Republicanism

Republicanism in practice predated any attempt to define or articulate it conceptually. Rome became a self-proclaimed republic at the end of the sixth century B.C.E. as a result of a revolt against the Tarquin dynasty of kings who had ruled the region. Thereafter, the Latin word for king, rex, was anathema to Romans (even after the rise of the Caesars, who styled themselves princeps, "first man," instead.). The basic constitution of the Roman Republic evolved slowly over the course of the succeeding four centuries, always shaped by a practice of diffusing power among a range of institutions: administrative officers, a body of noblemen (the senate), and various popular citizen assemblies. In the beginning, the concentration of authority rested with the senate and the executive magistrates (chief among whom were the two consuls). Over the course of the republic's history, however, the lesser citizens demanded and received greater power via the addition of further magistracies and assemblies.

It is perhaps not too great an exaggeration to say that Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.) was the most influential republican thinker of the ancient world. Although many other classical authors contributed significantly to the understanding of the theory and practice of the republic—Polybius (c.200–118 B.C.E.), Sallust (86–35 or 34 B.C.E.), and Livy (59 B.C.E.–17 C.E.) were among the most important—Cicero produced the largest body of writings about the topic. Moreover, he enjoyed the widest audience and most loyal following of any republican author, both in ancient times and later. Drawing on Hellenic and Hellenistic philosophies, as well as on his knowledge of Roman history and his personal experiences with the practical requirements of republican rule, Cicero in many ways represented the pinnacle of republican theory as well as statesmanship. Reflecting the inherent tension within republicanism between populism and elitism, his teachings endorse two distinguishable and potentially competing theoretical defenses of republican government: one highlighting eloquent speech, the other focusing on the faculty of reason.

Populism and public discourse.

In Cicero's writings on rhetoric and oratory, a premium is placed on public discourse—among both citizens and statesmen—as the basis for the republican regime. In writings such as De inventione and De oratore, Cicero maintains that the eloquent expression of the common welfare binds the republic together. On the one hand, the leaders of the commonwealth are charged with acquiring the oratorical skills necessary to persuade citizens to accept the laws and policies conducive to the well-being of public affairs. On the other hand, all human beings, regardless of their station, are deemed competent (on the basis of their natural faculties) to discern and judge the pronouncements of orators in public assemblies and proceedings.

Cicero grounds this discursive approach to republican rule on the claim that human nature can only be fully realized through articulate and intelligent speech. While his rhetorical writings do not deny the importance of rationality, they are explicitly critical of the philosophical tradition, which glorifies reason to the exclusion or detriment of language. Rather, human beings are both rational and linguistic creatures, simultaneously capable of reasoning and speaking. Speech is, however, accorded primacy in this formulation of human nature. It is not enough to possess reason, for rational powers require the faculty of language in order that their discoveries may be disseminated.

Cicero believes that the realization of the associative potentialities present within human speech may only be achieved with the aid of oratory. The orator discovers what is truly good for his fellow creatures and communicates it to them in the most forceful and convincing manner so that they may put it to use. The combination of eloquence and wisdom characteristic of the orator assures that he will speak on behalf of the interests of the entire community. Cicero invokes a direct contrast between oratory and philosophy. The philosopher may know the good but lack the skill or training to convey it to the multitude. Inherent in the subject matter of oratory, then, is a regard for fellow citizens, which imposes on the orator an overarching duty to act in the service of public welfare. The orator can only achieve this goal, in turn, by expressing himself in the popular idiom. Oratory is concerned in some measure with the common usage, custom, and speech of humankind, so that, whereas in all other arts that which is most excellent is farthest removed from the understanding and mental capacity of the untutored, in oratory the very cardinal sin is to depart from the language of everyday life and the usage approved by the sense of the community.

Cicero's account of the discursive foundations of public life ties the role of political leadership to a clear notion of citizenship and civic intercourse. The man of public affairs is called on to persuade his fellow citizens to follow the wisest course of action in order to achieve the common good. Eloquent speech must, therefore, be cultivated alongside wisdom as a prized asset for political life; the statesman requires these qualities in order to appeal to and convince an audience. Likewise, even though ordinary citizens may lack the talent and skill of the orator, they are deemed to be competent to judge between competing arguments within the public arena and to choose in accordance with the best and most persuasive (that is, the wisest) case that they hear. Thus, citizenship ought to be construed in an active sense: statesmen seek the approval of citizens, who, by virtue of their inherently rational and linguistic faculties, are all qualified to discern the public good. Public life is a kind of recapitulation of the initial entry of human beings into the social and political order. Hence, this discursive approach has overtly participatory implications; it encourages political actors to conceive of their roles in terms of open rational persuasion and debate leading toward the civic recognition of the public good.

Elites and natural reason.

Cicero bolsters this view with an account of the foundations of republican government that emphasizes the centrality of reason alone as the source of public welfare, and concomitantly diminishes the active and discursive dimensions of citizenship. In this version of republicanism, natural reason forms the cornerstone of human social relations. The role of reason is to discover those precepts of natural law that maintain and strengthen the bonds of communal order, and to impose such dictates through law and rulership in a manner consonant with the public good. Of course, Cicero acknowledges that reason is unevenly distributed among human beings. While all people may be minimally rational, some exceed their fellows in the exercise of reason, a fact that qualifies the wise to ascend to positions of authority within the civic body. Indeed, in a well-ordered regime, those lacking fully developed powers of reason ought freely to accede to governance by their betters, on the grounds that wise rule is the strongest safeguard of the common good. The rational powers of statesmen guide the republic for the benefit of citizens, and the people are best governed when they defer to magistrates of superior wisdom. Cicero's philosophical writings, in particular, tend to highlight the Stoic-derived view that human beings are inherently rational creatures and that their natural powers of reason constitute the precondition for all social intercourse and political community.

Cicero maintains that society, and hence people's very capacity to conceive of a public welfare, depends on the cultivation of virtue. Virtue is directly dependent, in turn, on the cultivation of the rational faculties. Hence, the mark of a harmonious communal setting is the presence of virtue as an ingrained feature of its organization. Cicero singles out and concentrates on justice, identifying it as the virtue most crucial to the perpetuation of human association. The Ciceronian conception of justice is rooted in the doctrine of natural law. Cicero holds that nature imposes on individuals a certain code or measure of conduct, constituted in particular by the requirement to promote the ends and interests of human society. In order to prevent perpetual endangerment to the bonds of society, the law of nature is afforded prescriptive force. To know what accords with the law of nature, and hence what behavior is required by justice, one reasons about the common good. One's duty on the basis of natural law is always to act in the general welfare when there exists a conflict between private benefit and the general interests of society. The Ciceronian doctrine of natural law codifies and authorizes the obligation stemming from justice to value social fellowship above all else.

Cicero believes that all human beings share in the faculty of reason, and therefore are equal in their capacity to grasp what is just and lawful. But it is obvious that all people are not equally rational, and therefore virtuous and law-abiding. Whatever equality human beings enjoy by birth is in effect eradicated by differences of circumstance, so that wisdom is ultimately achieved by a very few persons, and the multitude remain in a state of ignorance. The distinction between the wise and the foolish has important implications for the foundations of the republic. Since civil law, properly speaking, has a rational origin in "what is true and just," according to Cicero, only those statutes that are framed and approved by the wise should be counted as valid. Valid legislation, therefore, must be referred to reason in accordance with nature and justice. No enactment of the multitude, regardless of how overwhelming the popular support, deserves to be accorded respect and obedience unless it is consonant with natural law. And only the wise are qualified to make this determination.

Cicero therefore turns to the optimates (best men), in whose hands the security of government must reside. The well-ordered republic of Cicero's De re publica—the constitution most in conformity with nature—is the creation of individuals who apply wisdom to the art of politics. In turn, the ideal constitution is balanced and harmonious when the optimates (embodied by the senate of the republic) enjoy the influence appropriate to their superior learning. De re publica commends that stage in the growth of the republican system when "supreme authority was in the senate with the sufferance and obedience of the people"; and Cicero bemoans the popular grasping after power (in the name of liberty) that leads to the decline in the concord afforded by the republic.

Hence, the rational conception of the republic promotes a passive conception of citizenship as well as an exalted idea of statesmanship. While all human beings are deemed minimally rational, Cicero regards the powers of reason of most of them to be insufficient for sharing directly in the judgment of the common good. Rather, it is up to the statesman, with his wisdom and superior virtue, to serve the public welfare by pioneering and preserving just institutions. Given the distinction between the ignorance of the multitude and the wisdom of the virtuous few, a direct appeal by a statesman to the masses would almost certainly be an act of demagoguery or tyranny, an attempt to destabilize the order of the republic. There is a noticeable contrast between this idea of the rational statesman, who governs on behalf, not at the behest, of citizens, and the oratorical model, in which the statesman can only lead the citizen body by the force of his eloquence and must accede to the popular will.