Republican Leadership through the Eyes of Plutarch: Cicero's Parrhêsia as Case in Point (original) (raw)

The Decline of Roman Statesmanship in Plutarch's Pyrrhus-Marius (CQ 2005)

Plutarch's Pyrrhus-Marius identifies and analyses a decline in elite Roman leadership that occurred between the middle and late Republic. Such an analysis is possible in this pair, and in this pair alone, because both Lives are concerned with the internal workings of the Roman Republic: Pyrrhus depicts the Republic of the early third century B.C.E., Marius that of the early first century B.C.E. When Pyrrhus and Marius are read together, a dual regression becomes apparent: the Roman people decline from obedience into a dysfunctional mob, and the elite Roman leadership grows less effective until, by Marius' day, it is unable to oppose populist demagogy. This paper is concerned with the latter decline, with the political inflexibility and resulting impotence of the Roman elite.

The Ideal Statesman: A Commonplace in Plutarch's Political Treatises, His Solon, and His Lycurgus

The unity of Plutarch's work:" Moralia" themes in …, 2008

The issue I would like to discuss in this paper is whether three important Plutarchan standard topics, i. e. the good statesman, the interaction between leader and demos, and the right mental preparation of the people in times of reform, occur in a similar way both in Plutarch's political treatises and in two biographies which gave the author sufficient latitude to include favourite commonplaces and standard views. In Plutarch's biographies and political treatises descriptions of actions, reforms, events and developments are inextricably intertwined with commonplaces and are frequently described in a language and conceptual framework that contemporary audiences could understand, and apply to their own situations. Many stereotypes, commonplaces and models, which Plutarch applies in his political treatises, 1 recur in his Solon and Lycurgus. These Lives gave Plutarch ample opportunity to insert loci communes, stereotypes, characteristic anecdotes and edifying stories, because nothing much was known about the historical Solon and Lycurgus. As a matter of fact, Solon may have been a more tangible figure than the Spartan reformer Lycurgus, if only because Solonian poetry was still extant and Athens wrote down more of its collective memory than Sparta did. In the opening lines of his Lycurgus Plutarch considers the Spartan reformer an enigmatic figure, concerning whom nothing could be said which was not disputed (Lyc. 1.1). Lycurgus may even have been not an historical person, but a local demi-god who had been transformed into a law-giver. 2 1 I.e. Max. c. princ. 776B-779C; Ad princ. 779D-782F; An seni 783B-797F, and above all Praec. 798A-825F). 2 Translations into English of passages from Plutarch's Lycurgus and Solon were borrowed from B.

Cicero: Crises of Humanism and Republicanism

Past and Future, 2024

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) was a Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher who lived in the turbulent days of the Late Republic. As a 'new man' in Rome, he made his fame through major law cases and thereafter as a 'saviour of the republic' by stopping Cataline's attempted coup d'etat of 63-62 BCE. Beyond this, however, Cicero was a transmitter and transformer of a vast body of Greek philosophy into Latin via his numerous texts on philosophy, ethics, and rhetoric. Works such as his De Re Republica (the Republic) and De Officiis (On Moral Duties) sought to set forth a practical approach to government via a mixed constitution (including elements of kingship, aristocracy and democracy) and the idea of a concord of different orders, relying on a consensus of common goods shared within an educated community. He made important contributions to humanism and republicanism that would be taken up again in later ages. However, as a politician, he was unable to put this idea of a balanced and stable republic into practice. As the power of proconsular armies increased, this led to the rise of leaders such as Pompey, Crassus, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and then the young Octavian (later on the emperor Augustus), often working extra-constitutionally. Cicero was unable to retain the friendship and clemency of Julius Caesar, and thereafter earned the hatred of Mark Antony, whom he had fiercely criticized in his speeches, The Philippics. In 43 BCE the agents of Antony hunted Cicero down, cut his throat, and brought his head and hands back to be nailed on the rostra in Roman forum. If, politically, Cicero was unable to protect his vision of a mixed and balanced Roman constitution, he was nonetheless a man who tried to stand up for great philosophical and political ideals. He was doomed not so much by his own limitations as by the nature of the age, a period when personal ambition and civil wars were tearing Rome apart. His successes and failures were not trivial, and had much more impact and long-term value than the trivial successes of the minor writers and selfserving politicians who surrounded him.

Bruni, Cicero and their Manifesto for Republicanism

Reading Cicero’s Final Years Receptions of the Post-Caesarian Works up to the Sixteenth Century – with two Epilogues, 2020

Open Access by De Gruyter. Funded by: Patrum Lumen Sustine-Stiftung (PLuS) Volume edited by: Christoph Pieper and Bram van der Velden

Non-domination and the libera res publica in Cicero's Republicanism

History of European Ideas, 2018

This paper assesses to what extent the neo-Republican accounts of Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit adequately capture the nature of political liberty at Rome by focusing on Cicero's analysis of the libera res publica. Cicero's analysis in De Republica suggests that the rule of law and a modest menu of individual citizens' rights guard against citizens being controlled by a master's arbitrary will, thereby ensuring the status of non-domination that constitutes freedom according to the neo-Republican view. He also shows the difficulty of anchoring an argument for citizens' full political participation in the value of non-domination. While Cicero believed such full participation (by elite citizens) was essential for a libera res publica, he, like other elite Romans, argued for participation on the basis of liberty conceived as the space to contend for and enhance one's social status. The sufficiency of the rule of law and citizens' rights for securing a status of non-domination taken together with their insufficiency for ensuring a libera res publica suggests that neo-Republican accounts of liberty do not fully capture the idea as articulated in Cicero's Republicanism.