Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The...

XXXIV. * * * If it does so by hap-hazard, it will be as easily upset as a vessel if the pilot were chosen by lot from among the passengers. But if a people, being free, chooses those to whom it can trust itself—and, if it desires its own preservation, it will always choose the noblest—then certainly it is in the counsels of the aristocracy that the safety of the State consists, especially as nature has not only appointed that these superior men should excel the inferior sort in high virtue and courage, but has inspired the people also with the desire of obedience towards these, their natural lords. But they say this aristocratical State is destroyed by the depraved opinions of men, who, through ignorance of virtue (which, as it belongs to few, can be discerned and appreciated by few), imagine that not only rich and powerful men, but also those who are nobly born, are necessarily the best. And so when, through this popular error, the riches, and not the virtue, of a few men has taken possession of the State, these chiefs obstinately retain the title of nobles, though they want the essence of nobility. For riches, fame, and power, without wisdom and a just method of regulating ourselves and commanding others, are full of discredit and insolent arrogance; nor is there any kind of government more deformed than that in which the wealthiest are regarded as the noblest.

But when virtue governs the Commonwealth, what can be more glorious? When he who commands the rest is himself enslaved by no lust or passion; when he himself exhibits all the virtues to which he incites and educates the citizens; when he imposes no law on the people which he does not himself observe, but presents his life as a living law to his fellow-countrymen; if a single individual could thus suffice for all, there would be no need of more; and if the community could find a chief ruler thus worthy of all their suffrages, none would require elected magistrates.

385It was the difficulty of forming plans which transferred the government from a king into the hands of many; and the error and temerity of the people likewise transferred it from the hands of the many into those of the few. Thus, between the weakness of the monarch and the rashness of the multitude, the aristocrats have occupied the middle place, than which nothing can be better arranged; and while they superintend the public interest, the people necessarily enjoy the greatest possible prosperity, being free from all care and anxiety, having intrusted their security to others, who ought sedulously to defend it, and not allow the people to suspect that their advantage is neglected by their rulers.

For as to that equality of rights which democracies so loudly boast of, it can never be maintained; for the people themselves, so dissolute and so unbridled, are always inclined to flatter a number of demagogues; and there is in them a very great partiality for certain men and dignities, so that their equality, so called, becomes most unfair and iniquitous. For as equal honor is given to the most noble and the most infamous, some of whom must exist in every State, then the equity which they eulogize becomes most inequitable—an evil which never can happen in those states which are governed by aristocracies. These reasonings, my Lælius, and some others of the same kind, are usually brought forward by those that so highly extol this form of political constitution.

Scipio. You are right to shape your question, which of the three I most approve, for there is not one of them which I approve at all by itself, since, as I told you, I prefer that government which is mixed and composed of all these forms, to any one of them taken separately. But if I must confine myself to one of these particular forms simply and exclusively, I must confess I prefer the royal one, and praise that as the first and best. In this, which I here choose to call the primitive form of government, I find the title of father attached to that of king, to express that he watches over the citizens as over his children, and endeavors 386rather to preserve them in freedom than reduce them to slavery. So that it is more advantageous for those who are insignificant in property and capacity to be supported by the care of one excellent and eminently powerful man. The nobles here present themselves, who profess that they can do all this in much better style; for they say that there is much more wisdom in many than in one, and at least as much faith and equity. And, last of all, come the people, who cry with a loud voice that they will render obedience neither to the one nor the few; that even to brute beasts nothing is so dear as liberty; and that all men who serve either kings or nobles are deprived of it. Thus, the kings attract us by affection, the nobles by talent, the people by liberty; and in the comparison it is hard to choose the best.

Do you, then, asked Scipio, believe in nothing which is not before your eyes? whether these ideas have been established by the chiefs of states for the benefit of society, that there might be believed to exist one Universal Monarch in heaven, at whose nod (as Homer expresses it) all Olympus trembles, and that he might be accounted both king and father of all creatures; for there is great authority, and there are many witnesses, if you choose to call all many, who attest that all nations have unanimously recognized, by the decrees of their chiefs, that nothing is better than a king, since they think that all the Gods are governed by the divine power of one sovereign; or if we suspect 387that this opinion rests on the error of the ignorant, and should be classed among the fables, let us listen to those universal testimonies of erudite men, who have, as it were, seen with their eyes those things to the knowledge of which we can hardly attain by report.

Lælius. Why, as to that, if we were to follow the example of the Greeks, who say that all people are either Greeks or barbarians, I am afraid that we must confess that he was a king of barbarians; but if this name belongs rather to manners than to languages, then I believe the Greeks were just as barbarous as the Romans.

Then Scipio said: But with respect to the present question, we do not so much need to inquire into the nation as into the disposition. For if intelligent men, at a period so 388little remote, desired the government of kings, you will confess that I am producing authorities that are neither antiquated, rude, nor insignificant.

No, by Hercules! said Lælius; I imitate the famous Archytas of Tarentum, who, when he came to his villa, and found all its arrangements were contrary to his orders, said to his steward, “Ah! you unlucky scoundrel, I would flog you to death, if it were not that I am in a rage with you.”

Capital, said Scipio. Archytas, then, regarded unreasonable anger as a kind of sedition and rebellion of nature which he sought to appease by reflection. And so, if we examine avarice, the ambition of power or of glory, or the lusts of concupiscence and licentiousness, we shall find a certain conscience in the mind of man, which, like a king, sways by the force of counsel all the inferior faculties and propensities; and this, in truth, is the noblest portion of our nature; for when conscience reigns, it allows no resting-place to lust, violence, or temerity.