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Dean Hammer
For many Polybius (ca. 200118 bce) serves as
the entre into Roman political thought: a
Greek theorizing about a Roman political
system that had already achieved empire. For
Polybius, Romes ability to attain power while
also preserving liberty lay in large part in its
political system, which contained aristocratic
(the senate), democratic (the people), and
monarchical (the consuls) elements. Political
power, according to Polybius well- known formulation, is distributed among different parts
of the state so that no one institution holds
power. Each part brings to the system its own
inclinations and interests and each requires the
cooperation of the other in order to get
something done. In times of emergency, the
state acts in concord and support (Polybius
2011: 6.18.2). In times of peace, the efforts of
one part toward supremacy a fact of human
nature can be counterworked and thwarted
by the others (Polybius 2011: 6.18.7).
Polybius is, of course, talking about the
Roman Republic (ca. 50931 bce), a period
whose beginning is shrouded in myth and end
dissolves in violence. The Roman Republic was
not quite the closed oligarchy once assumed.
Nor was Rome the democracy that some have
claimed. Rather, Romes political institutions
were a complex and historically layered array
of hierarchically organized units with the populus meeting in assemblies of various types and
with various functions being the source of
legitimacy and power but having limited
venues for participation and expression, the
senate having limited formal powers but largely
controlling what can be done, the annually
elected consuls possessing both imperium (the
power of command) and auspicia (the right to
consult the gods about state matters), and the
tribunes of the plebs serving primarily as a
2
The Republic would eventually be exhausted
in the last century bce by dynastic competition, tumultuous violence, naked self-interest,
hypocrisy, corruption, and terror until
Octavian finally emerged as sole ruler with the
defeat of Antony in 31 bce. Octavian, later
given the title Augustus (from augere, to
increase) and Princeps (or first man, a
term used in Republican Rome to refer to the
most eminent member of the senate), would
hold the formal power of the state. Whatever
continuities there might initially have been
with the Republic, therise of Augustus forever
placed Romes political fate in the hands of a
single, and largely unaccountable, ruler.
This political context is critical for understanding two aspects of Roman political
thought. First, the Romans thought through
and with their history. To the contemporary
political theorist steeped in abstraction, Roman
political thought seems mired in a hopelessly
complex array of names, places, laws, and
events. But in this complexity we can locate the
conceptual core of Roman political thought.
For the Romans, the human artifacts that surrounded them provided a foundation, like
Livys Ab urbe condita (From the founding of
the city, the opening words of Livys History
(Livy 1998)), by which they related not just to
those things, but also to each other. A full
appreciation of the range and diversity of
Roman political thought, thus, must reach
beyond abstract philosophic arguments and
look to historiography, poetry, letters, and
orations.
This cultural context is important for a second reason. As obnoxiously confident as the
Romans were about their destiny, they were
equally consumed by the precariousness of
their hold on power and, unlike Polybius, the
fragility of their own system. What makes
Roman political thought so interesting is that it
does not seek refuge in an ideal state or in ideal
conditions of politics. The question that drives
Roman political thought in all its diversity is
not How do we create anew? but Where do
we go from here? and How can we get back to
where we were? It is born from a deep political
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politics Cicero cannot imagine the perfection
of something without the experience that time
brings.
Neither state nor regime adequately captures the associational aspects that Cicero sees
as characteristic of the res publica. What makes
a gathering into a res publica is that there must
be iuris consensus, an agreement on justice, and
utilitatis communione societus, a partnership
for the common interest (Cicero 2000: 1.25.39).
Justice for Cicero is not just the ordering of
ones own actions; since it is guided by our
social instinct, justice functions to promote
and strengthen society (Cicero 1913:
1.28.100). The social nature of the res publica is
given a particular form as a societas, or partnership. Although societas connotes a range of
natural associations, the term also has a more
legal denotation in Latin, and one that frames
Ciceros understanding of political association.
It refers to a type of contractual agreement or
partnership, one whose features are immediately recognizable in the Roman political
system, in which: (1) individuals contribute
property or work toward a common aim; (2)
profits and losses continue to be shared, either
equally or in proportion to an agreed-upon
recognition of differences in service or other
contributions; and (3) the parties remain of
the same mind (Gaius 19461953: 3.14951).
A social partnership is categorized as a
particular category of contract, a consensual
contract, which does not have explicit, objective
conditions but requires ongoing agreement.
Viewing the res publica as a social partnership in which the nature and extent of power is
the subject of ongoing negotiation helps us
understand both the emergence and the importance of the mixed constitution in Ciceros
thought. The magistrates (expanded to include
the tribunes) have potestas, which is a necessary
executive power to implement decisions. The
senate provides auctoritas, which is an affective
form of power that derives from recognition
and respect for ones words and actions.
Auctoritas smoothes out the commanding
power of potestas by giving standing, continuity, and dignity to the partnership. And
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discussion of human communities can be read
as tracing the various appearances of sovereignty that are then undermined by a violation
of one of these natural conditions of power.
One alienates one power (handing it over to
someone or something else), confuses ones
natural sense of power with a communitycreated sense of power, or fails to recognize the
boundaries of power.
Viewing social development from the perspective of our natural power results in a devastating critique of the meaningfulness and
usefulness of categories associated with the mos
maiorum. Religion, for example, encourages us
to be terrified of natural phenomena, to look to
the gods to explain our affairs, and to live in
terror about what happens to us after we die. So
too society teaches us that happiness lies in the
pursuit of honor and glory, a pursuit that results
in an endless and fruitless quest to sate desires
that have no natural limits nor permanence. Even
our fear of death arises from a misconception of
our sensual nature: we are finite beings who, on
our death, will dissipate back into the universe.
Although Lucretius replaces the majesty of
the Roman state with the majesty of nature
(1924: 5.7), it is not majesty devoid of politics.
Political communities are types of natural compounds joined by compacts that are premised
on the recognition of natural boundaries, aims,
and relationships. The health of a compound
requires two things, both of which bear on the
contemporaneous Roman state. First, a healthy
compound requires that its boundaries be protected against bombardment and its body from
depletion. Its strength must be continually supplemented and nourished. The problem of
empire, for example, is that it simply becomes
too large and, thus, too difficult to protect and
nourish. Second, a compound requires an
ordering of internal relations of power that are
premised on the recognition of both limits and
capabilities. In Lucretius account, and it is
unique among extant Epicurean accounts, the
response to turbatio, the turmoil among individuals, is a Republic in which men create
magistrates, establish justice (iustitia) (which
for Epicureans is simply an arrangement over
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became lax, indulgent, and self-interested. The
claim itself is not novel in ancient political
thought. But Sallust, in talking about the loss of
an enemy, is exploring something more
significant; namely, how communities organize
desire. The coherence of a community what
holds it together as something more than an
aggregate of individual desires requires a
force powerful enough to shape and constrain
those desires. Sallusts discussion of early Rome
traces the mechanisms by which the organizing
principles of Roman life were given shape.
Carthage is important, not only because its
destruction removes an important constraint, but
also because the prosecution of the war and the
expansion of Romes empire altered the constellation of constraints that formed Romes political
inheritance and shaped individual dispositions.
The final defeat of Carthage weakened the martial
impetus that lay at the heart of the Roman conception of virtus. And the absence of any real
threats altered the calculus of action. But the
importance of Carthage does not lie simply in the
removal of the constraint of fear. It reveals for
Sallust how Romes foreign ventures had implications for the institutional organization of desire.
Romes empire had grown so large and so complex that its maintenance required that the people
relinquish their power to provincial administrators and the senate. Absent the dispersion of
power, there were no checks or limits on how
those resources were acquired, or how they could
be employed. As Sallust writes:
Affairs at home and in the field were managed
according to the will of a few men, in whose
hands were the treasury, the provinces, public
offices, glory, and triumphs. The people were
burdened with military service and poverty.
The generals divided the spoils of war with a
few friends. Meanwhile the parents or little
children of the soldiers, if they had a powerful
neighbour, were driven from their homes.
(1921: 41.78)
It is in this altered context that we can understand how the practice of plundering, learned
on the battlefield, could have such free reign at
home.
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that, as Virgil writes, will have no bounds in
space or time (191618: 1.278). However
grand the ideals of gloria, pietas, and pax, Virgil
reveals their human dimension in the experiences of memory, affection, and loss.
We can begin to understand Virgils contributions by thinking about the alternative
approaches to political thought available to
him. One alternative is the Greek (specifically
Homeric) epic tradition, which privileges the
greatness of the individual warrior. A second
alternative is recourse to an ideal community,
whether Platos republic, Epicurus community
of sages, or even Ciceros res publica. A final
alternative is a form of political escapism, a
flight from the public world to an increasingly
private and interior one. Virgil variously draws
on each of these strands: in his creation of a
post-Troy epic tale, in his invocation of the
golden age, and in his pastoral poetry. But
Virgils thinking never seems to find solace in
these alternatives. His thought, instead, continually arises from, and returns to, the experience of action in the world.
Virgils world is one saturated in violence.
Nothing neither nature nor culture, neither
innocence nor guilt, neither piety nor impiety,
neither hero nor coward is untouched by violence. Violence is not mastered; its effects are
not reversed by glory; it is not joined to
courage; it is not justified by power; nor is it
redeemed by righteousness. Nor can the violence be forgotten. Each character is entangled
in the realization that there is no forgetting;
that the past cannot be undone. Virgils poetry
implicates his audience in the disorienting
confusion and staggering sense of loss that
connects the bloodshed of Troy, the bloodshed
in Italy in the virtual civil war between the
Trojans and Latins, tied by marital bonds, and
the late Republican civil war. And, very importantly, the victor in that early civil war, Aeneas,
is shown at the end destroying the leader of the
other side in cold anger and hatred and in
revenge for another killing. Virgil thus leaves
his audience/readers with a big question (the
contemporary relevance of which was obvious):
where is the new victor (Octavian) going to
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organize the community. For Livy (as for Cicero
in the Republic, where this is conceptualized
more theoretically), Rome has successive
founders who are able to craft through visual
reminders (like Livys own history) a common
identity and core concepts of authority and liberty. Yet, no matter how important elites may be
(or may want to be) in directing the people, they
are never able to completely define those meanings for the populace. They are never able to fix
interpretations. The people, as Livys History
makes clear, are continually and vigorously
engaged in acts of interpretation that derive as
much from their own experiences and conditions as from anything elites might contrive.
Whether begrudgingly recognizing this or not,
Livys psychological history traces the animating
role of popular vision in the emergence of liberty and the effects of political blindness experienced by both elites and masses in the corruption
of the community.
The trajectory of the early books of Livys Ab
urbe condita is toward the increasing openness
of Roman politics, not out of a principled belief
in rights but because the health of the community
depends on the shared, though not necessarily
harmonious, ability to orient and organize
shared meanings. The concern becomes more
pronounced as Livy turns his attention to the
periphery of the empire, asking the question,
Who will fight for us? Livys History becomes
a reflection on the loss of, and in turn the possibility of renewing, the animating spirit of Roman
politics, even if the terms of that renewal were
forever changed. Livys history speaks to an age
when there are no longer deserts and wildernesses out of which may be created new communities but only the rubble of the past:
populations divided in their loyalties, born of
different historical experiences, and oriented
toward divergent and opposing ends.
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great, universal body where we are created
from the same source and for the same end, we
have duties that arise from our mutual affection toward others. In claiming the world as
our country we have an even greater arena in
which to engage in human interaction, fairness,
and justice. Senecas model is Socrates, an
example of world citizen who was able to move
about as a free man under thirty tyrants.
Marcus Aurelius will later take this conception
of world citizenship even further. To be without a
polis is to be torn from the unity of the universe
and the concord of others. The person without a
polis is like a xenos, an alien who has no understanding of his surroundings, or a phugas, an
exile from reason, or a ptchos, a beggar who
must depend on others (1916: 4.29). This
citizenship has implications for our relationship
with others. We are joined in fellowship with and
love of our neighbor. That love for Marcus derives
from the embrace of the being of things. To love
ones self is to love ones Nature, which is to love
another. Augustine will pick up on these strands:
we are like strangers in a foreign land, but where
Marcus directs us to recognize our earthly relationship to others, Augustine enjoins us to recognize our citizenship in the City of God.
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would give way to hypocrisy and sycophancy,
or ultimately a city that would crumble, just as
it had destroyed so many cities before.
Acknowledgment
My thanks to Kurt Raaflaub, J. E. Lendon, and
Elizabeth Meyer for their helpful comments.
SEE ALSO: Augustine of Hippo: Aurelius
Augustinus (354430); Aurelius, Marcus (12180);
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (10643 bce);
Cosmopolitanism; Epictetus (mid-1st2nd century
ce); Epicurus (341270 bce); Polybius (ca. 200118
bce); Republics; Stoicism; Tacitus, Publius
Cornelius (ca. 56115/18?)
References
Aurelius, M. (1916) Meditations, trans.
C.R.Haines. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Cicero, M. T. (1913) On Duties, trans. W. Miller.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cicero, M. T. (2000) On the Republic, trans.
C.W.Keyes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Gaius. (19461953) The Institutes of Gaius, trans.
F.de Zulueta. Oxford: Clarendon.
Livy. (1998) History of Rome, trans. B. O. Foster.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lucretius. (1924) On the Nature of Things, trans.
W.H. D. Rouse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Polybius. (2011) The Histories, trans. W. R. Paton.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sallust. (1921) War with Catiline. War with
Jugurtha, trans. J. C. Rolfe. Cambridge, MA:
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Seneca. (1932) Moral Essays, trans. J. Basore.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Seneca. (1971) Natural Questions, trans.
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Seneca. (1996) Epistles, trans. R. Gummere.
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Tacitus. (1970) Agricola. Germania. Dialogus, trans.
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E.H. Warmington, and M. Winterbottom.
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Tacitus. (2004) The Annals, trans. A. J. Woodman.
Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Further Reading
Asmis, E. (2004) The State as a Partnership:
Ciceros Definition of Res Publica in His Work
On the State, History of Political Thought,
25,56999.
Brunt, P. A. (1988) The Fall of the Roman Republic
and Related Essays. Oxford: Clarendon.
Cicero, M. T. (1996) Tusculan Disputation, trans.
J.E. King. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Connolly, J. (2007) The State of Speech: Rhetoric and
Political Thought in Ancient Rome. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Edwards, C. (1993) The Politics of Immorality in
Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Feldherr, A. (1998) Spectacle and Society in Livys
History. Berkeley : University of California Press.
Flower, H. (2011) Roman Republics. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Foucault, M. (1990) The History of Sexuality,
Volume 3: The Care of the Self, trans. R. Hurley.
New York: Vintage Books.
Galinsky, K. (1996) Augustan Culture: An
Interpretive Introduction. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Garstens, B. (2009) Saving Persuasion: A Defense of
Rhetoric and Judgment. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Habinek, T. (1998) The Politics of Latin Literature:
Writings, Identity, and Empire in Ancient Rome.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hadot, P. (1995) Philosophy as a Way of Life:
Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, ed.
A. Davidson, trans. M. Chase. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hammer, D. (2008) Roman Political Thought and
the Modern Theoretical Imagination. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press.
Hammer, D. (forthcoming) Roman Political
Thought: From Cicero to Augustine. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hammer, D. (Ed.) (forthcoming) A Companion to
Greek Democracy and the Roman Republic.
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hlkeskamp, K.-J. (2010) Reconstructing the Roman
Republic: An Ancient Political Culture and
Modern Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
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Jaeger, M. (1997) Livys Written Rome. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Kapust, D. (2011) Republicanism, Rhetoric, and
Roman Political Thought: Sallust, Livy, and
Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lintott, A. (1999) The Constitution of the Roman
Republic. Oxford: Clarendon.
Millar, F. (1998) The Crowd in Rome in the Late
Republic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Mouritsen, H. (2001) Plebs and Politics in the Late
Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Powell, J. G. F. (Ed.) (1996) Cicero the Philosopher:
Twelve Papers. Oxford: Clarendon.
Raaflaub, K. (Ed.) (1986) Social Struggles in
Archaic Rome: New Perspective on the Conflict of