Cicero

1) His Biography:

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born in 106 B.C. outside of Rome. Cicero was born into a wealthy family and acquired a good education. Cicero studied Roman law after serving in the military. He went on to be elected to all of Rome’s major offices, becoming the youngest citizen without a political background to reach the highest rank of consul.

Throughout his life, Cicero was a staunch supporter of the Roman Republic. The informal partnership known as the First Triumvirate, he believed, was in direct contravention to republican principles and Senate authority. Cicero exposed himself to accusations from his political foes by refusing to join this union. When Cicero was chastised for speaking out against the political figure and tribune Publius Clodius, this became a concern for him.

When Clodius was elected tribune, he sponsored a bill that made anyone who killed a Roman citizen without a trial lose their citizenship. This was meant to be a retaliation for Cicero’s part in quelling the Catalan rebellion. Due to the urgency of putting a stop to the uprising, Cicero ordered the revolutionaries’ execution without a trial. Cicero fled Rome and became an exile since he had no supporters left to shield him from Clodius’ attacks. Following Clodius’ stint as tribune, he was allowed to return to Rome after a year and a half as a consequence of Pompey’s intervention.

Cicero was forced to keep out of politics when he returned to Rome, so he turned to writing. On the Republic, On Invention, and On the Orator are only a few of his philosophical works. He became known as a prolific Roman author. He also gave many speeches and penned letters that have been preserved, allowing modern readers to learn about Cicero’s era’s politics and culture.

When Cicero began speaking out against Mark Antony, who ascended to power after Julius Caesar’s assassination, his fate was determined. Antony was considered a public enemy after Cicero exposed him, and he was killed in 43 B.C.

2) Main Themes in his Philosophy:

God, The Divine Mind of the Universe:

Cicero was a sceptic of his time’s religious beliefs. Cicero accepted the Roman religion as a statesman in a state where religious institutions were important, but only for the sake of tradition and utility. He scolded people for taking conventional religious stories too literally at times in his literature. On the subject of literal interpretations of poetical works, he remarked, “They are demanding in this case the kind of truth expected of a witness rather than a poet.” Cicero recognised the distinction between historical and poetic facts. As a result, Cicero did not take the descriptions of the Roman pagan gods literally.

This is not to imply, however, that Cicero was agnostic. Cicero, on the other hand, was influenced by contemporary Stoics and believed that every aspect of the universe was ruled by a divine reason: “I say, then, that the universe and all its parts both received its first order from divine providence, and are at all times administered by it.” Cicero discussed how the eternal flames of the stars and planets under God’s sovereignty gave all individuals their souls in the final chapter of his De Re Publica.

Cicero believed that this heavenly mind created and ordered the universe. He said that everything has a function and an end to which it is directed by the dictates of its own nature; this is referred to as law. “Law in the proper sense is right reason in harmony with nature,” Cicero said. These laws aren’t always changing or evolving. “There will not be one such law in Rome and another in Athens, one today and another in the future,” Cicero declared decisively, “but all peoples, at all periods, shall be embraced by a single and eternal immutable law.”

Cicero felt that by investigating and understanding something’s form and function, one might figure out how it should operate, because everything is constructed with an end or purpose in mind. As a result, he reasoned that by studying humanity, he might learn how humanity should act. Because “moral excellence is nothing other than the completion and perfection of nature,” one must endeavour to understand the nature of justice by first knowing the nature of mankind.

A Dash of Divinity in Each Person:

“For whereas nature made other animals lean down to feed, she made man alone erect, encouraging him to gaze at the heavens as being, so to speak, akin to him and his original home,” Cicero stated. Our possession of the interconnected abilities of thinking and speech confirms humanity’s favoured status.

Reason enables us to carry out four major tasks. It allows us to infer causal linkages between exterior objects, for starters. We don’t just witness dominos fall; we comprehend that they are part of a larger chain of events. Second, reason enables us to recall events, allowing us to gain information and broaden our understanding of the universe over the course of our lives. thirdly, unlike animals that are captives to their passions, humans may act civilly and considerately around others because of our capacity for reason. Finally, and most significantly to Cicero, humanity’s yearning for truth: “above all, the search for truth and its eager pursuit are peculiar to man.” In all aspects of life, we have the desire to discover the divine order of the universe, whether through logic, astrology, mathematics, or philosophy.

Speech, which Cicero dubbed “the queen of arts,” is our other divine faculty. Speech is an important skill because it allows individuals to work together, achieve common goals, and reach compromises on difficulties. Instead of using sheer force like beasts, Cicero said that we might achieve our goals by rational discourse: “There are two types of conflict: one proceeds by debate, the other by force.” Because the former is a man’s concern, but the latter is a beast’s, one should only use the latter if the former is unavailable.”

We also utilise speech to acquire information and share it with others. People can learn more than animals could ever comprehend thanks to the combination of speech and memory, which is aided by reason. Speech, on the other hand, is not only a tool, but also a sign of humanity’s sociable character. “For our species is not made up of solitary individuals or lonely wanderers,” we are not created to live alone. Speech is a unique human trait that facilitates collaboration. “Speech has separated us from savagery and barbarism,” Cicero concluded.

Universality of Humanity:

Every person who possesses these abilities is regarded a part of humanity’s global commonwealth. Each individual possesses two identities. Every person’s “second persona” is unique to them. It is made up of our skills, preferences, and the responsibilities that have been allotted to us based on our specific abilities. The “primary persona,” which is shared by everyone, includes our ability to speak and reason. Cicero believed that reason is the highest good, because “what is there more divine than reason, I will not say in man, but throughout heaven and earth?”

The significance of reason is highlighted because it may be found in both humans and God. As a result, “there is a primordial partnership in reason between man and God,” which distinguishes mankind from other creatures. This alliance is open to anyone who resembles Cicero’s definition of man which is that, the endowment of a soul with speech and reason.” However, regardless of how man is defined, the same definition applies to all of us.

This is substantial evidence that there is no fundamental difference between humans. Cicero also affirmed humanity’s universality, claiming that all races can achieve virtue by following nature’s lead. Every person is infused with a dash of divinity as a result of this collaboration between God and mankind, meaning that they are both worthy of dignity and command our respect until proven differently. As previously said, divine law imbues everything in the universe with a goal in mind, or a reason for existing. Cicero felt that fairness was humanity’s ultimate objective. “Surely nothing is more vital than the clear realisation that we are born for justice,” he said, emphasising this point. For Cicero, justice was not only a useful tool for creating harmony among men, but was also a virtue in and of itself.

“Nothing can be honourable if justice is absent,” Cicero says, because “justice is the crowning glory of all virtues,” it elevates everything to a more respectable level. Natural law, for Cicero, was more than a philosophy of individual moral behaviour; it was also a design for society. Cicero’s political philosophy was shaped by natural law, particularly in two main areas: Cicero’s normative formulation of law and his defence of private property.

3) His contribution to the American Constitution:

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), a Roman orator, statesman, and political philosopher, had a significant impact on the founding of the United States. Cicero’s writings were an important part of the classical educational curriculum, which was taught in practically every elementary school, high school, college, and university of the time, with the goal of “moulding [sic] liberally educated youths through access to the contents of the Classics.”

Higher education, in particular, “became gradually a training ground for bringing Aristotle, Cicero, Polybius, and other ancient political scientists to disputes over the Declaration and Constitution.” Leading Americans, including many significant participants in the American Revolution, consulted the classics on a daily basis, notably Cicero, for lessons that might be applied to their own time. True, some Founders began to question the classics’ utility for a modern, self-governing republic—most notably, Benjamin Rush, who emerged after the signing of the Constitution as “the principal opponent of classical learning as useless knowledge for America.”

Rush, on the other hand, is the exception rather than the rule because of his antagonism. Contrary to Rush’s assertion, “education in the first century of America, predominantly theological and classical, was mainly prized for its usefulness” in forming the character of those who benefitted from it. “The founders always endorsed classical education on utilitarian grounds,” according to historian Carl Richard, “and they defined ‘utility’ in the broadest possible manner.”

The founders claimed that the classics were “an indispensable training in virtue” in addition to providing literary models, knowledge, and ideas. In the end, Rush and others’ futile attempts to “dethrone the age-old sovereignty of Latin and Greek” highlighted how entrenched the classical curriculum was, which had remained practically intact in “traditional grammar schools and colleges” by 1800.

4) His influence on Legal History:

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, is considered the founder of modern law and politics. Cicero’s influence was felt throughout later European history, but never more so or more directly than in the rise of modernity, the formation of modern law, and the establishment of constitutional government. Because their environment and political circumstances were in many respects closer to Cicero’s than those of any preceding centuries, the early moderns were devout followers of Cicero’s ideas and values. The impact of Cicero’s legal and political views on modern society demonstrates the critical role that historical research may play in legal innovation and social development. Without Marcus Tullius Cicero’s life and writings, the contemporary world would not have grown where it did, when it did, or as it did.

Cicero argued that civil law must follow the natural law of divine reason in order to be effective. To him, justice was a question of fact, not of opinion. He believed that law is distributed across the entire human community, unchangeable and everlasting, calling people to duty by its commands and deterring them from wrongdoing by its prohibitions, and that it is spread throughout the entire human community, immutable and eternal. Cicero maintained that if the law of men (civil law) does not conform to the commandments of nature (divine law), the former cannot be regarded true law, because true law is “right reason in harmony with nature.”

Because we derive justice from humanity’s nature and man’s relationship with his environment, anything that goes against that cannot be called reasonable or lawful. The four principles of justice, according to Cicero, are: (1) do not initiate violence without good reason; (2) honour one’s promises; (3) respect people’s private and common property; and (4) be charitable to others within one’s means.

The state, according to Cicero, exists to uphold laws that are in accordance with universal natural principles. It is not a state if it does not support proper reason in accordance with nature. The state and the law are normative rather than conventional in nature. He claimed that a state could not be founded without the key ingredient of justice reflected in law, noting that “many harmful and pernicious measures are passed in human communities–measures that come no closer to the name of laws than if a gang of criminals agreed to make some rules.”

Cicero also stated in his speeches attacking Mark Antony that the laws he passed were invalid because he enforced them with naked violence rather than logical reason. Law, according to Cicero, is more than mere force; it is proper reasoning in harmony with nature. Similarly, when it came to Caesar, Cicero thought the emperor’s reign was a state in appearance but not in reality.

5) His Influence throughout History:

Cicero’s ideas had a huge influence on the evolution of western thought. As a result, it’s a pity that he’s been increasingly neglected in recent years. Cicero’s marginalisation stems in part from claims that his work is nothing more than rehashed beliefs of Greek philosophers. Cicero’s work’s originality is difficult to debate because many of the materials he would have “copied” have been lost to the ravages of time. His writings are, without a doubt, the first surviving works of political philosophy that examine in depth the fundamental concept of natural law and how society should be ordered around its principles.

Cicero’s admirers have been plentiful throughout history. Plutarch, a Roman biographer, narrates the incident of Augustus wandering through his residence. While strolling, Augustus, Cicero’s foe, notices his grandchild struggling to conceal the fact that he was reading Cicero. Augustus took the book and then returned it to his grandson, telling him that the author was “a learned man, my child, a learned man and a lover of his country.”

The ethical treatise De Officiis, together with the Bible, was one of the most extensively read writings in Europe during the mediaeval period. Cicero’s talent as an orator and his equitable conduct as a statesman were universally admired among the Italian republics throughout the Renaissance. Petrarch, the father of humanism, referred to him as “the great genius” of antiquity. The phrase “salus populi suprema lex,” or “let the wellbeing of the people be the ultimate law,” was used as an epigraph to John Locke’s most renowned work, The Second Treatise On Government, in early modern England. “‘Salus populi suprema lex’ is obviously so reasonable and fundamental a law, that he, who genuinely observes it cannot dangerously err, Locke said.

‘All the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united in the same character, his authority should have great weight,’ remarked John Adams during the American Revolution, referring to Cicero. When authoring the Declaration of Independence, fellow Founding Father Thomas Jefferson referred to “the elementary books of public right.” Cicero’s writings were among them. Cicero was described by Jefferson as a “exalted patriot” as well as “the father of eloquence and philosophy.”

Cicero’s influence rivals that of Aristotle and Plato in terms of philosophical heft. Cicero is a great resource for anybody interested in the evolution of liberty from the natural rights-based heritage of politics.