Cicero on Violence
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Translator-historian Michael Grant notes in his introduction to the political speeches of the greatest of Roman orators, Cicero (106-43 B.C.), an ancestral atmosphere of violence "casts a lurid light upon the savage chaos and vendetta which signalized these last moribund years of the Republic, and helped to make it inevitable that this once mighty institution should come to an end and be replaced by an autocracy" (Grant 217). Violence permeated the times, and it permeated the minds of that era. Cicero, stoic humanist that he was, was no exception. He accepted violence as such a commonplace part of the human equation that he never considered questioning it. He did, however, set limits to the use of violence. This essay will consider some of those limits and the consistency with which Cicero applied them. And indeed, gentlemen, there exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; . . . from nature itself; . . . by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered . . . any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right ("In Defence" iv, 9). In accord with the tenor of his times, Marcus Tullus Cicero was a man who did not question certain elements of the status quo. While recognizing the inequities of corruption and avarice, he believed in the Roman Republic as a form of meritocracy; he did, after all, rise from the ranks of the knights (equites) to be elected Consul, presiding over the Republican
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ecree (senatus consultum ultimum), which "instructed the consuls (that is, in effect, Cicero) to take whatever steps they saw fit for the safety of the state" (Grant 127). Many (including Julius Caesar) argued the cause of leniency for the conspirators. In the relatively small world of the Roman oligarchy, many in the Senate recognized that the captured conspirators were their cousins and fellow nobles, compatriot politicians - and wealthy potential patrons.
Cicero understood those connections as well: the opportunity for corruption was too ripe, the probability of turning Roman law into farce too great. In the end, Cicero cautiously advocated execution of the Catiline conspirators on logical grounds, likening the care of the state to the duty of parent to child:
Just imagine some father of a family whose children were killed by a slave, his wife murdered, his home burnt down. If such a man failed to punish that slave in the most relentless manner, would he seem to you kindly and merciful, or would he not rather, surely, appear so hard-hearted as to be positively inhuman ("Against Lucius" iv, vi, 11)?
The service of the state, then, was the standard by which Cicero measured the place of violence in the political life o
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BC Cicero's, Julius Caesar, Michael Grant, Publius Clodius, War Peace, VI Pompey, Cicero Consul, Catilina Senators, Roman Republic, Marc Antony, political speeches, michael grant, marc antony, rule law, ed london penguin, civil war, trans michael, iv 9, selected political, believed roman, julius caesar, london penguin books, rev ed london, grant rev ed, michael grant rev,
Approximate Word count = 2179
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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