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When Kings Become Philosophers: the Late Republican Origins of Cicero’S Political Philosophy

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When Kings Become Philosophers: the Late Republican Origins of Cicero’S Political Philosophy When Kings Become Philosophers: The Late Republican Origins of Cicero’s Political Philosophy By Gregory Douglas Smay A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Erich S. Gruen, Chair Professor Carlos F. Noreña Professor Anthony A. Long Summer 2016 © Copyright by Gregory Douglas Smay 2016 All Rights Reserved Abstract When Kings Become Philosophers: The Late Republican Origins of Cicero’s Political Philosophy by Gregory Douglas Smay Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology University of California, Berkeley Professor Erich S. Gruen, Chair This dissertation argues that Cicero’s de Republica is both a reflection of, and a commentary on, the era in which it was written to a degree not previously recognized in Ciceronian scholarship. Contra readings which treat the work primarily as a theoretical tract in the tradition of late Hellenistic philosophy, this study situates the work within its historical context in Late Republican Rome, and in particular within the personal experience of its author during this tumultuous period. This approach yields new insights into both the meaning and significance of the work and the outlook of the individual who is our single most important witness to the history of the last decades of the Roman Republic. Specifically, the dissertation argues that Cicero provides clues preserved in the extant portions of the de Republica, overlooked by modern students in the past bur clearly recognizable to readers in his own day, indicating that it was meant to be read as a work with important contemporary political resonances. Among those which are still traceable in the mangled palimpsest which is our only source for the majority of the treatise are comments on the proper apportionment of authority and governmental responsibility among senate, magistrates and populus that grew out of Cicero’s handling of the Catilinarian conspiracy and its aftermath, and reflections on the importance of political engagement, even under the adverse circumstances of the First Triumvirate, which were heavily influenced by Cicero’s own political travails in the late 60s and 50s B.C. As such, the de Republica represents a novel kind of literature within the Roman tradition. Living in an elite culture that privileged political action, yet unable to act politically in traditional ways under the constraints imposed by his enforced alliance with the triumvirs, Cicero attempted to forge a new kind of statesmanship, one carried out through the medium of the written word. The de Republica is thus written as a political act, a thoughtful response to contemporary conditions written by an intelligent commentator who, unable any longer to steer the ship of state by conventional means, was seeking a new way of exerting an influence on the course of events. 1 WHEN KINGS BECOME PHILOSOPHERS: THE LATE REPUBLICAN ORIGINS OF CICERO’S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY CONTENTS Contents i Acknowledgements iii 1. Introduction 1 2. The De Republica 11 Statesmanship, Philosophy and the Sources of Ethical 13 and Political Knowledge Shouting in Corners 18 Questions of Identification 28 Cicero as Author 31 Conclusions 37 3. Cicero’s Annus Mirabilis 38 Cicero and His Consulship 39 Creating the Legacy of 63 44 Conclusions 55 4. The Bona Dea Scandal 57 The Mixed Constitution in Greek Political Thought 57 Cicero’s Mixed Constitution 62 Auctoritas Senatus and the Bona Dea Scandal 75 Conclusions 92 5. The Preface to the de Republica and the Question of Political 94 Participation The Fish Fanciers 96 Cicero and the Knights 100 Cicero and Pompey 104 Conclusions 109 i 6. Exile, Return and the Triumvirate 112 Otium and Negotium 114 The Pro Archia 117 De Consulatu Suo and the Perils of Self-Praise 119 The Triumvirate and its Discontents 123 Exile and Accommodation 133 The Composition of the de Republica and Political 136 Self-Fashioning The de Republica as a Political Act 143 7. Conclusion 150 Bibliography 154 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author of a dissertation owes a debt not only to those who assisted in the production of the manuscript, but to everyone who contributed to his evolution as a scholar, and I therefore offer my thanks to all of my teachers, colleagues and friends who have helped me, in ways large and small, to get where I am today. Some names however naturally stand out, I would like to acknowledge them particularly. Foremost among these is Erich Gruen. I came to Berkeley very largely because of the reputation he has established over decades not only as an historian, but also as a mentor without equal, yet even so I have been impressed again and again over the years by the depth of his commitment to his students, and especially to myself. Although notoriously unsparing, his critiques have always been fair, always constructive, and even occasionally tempered with a hint of approval. They have not only played a key role in sharpening up this study, but have also contributed inestimably to my growth as a scholar. Thank you Erich. Several other members of the AHMA/Classics community also deserve special thanks. Carlos Noreña, Tony Long, Chris Hallett and Ron Stroud have all been not only outstanding teachers, but extraordinarily unstinting with their time. Thanks are also owed to the members of both Erich and Carlos’ dissertation groups for all of the valuable feedback. The road to a doctoral degree is a long one, and I received a great deal of help even before I got to Berkeley. I’m grateful to all of the Classics faculty at UC Santa Barbara, where I received my M.A., and especially to Robert Morstein-Marx and John Lee. The direction that my educational career ultimately took also owes much to the advice and guidance of early mentors Dana Sutton and Gregory Bucher. And finally, for contributions too numerous and varied to describe, my wife Jessica and my parents, without whose loving support I could not possibly have come to the end of this long journey. iii INTRODUCTION It has been the fate of many works of ancient literature to be read avidly in one era and neglected in the next, rising and falling in the esteem of scholars and others as they excite the interest or arouse the indignation of the times. Few ancient corpora however have had the meteoric career of Cicero's philosophical works. Although we know all too little about their reception in antiquity there is evidence that some at least were highly regarded1. The treatises were studied throughout the Middle Ages, revered by Renaissance humanists, and reached the pinnacle of their influence in the Enlightenment2. By the nineteenth century however a rapid decline in Cicero's prestige had set in; thinkers with views as widely divergent as Marx and Mommsen denounced Cicero as unoriginal, unimaginative and even unlearned. The early twentieth century was no kinder; Syme was convinced that in his own time Cicero’s de Republica had gotten altogether too much attention3, and as recently as 1983 Finley was able to echo Mommsen’s judgments on Cicero’s philosophical output as a whole4. More telling still was the simple lack of interest in these works on the part of most scholars until the 1980s, and the instinctive defensiveness of those who did venture to touch them. Nearly all conceded that the objects of their study were basically derivative, and having done so these brave few were forced to justify their projects on grounds other than the intrinsic worth of Cicero’s philosophical thinking. Such grounds could of course be found. Indeed, the belief that Cicero was little more than a translator of more original Greek thinkers (a belief given a certain credence by Cicero’s remark in a letter to Atticus referring to his own writings as απογραφα5), seemed to justify mining the treatises to recreate the lost works and doctrines of the Greeks whom Cicero was supposedly transcribing. The desire on the part of students of the Hellenistic philosophical schools to fill out their fragments with fully preserved arguments no doubt went some way towards strengthening the conviction that Cicero had acted as a simple conduit for the preservation of Hellenistic thinkers, and much ink was spilled attempting to link Ciceronian works with earlier Greek philosophers. However, while there is a general agreement in a few cases, as for example on Cicero’s extensive use of Panaetius in de Officiis6, for the most part no consensus has emerged as to whose 1 Powell (1995), 5. 2 Wood (1988), 2-6. 3 Syme (1939), 144. 4 Finley (1983), 128. 5 Att. 12.52. The meaning of the passage has always been somewhat obscure however, and few scholars recently have taken seriously the suggestion that it was meant as a genuine renunciation of creative input throughout the entire philosophical corpus. See especially Douglas A.E. in Dorey (1965) 138; Powell (1995), 8-9 and n. 20. 6 For Off. 1-2 we know this from Cicero himself: see Att. 16.11.4. Exactly how closely he follows his source is still a matter of dispute. For a typical view see Dyke (1996) 1-29; Cicero is allowed more creative input in Long, A.A. (1995), 221-4. 1 works Cicero had been following7. Historians too found uses for the treatises, albeit limited ones. Largely in the service of source criticism, intellectual historians have of course combed them for clues as to when and where a given work was composed, what Cicero had been reading at the time, and with whom he might have been discoursing on matters philosophical.
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