The celebrated treatise of Cicero, “De Republica;” or the Commonwealth, so highly extolled by ancient writers, and so diligently sought by the scholars of modern Europe, was at length rescued from the slumber of ages, by Angelus Maio, librarian of the Vatican, formerly of the Ambrosian library of Milan, and now raised to the dignity of a Roman cardinal.

In a palimpsest volume, containing a part of Augustin’s Commentary on the Psalms, this learned and ingenious person found that the prior writing, of much greater antiquity, had consisted of the long–lost books of Cicero, De Republica, which he wrote in his fifty–fourth year. Before this, nothing was known of “The Commonwealth,” save a few fragments which had been preserved in the writings of Macrobius, Lactantius, Augustin, Nonius, and others.

Maio published his recovered MSS. (containing the main part of “The Commonwealth,”) at Rome, in 1822. Steinacher published these fragments Edition: current; Page: [26]at Leipsic in 1823. Villemain translated and explained them in Paris, 1823. The work has also been translated at New York, in the United States, 1829; if we may trust the Cyclopædia Americana, by Mr. Featherstonhaugh.

“This work of Cicero, ‘De Republica,’ (say the Editors of the Cyclopœdia Metropolitana,) consisted of a series of Discussions, in six books, on the Origin and Principles of Government. Scipio being the principal speaker, while Lælius, Philus, Manlius, and other personages of like gravity, take part in the dialogue. Till lately, little more than a fragment of the sixth book was understood to be in existence, in which Scipio, under the the fiction of a dream, inculcates the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. In the earlier portion of the work, now recovered by Maio, Scipio discourses on the different kinds of constitutions, and their respective advantages, with a particular reference to that of Rome. In the third book, the subject of Justice is discussed by Lælius and Philus. In the fourth, Scipio treats of Morals and Education. In the fifth and sixth, the duties of Magistrates are explained, and the best means of preventing changes and revolutions in the constitution itself.”

“This (says the Cyclopædia Britannica) is, perhaps, the most valuable contribution which has been made to classical literature in modern Edition: current; Page: [27]times. And it is sufficient to immortalize the learned, sagacious, and indefatigable scholar to whom we are indebted for it; consisting, as it does, of no inconsiderable portion of that treatise which the contemporaries of the Roman orator and Statesman all agree in regarding as his masterpiece.”

It is no wonder, therefore, that the recovery of Cicero’s “Commonwealth” by Maio in 1822, made a most immense stir in the literary world. It was criticised and quoted by all the leading periodicals of Europe and America. Senators and lawyers instantly availed themselves of the long–lost, latefound treasure; and it diffused new light and energy through every department of political science.

It has now taken its eternal station among the grandest monuments of classical antiquity; and the reverence and admiration it commands are as great as ever, though the first excitement of its recovery may partially have subsided. It is time, therefore, to give it that fixed and extensive influence on the political studies of the British people, which it can only secure by a popular translation in their native language.

As Maio recovered the lost “Commonwealth” from a palimpsest parchment, it may be necessary to explain this word to the general reader. The word παλιμψηςτος, according to the Greek lexicographers, Edition: current; Page: [28]is derived from παλιν (again) and ψαω, or ψαιω, (to scrape.) Calepin, Ainsworth, and other Latin etymologists, finding the word palimpsest sometimes written palinxest, have chosen to derive it from Ω̄αλιν and ξεω (to rub.) Thus, Calepin defines it to be, “membrana abrasa et deletitia;” and Ainsworth, “a sort of paper or parchment used generally for writing things the first time, and foul, which might be wiped out, and new wrote in the same place.”

Cicero himself uses the word in this sense in a letter to the lawyer Thebatius, who had written to him on a sheet thus rubbed. “Your letter (says he) is excellent in all respects. As to your writing in palimpsest, I admire your economy; but I wonder what there could have been on this billet which you preferred rubbing out to not writing at all, unless it was one of your briefs. I hope you won’t thus obliterate my epistles to insert your own,” &c. Catullus and others use the word in the same sense.

M. Maio found the MS. of Cicero’s “Commonwealth,” written in large antique letters, on a palimpsest parchment, which had been partially erased and grated off by the monks, in order to insert the Commentaries of their favourite Augustine on David’s Psalms.

It was a matter of the greatest nicety and severest labour to recover the precious words of Edition: current; Page: [29]Cicero, for the superincumbent Commentary of the worthy father was written in very solid characters. Yet, by dint of critical acumen, almost unrivalled, and a most unflinching perseverance, this admirable scholar has rescued these glorious fragments of antiquity, and left them as an indefeasible inheritance to us and our children.

M. Maio has prefixed a very learned and masterly preface to his publication, in which he traces the history of Cicero’s Commonwealth from its early date, through the long and intricate periods of the middle ages. It is peculiarly interesting to observe the intense and eager search which the great heralds of European literature made for the lost Rpublic during this lapse of time. The search was not less anxious and universal than the fabulous inquiry of Isis for the mangled body of Osiris, or of Ceres for her ravished Proserpine, or of Orpheus for his vanished Euridice. But, alas! it was still more unavailing, and men of transcendant genius and scholarship laboured in vain for centuries to regain the eloquent treatise, which a happy chance has now thrown into our hands.

We shall, therefore, take the liberty of translating from Maio’s Latin preface those passages which best elucidate the history of this illustrious treatise. We believe this is their first appearance in a living language.

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It is easy to believe that Cicero’s Commonwealth must have been received by the ancients with intense admiration, when we reflect on the fame of the author, the excellence of the subject, and splendour of the style. Cicero himself tells us, that this, his treatise, was read by Atticus with the utmost relish and satisfaction. Cælius also informed Cicero that these, his political works, were universal favourites. They must soon have attained a very extensive circulation, as is evident from the multitude of ancient authors who mention them. Suetonius eulogizes them in a distinct book. They were cited by Seneca, the elder Pliny, Fronto, Gellius, Macrobius, Eulogius, Servius, Philargyrius, Juvenal the Scholiast, Lampridius, Nonius, Charisius, Diomed, Victorinus, Nectarius, Jerome, Ambrosius, Boetius, Isidore, Priscian, and more particularly by Lactantius and Augustin, each of whom have quoted very splendid passages. Indeed, I believe it was from the title of Cicero’s work de Republica, that Augustine derived the conception of the Edition: current; Page: [31]noblest of his own compositions—de Civitate Dei. That Livy read the political writings of Cicero, cannot be questioned; and we may suspect the same of Dion Cassius, Arnobius, Amianus, Marcellinus, Apuleius, Cyprian, Tertullian, Aurelius, Victor Ampelius, and others. Whether the ancient grammarians wrote comments on this great work of Cicero, we know not; probably, Victorinus might have done so, as Schottus and Patricius fully persuaded themselves. Both these scholars rely on the authority of Jerome, who mentions the Comments of Victorinus on Cicero’s Dialogues, by which name these books may be understood. Nor was this work by any means unknown to the Greeks, though most of them, content with their own national literature, affected to despise that of Rome. Indeed, the Greeks possest so many political treatises in their own language, that they had little need to consult Cicero’s work on the subject, which was notoriously derived from the Platonic fountains. Didymus, however, thought it worth while to draw his bow against Cicero’s politics; but he was speedily refuted by Suetonius, as Amianus and Suidas inform us. Nor is this to be wondered at, since the politics of Plato were exposed to many antagonists even among the Greeks, as Zeno, Aristotle, and Athenæus. The judicious Quinctilian also has noticed Cicero’s politics. In a Vatican palimpsest there Edition: current; Page: [32]likewise exists a Greek political author, or rather some fragments of one. He is neither very ancient, nor very recent—the style of writing belongs to the tenth century—I will not be positive respecting his age. That politician whom Photius has noticed (cod. 37), so well agrees with the Vatican writer, that he appears to be the same man as the writer of the Justinian age, and perhaps may be that Petrus Protector so famed for his political learning. This Vatican Anonymous, whoever he may be, wrote some books, Ω̄ερι πολιτικης επιστημης (on political science). In the fifth book, which treats on the Art of Government (the same subject which occupied the fifth book of Cicero’s Commonwealth), he divides his discourse into several chapters, in one of which he institutes a comparison between the Platonic and the Ciceronian politics, and gives the palm to Cicero. Very fairly, therefore, did the learned Frenchman, Bernardi, who bestowed so much pains on Cicero’s Commonwealth, suspect that Photius’s anonymous Grecian devoted his attention to the imitation of Cicero’s politics. It fortunately happens that we are enabled to publish the fragments of both these works from the Vatican MSS.

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After Isidore, that is, after the Christian writers of the seventh century, I know not that any one cites the Republic of Cicero earlier than Gerbert, the Frenchman, who, in the tenth century, from being a monk of Florence, an abbot of Bobio and Rheims, became archbishop of Ravenna, and at length, Pope of Rome in 999, under the title of Sylvester II. His learning was so extraordinary for the times in which he lived, as to bring on him an accusation of magic. He constructed spheres, observed the stars through tubes, invented a clock, and made hydraulic organs, on which he played with scientific skill. He also wrote a Latin poem on Music, and is supposed to have introduced the Arabic numerals, together with the game of chess, into Europe. In his 87th epistle, requesting Constantine, the schoolman, to visit him, he says, “Take care of yourself, and also of the writings of Cicero on the Commonwealth, those against Veres, and others, which the father of Roman eloquence wrote in defence of so many of his countrymen.” At that time, therefore, Edition: current; Page: [34]the political works of Cicero were considered extant, since Gerbert orders them to be brought to him without hesitation. But as the Vatican Codex of the Republic was brought to Rome from the Abbey of Bobio, founded by St. Colomban, then under the authority of Gerbert, who was passionately fond of collecting books, it is not too much to believe, that it was the identical Bobian Codex conveyed to Gerbert by Constantine; that there, in after times it was written over by the monks, and at length, after many ages, brought back to Rome, deposited in the Vatican library, and now fortunately discovered by myself. However this may be, we see John of Salisbury, in the 12th century, quoting passages in Cicero de Republica, which we now find only in our edition of it. That quotation especially respecting the poets is much longer in the Saresberian than in Augustin. And in another passage, though he might have taken the beginning of it from Macrobius, the subsequent sentences could only have been derived from the reading of the original. We need not wonder that John of Salisbury should have cited these books, since he lived only two centuries after Gerbert. And Lipsius has told us that he found many touches of the ancient purple in this monkish writer, and splendid fragments of a brighter age. In the same age, Peter of Blois states that he had read Cicero’s Commonwealth. Edition: current; Page: [35]Petrus Pictaviensis likewise quotes a passage from the same work; from which Barthius infers that Peter must have perused the Republic entire.

On the expectations of discovering Cicero’s Commonwealth in the subsequent Centuries.

In subsequent periods, two Greek writers, we allude to Panudes and Gaza, the first of whom flourished in the 15th century, the other somewhat later, translated Scipio’s Dream into the Greek language. But we need not suppose that these Greek interpreters possest the original MS. entire. For Scipio’s Dream, divided from the political portion of the work, occurs in many collections of MSS., besides appearing in the works of Macrobius. We may, therefore, affirm, that after the 12th century, the knowledge of the political writings of Cicero was confined to few, though a report of their existence was still prevalent.

Express mention is indeed made of the books of Cicero’s Commonwealth with other works of the same kind, which Francis Petrarch, under the order of Pope Clement VI., diligently examined at great labour and expence. We have Petrarch’s testimony Edition: current; Page: [36]to this point, in a very prolix epistle, which treats of Cicero’s writings. But his search for the Republic was unsuccessful; and he tells us that he despaired of ever finding it. He was equally unsuccessful in recovering the works of Varro, which he declares he perused when a boy. But to return. Leonard Aretino tells us that Cicero’s Republic was diligently sought for in the time of Pogius, who recovered so many ancient MSS. Writing to Pogius, in the year 1416, to congratulate him on the recovery of Quinctilian, he says, “There is no ancient work, with the exception of Cicero’s Republic, which I more eagerly desired to peruse. Pogius himself was most diligent in seeking for the lost Republic, at the instigation of Francis Barbaro and others. Writing to a friend, he says, that he had deceived himself in the expectation of finding the Republic, as the MS. he supposed to contain it, was nothing more than a copy of Macrobius, including Scipio’s Dream; but that he did not despair of its recovery, for a certain scholar had told him where it existed, and that he would go and hunt for it as soon as possible. As Cardinal Bessario is reported to have offered him a thousand guineas for the discovery of Cicero’s Republic, and as Pogius was a client of his, we must suppose that Bessario employed Pogius in this kind of literary investigation, in which no man was ever more successful.

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John Leland, who edited some works of the British writers, relates a current report, that a copy of Cicero de Republica existed towards the end of the 15th century in the library of William Tilley, where it was destroyed by fire.

John Sturmius, in the year 1552, thus writes to Roger Ascham:—“A certain person in this neighbourhood has promised me the books of Cicero’s Commonwealth; I have sent to him six times. If he be but as good as his word, who will be happier than your humble servant? I shall assume all the senatorial gravity of the ancient discipline, if I can but get a sight of them. But as men are now–a–days, I fear ’tis a false report. If it be true, I will let you know, &c.”

Three years after this, Roger Ascham writes to Sturmius thus:—“Card. Pole asks me, whether I have ever seen Cicero’s Commonwealth. He tells me that he has sent a thousand guineas to a certain Polish gentleman, to seek for these books, which he had given him hopes of discovering. I immediately repeated him what you had told me respecting these books, and he requested me to write you again on the subject, that we may know the truth.”

Andreas Patricius, a Pole, in his preface to the fragments of “The Republic,” writes thus: “When I had inscribed these pages, and was silently reflecting on the loss of these inestimable books, Edition: current; Page: [38]my friend and patron, Philip Padnevius, Bishop of Cracow, informed me that he had heard from the late Albert Crisius, a very polite and learned gentleman, that he had seen the first four books of “The Republic” during his embassy to England, in the year 1557, in a certain monastery. On his return, he wished to purchase them and take them with him; but he was informed that the MSS. had unfortunately been stolen in the mean time.”

Peter Ramus, (a great admirer of Cicero,) who lost his life in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, thus expresses himself in the preface to Scipio’s dream: “Whether the six books of ‘The Commonwealth’ have perished, or whether they are kept under the seal of secrecy, as I hear by certain very religious gentlemen in the state, as the Sibylline oracles of old, I dare not affirm.”

Respecting the political works of Cicero, which some have sought in Sarmatia, wonderful things are reported by Bullartius, in his Life of John Zamoscias. He tells us that certain Polish noblemen, after the year 1576, retired from the siege of Pleskof into the interior provinces, and there found, among other monuments of antiquity, the books of Cicero’s “Commonwealth,” addressed to Atticus, written in golden letters. Walchius has either overlooked or despised this passage of Bullartius; for he says not a word on the subject. Edition: current; Page: [39]Bullartius would have more easily persuaded us to receive his report, if he had told us that Greek MSS. were to be found in these regions; for no Latin monuments appear to exist there.

Since M. Mai wrote this notice, Professor Gustavus Munnich, in Cracow, gives an account of the Sarmatian copy of Cicero de Republica, which in 1581 was in possession of a Valhynian nobleman, and has since disappeared. Munnich’s work is entitled “Ciceronis libri de Republica. Notit. Codicis Sarmat. Gottingen, 1825.” According to him, Gozliski used this copy in his work “De perfecto Senatore.” It is true that Gozliski’s “Accomplished Senator” is written according to the Ciceronian scheme of policy; but after a careful perusal we do not find any thing like plagiarism from Cicero’s “Republic.”

In the seventeenth century, continues M. Mai, Caspar Barthius writes thus: ‘I recollect the testimony of a brave man and a learned document, which prove that the books of Cicero’s “Commonwealth,” existed in Germany a few years ago.’ ‘Near the city of Brunswick,’ says J. H. Meibomius, ‘in Saxony, is the Rittershusian monastery, which contained an extensive library. Among the MSS. was one comprising “The Republic.” But this sanctuary of learning has been violated by common soldiers, and other ignoramuses, who have destroyed those treasures of literature which no lapse of ages can repair.”

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The same Barthius is said to have told Daumius, that before the thirty years’ war, there existed, in the library of Fulda, in some parchment volumes, the books of Cicero’s “Commonwealth;” but that the violence of the soldiers had destroyed many of these literary treasures.

Such are the words of M. Mai, in relating the history of Cicero’s “Republic,” up to the happy period when he had the good fortune to discover and to decipher the palimpsest MSS. which contained this invaluable composition, in 1822.

In order to carry on the history of this treatise, and to illustrate some of the most important doctrines which it unfolds, we cannot do better than translate the admirable discourse which M. Villemain prefixed to his French Version in 1823. This Discourse is the more important as it embodied the best information on the subject, and as it exercised a very decided influence on the politics of Europe and America.

“Of all the ancient monuments (says M. Villemain) of Latin literature, there were few whose loss occasioned more regrets than the Dialogues of Cicero de Republica. There were few whose discovery could have more profoundly excited the attention of cultivated men, and the curiosity of the public. The great portions which are still deficient in the historic masterpieces of Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, could scarcely awaken a keener interest.

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But the extent of these losses has deprived us of all hope of their recovery. We cannot suppose that the ingenious process which gives to the literary world the MS. which we now publish, will ever be successful enough to restore the vast fragments of these famous historians, and this process is unhappily the only means of communication which remains to that antiquity which is closed against us by death and time. Every other plan is impracticable and desperate. The cinders of Herculaneum are steril as the grave. These treasures of the human mind, which fire seems to have conserved by consuming—these MSS., calcined by flame, in which we still trace letters and words, and which at first excited so many hopes, have in reality satisfied none. They are so delicate, that we destroy them by a touch. For more than thirty years, with incessant toil and diversified talent, we have only derived from a considerable number of MSS. a few mutilated pages of a Treatise on Music, and some Observations on the philosophy of Epicurus. Within a recent date, chemistry, the most analytical and inventive, has exhausted all its efforts to unfold some of these rolls of Herculaneum, and to separate the pages which now form a black and compact mass, externally sprinkled with written characters. The celebrated Sir H. Davy, author of this last test, has scarcely been more successful than his predecessors. Edition: current; Page: [42]He has, according to his own avowal, melted many of these blocks without being able to extract any useful result. And science remains mute and discouraged before this fruitless depository and inheritance which she cannot enjoy.

Be this as it will; an Italian scholar, M. Angelo Mai, possessed by that love of antiquity which has produced so many prodigies of patience, turned his attention to another source of discoveries, from which he has derived treasures that are invaluable to science, and to which we are now indebted for Cicero’s Treatise on the Commonwealth.

Learned men had long remarked, that in the ignorance and penury of the middle ages, they not unfrequently grated the ancient parchment MSS. in order to inscribe them with copies of fresh works, more agreeable to the taste of the time, and which for the most part were preserved by the same preference which had transcribed them.

One of the most learned men in Europe, Father Montfaucon, made this observation, and apparently tried it on a great number of ancient MSS. Let us hear him explain himself, with that candour of erudition at once so respectable and so fascinating. We quote a part of a Dissertation on the Discovery and Use of Cotton Paper.

‘The use of cotton paper (says he) came in Edition: current; Page: [43]very conveniently, at a time when there existed a great dearth of parchment, which has occasioned us the loss of many ancient authors, in the following way. In the twelfth century, the Greeks, plunged in ignorance, bethought them of grating or scraping the writings of ancient MSS. on parchment, and of obliterating their traces, as far as they could, in order to inscribe them with the books of the church. It was thus, to the infinite prejudice of the literary world, Polybius, Dion, Diodorus Siculus, and other authors of whom we retain only fragments, were metamorphosed into triodons, pentecostaries, homilies, and other ecclesiastical books. After an exact search, I can certify, that of the books written on parchment since the twelfth century, the main part are palimpsests, whose ancient writings have been obliterated. But as all the copyists were not equally skilful in thus effacing the primitive authors, we find some in which we can read at least a part of what they intended to erase.’ (Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, vol. vi. p. 606.)

If this same fact happened in the East, where barbarism was never so absolute, and at Constantinople, where there always existed so much bad literature, this miserable resource was adopted far more frequently in the Roman empire, which, so often overwhelmed by barbarians, was left in the sixth century, almost destitute of industry, and Edition: current; Page: [44]plunged in the grossest ignorance. It was about this time that, in the Italian monasteries, the only inviolable asylums where faithful librarians preserved the ancient MSS., they too often resolved to grate these precious parchments, in order to cover them with some new writing. These Latin copyists were often as fortunately imperfect in their craft of grating as those of Greece; but scholars have neglected, till recent times, to examine these double MSS., which remained unnoticed in the libraries.

The learned Angelo Maio, keeper of the Ambrosian library, was one of the first who set himself to examine these literary relics, and to recover those fragments of ancient genius in these neglected MSS., which he has published to Europe, under the designation of palimpsests.

It was thus that in 1814 he discovered and published fragments of the three discourses of Cicero, which lay buried under the verses of Sedulius, a Latin poet of the Middle Ages. I will not attempt to express the transports which this learned scholar must have felt at the moment of the glorious achievement, when, in these old parchments, preserved in a corner of the library of Milan, he beheld, between the barbarous lines of a versifier of the sixth century, the names and the phrases which revealed to him a work of Cicero. It was one of those philosophic yet Edition: current; Page: [45]intense gratifications which had been lost since the fifteenth age, and which we had so little prospect of regaining.

This authentic and incontestible discovery encouraged the patient researches of M. Mai. After some time, an immense MS. of the seventh century, which contained the voluminous acts of the council of Calcedon, presented him on its parchment leaves traces of a preceding writing. These leaves were in fact the collected shreds of many ancient MSS.; and the learned investigator recovered from them new fragments of Cicero, with an ancient commentary, long passages of Symmachus, a celebrated orator of the fourth century, the Greek and Latin epistles of Fronto, an orator equally admired at the decline of the Empire, and finally, some Latin letters of Marcus Aurelius. M. Mai successively published these precious relics; and in 1817 joined thereto the fragments of a very ancient commentary on Virgil, which he had found in a recovered MS. of St. Gregory’s Homilies.

It is easy to conceive that this new method of recovery must, from its very nature, leave many lacunes and gaps, many breakages and damages in the relics thus singularly rescued from destroying time. We observe, likewise, that the application of this process is exposed to hazards which are not all equally propitious. The pumice Edition: current; Page: [46]or grater of the copyist was sometimes exercised on masterpieces, sometimes on inferior works; sometimes it has happened to these palimpsests, as to human prejudices, which overwhelm and obliterate each other, without leaving truth the better or the worse for the change. The sixth age effaced the blunders of the fifth, only to transcribe its own; and thus the foundation and the superstructure were equally worthless.

But M. Mai, and we render homage to his erudite candour, has collected with the same critical accuracy and enthusiasm all the first traces of the characters he could discover under the subsequent writing. He has published the sophistical antitheses and nugacities of Fronto and Symmachus with as religious a scrupulosity as that he now exerts in commenting on Cicero’s Commonwealth, discovered by the same method, and an accident still more fortunate.

This literary devotion, so respectable and so necessary in long and patient investigations, is an additional proof of the perfect sincerity of the learned editor. But here our proofs are superabundant, and doubt on one side is as impossible as fiction on the other. M. Mai, summoned to be librarian of the Vatican at Rome, on account of his earlier labours, and applauded by all the scholars of Europe, made new researches in this unrivalled library. ’Twas there he had Edition: current; Page: [47]the good fortune to discover a MS. formed of the disconnected and half effaced pages of Cicero’s Dialogue, De Republica, which, in the sixth century, or later, had been overlined by a new writing, containing the Commentaries of St. Augustin on the Psalms.

On this MS. M. Mai laboured, beneath the scrutiny of all the scholars of Italy. These precious pages he transcribed literally, without addition, noting the lacunes and gaps with a mournful exactness, preserving the antique orthography, and indicating by italics the least conjectural criticism he was obliged to insert to supply a letter or word irreparably obliterated.

It is sufficient to cast a glance over the learned and ingenuous account of his labours in this respect, to be convinced of the authenticity of his publication, so substantially, we might say judicially, evinced. But among men of taste this is still more strikingly proved by the grand characteristics of patriotic elevation, genius, and eloquence, which distinguish the writings we translate. This kind of moral proof, far more agreeable to the reader than dissertations on the orthography of old words, or on the probable dimensions of letters and points, will naturally conduct us to some details respecting this work of Cicero; the period when this great man composed it; the idea he entertained of it, and expressed in his Edition: current; Page: [48]other writings; the character of the few fragments which had been preserved in a detached form, and their relation to the new discovery of the actual treatise. Lastly, by the aid of this discovery, let us examine the contents of this celebrated treatise, hitherto so imperfectly known, and notice the nature and origin of the doctrines it unfolds, and the passages of political history it illustrates.

In accomplishing a design too arduous for our weakness, we shall be at least consoled by the ever present contemplation of the thoughts of a great man — a fruitful source of intellectual aggrandizement, a noble pleasure, which elevates the understanding, and enables it to enjoy what it cannot rival.

Although time had handed down but few fragments of this celebrated treatise, posterity conceived a high idea of the treasure it had lost, being well aware of the value Cicero himself set upon it, in his letters and in his other works; for there is none of his writings to which he makes more frequent allusion, or of which he speaks with more predilection and joy. We observe by his letters to Atticus, that he began it in the fifty–second year of his age, some time after his banishment, and at a period when, without having resumed his influence, he was occupied in political and juridical studies. Thus, it was not like most Edition: current; Page: [49]of his philosophic treatises — a kind of refuge which he sought in his misfortune and exhaustion. But he devoted the full energy of his agitated life to express these thoughts on the first objects of his ambition and love — policy and patriotism; and this fact explains the very decided and practical character he has given to the present work, if we compare it with the speculative Commonwealth of Plato.

He prepared for its composition by studying the laws and antiquities of the Roman state, and consulted for this purpose the works and the library of the learned Varro, the friend of Atticus. He determined to give his treatise the form of a dialogue, in which Scipio, Æmilianus, and Lœlius were to be the principal interlocutors. He indicates this plan of construction in his letter to Atticus, mentioning his wish to dedicate to Varro one of the prologues which he designed to prefix to each of his six books.

“May I be able to accomplish it (he adds); for I have undertaken a very important and difficult task, and one which demands a great deal of leisure—the very thing in which I am most deficient.”

This same year, during his residence at Cuma, he employed himself in writing this treatise, which he always describes as an arduous and laborious undertaking. “But (says he), if I succeed Edition: current; Page: [50]in making it what I wish, it will be labour well spent; if not, I shall throw it into the sea, which is under my eye while I write it, and I shall commence something else, for I cannot remain idle.” (Scribebam sane illa quæ dixeram Ω̄ολιτικα, spissum sane opus et operosum; sed si ex sententia successerit, bene erit opera posita; sin minus, in illud ipsum dijiciemus mare quod scribentes spectamus, et alia aggrediemur, quoniam quiescere non possumus.”—Ad. Quin. 2. 14.)

Another letter of Cicero to Quintus, dated the same year (b.c. 53), is entirely occupied with this important work, which had made some progress. We shall take care not to break and mangle the valuable details which this letter affords us, which at once declares the author and the great man.

“You ask me (says Cicero), how I am getting on with the work which I undertook to write during my stay at Cuma. I have not relinquished it, nor do I mean to do so; but I have more than once changed my whole plan of composition, and the arrangement of my ideas. I had finished two books, in which, assuming for my epoch the nine days of feasts under the consulate of Tuditanus and Aquilius, I introduced a dialogue between Scipio Africanus, Lœlius, Philus, Manilius, Tubero, Fannius, and Scævola, both sons–in–law of Lœlius. The conversation was altogether respecting the best form of government, Edition: current; Page: [51]and the characteristics of the true citizen; being divided into nine days and nine chapters. The construction of the work advanced propitiously, and the dignity of the personages lent weight to the discourse. But when I had read these two first books at Tusculum, in the presence of Sallust, he told me it was possible to give the style still greater authority, if I spoke in my own person, not being a Heraclitus of Pontus, but a consul, and a man who had taken a part in the greatest affairs of state; that all I attributed to personages so ancient would appear fictitious; that in my book, in which I had discussed the art of oratory, if I had with a good grace avoided introducing in proprià personà any rhetorical illustrations, I had put them in the mouths of gentlemen, I might at least have seen; and finally, that Aristotle himself, in all that he has written on government, and on the qualities of a great man, speaks in his own name. This remark struck me the more forcibly, because, by my plan, I had barred myself from discussing the greatest events of our country, since they are of a much later date than the ages of my personages. In truth, this was the very thing I wished from the first to avoid, lest in describing our times, I should offend our cotemporaries. I desire altogether to escape this danger, and to adopt the form of a dialogue with you. However, if I come Edition: current; Page: [52]to Rome, I will send you what I first wrote; for you may well conceive that I cannot abandon these first books without some annoyance.”

This confidential detail explains to us all the regret which Cicero must have felt in finding his long labour disappointed; and this regret sufficiently manifests the reason why, in spite of these changes of opinion, he resumed his first design, continued the dialogue as he had commenced it, and hastened to finish it with that rapidity which he always combined with discrimination, and which in a life so laborious, and a mind so agitated and restless, appears to have been one of the most remarkable properties of Cicero’s genius. But he took care to limit his treatise to six books.

It was, therefore, under this form that the work was published a little while after the period when Cicero was so eagerly engaged in its composition. It appears that this was given to the world just before his departure for Celicia, in the fifty–fourth year of his age, a. u. 701. Soon after this event, the most talented of all the eminent men, whose letters are found mingled with those of Cicero, we mean Cælius, who constantly wrote him the news of Rome during this period, finishes his first epistle, full of the intrigues of the senate and the forum, in these words: Tui libri politici omnibus vigent. Your political treatise is universally Edition: current; Page: [53]read and much admired. “This (says Middleton) alludes to his Treatise on the Commonwealth, which was drawn up in the form of dialogue, in which the greatest persons of the Republic were introduced. From the fragments of this work, which still remain, it appears to have been a noble performance, and one of his capital pieces, where all the important questions of politics and morality were discussed with the greatest elegance and accuracy.”—(Mid. Life of Cicero.)

At the same epoch, Cicero speaks of them to Atticus, whom he supposes occupied in their perusal, and from whom he requests some political advices relative to the situation of the State. In another letter to his friend, written in the middle of his government, he mentions these six books of the Commonwealth as a recent publication, in which he had bound himself by the strongest engagements to justice and purity in his administration. This was the motive he opposed to the wishes of Atticus, who urged him to favour those measures of rigour and exaction which Brutus had exercised against the city of Salamis, of which he was treasurer. After having described the injustice of such conduct, and his resolution not to foster such corruptions, Cicero adds:—“Let those complain of me who will, I shall resign myself, if justice is on my side, especially since I have bound myself with my six books, as so many sureties Edition: current; Page: [54]which I am delighted to find have obtained your approbation. (Irascatur qui volet, patior, το γαρ ευ μετ εμου, presertim cum sex libris tanquam prædibus me ipsum obstinxerim, quos tibi tam valde probari gaudeo.”—Ad Att. 6. 1.)

How fascinating is the naiveté and ingenuousness of so great a man—Admirable Cicero! in whom vanity itself was turned to the advantage of truth and virtue. Oh that all men in authority and power had thus composed treatises, by which they might be bound to good conduct, and invincibly compelled to justice and moderation.

The idea of his work on the Commonwealth was present to Cicero during the whole epoch of his government in Cilicia, which was in the avaricious tyranny of the Romans a splendid exception, an almost unique example of disinterested equity. This idea enabled him to resist the solicitation and the authority of Brutus—it made him rejoice in the honours which were decreed him by the gratitude of the people he governed—it guided and regulated all his actions. (Reliqua plena adhuc laudis et gratiæ, digna iis libris quos tu dilaudas, conservatæ civitates, cumulate publicis satisfactum offensus contumeliâ nemo.—Ad Att. 6. 3.

When Cicero, after an administration of eighteen months, during which he had changed the condition of his province, and gained a battle, Edition: current; Page: [55]wished to obtain the honours of a triumph, amid the congratulations of his public services, the memory of the principles maintained in his Commonwealth still commanded his attention. He had probably announced in this work that the true citizen ought to serve his country for its own sake, and without regard to honours and dignities; and in this point, the rigorous practice he had recommended, was, perhaps, above his own efforts. Thus, in this embarrassment, satisfied in himself respecting his conduct, scrupulous of indulging the vanity of a triumph, yet not possessing resolution enough to renounce this hope, he writes to his friend with that involuntary candour which so exactly delineates the man:—“If this idea of a triumph had not taken possession of me, which also meets your approbation, you would not have to seek very far for the man I have described in my sixth book. But how can I excuse myself to you who have studied my words so diligently?”—(Ad Att. 7. 3.)

Many other passages in Cicero’s letters recall this cherished work, and reply to the observations of Atticus, who acted the part of a useful and learned critic to his friend. In one of these he combats the reproach of having made Scipio say, incorrectly, that Flavius was the first who published the judicial terms and returns. And he justifies himself with the same ease from another Edition: current; Page: [56]fault, perhaps less innocent, of having ridiculed the theatrical gestures of a certain orator who, doubtless, is no other than the celebrated Hortensius. On two other occasions in his letters, he speaks of his Commonwealth: in one he discusses, with a scrupulosity which appears more worthy of a modern academician than an ancient orator, the manner in which he had used, without a preposition, the word Pyrea, the name of the Athenian poet: in another, to correct a vicious orthography which he had given to the name of a people, and to request Atticus to mark the variation in his copy. The reader will pardon these minutiæ for the same curiosity which induces us to read in Voltaire’s correspondence the inquietudes and distresses of this great writer, on account of a word erroneously printed, or a verse incorrectly recited on the stage.

We would remark, that the epoch which Cicero so carefully occupied in composing this work consecrated to the free institutions of his country, was precisely that which was overwhelming its laws and liberties under Cæsar’s arms. In fact, it was on his return from Cilicia, that Cicero, to use his own expression, saw the Constitution falling into the flames of civil war. Cicero followed Pompey without approving him, or trusting him; and soon he felt the mortification of not finding in this defender of the Roman Constitution the qualities Edition: current; Page: [57]he required of a statesman, in his book on the Commonwealth. For this memorial naturally presented itself to his mind; and he could not help, in writing to Atticus, quoting one passage of it, in which he had made Scipio speak, and which at that season served only to show him all the defects of Pompey.

After Cæsar’s victory, although Cicero, at first retiring from the Senate and the Bar, sought in philosophic studies a peaceful and unsuspicious employment, he did not forget in the works he composed during this melancholy period, that treatise on the Commonwealth, he had so lately written in happier days and brighter hopes. He especially cites it, and refers his reader to it in his Dialogue on Laws (de Legibus), which he appears to have composed as a supplement, and a natural continuation of his former work. In his treatise on Moral Duties, written after Cæsar’s death, at a period when tyranny threatened to survive the immolated Dictator, Cicero again recalls his Dialogue on the Commonwealth, as an immortal Protest against Cæsar, Antony, and their successors. Lastly, in his ingenious, but sceptical treatise on Divination, he speaks of the service he had rendered to the sciences, and enumerates his philosophic writings—“To all these (says he) I must add my six books on the Commonwealth, which I wrote at a period when I held the helm Edition: current; Page: [58]of the state”—a memorial of ambition and glory which he could not forget, and whose loss even his philosophy could not atone.

In collecting from Cicero himself these frequent references, it appears that the book he loved so often to cite, was a kind of Political Testament, in which he flattered himself with having retraced, and fixed for the future, the image of the Constitution to which he devoted his life.

It is needless, therefore, to enquire why this work is no where mentioned in the monuments which remain of the literature of the age of Agustus. We know that the writers of this epoch, with the exception of Livy, feared even to name Cicero, whose glory was so recent, and so severely reproached the crimes of the Triumvirate. Plutarch tells us that one day Augustus found in the hands of one of his nephews, a book which the young man endeavoured to conceal under his robe; the emperor seized it and beheld a work of Cicero. After having perused the greatest part of it standing, he returned it, and added, “This was a wise man, my child, a wise man, and one that loved his country well.” Whatever might have been the unexpected toleration of the emperor on this occasion, we suspect that the book he so generously pardoned, was not the treatise on the Commonwealth.

After the crafty usurpation of Augustus had Edition: current; Page: [59]given rise to the tyranny of Tiberius and the insane despotism of so many monsters, we may easily believe that it was forbidden to praise this work of Cicero, and that they discarded this glorious memorial of ancient Rome, with the same anxiety with which they prescribed the images of the heroes of the Republic. When the senate condemned to death the historian Cremutius Cordus, for having recounted the actions of the great men who were Cicero’s contemporaries, we may suppose that the book in which their maxims were deposited, was not to be celebrated with impunity. Seneca, the feeble defender and martyr of liberty in the court of Nero, cites at some length this work of Cicero, on account of some historical curiosities,—“When (says he) a philologian, a grammarian, and a philosopher lay hands on Cicero’s Commonwealth, each examines it for topics according to his own taste.” Seneca, in this enumeration, forgets those who only examine books in order to fathom the depths of their subjects, Quintilian never mentions the Commonwealth; he praises Domitian. Pliny, the younger, who lived in better and freer times, even Pliny, so full of allusions to ancient literature, and so great an admirer of Cicero’s writing, never ventures to cite these famous dialogues. Pliny, the naturalist, who, in a single work, has given an inventory of all the learning of antiquity, has cited this work Edition: current; Page: [60]of Cicero twice only, and in a style of expression devoid of interest.

Tacitus, in what remains of his writings, comprising the Dialogue of Orators, has never mentioned Cicero’s Commonwealth; and he had little occasion to do so. But we cannot doubt that his great mind was penetrated by reading these political compositions. One passage in his annals, which we shall hereafter notice, shows that he had well considered one of the principal ideas and one of the brightest hopes which Cicero has expressed in his work. We will search no further among the writers of the two first ages of the empire; we should find but few traces of the admiration which attached itself to the finest composition of Cicero; but we may well believe that in secret this work nourished the virtue of Thraseas and Helvidius, and the great men whose heroic deaths have been recorded in history.

Two centuries later, it is noticed in a very curious and interesting manner in the Life of Alexander Severus, by Lampridius. We know that this Alexander, successor to the abominable Heliogabalus, was one of the most virtuous princes that ever rejoiced the earth. He died in his 29th year, assassinated by the soldiers, who could not brook the discipline he had established, and the equal justice with which he enforced it. After having delineated his noble qualities, and his Edition: current; Page: [61]efforts to surmount the vice of absolute power and military dictatorship, the historian adds these remarkable words:—

“After he had overcome the labours of government and war, Alexander devoted his principal attention to Greek literature, studying above all, the books of Plato’s Commonwealth. In Latin, the works he most assiduously perused were the Offices and the Commonwealth of Cicero.”

This same Alexander had in his library the Consecrated Statues of Cicero and Virgil, whom he called the Plato of Poetry. This kind of philosophic and literary idolatry, which, in some elevated and enthusiastic spirits, was substituted for the old fables of polytheism, was little capable of gaining the multitude, and influencing beneficially the manners and destinies of the people. The refined ideas of eternal and immutable justice, of moral duty, and pure reason and liberty, on which the policy and philosophy of Cicero were founded, became every day more enfeebled and effaced in a world almost brutalized by slavery and ignorance. Literature herself could no longer recal them — she was then nothing better than the insipid learning of the sophist and the scholiast. To comment on the real principles of the ancients was altogether above the degradation of that unhappy age, in which nothing past current but expositions of words and phrases. Thus a great number Edition: current; Page: [62]of terms and idioms employed by Cicero in his Commonwealth were preserved as grammatical citations in many profane writers of the fourth and fifth centuries, while his thoughts were utterly neglected.

But, while Pagan civilization, sterile and exhausted, forgot its own history and traditions, and beheld in the philosophic master–pieces of ancient eloquence no more than dead letters, signs, and forms; the Christian church, which had grown strong under persecution, extended a bolder investigation to these venerable compositions — interrogated them, criticised them, and compared them with the sacred depositories of revealed religion. Thus examining all questions, and interdicting no truths, seeking on all sides for arguments against oppression and injustice, she replenished her admirable advocates with the sublime fragments of eloquence derived from those sages who had no longer in Paganism either interpreters or disciples.

Under this point of view, it becomes an object of interest to search in the writers of both religions those passages which they have preserved of Cicero’s Commonwealth. Let us examine not only the grammarian Diomed or Nonius, author of a treatise on the “Propriety of Expressions;” let us also consult the learned collections of Aulus Gellius, and the fragments of the orator Fronto, Edition: current; Page: [63]in which we find the Commonwealth cited to support a peculiar signification of the verb superesse, or of the verb gratificari; and learn that Cicero, in this immortal work, had used an ellipsis or a metaphor with very remarkable nicety.

But when we peruse Lactantius, or Augustine, and investigate that Christian literature, as new and exuberant as the virtues it announced to the world, we find Cicero’s Commonwealth often quoted in the most philosophic and sublime reasonings. There we find, exactly transcribed, and sometimes confirmed or combatted with the utmost eloquence, those passages of the Treatise on the Commonwealth which were almost all we possessed of it till a recent period, but which were enough to give us the highest idea of the original. Lactantius quotes one of those beautiful fragments translated from Plato, which Cicero frequently inserted in his work:—it is a comparison between the just man condemned, and the guilty triumphant. No doubt such illustrations of truth must have been eagerly seized on by the early Christians.

“Suppose (says he) two men, one the best of mortals, of perfect equity and inviolable faith, the other distinguished for audacious villainy. Suppose that the mistaken crowd had arrested this virtuous man for a culprit, and had assented that the wretch on the other side was full of Edition: current; Page: [64]honour and probity. In consequence of this universal opinion, the virtuous man may be tormented, and have his limbs mutilated, and his eyes plucked out; he may be condemned, loaded with fetters, and tortured in flames; he may be rejected by his country, and die of hunger—and in the end, appear to all the most miserable of men, and the most justly miserable. The real offender, on the contrary, may be overwhelmed with homage and congratulation; he may be loved by all the world, and honours, riches, dignities, and all kinds of gratifications may be most profusely lavished on him — he may be, in short, in the estimation of all the world, the most meritorious of men and the most worthy of all possible prosperity. Yet, is there any one blind enough to hesitate in his choice between these two destinies?”—(Lact. Inst.)

The reflection of Lactantius on this passage is fine, and worthy of notice:—“In making this supposition (says he) it seems as if Cicero had foreseen the evils that would befal us, and forewarned us how to bear them for the sake of justice.”

When St. Augustin was engaged against the celebrated heresiarch Pelagius, in a theological controversy on the nature and the fall of man, he also invokes Cicero, and cites this beautiful passage, which Pascal has so eloquently developed:—

Edition: current; Page: [ 65 ]

“Nature, less like a mother than a step–dame, has cast man into life, with a body naked, frail, and feeble, and a soul which inquietude agitates, and fear depresses, and fatigue exhausts, and passion consumes; and yet there dwells within us, though half extinguished, a certain divine sparkle of intelligence and genius.”

It is thus that Augustin, who in his City of God—a work evidently formed on the idea of Cicero’s Commonwealth—has preserved as one of the arguments which the Roman orator has given for his opinions on the origin and nature of moral powers, this noble principle of the sovereignty of justice, anterior to all the sovereignty of man or human force.

“The public interest (says he) is really the interest of the people, whenever it is regulated in wisdom and justice, either by a king, or by a certain number of nobles, or by the entire people. But when the king becomes corrupt—that is to say, tyrannous; and aristocrats unjust, transforming their alliance into a faction—or the people unjust, violent, headstrong, and overbearing—then, the Commonwealth is not merely corrupted, but extinguished; for it is no longer the interest of the whole people, when it falls into the power of a tyrant or a faction. And the people itself is no longer the people, when it becomes unjust, since it is then no longer a community formed under Edition: current; Page: [66]the sanction of right, and associated by the bond of common utility.”—(August. Civ. Div.)

In another place, Lactantius, who protests against the barbarous decrees by which the despotism of the emperors had crushed the resistance of the primitive Christians, borrows from Cicero, and transmits to posterity, these beautiful words, extracted from the third book of the Commonwealth:—

“There exists one true law, one right reason—conformable to nature, universal, immutable, eternal — whose commands enjoin virtue, and whose prohibitions banish evil. Whatever she orders, whatever she forbids, her words are neither impotent among good men, nor are they potent among the wicked. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law properly so called, nor be violated in any part, nor be abrogated altogether. Neither the senate nor the people can deliver us from obedience to this law. She has no need of new interpreters, or new instruments. She is not one thing at Rome, another at Athens—she is not one thing to–day, and another to–morrow; but in all nations, and in all times, this law must reign always self–consistent, immortal, and imperishable. The Sovereign of the Universe, the King of all creatures, God himself, has given birth, sanction, and publicity to this illimitable law, which man cannot transgress without counteracting himself—without abjuring his own nature; and by this Edition: current; Page: [67]alone, without subjecting himself to the severest expiations, can he always avoid what is called suffering.”

O sublime words! precious and indestructible relics of that primitive revelation which illumined the world—Antique tradition of the Deity, obscurely preserved by the most illustrious sages, too soon overcast by the gross errors of polytheism, and at length restored to mankind by that Christianity which lends to the truth of nature the sanction of heaven.

To these noble fragments, which thus passed from the works of Cicero into those of the early defenders of Christianity, we must add a passage more generally known, for whose preservation we are indebted to a Platonic philosopher. We allude to Scipio’s Dream—an admirable episode in the treatise on the Commonwealth—a sublime fiction, in which Cicero puts into the mouth of a great man the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in order to give the confirmation of this glorious truth to all earthly laws and institutions. Macrobius, who in the beginning of the fifth century transcribed this fragment, and commented on it, was, like almost all the Latin literati of the period, much occupied in philological curiosities, and a stranger to the inspiring truths of Christianity, whose name he does not mention. But being a Greek by extraction, though he wrote in Latin, he Edition: current; Page: [68]had a taste for that kind of theosophy—that compound of abstraction and illuminism, by which Greece nourished her ancient mythologies, and sought to revive them. What interested him most, and what he developed in his Commentary, are certain chimerical reasonings on those Pythagorean ideas to which Cicero had alluded in passages of Scipio’s Dream, in order to lend to the fundamental truths of his argument a more mysterious and solemn character. Cicero, opening heaven to the eyes of his hero, had named some of the constellations. His commentator makes on this subject an astronomical disquisition, which he adorns with those singular reveries respecting the numbers, by which the ancients mingled transcendental metaphysics with judicious geometry. But we must not be the less grateful to Macrobius, for having quoted in his writings this admirable episode of the work, which time concealed so many ages from our perusal.

During the ignorance of the middle age, Macrobius was preserved, and Cicero’s original was lost. It is but very rarely alluded to by writers since the fifth century. We may, however, conjecture from a passage in Photius, that the Greeks of Byzantium, among whom barbarism was not so far advanced, had some knowledge of this precious monument.

“I have read (says Photius in his Bibliotheca,) Edition: current; Page: [69]a work on politics, in which are introduced two persons conversing, the patrician Menas and Thomas the referendary. This work contains six books, and presents a new form of political society, different from all the ideas entertained by the ancients, which is called the government of justice. As to the essence of this new government, it is composed, according to these two interlocutors, of royalty, aristocracy, and democracy. The reunion of each of these elements, taken in its purity, ought to form the best political constitution.”

What was this work? Photius deceived himself in supposing that the idea of a mixed government was new, and unknown to the ancients; we shall find it in an epoch very far anterior even to the age of Cicero. But at all events, this idea, which surprized Photius, could not have taken its rise under the debasing despotism of the Greek emperors; and in the midst of the theologic controversies, which had in the East already so much degraded the sublimity of Christianity. Would a Greek, living in Constantinople, and in the eighth century, have imagined this form of government, whose model nothing in his experience could furnish? It is, therefore, most likely that this work, in six books, was some incomplete version, or some clumsy abridgement of Cicero’s Commonwealth, in which the imitator, a stranger to the Edition: current; Page: [70]Roman manners and traditions, thought proper to change the names of the personages, without, perhaps, being conscious how much Scipio Africanus was a more interesting interlocutor than Thomas the referendary.

However this may be, there only remains of this Greek work, the brief analysis of Photius; and when at the first revival of letters in Europe, men were occupied in searching for the monuments of antiquity, the dialogue of the Commonwealth was not to be found in any language. Succeeding ages did not appear more successful with regard to this subject; and even in our own age, till the authentic discovery of the book now presented to the public, there were only known of this work the beautiful fragments above cited, Scipio’s Dream, some phrases, some demiphrases, and many terms and words scattered throughout the grammarians and the scholiasts of the middle age.

We know that these fragments, of which the collection formed only twenty pages, have yet inspired a learned scholar with the idea of recomposing the work of Cicero, by gathering from all the treatises of this great man, the thoughts and expressions which related to government and politics. But it may, without difficulty, be conceived, that this plan, even under the most dexterous management, carrying with it as an inevitable Edition: current; Page: [71]condition the amalgamation of the most discordant elements, could not give an idea of the original work. Cicero did not write a familiar epistle, a political letter, an harangue, and a philosophic treatise in the same style. Only think of the singular assortment which would result from a work formed of extracts, in which the same matter was treated in phrases borrowed here and there from the different productions of a writer, eminently skilful in varying his language, according to the occasion, and in adapting it to the different orders of composition. In this point of view, it is possible to conceive that nothing could be less Ciceronian than a work thus compounded from the phrases of Cicero. But without applying this test to the ingenious work of the learned M. Bernardi, we shall only remark, that this use of the then known elements of Cicero’s politics, could have no resemblance to the discovery of M. Angelo Mai, who now presents us from an original MS., the very text of the original dialogue in its primitive form, and, therefore, a collection of thoughts and expressions which Cicero had reserved for this work, and which no other writing of this great man could furnish or supply.

Unfortunately this MS., whose authority cannot be doubted, still presents numerous lacunes and gaps, and the state of laceration in which it has been given to us, the destroyed pages, the incomplete Edition: current; Page: [72]phrases, the interrupted sentences, all attesting the religious fidelity of the editor, diminish the interest of this precious monument, and occasionally obscure its meaning. However, the grand divisions still subsist, the succession of ideas and arguments is evident, the development ample; some of the books are preserved almost entire, and the discovery is entitled to our admiration, incomplete as it is.

From the present publication, the public may therefore judge with confidence if Cicero’s Commonwealth was worthy of so many eulogies and so many regrets. We may also, by the aid of this new discovery, form a more exact idea of the state of political science among the ancients, and, perhaps, throw some new light on the constitution of the Roman state, which the researches of so many scholars have still left obscure and dubious.

Let us endeavour to examine these interesting questions, by ascending to the source from whence the Romans, and particularly Cicero, derived almost all the principles of their sciences and opinions. I speak of the Greeks, who are to be considered as the chief inventors of classic civilization—for nothing is certainly known respecting the Egyptians. The world were little acquainted with the Hebrews, previous to the conquest of Alexander; and the Romans were merely copyists full of genius, but by no means original, especially Edition: current; Page: [73]if they be compared with the Greeks, their models. In truth, this science of government, which among the Romans appeared to have given rise, during many ages, to one theoretical work only, namely, this very book of Cicero, had produced among the Greeks political compositions of all forms, and whose multiplicity was worthy even of modern times. In this respect, the literary inferiority of the Romans may be explained by their national aggrandisement. They were too much occupied with reigning, to indulge in writing. Their motto was—“Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.” And, perhaps, this military and civil domination which overwhelmed so large a portion of the world, was too serious a thing to be made the frequent object of speculative dissertations, after the manner of those Greeks of Peloponessus and Sicily, who reasoned within the peaceful walls of their little cities. For a long time Geneva has printed more political books than Paris.

The idea of political science among the Greeks, immediately recalls the names of two great geniuses, so admirable in different respects, who, after having reigned over ancient literature, have given rise in modern Europe to sects and parties—Aristotle and Plato. One, the most penetrating observer of nature and society; the other, the most brilliant and most sublime of speculative spirits. Edition: current; Page: [74]It will be easily supposed that Cicero, who in his works borrowed so much from them, who even in the contests of the rostrum and the bar continually associated philosophy with politics, would not lose sight in a work on government, of the thoughts which these two great men had expressed on the same subject. It will also be easily conceived that, following up his syncretic and eclectic method, he would make an imitation compounded of their several doctrines; he would temper the theories of Plato by the practical ideas of Aristotle; and especially, he would connect their foreign and dissimilar views with the model that he had before his eyes in the government of a country which he had so ardently loved, and so gloriously preserved.

What, then, were the ideas and illustrations which these great men afforded him? Plato, as Rousseau remarks, had traced in his Commonwealth rather a system of education than a plan of government. He imagined the best way of governing men, was by educating them from the cradle, and even by changing the natural relations of birth. He destroyed family connections, in order, in some measure, to substitute the paternity of the state. He caused the relation of the sexes to disappear; and, taking from women their most amiable virtues, modesty and fidelity, he sought at the same time to free them from all natural weakness, and to render them as robust and warlike Edition: current; Page: [75]as men. In these respects, this theory was only an exaggerated commentary on the rugged institutions of Lacedæmon, written with the enthusiasm and ingenuity of an Athenian philosopher. But the same thing happened to Plato, which happened to Rousseau in his Emilius. In the midst of these general systems, carried to excess, and these fantastical imaginations, he scattered a great number of particular verities, and though his principles might sometimes seem to counteract the laws of morality, he contrived to give to this same morality many sublime developments, and new illustrations, adorned with the grace of his eloquence.

This work, therefore, afforded Cicero, beside the charms of language which he incessantly cultivated, magnificent views of human nature, and that kind of elevated spiritualism which vivifies all science and learning. It is thus that in Scipio’s Dream, that well–known fragment of Cicero’s Commonwealth, is an evident, though embellished representation of the episode in which Plato explains the doctrine of the soul’s immortality, and of its sufferings and rewards, by making an individual slain in battle, and miraculously restored from the tomb, reveal the secrets of futurity. In the body of the work, however, in the choice and arrangement of his ideas, Cicero had but little occasion to imitate Plato, since his plan and object were different—one having attempted to delineate Edition: current; Page: [76]an ideal Commonwealth; the other, to represent an actual political state: one, seeking for perfection in fanciful hypotheses; the other, believing that he had found it in the ancient Roman Constitution.

Cicero, in his letters, complains that Cato, with most virtuous design, and the most austere probity, often prejudiced the interest of the Commonwealth, because he delivered his sentiments as if he lived in the chimerical republic of Plato, and not among the dregs of the people of Romulus. This reproach sufficiently indicates that in a work which he wished to render useful to his cotemporaries, Cicero ought not to have indulged in those purely philosophical theories of which his whole life, and his familiarity with political affairs, proved the vanity and hollowness. But without contriving for men more wisdom and happiness than they could attain, and especially without desiring to change the foundation of human nature, Cicero did not place among impracticable Utopias, the reign of Justice, Law, and Liberty. He felt a reliance on virtue. The generous maxims of the Platonic philosophy had often directed his actions; but they could not be entirely amalgamated with the ideas which he expressed on politics. Thus, in his Commonwealth, he borrows little of the system of Plato, though he sometimes approaches him in the sublimity of his morals.

Aristotle, in his writings almost always takes Edition: current; Page: [77]a direction different from Plato’s, for the same reason which causes a man of profound genius and critical sense, studiously to contradict or refute the testimony of an eloquent improvisateur. Aristotle, who even in his policy was still faithful to his philosophy, and mainly consulted fact and experience, presented to Cicero a treasure of observations and researches of which we have lost the largest part. We know that this great man had made a collection of the laws and constitutions of more than 158 states, from the opulent Carthage, to the poor and insignificant Ithaca. His eight political books were the result of this labour—it may be called the “Spirit of the Laws” of antiquity. If the less advanced state of the world did not open to the Greek philosopher so spacious a field as that which has been traversed by our Montesquieu, it must be confessed that the variety of discoveries is scarcely less, and that almost all social combinations are already classified and analysed in this astonishing work.—(Vide Gillies on the Politics of Aristotle.)

We observe that the wisdom of the ancients, far from excluding monarchy, conceived it under diverse forms—absolute, mixed, modified by laws and customs—and very philosophically compared its advantages with those of republican governments, the most scientific and diversified. But what especially strikes our attention, is to see that Edition: current; Page: [78]the minute and contracted universe of Greece, a portion of Asia, and a few islands, had already exhausted—if we may be allowed the expression, all the political conditions, accidents, and systems, which have prevailed in our modern world, aggrandized by so many new countries, and such marvellous inventions. In this point of view, the book of Aristotle is still singularly interesting. When it was brought from Athens to Rome, which was then so ignorant of all she had not conquered, this light must have appeared entirely novel, even to the most cultivated spirits. Cicero, doubtless, took advantage of it; but, occupied in forming a Roman treatise, and especially desirous of corroborating the political prepossession of his countrymen, and of lending assistance to that ancient constitution, menaced on all sides, it may easily be conceived that he could not adopt the plan of a work, which, by the variety of forms and examples with which it is filled, seems rather adapted to produce scepticism in the choice of a government, and uncertainty in its duration. Thus this great man, who mistrusted Plato as too conjectural, seems also to suspect the experiences and diversified experiments of Aristotle. Perhaps, also, in the height of his Roman pride, he disdained to compile the fleeting institutions of so many small republics; and, perhaps, it cost him too much to believe that his cherished and powerful Edition: current; Page: [79]country would be obliged to submit to the same destiny of corruption and decay.

But the treatises of Plato and Aristotle, masterpieces of the Grecian philosophy, formed but the smallest part of Cicero’s Commonwealth. These great men were followed by a crowd of disciples and expositors, all whose works were familiar to Cicero, a most curious investigator of the literature of Greece.

We have already mentioned the monarchical predilections of the ancients.

The preference that Herodotus, the father of classic history, entertained for the monarchical form of government, such as prevailed in Persia and the oriental kingdoms, is displayed in the celebrated speech which he puts into the mouth of Darius. The speech is this:—

“I think nothing can be imagined better, or more perfect, than the government of a single person. When one only commands, it is difficult for his enemies to penetrate and discover his secret enterprizes. If the sovereign power be lodged in the hands of many, it is next to impossible but that the deliberations must be discovered, and that enmity and ill–will prevail. Each one is jealous of his own opinion; ambition and rivalry promote discord, and hatred transports them into the most violent excesses. Hence arise seditions, murder, and carnage, which insensibly lead again Edition: current; Page: [80]to the ancient government of a monarch. And it is thus that the sovereign authority almost always returns into the hands of a single person. In a popular government, it is impossible but that there must be much corruption and wickedness. It is true, that equality does not in itself engender hatred, but it foments and maintains union among the wicked, who support one another until one among them obtains consideration sufficient to conciliate the people, and in the end he domineers over the multitude; thus he becomes truly a monarch, and often even a despot. We are then constrained to acknowledge that a monarchy is the most natural form of government, since sedition in an aristocratic, and corruption in a democratic form, equally tend to unite the sovereign power and domination in one person.”—(Herodot. Thalia.)

In Beloe’s translation of Herodotus, we find this pointed note attached to this speech:—“Larcher has quoted the following remark of Goguet, which it may be wondered that the vigilance of Bonaparte’s satellites allowed to pass:—

‘The best writers of antiquity have invariably expressed themselves in favour of monarchy. Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Zenophon, Socrates, Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus, Plutarch, and others, have considered a monarchical government as the most advantageous and perfect of all those Edition: current; Page: [81]which mankind have invented. It is singular enough that the greater part of the above writers flourished in Republics.’

Cicero did not violate any historical probability in placing the opinions of the Greeks in the mouth of Scipio. He himself tells us that this illustrious man always had in his hand the book of Xenophon’s Cyropœdia, “and with a good reason (says he), for no principles of an active and well regulated government are forgotten in this work.”

But the book of the Cyropœdia only embellished what many of the Greek philosophers had said respecting the advantages of a wise monarchy, contrasted with the miseries of popular licentiousness. It is a remarkable fact, that the desire for this monarchical government had been continually formed in the democracies of Greece and Sicily, by spirits the most illuminated, and the most free from prejudices and passions. In this respect, the philosophy of the ancients was frequently at issue with their practice. This circumstance is sufficiently explained by the nature of those small states in which faction, violence, and popular hallucination left so little space and influence to calm and gentle spirits. There, the people was the absolute autocrat, against whom reason always struggled, and reclaimed the privileges which were due to liberty. We should not have alluded to this movement of the philosophic Edition: current; Page: [82]genius of the ancients, had it not inspired the celebrated sentence of Plato, who desired for the people “a good tyrant, aided by a good senate”—a self–contradictory exclamation, hardly worthy of a sage. But this aversion from popular excesses naturally produced among the philosophers of Greece that most correct theory of mixed and legitimate monarchy, of which history affords us only incomplete models.

That the ancients in general preferred monarchy to other forms of government, appears in their philosophic books; though they could not always maintain it in its appropriate relations to other constitutional powers. This fact is confirmed by the testimony of Keckerman’s Systema Disciplinæ Politicæ, 1608. It is worth translating the passage in which he expresses his opinion on this subject:—

“It is a great question (says he) agitated among the politicians, whether a monarchy is to be preferred to an aristocracy or a democracy (An monarchia sit præferenda aristocratiæ, et democratiæ). If we look to the form of government abstractedly, and in its proper nature, certainly monarchy is entitled to the palm—(monarchia necessario palmam feret). And this monarchy should be such as God exercises over his creatures—for God rules not aristocratically nor democratically, but monarchically. Monarchy is Edition: current; Page: [83]also more conformable to the natural inclination of all creatures—for even the inferior animals retain some image of it, as bees and cranes, horses and cattle. In the regulation of all human families, also, there is one ruler or monarch—namely, the father, or his personal representative. We also learn, from sacred history, that God gave a king to his own people; and the testimonies of nations are evident in their histories, that whenever men constituted political government, they appointed some one to be their prince or king (unicum sibi principem aut regem delegerint). The authority of Homer is well known, and is reverently quoted by Aristotle:—

Ουκ αγαθον πολυκοιρανιη, εις κοιρανος εστω Εις [Editor: illegible character]ασιλευς.

The authority of many is not good,

Be there one Lord, one King.

—2 Iliad.

Plato, in his politics, treats largely on the excellence of monarchy. Aristotle declares expressly, “In every variety of natures, we behold some one superior to the rest, who is worthier than the others of the same species.” Seneca, in his book on Benefits, says, that M. Brutus did not act with sufficient prudence, when he slew Cæsar for the sake of liberty, and adds this reason—quia optimus civitatis status est sub justo rege — that the best condition of a state is under a just monarch. Edition: current; Page: [84]Plutarch, in his admirable works on the forms of governments, says—“If the privilege of choosing were granted us, we should not adopt any form but the monarchical.” And in his Life of Solon, after he has told us that infinite factions and seditions arose among the Athenians under their democracy, he adds, “Nothing conduces more to the public security and peace, than that the Commonwealth should be subject to one monarch.”

Aristotle appears to have have preferred the catholic, syncretic, or mixed form of government, as the only one in which king, lords, and commons could unite their strength, and preserve their purity. In his politics, he says that there are three forms of government—the monarchical, the aristocratical, and the timocratical; and adds, that the first is apt to degenerate into a tyranny, the second into an oligarchy, and the third into a democracy. This sentence I thus explain (says Keckerman), and reconcile with other passages, in which he classes democracy under the legitimate forms of government. By the term timocracy, in this chapter, he seems to understand that state of popular rule in which not the vulgar populace (promiscua plebs) but the better and worthier part of the people exercise authority. He defines timocracy to be a legitimate power of the worthier classes of the people (for Edition: current; Page: [85]timocracy is derived from τιμη, honour), acting for the general welfare.

This syncretic or mixed form of government was adopted in the primitive constitutions of Greece and Rome, and was long maintained in Sparta after the rest had unhappily fallen into democratical corruptions. As an example of the mixed government in ancient times (says Keckerman), we may cite that of Sparta or Lacedæmon, whose form was in the beginning purely monarchical, afterwards purely aristocratical, and at length composed of all three forms. Præclarissimi philosophi (says he), rempublicam temperatam extollunt, et Lacedæmoniorum formam summopere laudant, in qua reges et ephori et senatus, fecerunt mixtionem quandam, ut bene dignosci nequeant sub quanam gubernationis specie fuerit ea republica collocanda. The greatest philosophers extol this mixed and modified kind of Commonwealth, and especially commend the Lacedæmonian constitution, in which king, lords, and commons exhibited a certain combination, not to be classed under any of the particular systems of government.”

Montesquieu has said, that the ancients had no very clear idea respecting monarchy, because they were not familiar with a government founded on a body of nobles, and still less with a government Edition: current; Page: [86]founded on a legislative body formed by the representatives of the nation.

This opinion is partially true. The ancients knew little of the system of political representation, and that for two evident reasons—the small number of citizens, and the existence of slaves; a nation almost enclosed within the walls of a single city, and having under its domination a people of slaves, had neither the idea nor the necessity of limiting to a body of representatives a right which was common to all their freemen, and of substituting the election of a few for the presence of the multitude. Thus in these states, too rapidly aggrandized, the universality of their right of suffrage was the direct cause of their destruction. But with respect to the ideas of mixed monarchy, the balance of powers, and a body of nobles—if we find them in Cicero, who endeavoured to revive the ancient Roman constitution, we need not be surprized. These ideas had been long discussed among the Greek philosophers, with a precision and a copiousness very remarkable; though we can only judge of them by a few fragments preserved in the collections of Stobæus. A mixed monarchy was evidently the preference of the Grecian philosophers. “It is necessary (says Archytas, the friend and disciple of Plato), that the best government should Edition: current; Page: [87]be composed of the re–union of all other political constitutions; and that it should include in itself a portion of royalty, oligarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.”—(Stobæi Anthologion.)

The same idea receives a more extensive development, answerable to modern institutions, in another fragment reported by Stobæus, and extracted from a work on the Commonwealth by Hippodamus, a Pythagorean philosopher.

“The laws (says he) will produce a durable empire, if the state is of a character mixed, and composed of all other political constitutions—I mean of all those conformable to the natural order of things. Tyranny, for instance, is of no utility to states, no more than oligarchy. What, therefore, we should lay down as the first foundation is royalty; and in the second place, aristocracy. Royalty, in fact, is a sort of imitation of divine providence; but it is difficult for human weakness to maintain it in this similitude—for it is apt to degenerate through luxury and violence. We, therefore, should not adopt it without limitations, but receive it in that degree of power and influence which is most serviceable to the state. It is of no less importance to establish aristocracy, because the existence of many great men results from it; an emulous ambition among themselves and a frequent substitution of power. The presence of democracy is also necessary; the citizen Edition: current; Page: [88]who forms an integral portion of the entire state has a right to his share in its honours; but this should be vouchsafed in moderation, for the multitude is always assuming and precipitous.”—(Stobœus, p. 251.)

This extraordinary passage, which was written above 2000 years ago, seems almost to be a prediction of the Britannic government, not only in the exterior organization of its elements, but in the secret spring of its action, and the wholesome emulation of the ambitions it developes, which reciprocally superintend each other, and lead by regular gradations to the summit of power. This passage, which we have translated with a fidelity as great as the surprize we experienced in first perusing it, will easily explain the similar ideas which Cicero puts into the mouth of the wise and magnanimous Scipio, familiar with all the philosophy of the Greeks, the friend of Polybius and Panœtius, and the constant adversary of the Gracchi, of whom he was most probably the victim.

We have lost the writings of Panœtius, whom Cicero so largely imitated in his treatise on Offices. But we still retain a portion of Polybius, who instructed Scipio in the Grecian sciences, and who had, doubtless, learned from him the genius of the Roman Commonwealth, so admirably described in his history. We observe in the fragments Edition: current; Page: [89]of his treatise on the different forms of the Commonwealth, that he had revived the ideas of Archytas and Hippodamus.

“The majority of those (says he) who profess to reason on these matters recognize three kinds of government, royalty, aristocracy, and democracy. But it seems to me a very fair question, whether they exhibit these political forms as the only ones in existence, or merely as the best that can be devised. In these points I humbly conceive them to have fallen into error. It is evident we should esteem that as the most excellent constitution, which is mixed, and composed of all the particular forms already mentioned. And here not every domination of a single individual should be called a royalty, but that only which is founded on a just obedience, and which is exercised rather by wisdom than by terror and compulsion. Nor should we believe that every oligarchy is necessarily an aristocracy, but that only which conducts to power, the justest and wisest men. For the same reason, we should not denominate as a democracy, a constitution in which the whole multitude is able to act as it pleases, but that only which maintains the ancient and familiar customs of worship towards God, gratitude towards parents, honour to old men, and obedience to the laws. Such is the assembly of men who, if Edition: current; Page: [90]swayed by the counsel of the majority, we should entitle a democracy.”—(Polyb. in Fragmentis.)

We may learn from these several passages how Cicero in his first book of his dialogue on the Commonwealth, after having separately defined royalty, aristocracy, and democracy, affirms that his own preference was for a fourth political system composed of the union of the essential properties of the three others. A desire to which Tacitus alluded in a subsequent age, when this great man, after describing the three principal modes of government, adds, with an expression of unequivocal regret—“either monarchs, nobles, or the people, govern all nations and cities. That system of government mixed and composed of these, it is easier to extol than obtain, and even if obtained, it can scarcely be durable.” (Cunctas nationes aut urbes, populus, aut primores, aut singuli regunt, delecta ex his et consociata reipublicæ forma, laudari facilius quam evenire,—vel si evenit haud diuturna esse potest.)—Tacit. An. Lib. 4. c. 33.)

We may imagine that Cicero, who had not endured the sad and discouraging experience, which the empire of the Cæsars forced on Tacitus, would express the same aspiration with more force and confidence. After a vivid delineation of the factions of oligarchy, tyranny, and popular licence, he adds these remarkable words:—“When I witness Edition: current; Page: [91]so many calamities, royalty appears to me to be far preferable to these three corrupt governments. But that which is superior even to royalty, is that government which is composed of an equal mixture of the three better forms of constitutions, re–united and modified by each other. I should wish to behold in every state a royal chief and regent. Another portion of power should be placed at the disposal of the nobles; and something should be reserved to the choice and election of the multitude. This constitution evidently possesses the grand characteristic of equability—a condition necessary to the existence of every free people. It likewise presents a great stability. In fact, the first elements I have mentioned, when they are isolated, they easily degenerate, and fall into the opposite extreme, so that a king gives place to a despot, an aristocracy to a factious oligarchy, the people to a mob and a hubbub. They are likewise often dispossessed, and expelled by each other. But in this combined government, which re–unites and amalgamates them, the like disaster cannot happen without supposing monstrous errors in the grandees of the state. For there can be little cause of revolution there, where every one is settled in his appropriate rank, and there is no corruption into which he can fall,” (et non subest quo præcipitet ac decidat.)

Edition: current; Page: [ 92 ]

A celebrated writer, M. de Chateaubriand, has said that representative government is one of the few great discoveries which among the moderns has created a new universe. But this noble system—is it not rather discoverable in these words of Cicero, than the wild forests of Germany, where Montesquieu pretends to have found it? This passage, whose depth and power must be recognized even through the imperfection of our translation—this passage, in which the idea of Polybius has been so far extended by the genius of Cicero, is it not sufficient to lend an immense and peculiar interest to the precious MS., in which such revelations of ancient wisdom appear, and such distinct anticipations of modern experience?

We must not conclude from hence, that Cicero wished to overturn the Roman constitution—he who showed himself in all his letters so displeased with the power of the first triumvirate, so indignant at beholding Pompey sole consul, so ready to accuse him of usurpation and tyranny. But this great man was most keenly conscious of the defects of the Republic, the perpetually increasing domination of a multitude, always ready to intoxicate themselves with licence and passion, and to deliver over the laws and the empire to the fury of Cataline, or to the glory of Cæsar. He saw that the power of those great men, whose ambition he dreaded, had no better foundation than the Edition: current; Page: [93]abuse of popular government; he saw that the dictatorship was sold to them by a factious magistracy, or transferred by the exclamations of an ignorant mob. On the other hand, it was manifest, that in the first ages of Rome, after the expulsion of the king, the royal authority, rather displaced than destroyed, had entirely fallen into the hands of the consul and the senate, and that it was by favour of this powerful aristocracy and this persevering combination of designs and projects, that the edifice of the grandeur of Rome, was augmented.

Cicero endeavoured to rise, at least in theory, towards this condition of things; and as it often happens to men of genius, he embellished what no longer existed. He attributed to the past a wisdom, a discipline, and regularity, which, perhaps, had never been experienced in Rome. He explained accidental circumstances by general and profound causes; he sought to make the succession of these accidents tally with a system of policy, the wisest and subtlest which his studies and reflections could offer him. This seems to explain the almost historical precision which he has preserved in the second book of his Commonwealth. In this he reviews, one after another, the reigns of the Roman kings—indicates their principal institutions—advances to the establishment of the Republic—examines the different powers Edition: current; Page: [94]which were created to govern it, and marks their date, their motive, and their duration. But these different changes, have they a real connection with the plan of mixed government which he was pleased to describe? Does not Rome always present the same violent conflict of two rival bodies? Is there not a moderating, inviolable, and pacific power wanting therein? and was not the absence of this power most dangerously supplied by the creation of that formidable dictatorship which, once established, must become in a warlike nation the supreme and unappealable authority?

It does not appear that Cicero is any where sincere enough to make this avowal; but it is evident that his genius inspired him in the management of the government, with the idea of seeking a remedy for this defect of the Republic. It was in truth this want of a superintending power, which induced him during his consulship to reestablish the order of knights, and to give to this class of citizens a sufficient preponderance to enable it to become the third body in the state. But whatever the momentary success of this effort might be, it had no other effect than introducing into the state an element of the same nature as the others—tumultuous and variable, like them; and therefore incapable of acting as a limitation and barrier to their excesses.

When we proceed to examine what this great Edition: current; Page: [95]man has said on the advantages of a mixed and moderate government, and compare it with the illusion which discovered to him these advantages in the ancient Roman constitution, we are naturally struck with an important truth—It is this, that the ancient Pagan world could not, owing to the imperfection of its religious creed, rise to the realization of this balanced and attempered monarchy, which so many sages had conceived and desiderated. A fulcrum, a point of support, was wanting. There was no consecration and sanctity in power, there was no authority of moral obligation which was inviolable, simply because it was just. This is, perhaps, the greatest advance which human nature has made by the agency of Christian regeneration. It has supplied power with a much safer foundation than either force or numbers. By this, even in the most barbarous times, Christianity has moderated the violence of the unjustest dominations. Thus our religion, well understood, favours and promotes this beautiful political system, which reconciles progression with stability, and which, under the shelter of a sacred authority, establishes elective powers and popular rights.

It appears that Cicero sought, during his whole life, in his political conduct and his writings, a conservative principle, which might ensure the durability of the noble edifice of Roman greatness. Edition: current; Page: [96]Through despair of attaining it, having saved Rome from Cataline, and conscious that it was reserved for Cæsar, he drew from ancient customs and recollections that support which he no longer expected from the laws, and from the distribution of power. From hence arose this choice of Scipio as his principal interlocutor, in order that he might seize and mark the moment in which the elegance of rising civilization approached and blended with the simplicity of ancient times. From hence arose his perpetual eulogy of antique manners. This veneration of the past, which is equally observable in his Treatise on the Laws, makes him in another place affirm the legislation of the Twelve Tables, simple as they were, superior to the meditations of all the philosophers. But however patriotic this sentiment may be, it sets very narrow bounds to politics. As the progress of civilization is a necessary result of time, to maintain that this progress leads to the destruction of nations, excludes from social life all improvements in education and art. This is to pronounce a sentence of death against all states; this is to subject their existence to a simple and transitory condition.

Cicero was, beyond all doubt, a great and admirable genius. But how far this exclusive predilection for the past, on which he founded his work, is inferior to the noble idea lately expressed Edition: current; Page: [97]by an English orator, a zealous advocate for all civil liberties, during fifty years—for all salutary reforms and ameliorations of society; who exclaimed in proposing a benevolent innovation—“For the ancient nations who relied on false and perishable creeds, civilization lay entirely in the past, and not in the future. But for us disciples of Truth, our civilization is an incessant progress to the highest degrees of light, justice, and humanity.” It is not that Wilberforce was personally superior to Cicero; what we here remark is the superiority of the principle of modern politics over the fragile elements of ancient societies.

But this spectacle of ancient governments, so magnificent during their brief existence, could not fail to furnish Cicero with a multitude of vivid images and profound reflections. He describes their instability with admirable force in a few words. “Their power (says he) is like a ball which is thrown from hand to hand, and which passes from kings to tyrants, from tyrants to aristocrats, from aristocrats to the people, and from them to factions, by which constitutional forms are continually violated.”

With what brilliant eloquence, in the original text, does Cicero delineate all these evils in the state? With what art are they exhibited in the natural course of the dialogue? What sublime sentiments, what accurate science, animates these Edition: current; Page: [98]political sketches, though the succession of ideas is too often interrupted by lacunes in the MSS.?

After having discussed in the First Book the principal forms of constitutions, and exhibited in the Second an embellished picture of the ancient Roman Commonwealth—connecting these historic memorials with interesting digressions on the Grecian cities—Cicero touches in the Third Book, a question which, at first sight, might appear but a trite and superfluous topic, namely, the nature and utility of justice. If we think so, we are deceived, for under diverse disguises, under the names of state interest, expediency, Machiavelism, and policy, this sacred