[00:00:10] Josh Bowman: Welcome back to On Duties with the Ciceronian Society. We're reading through Cicero's De Officiis on Duties as part of this podcast. Please join us reading the Cambridge texts in the history of political thought linked to in the show notes. We'll be starting today on book two, chapter 35. Before we get there, though, as I so I am the Josh Bowman, Executive Director of the Ciceronean Society. I'm joined by Catherine Bradshaw of the Ancient Language Institute at Chris Anadale of Mount St. Mary's University. And the Ciceronean Society has an annual conference every year. In the spring, it'll be March 11th through the 13th at Regent University in Virginia Beach. Proposals are due really soon, on September 1st.
So if you want to try and get a paper accepted to be on one of our panels or send in a roundtable, author Meets critics, something like that, please send that in as soon as you can. We also have nominations for something called the Herbert Storing Prize. Please take a look at that as well.
And as I said in the last episode, you don't need to be a member of the Ciceronian Society to propose a paper or to attend. Anyone can propose a paper. Anyone can attend. We would love to have you there and these conversations can continue. You like to read Cicero?
Let's do it at the Ciceronean Society. All the people that you see on this podcast likely be at the conference in March. So, all right, we're going to go go ahead and get started with book two, chapter 35, and I'm going to kick it to Catherine to read through that.
All right.
[00:01:38] Katherine Bradshaw: Someone may be wondering why, although it is argued by all philosophers, and I myself have frequently argued it, that whoever has one virtue has them all, I now separate them, as if someone who has no sense could at the same time be just one degree of precision is required when truth herself is debated and refined, but another when speech is entirely adapted to common opinion. For this reason, we speak here just as ordinary men do, calling some men brave, others good, others sensible. For when we discuss popular opinion, we must use popular and familiar words in the very way that Panaetius did. But let us return to our subject.
[00:02:19] Josh Bowman: I don't have a lot to add here. I actually have a question mark because I'm a little confused here. I mean, I think there must be some kind of context where.
Well, I have a note here. It says the Stoics were charged with violating common usage as the famous Stoic paradoxes and their idea that external advantages were not goods. Cicero praises Panaetius for making concession to ordinary language and notions in Definibus.
I think he's just like, look, is he gonna be criticized for not being as precise? I mean, it's hard to imagine he's being as precise as he can be here. And he wants this to be accessible to Marcus, his son, and to others.
So, you know, I'm curious what he's defending himself against here, but, Chris, what do you think?
[00:03:06] Chris Anadale: I think this is just a brief aside on the doctrine of the unity of virtue, where he says, well, make sure he's just. And then try to get somebody who has good sense. Besides, he says, as though anybody who had no sense. Can you imagine? If I look at. Here's all the just people who could maybe rule the state.
Well, a couple of them are kind of dullards and idiots. That never happens, right? The virtues appear together, people progress in them together. So by the time you find a high degree of justice in someone, you should automatically expect to find good sense and intelligence and judgment in that same person.
So this is kind of a trivial point.
I like the way that he responds to it, which seems, again, very political in Cicero's way, as I was referring to in the last episode.
Going from being to attempting or willing to just being reputed to. When you're adapting your speech to the common masses, you have to make some concessions to the way in which the masses reason and feel and think and act. And that's all that I'm doing. So I take that to be both the problem he's trying to solve and his solution to it is to say, remember what we're talking about here? We're talking about the way that the people.
The people, not the scholars, not the intellectuals, not the excellent men, will assign their good faith, their goodwill, et cetera. And this is how it works. Catherine?
[00:04:29] Katherine Bradshaw: Yes, Chris, I'm right there with you. This is very much on the unity of the virtues.
And just to add a little bit, there's. There's also. As he's talking about.
Well, I'm. I'm talking about the everyday usage. I'm talking about the way that the common man speaks. There's also a little bit of a nod to. Well, but I'm also trying to differentiate between the virtues. And so if I say that they're all together, they're all going to be in this big snarl, and we won't be able to distinguish between them.
And I'm speaking of them in isolation, more for the sake of argument than for the sake of reality.
So that's. That's also what he's bringing into this discussion. I think Aristotle has a similar aside in I think it's the Ethics, and Plutarch also talks about this.
[00:05:31] Josh Bowman: All right, so we're thinking I should read chapters 36 to 38, correct, Chris?
[00:05:35] Chris Anadale: Yes, that's right. If you would. I know it's a long passage, but go for it.
[00:05:38] Josh Bowman: Stay with me, folks. Of the three things that related to glory, the third was that other men should judge us worthy of both their honor and their admiration. Just stop real quick there. If you go back to the past episode, this was the one that confused me. In particular.
In general, men admire everything they notice that is great and beyond their expectation. In particular, if they see in individuals any good things that take them by surprise.
Therefore they look up to and lavish great praise upon those men in whom they think they see outstanding and exceptional virtues. But they look down upon and despise those whom they think have no virtue, nor spirit, nor vigor. For they do not despise everyone of whom they think ill they do not despise those they think wicked, slanderous, deceitful, or equipped to commit injury. They certainly do, however, think ill of them.
Therefore, as I said before, those who are despised are the men who help not themselves nor another. As the saying goes, they have in them no industriousness, no diligence, no concern.
On the other hand, men are regarded with admiration if they are thought to excel others in virtue, not only being free from all dishonor, but also resisting even those vices that others cannot easily resist for pleasures themselves, these most alluring of mistresses twist the hearts of most men away from virtue and when the flames of pain are kindled, most men are frightened beyond measure. Both life and death, both riches and poverty, powerfully perturb all men.
But as for those who look down with a great and lofty spirit upon prosperity and adversity alike, especially when some grand and honorable matter is before before them, which converts them wholly to itself and possesses them. Who then will fail to admire the splendor and beauty of virtue. Therefore a spirit contemptuous in this way arouses great admiration, and justice most of all seems something admirable to the crowd on account of that virtue alone are men called good, and not unjustly for no one can be just if he fears death, or pain, or exile, or need, or if he prefers their opposites to fairness. Men whom money does not move are also more greatly admired. If that quality is observed in someone, they regard him as having been tested by fire.
To sum up then the three things which I laid down as means to glory are all achieved by goodwill, because it desires to benefit many, and for the same reason, faithfulness and admiration, because it scorns and ignores the very things towards which most men inflamed by greed are dragged.
[00:08:17] Chris Anadale: Thank you, Josh.
My comment here. This is a great summary of Cicero's view of things, A great praise of virtue. And I might even put this passage alongside passages from Machiavelli or some other modern thinker who encourages us to think otherwise about the people.
He notes here, in general, people admire anything that is great and beyond their expectations. So something that is excellent or that is surprising.
It seems to suggest here that we despise people.
Who they think have no virtue, spirit or vigor, but they do not despise those they think wicked, slanderous or deceitful. So in a sense, I don't despise the thief for being a thief, but I would despise a good man for falling short of being as virtuous as he could, for lacking the virtue that a person in his position ought to have.
And then again, some descriptions here of the way that the people behave and assign their loyalty and their admiration. They admire the spirit that is lofty and contemptuous of wealth. We talked about way back in book one about this sort of contemptio that one has for the goods. Ah, these, they're nothing to me. Right. And that we say, wow, Cicero here making some, I think some pretty bold general claims about human nature which we might say perhaps describe only human nature sort of in its good manifestations or better, under the better angels of our nature, rather than sort of, you know, pinched and greedy and self interested.
But that this is the way that one achieves glory, by being just, by acquiring goodwill, by sort of being worthy of the honor that the people will naturally give to people they observe to be just and sort of noble in spirit.
[00:10:20] Katherine Bradshaw: Yes, and there's a question here between the difference between the people that are despised and the people that are just thought ill of.
And I think the distinction here is largely due to spiritual, as Cicero says. So if, because he says they, they. They think they despise people who help not themselves nor another. So it's the people who are incompetent at whatever their thing is, even if their thing is a form of vice.
I think that we, if we think of the comparable, a comparable example for us is the popularity of heist movies amongst us that these are generally thieves, they are not generally good people.
However, they are spirited and they are Going against something that is considered worse based on what the filmmaker is setting up as the moral standard.
And therefore they are spirited people. Often heist movies also have this like, Robin Hood effect where it's like, I'm not just doing it because I want the money, I do want the money, but I also want to, like, rectify something or get revenge for something, or make some sort of injustice. Right.
And so there is that contempt for something that is considered a big deal.
And therefore these people who are not good people are admired in the film.
And so that same idea, the contempt for, Cicero says, not just for wealth and. But also for pleasures, for even outside honor. Up to a point that this gets to Aristotle's magnanimous man, like the man of the great man, the great souled man who wants honor because he knows he deserves it, but he doesn't care about honor because he's above that.
And so there's that balance.
[00:12:29] Josh Bowman: Yeah.
I don't want to belabor this too much because it's a summary of what we've already talked about to a point, but I couldn't help but think of not only Machiavelli responding to this clearly, directly, but also the American founders.
This is the ethos, the vibe in which they swim, if you will.
Where, again, George Washington is someone who certainly comes to mind here. He's famous for.
For those who look down with a great and lofty spirit upon prosperity and adversity alike. He's not.
I mean, he's not like an emotionless person. I mean, he does prosper. He doesn't die poor.
Not like Jefferson, who dies in all that debt. But there's something admirable about that. But, you know, again, there's more than a little of me that asks the Coral Neil question, because he's not here is. Is Cicero right here in the sense that. Okay, well, that doesn't motivate them, which, again, I share the admiration for someone who's not in it for the money, the fame, fortune, and physical pleasure.
But what is motivating them? I want to know, is it just a sense of self importance, self righteousness? Because there are certainly people who.
Here's what I would say. I can imagine someone being motivated ideologically to do something not out of a. With. With no eye toward wealth or even caring about what adversity they face and doing something horrible in the process. Right? So there is, there, there's.
There's. There's a piece missing here that I don't think Cicero appreciates. And maybe it's a It's a time thing, and I'm being anachronistic, but I think there is a sense in which you could imagine someone that Cicero is describing not doing good things. Right. You can imagine someone like George Washington, but not doing very George Washington y things, to put it that way.
[00:14:28] Chris Anadale: Okay, thank you, Josh. The next read, next turn to read is mine and I will read chapters 39 and 40 for Catherine to comment on. First, in my opinion at least, every rational method or plan of life requires the assistance of other men, first of all so that one has others with whom one can share in friendly discussions.
That is difficult if you do not present the appearance of a good man. The reputation for justice is necessary also, even for a solitary man or one who lives his life in the country. And all the more so because if they do not have it, having no defense at all to protect them, they will have many injustices inflicted upon them.
Justice is necessary also so that they may carry out their business for those who sell or buy, who hire or let, and who are involved in commercial transactions in general, its effect is so great that not even those who win their bread from evil doing and crime are able to live without any particle of justice. For if anyone steals or snatches something from one of his fellows in banditry, he leaves no place for himself even within the gang of bandits. And if the one called the pirate chief does not share the booty fairly, he will be killed or abandoned by his comrades.
Indeed, they say that there are even laws among bandits which they obey and respect.
And so it was because of his fair distribution of booty that Bardulius, the Illyrian bandit, of whom we hear in Theopompus, had great influence and. And Viriathus and Lusitanian much greater.
Indeed, our own generals and their armies surrendered to the latter. It was Laelius, the one nicknamed the wise, who as praetor, broke and crushed them, crushed him, repressing his ferocity to such an extent that he left an easy war to his successors.
Justice has such great effect that it strengthens and increases the resources even of bandits.
How great an effect then do we think it will have among laws and law courts and in a well ordered political community?
[00:16:45] Katherine Bradshaw: Well, here we have Cicero doing the. The. From the lesser to the greater thing. Again, where he is saying even bandits, you know, he. Earlier, earlier he said even actors will hear. Even bandits have a sense of justice that they have to follow.
And if they don't follow it, bad things happen to them.
So the idea of no honor among thieves is not is not something that Cicero is going to offer us.
He's even pointing to.
And the word for bandit here is just like anybody who's outside of the normal category. So he's not a criminal.
So he's not not.
He doesn't merit the process of, okay, charging and all of that.
He's also not a.
A declared enemy of the state like another country, so we don't have to follow the rules of war. Bandits are way outside any of the boundaries and they're the ones that you can break faith with them, you can kill them on site, it doesn't matter. They're menaces to society and just should be dealt with in whatever way is necessary. Even these guys have a sense of justice that they have to follow. And they have legates, they have laws that they must obey.
So how much more so good men, men who are in a society, hopefully for Cicero, a high trust society where you have the mores in place.
[00:18:28] Josh Bowman: St. Augustine brings this up specifically, doesn't it? The whole honor among thieves. Is that St. Augustine or is that Plato?
[00:18:34] Chris Anadale: Plato talks about it in book two of Republic.
[00:18:37] Josh Bowman: Okay, yeah. And I still feel like Augustine may bring it up too, but no one quote me on that. Y' all can put it in the comments. Josh is an idiot. Go back and do your reading.
But I'll just comment on this passage saying that this is another great example of Cicero's kind of indirect appeal to natural law. It's like it's so.
It's such a part in natural justice. It's so much a part of the human life that even when you decide to set. Decide to set yourself against.
In a way, you've decided to set yourself against justice to a point, you still end up following it. Right. The, the cartel, the, the. The. The system of drug dealers or something. The drug distribution system. What do you want to call it? Gang? I don't know. They have.
I've never been part of one, so I don't really know what the word would be. But whatever they do, they have to have rules in a way. They have to have certain expectations and a sense in which they expect to be. I don't know if treated fairly is the. The idea, but there is a way in which there's an order to it. Right.
This brings to mind kind of the opposite, kind of a weird play against this idea. In, remember the Dark. In the Dark Knight movies, the character of Joker is playing off essentially the insanity of many of his henchmen, where essentially they're not.
There is no, like the Order is that he lies to all of them and gets what he wants each time.
They're not necessarily acting rationally in that respect. So again, that's a rabbit trail we do not need to go on. But I'm thinking that I'm always thinking of the exception to a point where Cicero is painting this rosy picture or this a simple thing that I otherwise agree with. But it's always more complicated Cicero, or at least it seems to be more complicated than what you're suggesting from the point of view that you're at.
So, yeah, I thought about that. I mean, Cicero is so big into this natural law. It's like, look, stop trying to deny these things their reality, because just look at even how bad people act. Like the people who say they're rebelling against natural law are often following natural law of some kind or conceding something to it.
And I think that's an interesting piece of this.
[00:21:05] Chris Anadale: Yes, I agree. And I think a couple of interesting observations here in chapter 39, he does you come across this thing, your Machiavelli antenna start tingling from a way one must have the appearance of justice. At least that's a separate thing from justice.
And also the solitary man needs to have a reputation for justice, otherwise he'll be the victim of injustices. I would love to have had more on those very topics because those are the ones where I think our modern sensibilities might differ most. I might even be inclined to say the solitary person is sort of beyond justice. He's either a beast or a God, as Aristotle says.
So I'm curious about just why he thinks that a person in the country needs at least the reputation for justice in order to remain free and not be the victim of injustice.
And then again, just sort of the great that can see Cicero, the orator, in this final paragraph of chapter 40, justice strengthens and increases the resources even of bandits, even of the people, the farthest outside of civilized life. How much more so then when we bring it into private life and then public life and then the law courts and the Senate, will justice strengthen and increase our resources?
And again, sort of make a certain allowance for a rhetorician kind of, you know, giving a real stem winder of a speech.
We might ask, you know, how true is it? But we've raised that question many times now.
I'd like to move on, if we could, to chapters 41 and 42. Catherine, may I ask you to read those for Josh's comment?
[00:22:45] Katherine Bradshaw: Of course.
It seems to me that it was not only among the medes as Herodotus tells us, but also among our ancestors, that once upon a time men of good character were established as kings in order that justice might be enjoyed. For when the needy masses were being oppressed by those who had greater wealth, they fled together to some one man who excelled in virtue. When he protected the weaker from injustice, fairness was established and he held the highest and lowest under an equality of justice. The establishment of laws and the institutions of kings had the same cause For a system of justice that is fair is what has always been sought. Otherwise it would not be justice.
As long as they secured this from a single just and good man, with that they were content when it ceased to be so. Laws were invented which always spoke to everyone with one and the same voice.
This, therefore is manifest. The men who are usually chosen to rule are those who have a great reputation among the masses for justice. If, in addition, indeed, they were thought also to be men of good sense, there was nothing that men would think they could not achieve under their leadership.
Therefore, justice must be cultivated and maintained by every method, both for its own sake, for otherwise it would not be justice. And for the sake of enhancing one's honor and glory. There is a rational method, both of seeking money and of investing it, which ensures a continuous supply, not merely of necessary, but even of liberal expenditure. In a similar way, then, glory must be both sought and invested methodically.
[00:24:26] Josh Bowman: So this is a rich passage of political philosophy that he's drawing extensively from Plato, as far as I can tell.
Right. This is the sense in which an oligarchy essentially leads to monarchy or something like that. Whereas it's the breakdown of the ruling classes, not taking care of the masses leads them into the arms of a Caesar.
[00:24:49] Chris Anadale: Right.
[00:24:50] Josh Bowman: To put it that way, I think this is insightful. I think there is a sense in which Plato pioneered this whole idea anyway, was that there's a tendency to gravitate toward one person who has this reputation as the glory and the honor, apparently from people who think like, look, if we all just follow him, we're going to be okay.
This mess that we're in is going to be made better if we follow him. I mean, this is the story, of course, in the Old Testament in. Is it second kings? Where does. I can't. No, it's First Samuel, where essentially the people of Israel say, we want a king like the other nations.
Now, I think there's some.
Why are they feeling this way? In many ways, not only have they rejected God as king, but do they see the person of a king as being capable of solving all their problems. The prophet Samuel is not enough.
And they choose, or at least God chooses Saul to do this. And they follow him under that notion. But also there is a sense in which cultivate. Is Cicero saying that cultivating this much virtue, maybe you're the one in that position to savor everybody if the situation arises.
Yeah, so he says. But I did right here, he said when he says, this therefore is manifest. The men who are usually chosen to rule are those who have a great reputation among the masses for justice. Gosh, if only that were true.
But in some ways it is true because they have a reputation, whether it's real or not. And he's going to talk about that in a second. Is another matter that that reputation for justice is what gets you chosen.
This person's most likely to do the right thing.
If you've cultivated that image, then you are going to be chosen to rule and maybe as one person rather than aristocracy or something like that.
[00:26:54] Chris Anadale: Right. I think a lot of what's going on here as well fits in with the cult of the founder or of the founding fathers of George Washington. George Washington elected president by acclamation. Right.
Unanimous vote.
Why? Because of his great reputation for justice, because of his superior virtue. Because people say if we can trust anybody, we can trust him and the laws that he gives us will be good laws. Right. So there's a little bit here suggestion that there's sort of the personal rule by the virtuous person and when he goes away, when you no longer have trust in virtuous leaders, then you have laws. Not sure that's either historically or sort of philosophically accurate, but it does seem very much in line with book eight of Plato's Republic that the character of the person and the character of the ruler and the quality of the regime are going to rise and fall together. So that we admire a Solan, we revere a Solon, a Lycurgus, a Washington, precisely because of that. And he does helpfully identify it's because of the reputation for justice, because we expect, we place faith in right, we give glory to this person.
Therefore, interesting sort of philosophical political fence straddling here. One should seek justice, cultivate justice by every method for its own sake, because that's what justice is. You have to appreciate it as a non instrumental good and also for the sake of enhancing one's honor and glory. There's the Roman element, right. So it's not just theoretical, also practical. So for its own sake, and also because it increases your honor and glory and you can have it all because you're a Roman. You know, the Imperium is ours and we rule the world.
And the comparison to the investment of money. Right, you invest money so that you can have both what is necessary and what liberality makes possible.
[00:28:55] Katherine Bradshaw: Yes.
There are so many threads in this one.
Your point, Chris, about the historical accuracy of like maybe, maybe Cicero is stretching the point a little bit.
This gets us into kind of the murky territory of Roman foundation myths.
Because there was a. There was a sizable enough school of thought that tended to say, well, the legends we have about our founding as Romans might or might not be accurate.
Because you have Livy, who's a bit after Cicero, but is reflecting this perspective. Who says, I'm gonna write this history. The first part is going to be all the foundation stories we have. Whether or not they happen or not, I don't know, I'm just gonna put them here and you do with them what you want.
So there.
Because if, if Cicero is thinking that, that Romulus actually was real, he's in a bit of a conundrum here because Romulus very, very famously was not a just ruler. Romulus killed his twin brother Remus over the kingdom. Romulus stole wives from the neighboring tribe for his men.
Not a just ruler. And yet the first king of Rome, supposedly.
So Cicero, being a philosopher, is, is diverging from the legendary history of Rome and saying, no, in reality it must have been that they were actually chosen for their justice.
Because he's, he's referring when he says, as Herodotus tells us. There's this story in Herodotus about a, a chieftain of an area who wanted more power. And he gained more power because he was the most just citizen of his tribe.
And so his tribe made him ruler of the tribe because he was so just. And then he, he gained such a reputation for his just decisions that other tribes made him their ruler. And he had no interest in justice at all as a non instrumental good. According to Herodotus, he just wanted power. And so he knew that the way to get power was by exercising justice. And there you are.
Herodotus is very cynical sometimes.
So Cicero is pulling this tradition down to Rome and saying, no, this must have been what actually happened for us as well.
[00:31:34] Chris Anadale: Very good.
Any final thoughts on the material from this episode?
[00:31:42] Josh Bowman: I'm good.
I'm enjoying this. I mean, we're going to get to. When we start our next episode, the next chapter kind of gets to a question that keeps coming up. Is this distinction between seeming to be just and whether or not we are just. But I would just encourage our listeners, our viewers to just reflect on how this speaks to our time in a way that is strangely prescient in many ways. I mean, that's why Cicero has survived in the ways he has these tendencies. These questions are not, they're not dead. Neither is Latin, by the way.
And so there is a sense in which you could read this and have many conversations about what life is, what life is like. And I just want to encourage you all to read beyond on duties as well, things. But we'll have to come back to that some other time. But thank you so much. This has been a great episode.
[00:32:40] Chris Anadale: Final thoughts. Catherine, anything?
[00:32:42] Katherine Bradshaw: Well, I, I would, I would concur with Josh on the, the relevance of, of Cicero at all times.
I mean, there's, there's a reason why he gets assigned in the early modern period and is so, so in. In schools and is so influential.
And I think for many of the times when we're saying, well, but is he right?
There's a moment when we can say, okay, yeah, maybe I'll quibble with the application here or there, but Cicero is looking at broader principles here often.
And so is there a way in which, yes, I might quibble with the application or maybe the historical example he uses, but is the principle the thing that he's aiming at? Yes. And what do I get out of that principle? And I think that's a better way to read it, and it's the way that traditionally Cicero has been read as well.
[00:33:45] Chris Anadale: If I were going to add a final thought to that, I'd say that I think the theme of these recent chapters is the absolute necessity of justice. You have to have justice. Justice is necessary for bandits, it's necessary for kings, it's necessary for private people who buy and sell. It's necessary for the solitary person.
Everybody needs justice. And so to try to imagine a state or a regime or a successful individual or a happy life without justice, it's absurd. And so I think the kind of educational, sort of hortatory push of a lot of this rhetoric is to try to impress upon young Marcus and upon us that there's never a time in which you set justice aside to do what's necessary. Now, justice is the foundation upon which you do everything which is necessary. That's win or lose. And Cicero's had victories and losses in his recent past when he's writing this.
[00:34:40] Josh Bowman: And I just said one real quick thing. And when you say it that way, too, it brings to mind Augustine's critique of Cicero, which is going to happen, and saying, look, yeah, it all does come down to justice, but Cicero, you've had it incomplete all this time.
Christianity fixes that, right, at least according to Augustine. That's a different podcast, of course, but let's definitely leave it at that. Augustine would have something to say to that summary of Cicero.
[00:35:06] Chris Anadale: Absolutely. I appreciate that. Thank you. Josh, you have been listening to this episode of the Cicero on Duties podcast with the scholars of the Ciceronean Society. I'm Chris Anadale. Joining me this week have been Catherine Bradshaw of the Ancient Language Institute and Josh Bowman, executive director of the Ciceronean Society. We hope you'll explore more of our programming, including our other podcasts, the Sower, and our conferences and other programs going on at our by checking out our
[email protected] thank you for listening today. Goodbye.
