For Cicero (20), a great Roman philosopher, the ideal as defined by Plato was the ideal to which he felt men should aspire. In On Duties, Cicero (20) makes the following statement clearly indicating his agreement with Plato (129) on the necessity of civic virtue and the nature of man and the necessity of statesmanlike leadership because man:
".... is endowed with reason+, by which he comprehends the chain of consequences, perceives the causes of things, understands the relation of cause to effect and of effect to cause, draws analogies, and connects and associates the present and the future -easily surveys the course of his whole life and makes the necessary preparations for its conduct."
Just as Plato (103-104) argued that the state should be ruled by a unique class of guardians who were tested over time and found to be capable of exercising reason, demonstrating wisdom, and administering justice, Cicero (20) believed that the leaders of the Roman Republic should possess these same qualities. He further agreed with Plato that the ideal state was a republic and not a democracy and departed from Aristotle (1, 20) with respect to the relative rights of citizens. He also seems to have disagreed with Aristotle (2, 15) on the question of how a constitution should be structured and how individuals should be selected for positions of leadership in government.
In this area, Cicero (30) was very much a product of the Roman system in which members of certain noble families were automatically entitled to participation in the Roman Senate. He seems to have agreed with both Plato (79) and Aristotle (1, 569) that certain men (or families) by virtue of their birth, automatically acquired special status within society and, consequently, enhanced duties and responsibilities. It should be noted that in both Greece at the time of Plato and Aristotle and Rome at the time of Cicero, slavery was legal and the status of women w...