [44] But if there is such power in the opinions and orders of the foolish that the nature of things is changed by their votes, why don’t they establish that bad and ruinous things should be held to be good and salutary things? xڵ[mo�6��_��[ �)�I��P؎��ĩ���@��fWk뺻�Hڸ��7�DRI���Z�u��p�Ù��P��|�$�9x,2�v��y�*�A���A?a�/�D�i�y�8$�0̷��]� Moreover, when things have been written for peoples variously and to suit the occasion, they hold the name of laws by favor more than by substance. Laws Book I. I. Atticus. I think that the highest men in our city are those who have regularly interpreted it to the people and given legal advice. But if something is lacking, let us explain that first. What is there that differs when things are entirely equal? When it has grown up and been fully developed, it is rightly named wisdom. He who is ignorant of it is unjust, whether it has been written somewhere or nowhere. [50] What shall we say about modesty, what about temperance, what about self-control, what about a sense of shame, decency, and chastity? Bury. Are we not to be impudent for fear of infamy, or of laws and courts of law? –Walter Nicgorski, [In the section that follows the discussion among Cicero (M for Marcus), Atticus Pomponius (A) and Quintus (Q) is turning to the topic of the law and, as the reader will see, with a zealous interest in the true foundations or bases for any good legal order.]. And when he has examined and completely tested himself, he will understand how he has come into life equipped by nature and how great are the furnishings he has for obtaining and securing wisdom, since in the beginning he conceived the first, so to speak, sketchy conceptions of all things in his soul and mind. 1 In the second and third books there is, of course, less question of Greek sources for any large part of the contents; 2 Roman law and the works of the Roman jurists 3 are the sources for the greater part of what is not original. The Author: Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the most gifted and successful politicians of his day. [13] M: What about the fact that peoples approve many things ruinously, many things disastrously, which no more approach the name of law than if robbers consecrated certain laws in their own meeting? [18] Q: Truly, brother, you trace deeply and, as is proper, from the fountain head of what we are asking about. Those who hand down the civil law [ius] differently are handing down not so much ways of justice as ways of litigating. I am not aware that any translation of the Republic of Cicero into the English tongue has been made. And if persons have different opinions, it does not follow that those who worship dog and cat as gods are not tormented by the same superstition as other races. Pp. His (Zetzel's) commentary, by far the bulk of this book, guides any Latin reader through Cicero's text and philosophy without giving away too much in translation. And it arose together with the divine mind. [61] And when the same man has examined the heaven, lands, seas, and the nature of all things, and he has seen whence they have been begotten, whither they will return, how they will perish, what in them is mortal and frail, what is divine and eternal, and he has almost grasped [the god] himself who directs and rules these things, and he has recognized that he is not surrounded by the walls of some place but is a citizen of the whole universe as if it were one city—in this magnificence of things, and with this view and knowledge of nature, O immortal gods, how he will know himself (as Pythian Apollo has instructed), how he will scorn, how he will look down upon, how he will consider as worth nothing those things that the crowd says are the most distinguished! And not only allegiances toward human beings but also ceremonies and religious observances for the gods are eliminated, which I think ought to be preserved not by fear but by the connection that exists between human being and god. English] On the commonwealth; and, On the laws/Cicero; edited by James E. G. Zetzel. In archaeology Right is uniform; human fellowship has been bound by it, and one law has established it; that law is correct reason in commanding and prohibiting. Second edition. [22] A: Continue, I beseech [you]. If law has been given, so has right. [41] Then, moreover, those of us who are moved to be good men not by what is honorable itself but by some advantage and enjoyment are cunning, not good. On the Laws (De Legibus), Books 1–3 (Excerpts), [Marcus Tullius Cicero. I would slide further if I did not hold myself back. And because the same thing does not hold for the senses, we think they are certain by nature; and those things that appear one way to some persons and another way to others, and not always one way to the same persons, we say are false. xliii ed. The same nature not only adorned the human being himself with swiftness of mind, but also allotted [to him] the senses as escorts and messengers, as well as the obscure, insufficiently elucidated conceptions of many things as, so to speak, a sort of foundation of knowledge. If it were not so, men would also be happy by opinion. Paper, £17.99 (Cased, US$54.99). So it happens that there is no justice at all if not by nature, and what is established for the sake of advantage is undermined by that advantage. What about liberality? And I want that to be understood in this entire debate when I say that [right] is by nature. Pompei: Pro Caecina: Pro Cluentio: Pro Rabirio Perduellionis Reo: In Catilinam I-IV: Pro Murena: Pro Sulla: Pro Flacco: Pro Archia: Post Reditum in Senatu: Post Reditum in Quirites: de Domo Sua : de Haruspicum Responsis: Pro Cn. A: Of course I grant it, if you expect it. / Rudd, WJN. Now if you do not approve this, I must begin my case from there before anything else. Moreover, the same virtue is in human being and god, and it is not in any other species besides; and virtue is nothing other than [nature] fully developed and taken all the way to its highest point. [9] Q: Several times already you have touched on that point. This treatise is therefore to be regarded as a necessary supplement to the former work, and each supports and illustrates the other with surprising force and beauty. I remember that you have studied law from the earliest time of your life, when I myself also used to come to Scaevola [famed jurist and teacher]. 224 p. Research output: Book/Report › Authored book [51] What then? But if whatever is according to nature were also according to judgment, and if human beings “thought that nothing human is alien to themselves” (as the poet [Terence] states), right would be cultivated equally by all.
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