The Republic and The Laws (Oxford World's Classics) (10 page)

LAELIUS
: Yes indeed. And I’m interested to hear how those changes have taken place, not just in our country but in countries in general.

SCIPIO
: When I’ve told you my opinion about what I regard as the best type of constitution, I shall have to talk in greater detail about how constitutions in general pass into one another, even though the best one, I think, will not readily undergo such changes. But the first and most inevitable of all changes is that which overtakes a monarchy. As soon as a king begins to rule unjustly, that kind of government vanishes on the spot, for that same man has become a tyrant. That is the worst kind of government, and at the same time the closest neighbour to the best. If a tyranny is overthrown by an aristocracy, as usually happens, the country then moves into the second of these constitutions. It is somewhat like monarchy in being a paternal council of leading men who have the best interests of the people at heart. If the tyrant has been killed or expelled by the people acting directly, the latter behave with reasonable restraint as long as they remain wise and sensible. They take pleasure in what they have done, and are keen to preserve the constitution which they themselves have set up. But if, violently or otherwise, the populace deposes a
just
king, or if, as more frequently happens, it tastes the blood of the aristocracy and subjects the entire state to its wild caprice (and make no mistake about it, no tempest or conflagration, however great, is harder to quell than a mob carried away by the novelty of power), then the result is what Plato
*
so brilliantly described, if I can express it in Latin. (It’s not easy, but I’ll try.) ‘When’, he says, ‘the insatiable throat of the mob is parched with thirst for freedom, and when, thanks to the wicked servants it employs, it thirstily quaffs a freedom which instead of being sensibly diluted is all too potent, then, unless its magistrates and leaders are extremely soft
and indulgent, and administer that freedom generously in its favour, it denounces them, arraigns them, and condemns them, calling them despots, kings, and tyrants.’ I expect you know the passage.

LAELIUS
: Very well.

SCIPIO
: Well, this is the next bit: ‘Those who take orders from the leading men are harassed by the populace and called willing puppets. Public officials who try to behave like private citizens, and private citizens who manage to abolish the distinction between ordinary people and officials, are overwhelmed with praise and showered with honours. In a state of that kind total freedom must prevail. Every private household is devoid of authority—a disease which infects even domestic animals. Father fears son, son ignores father, respect is completely absent. In the interests of universal freedom there is no distinction between citizen and foreigner; a teacher is afraid of his pupils and truckles to them; they treat their teachers with contempt. Youngsters assume the authority of older men; the latter lower themselves to take part in youngsters’ amusements for fear of becoming unpopular and disliked. As a result even slaves behave with excessive freedom, wives enjoy the same rights as their husbands, and in this all-pervading freedom dogs and horses and even asses charge around so freely that one has to stand aside for them in the street. As this unlimited licence comes to a head,’ he says, ‘citizens become so tender and hypersensitive that at the slightest hint of authority they are enraged and cannot bear it. In consequence they begin to ignore the laws too; and the final outcome is total anarchy.’

LAELIUS
: Yes, that’s a pretty accurate account of what he says.

SCIPIO
: To revert, then, to my own conversational style, he goes on to say that this excessive licence, which the anarchists think is the only true freedom, provides the stock, as it were, from which a tyrant grows. As the death of an aristocracy comes from its own excessive power, so freedom itself plunges an over-free populace into slavery. All excess, whether the over-luxuriance has occurred in the weather or on the land or in people’s bodies, turns as a rule into its opposite. The process is especially common in states. In communities and individuals alike, excessive freedom topples over into excessive slavery. Extreme freedom produces a tyrant, along
with the extremely harsh and evil slavery that goes with him. For from that wild, and indeed savage, populace a chief is usually chosen to oppose the leaders who have now been persecuted and ousted from their position—a brazen dirty fellow, who has the impudence to harass people who in many cases have served their country well, a fellow who presents the people with other folks’ property as well as their own.

If he remains a private citizen, such a man faces many threats. So he is given powers, which are then extended. Like Peisistratus at Athens, he is surrounded by a bodyguard. He ends up by tyrannizing over the very people from whom he emerged. If that man is overthrown, as often happens, by decent citizens, constitutional government is restored. But if he is supplanted by unscrupulous thugs, then a junta is created which is just another form of tyranny. The same kind of group can also arise from an often excellent aristocratic government when some crookedness diverts the leaders from their course. And so political power passes like a ball from one group to another. Tyrants snatch it from kings; aristocrats or the people wrest it from them; and from them it moves to oligarchic cliques or back to tyrants. The same type of constitution never retains power for long.

That is why, though monarchy is, in my view, much the most desirable of the three primary forms, monarchy is itself surpassed by an even and judicious blend of the three simple forms at their best. A state should possess an element of regal supremacy; something else
*
should be assigned and allotted to the authority of aristocrats; and certain affairs should be reserved for the judgement and desires of the masses. Such a constitution has, in the first place, a widespread element of equality which free men cannot long do without. Secondly, it has stability; for although those three original forms easily degenerate into their corrupt versions (producing a despot instead of a king, an oligarchy instead of an aristocracy, and a disorganized rabble instead of a democracy), and although those simple forms often change into others, such things rarely happen in a political structure which represents a combination and a judicious mixture—unless, that is, the politicians are deeply
corrupt. For there is no reason for change in a country where everyone is firmly established in his own place, and which has beneath it no corresponding version into which it may suddenly sink and decline.

However, I’m afraid that you, Laelius, and you, my kind and learned friends, may get the impression that in talking like this I am setting myself up as a preacher or a teacher instead of collaborating with you in a joint inquiry. So I shall move on to matters which are familiar to everyone, and which indeed we have long been working towards. I hold, maintain, and declare that no form of government is comparable in its structure, its assignment of functions, or its discipline, to the one which our fathers received from their forebears and have handed down to us. So, if you approve (because you wanted me to talk on a subject which you yourselves knew well), I shall describe its nature and at the same time demonstrate its superiority. Then, after setting up our constitution as a model, I shall use it as a point of reference, as best I can, in all I have to say about the best possible state. If I can keep this aim in view and bring it to a conclusion, I shall have amply fulfilled, I think, the task which Laelius assigned me.

LAELIUS
: Well it’s certainly your task, Scipio, and yours alone. 71 For who is better placed than you to talk about our forefathers’ institutions, since your forefathers were themselves especially distinguished? Or about the best possible state? If we were to have such a state (which we don’t have even now), who could play a more active role than you? Or who could better formulate our future policies? For by repelling the two dangers
*
that threatened our city you yourself
*
have made provision for all the years that lie ahead.

As everyone was consumed with eagerness to hear what he had to say, Scipio began as follows:

My first point is taken from old Cato. As you know, I was especially fond of him and admired him greatly. On the recommendation of my two fathers
*
and, even more so, because of my own interest, I devoted myself to him, heart and soul, from my early days. I could never hear enough of his talk—so rich was the man’s political experience, which he had acquired during his long and distinguished career in peace and war. Equally impressive were his temperate way of speaking, his combination of seriousness and humour, his tremendous zest for obtaining and providing information, and the close correspondence between his preaching and his practice.

Cato used to say that our constitution was superior to others, because in their case there had usually been one individual who had equipped his state with laws and institutions, for example, Minos of Crete, Lycurgus of Sparta, and the men who had brought about a succession of changes at Athens (Theseus, Draco, Solon, Cleisthenes, and many others) until finally, when it lay fainting and prostrate, it was revived by that learned man, Demetrius of Phalerum. Our own constitution, on the other hand, had been established not by one man’s ability but by that of many, not in the course of one man’s life but over several ages and generations. He used to say that no genius of such magnitude
*
had ever existed that he could be sure of overlooking nothing; and that no collection of able people at a single point of time could have sufficient foresight to take account of everything; there had to be practical experience over a long period of history.

Accordingly in my discourse I shall go back, as Cato used to do, to the ‘origin’
*
of the Roman people (I gladly borrow his actual word). Moreover, it will be easier to carry out my plan if I describe for you the birth, growth, and maturity of our state,
which eventually became so firm and strong, than if I deal with some imaginary community, as Socrates does in Plato.

Everyone agreed to this; so he continued: Have we ever heard of any state with so splendid and famous a beginning as this city founded by Romulus?
*
He was the son of Mars—let’s not argue with a popular tradition which is not only ancient but also wisely transmitted by our forefathers, namely, that great public servants should be deemed divine by birth as well as in ability. Romulus, then, is said to have been exposed at birth on the banks of the Tiber, along with his brother Remus, on the orders of Amulius, King of Alba, who feared the overthrow of his kingdom. There he was suckled by an animal from the forest before being rescued by herdsmen, who brought him up as an agricultural labourer. They say that when he grew up he was so far ahead of the others in physical strength and force of character that all the people who lived in that part of the countryside where the capital stands today willingly and cheerfully accepted his leadership. Putting himself at the head of their forces (to move, now, from legend to history) he is supposed to have crushed Alba Longa, a strong and formidable city at that time, and to have put King Amulius to death.

After this splendid achievement, Romulus’ first thought, we are told, was to found a city by means of augury
*
and to establish a political community. He chose an incredibly advantageous site for the city—a thing which has to be planned with careful foresight by anyone trying to create a permanent community. He did not move it to the coast, though with troops and resources of that size he could easily have marched into the territory of the Rutulians and Aborigines; or he could have started a new city at the mouth of the Tiber, where King Ancus founded a colony
*
many years later. With his exceptional imagination the great man realized clearly that coastal sites were not particularly suitable
*
for cities founded in the hope of permanence and power, first because coastal sites were exposed to numerous, and also unforeseeable, dangers. For, in the case of an inland settlement, advance warning is given of an enemy’s approach, not only when it’s expected but also when it isn’t, by many indications, including a certain amount of unavoidable noise and din. No enemy can come across country, at whatever speed, without our knowing that he’s there, and also who he is and where he comes from. But a maritime, naval enemy
can be upon us before anyone knows he is on the way; and when he comes he doesn’t advertise his identity or his nationality or even his intentions. There is no means of discerning or inferring even whether he is friend or foe.

Furthermore, the moral character of coastal cities is prone to corruption and decay. For they are exposed to a mixture of strange talk and strange modes of behaviour. Foreign customs are imported along with foreign merchandise; and so none of their ancestral institutions can remain unaffected. The inhabitants of those cities do not stay at home. They are always dashing off to foreign parts, full of airy hopes and designs. And even when, physically, they stay put, they wander abroad in their imagination. No factor was more responsible for the ultimate overthrow of Carthage and Corinth
*
(which had already been long undermined) than the restlessness and dispersal of their citizens; for in their craving for mercantile voyages and commercial profit they failed to attend to their land and their army. The sea also brings enticements to luxury in the form of booty or imports, which cause serious damage to states. Apart from anything else, the attractiveness of their site represents many temptations to sensual indulgence, whether through extravagance or idleness. What I have just said about Corinth could be said with equal justice, I suspect, of Greece as a whole. For the Peloponnese is pretty well surrounded by the sea, and apart from Phlius
*
there are no communities whose territory does not touch the sea. Outside the Peloponnese, only the Aenianes, the Dorians,
*
and the Dolopes are far from the sea. I need hardly mention the Greek islands, which are surrounded by the waves and almost float on their surface along with the customs and institutions of their cities. These places, as I said earlier, belong to the Greek motherland. But think of all the colonies she has sent out to Asia, Thrace, Italy, Sicily, and Africa. Except for Magnesia, every one of them is washed by the waves. As a result, a Greek coast seems to have been tacked on, as it were, to the lands of barbarians. Of the barbarians themselves none originally sailed the seas, except the Etruscans, who did so as pirates, and the Phoenicians, who did so for trade. Seafaring was clearly the cause of Greece’s misfortunes, including her political instability, since it gave rise to the characteristic vices of coastal cities which I touched on briefly a little while ago. But
along with those endemic faults there is one enormous advantage. The products of every land can come by sea to the city where you live; conversely your people can export and deliver the produce of their fields to whatever country they wish.

How then could Romulus have achieved with more inspired success the advantages of a coastal city, while avoiding its faults, than by founding Rome on the bank of a river which flowed with its broad stream, smooth and unfailing, into the sea? Thus the city could import by sea whatever it needed, and export its surplus; and thanks to the same river it could not only draw in by sea the commodities most necessary for its life and culture, it could also bring them down from the hinterland. And so Romulus, in my view, already foresaw that this city would eventually form the site and centre of a world empire. A city founded in some other part of Italy could hardly have held so easily such vast political power.

As for the city’s own natural defences, can anyone be so unobservant as not to have them etched, clear and familiar, on his mind? Thanks to the wisdom of Romulus and the other kings, the line and course of its wall were designed to run in every direction through steep precipitous mountains. The only access, between the Esquiline and Quirinal hills, was covered by a high rampart and a huge ditch; and the citadel, thus protected, was built all round on steep crags which looked as if they had been cut away on every side, so that even in the dreadful period of the Gallic invasion it remained impregnable and inviolate. The chosen site also enjoyed an abundance of spring water and a healthy atmosphere in spite of the region’s plague-ridden character; for breezes blow through the hills, and they in their turn provide shade for the valleys.