Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Chris Anadale: Welcome to another episode of Cicero on Duties, a podcast of the Ciceronian Society. We're reading through all of De officiis with some of the scholars of the Ciceronian Society. I'm Chris Anadale, and joining me this week are some of our regular co hosts, Catherine Bradshaw, Ethan Alexander, Davy Coyle Neal, and Ben Peterson. Really glad to have all four of you here with me today.
We are getting at the end today of book two of On Duties. We're going to begin with chapter 80. Coyle, may I ask you to read first chapters 80 through 82? And Ben, you take first comment, then we'll just go around the circle.
[00:00:52] Coyle Neal: Now. It was on account of injustice of this kind that the Spartans expelled the Ephor Lysander and put to death the king Aegis. So something that had never happened before among them. From then on, such great dissensions ensued that tyrants rose up. The optimates were exiled, and a political community that had been splendidly organized began to crumble. Nor did it fall alone, for it overturned the rest of Greece too, by the contamination of its evils. It began among the Spartans and spread widely. What should I say of our own Gracchi, the sons of that excellent man Tiberius Gracchus, the grandson of Africanus? Was it not agrarian strife that destroyed them?
Radis of Sicyon, on the other hand, is justly praised. When his city had been held by tyrants for 50 years, he set out from Argos to Sicyon, entered the town secretly and took possession of it. He overwhelmed the tyrant Nicoles, taking him unawares. He restored 600 exiles who had been the wealthiest men in the city, and he liberated the political community by his coming.
Then, however, he turned his attention to the great problem of their property and its occupancy. On the one hand, he considered it most unfair that those whom he had restored, whose property others were occupying, should be deprived.
And on the other, he thought it by no means fair to displace those who had been in occupancy for 50 years, because after so long a stretch of time, much of it was held as a result of inheritance. Much had been bought and much had been given as a dowry, all without injustice. Therefore, he judged that he ought neither to deprive the one group nor fail to compensate those whose property it had been.
Consequently, when he had decided that it that what was needed to settle the affair was money, he told them that he wanted to journey to Alexandria and ordered that the matter be left untouched until his return.
He went swiftly to his friend Ptolemy, who was then reigning as second in line after the foundation of Alexandria, explaining to him that he wanted to liberate his country, and telling him that his reasons, that excellent man found it easy to obtain from the wealthy king the assistance of a large sum of money. He brought this back to Sicyon and then took into council with him 15 leading men. With them he looked into the cases, both of those who were holding other people's land and of those who had lost their own after valuing their occupancies. He succeeded in persuading some that they would rather accept money and give up their occupancy. Others to think it more advantage contagious to be allowed so much than to recover their property. In this way he brought it about that peace was established and they all left without a quarrel.
[00:03:10] Ben Peterson: So this is a really interesting section on, you know, I think the, at the beginning, the kind of injustice he's talking about is, you know, Robin Hood kind of injustice, right? Like take from the rich, give to the poor, you know, land and wealth redistribution, this kind of thing. And he's talking about the problem that undermines the foundations of property and the security of property and the well being of the community.
But it's an interesting situation that he brings up that Aratus solves, right, because there are, he says, on the one hand, you know, the group that's lost their property has a claim, but on the one hand the people who are now enjoying the property have a claim also. And you can't just expropriate either one of them or you can't just take the property from either one of them. And I mean, I think we can think of situations where this has been a problem. I mean, what came to my mind as I was reading this was, you know, a part of the long standing conflict in Israel, Palestine, right. Involves property and land and multiple people have claims to it, right. For various different reasons. So it's interesting to see this kind of very concrete situation and his example of how someone prudently tries to solve it.
[00:04:26] Katherine Bradshaw: Yes, the, the.
It's interesting that there's only one example that Cicero points to of, of it actually getting solved.
And there's several examples of it being attempted to be solved in a poor way. Of course, the most famous is the Gracchi that they, they're the ones who propose the agrarian laws, which is a nice term for just mostly debt cancellation and property redistribution.
And Cicero keeps coming back to them mostly because they're sort of the point that a lot of people tend to look to and say this is when the Republic really started to go downhill, because it's the first time we see openly conducted political violence in order to solve a policy issue.
And nothing really happens within living memory for the Republic. There's examples of this from, like, the very early legendary eras of the Repub. But it's so long ago that nobody remembers.
And so this is such a big thing in Cicero's mind and in. In on duties, because it's such a break with tradition, both because Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus break with tradition themselves, and also because the way that their policy is addressed also breaks with tradition and order.
And so there's way fewer positive examples for Cicero to point to than negative ones.
[00:05:55] Chris Anadale: Yeah, it's heartening to have a good example to say this succeeded at least once. And I'll just note, for those of us trying to take instruction and apply to our own times, he praises Aratus for two things. One, for being able to pause the whole issue, freeze it in place, while he goes to his wealthy royal friend to get a significant amount of money to be able to set this. This reminds us again, the application of a huge quantity of money can smooth out and allow for the settlement of some conflicts which may seem intractable otherwise. And second, the thing that seems actually even more impossible than having a wealthy king friend is he just succeeded in persuading some people to give up their claims to land. And it's almost impossible to imagine, say, in Israel and Palestine, somebody to do something like that must have been a man of immense virtue, respect, and rhetorical power to come not only with of money and say, wouldn't you rather no longer live on your ancestral land, but instead take this? So he passes over that quite quickly. But this is meant, I think, to hearten us and to remind us that this can be done and has been done. He is called at the very start of the next chapter, oh, great man.
We should have men like that among us today. So it's an ideal, but it's an ideal from history, not from impossible idealized utopian supposition.
[00:07:28] Ethan Alexander-Davey: I would just add that, as has been mentioned already, part of the solution in this case involved payments and money in exchange for giving up an estate.
I think it's important to bear in mind that we're talking about a kind of property that doesn't exist for most people today, right? So it's mentioned that many of these estates were received as an inheritance or had been occupied for 50 years when the redistribution came along.
So we're not talking about liquid assets like money in a bank account or stocks, but land, land that was inherited from your ancestors. So think of these Roman gentlemen on their estates, which they've inherited from their ancestors, with those busts of their ancestors right there and all the memories of a place. So it's not just property with a monetary value, but it's more of a place, a home.
And that is what is being taken away in these redistributions. And that explains to a greater degree the resentment that's involved in that kind of redistribution. It's like taking away someone's homeland in a way, maybe not quite to the same extreme as the sacred places that the Israelis and the Palestinians fight over, but something perhaps approaching that.
And so when property is more than just a monetary.
More than something of monetary value, but something that is part of who a person is, we see how disruptive that such confiscations can be.
[00:09:19] Coyle Neal: Yeah. Wendell Berry passed away the week that we're recording this. And while you were talking, I did think, what would he have thought of that particular compromise? Right. Giving up your ancestral land for. Well, for money is the wrong way to put it. You're giving it up for peace. Right. At this point, you haven't possessed the ancestral land in decades. And what would sort of jump out at me. And maybe you guys talked about this in the, in the previous section, but the. Cicero is drawing the obvious connection between private property and justice and the, the need to reconcile the problems that arise out of that through compromise, which is. Which is where the. The GRA had failed. Right. And. And again, he. He goes into that elsewhere. But it, it's the. The GRA had proposed a solution that the Senate did not want to compromise on, and that leads to the violence that leads to the problems. Whether it was the right solution or not, in one sense, it doesn't matter, because as soon as you say we're not going to compromise, then everything falls apart. And that might be why there's only, like Catherine, like you pointed out, why there's only the one example. I mean, how often are people willing to step back and say, yes, okay, I will accept this other thing. I will compromise on this family land for the sake of peace. That's a hard thing to do. That's a very hard thing to do.
[00:10:37] Chris Anadale: All right, thank you very much. We'll turn next to chapters 83 and 84. Ben, may I ask you to read those for Catherine's leadoff comment?
[00:10:48] Ben Peterson: Certainly.
Oh, great man, worthy to have been born in our republic, for that is the appropriate way to deal with citizens and not as we have twice seen, to plant the spear in the forum and to submit a citizen's goods to the cry of the auctioneer.
The Greek, as a wise and outstanding man, thought that he should consult the interests of all. And it showed the wisdom and extreme reasonableness that befits a good citizen, that he did not dissever the interests of the citizens, but held everyone together under a single standard of fairness.
Let them live free in another's house.
[00:11:26] Ethan Alexander-Davey: But why?
[00:11:26] Ben Peterson: So that when I have bought it, have built it, and am now looking after it, and spending money on it, you can, against my will, enjoy what is mine.
What else is that but to snatch what is theirs from some and to give to others what belongs to another?
Again, what is the point of wiping slates clean, unless it is that you can take my money in order to buy a farm, which you will have, while I no longer have my money.
For that reason, provision must be made to avoid any debt that may harm the political community. There are many methods of guarding against this. But if it does occur, do not let the rich lose that which is theirs, while the debtors profit at others expense. For there is nothing that holds together a political community more powerfully than good faith, and that cannot exist unless the paying of debts is enforced.
Efforts to prevent repayment were never more vigorous than they were in my consulship. Every type and rank of men ventured such things by means of arms and military camps, but I so resisted them that all such evil was removed from the republic. Indebtedness was never greater, but it was never better nor more easily discharged. For once the hope of defrauding had been taken away, the necessity to settle followed immediately. And indeed the man who was now the victor but had been among the vanquished actually achieved, when now it had made no difference to him. The things that he had contemplated, when it would have affected him, for he had so great a desire to do wrong that the very doing of wrong delighted him, even if there were no cause for it.
[00:13:06] Katherine Bradshaw: Here Cicero gets to not just he's going back to that foundation of like, how do you. How do you create a state that works? How do you maintain a state that works? And just going back to the part where he says, nothing is going to allow the community to continue, but good faith, and good faith has to be propped up by actually paying debts.
So if, If I can have. If one person, if Peter can have his debts canceled at any point because that he owes to Paul, but now Paul doesn't get his money, now we're in trouble and there's no, there's no incentive to lend money, there's no incentive to bring forward to put oneself in a situation like we were talking about a couple, a couple of episodes ago, where the, the favors are done. And the patron client network works. That doesn't work if debts are canceled. Not because the patron client network is a policy network, it's not a government network, it's a personal network. But when you destroy the legal ramifications of breaking a contract, which is basically what he's talking about, then you destroy the interpersonal need for good faith also because, or the expectation of good faith from someone else. Because if there's no punishment for breaking a contract, then how do I know that my client is going to fulfill his part of the bargain? Or how do I know my patron is going to fulfill this part of the bargain? Because there's no law. And the law is a teacher. The law teaches us at least partially what is good and bad. And so if the law says it's okay to cheat your fellow citizen, then what's to prevent someone to do it when there's no legal ramifications?
[00:15:07] Chris Anadale: Thinking about this passage, of course, the obvious parallel in our own time is the student debt crisis and the various means that have been taken sort of legal and then maybe kind of semi legal or dodgy to sometimes resulting in court cases to try to relieve the debt, the debt, which is a really heavy burden, a life changing burden for a lot of people. And I'm thinking in our own time, sometimes the debate is sometimes cashed out in terms of opposition, in terms of fairness. But it seems like Cicero's not talking about fairness here, about I paid my debts, you should pay yours. It's that the entire edifice of justice and the property that justice protects, it depends upon the virtue of the community. And the virtue of the community is undermined when debts are not paid and when the enforcement of debts is not vigorous. And then he boasts about when I was in charge of my consulship, I eliminated all of this agitation for the wrongful forgiveness of debts that would have undermined public order in the state. So he seems to take a pretty hard line on this because he thinks that it's not that individuals are injured by being treated less fairly than others, getting less in their own lives, but because the virtue and the integrity of the political community is at stake. Those are real concrete things for Cicero and worth fighting over.
[00:16:36] Ethan Alexander-Davey: I agree with everything you've both said so far. I think I would just add there appears to be a reference to Caesar here. Right.
For he had so great a desire to do wrong that the very doing of wrong delighted him.
And that's kind of curious to me. So Caesar is just an incurably wicked person and enjoys doing terrible things. But seems to be that Caesar also had a political goal in advocating the cancellation of debts. This was a way of him courting the poor and getting their support. So not only is the cancellation of debts, not only does it threaten mutual trust among citizens, but it's also a tool for ambitious politicians to try to increase their power by appealing to a particular section of the population.
[00:17:40] Coyle Neal: Yeah. And Cicero would, of course want us to remember that in fact, he was consul and he did put down Catalan's conspiracy just in case we'd forgotten. It had been a few pages since he said that he had to bring it up again. But I do think that the bit about debt.
So obviously today we divide kind of public debt and private debt. Right. So student loan forgiveness is an attempt to blend those two, to take my private debt and have the public pay for it. We also have $40 trillion of public debt.
That is not currently a point that would apply here, but it might be someday. We are still able to make the payments on it, but there will be, there will come a point when perhaps we can't, and then this will become applicable to us as a nation as well.
But right now, I mean, I think we are.
We are in such a circumstance that I'm not entirely sure the negatives of Cicero apply to us. And you guys are welcome to disagree with me here, but I think Americans are pretty good at paying their debts, even aside from the student loan stuff. Some of that.
The, the argument was that the, the loans were. Were fraudulent, given the state of the economy and the job market and so on. I don't know that there were a lot of bad faith loans taken, but things changed. So again, different conversation.
But if the point is, could you trust someone to pay their debt? And that's the foundation for a just society.
We have a just society. Right. I mean, and people tend to pay their debts and, and if you owe money to someone, you're probably going to have to pay it or the government's going to come and enforce something. I don't know. It was interesting to read and also interesting, I think, to think this is not where we are yet, but maybe someday.
[00:19:22] Ben Peterson: Yeah.
The good faith point is a really interesting one. The idea that this strict debt policy that he is advocating and saying he applied, as opposed to, as Ethan mentioned, others like Caesar who would use debt cancellation policies and things like that is in the service of sort of building trust within society. Right.
And there are also echoes of this. I mean, it's interesting because I think it's Federalist 10 where Madison in Federalist Papers talks about the challenge of, you know, he and others who were advocating in favor of the move toward the current Constitution were concerned about policies that were damaging to debt holders, right? To lenders, like even the use of paper money. Money and things like that.
And he talks about how it's like the other issue he was talking about, the other issue Cicero was talking about, and that there's potentially competing interests here at work, right? The policies that the lender prefers and the policies that the debtor prefers. And so Madison there actually interestingly talks about how it's impossible to completely please both of those people with those different interests. And here, I mean, to me, it seems like he does kind of.
He sort of picks a side here, you know, and says, like it's the lender, right, who's really. You have to make sure that those people feel that their debts are going to be repaid, and you have to make sure that the debtors know that that's going to be enforced so that they have to behave in a way that shows good faith. So I wonder, you can kind of imagine a situation where, you know, to the extent that cash flow is low and it's, you know, you have to go into debt to buy basic necessities, and yet it's hard to figure out how people are going to pay those debts back. I mean, you can imagine the situation where this is unduly putting the thumb on the scale with the lenders. But still, I think the point that we have to be concerned here with good faith, what is it that conduces to good faith? Well, there has to be an upholding of mutual expectations or contracts or all these kinds of things. I like Catherine's first point about, or maybe a few of us have mentioned it, the connection between the public good and what we might think of as sort of, you know, private relations between. Between citizens. Right. These. These are interconnected.
[00:21:48] Chris Anadale: Thanks, Ben.
Catherine, we ask you to read Next, just chapter 85, and I'll take the first comment.
[00:21:59] Katherine Bradshaw: This sort of lavish distribution, then when one takes from some in order to give to others, is one from which those who are to protect the Republic will refrain. Above all, they will make every effort to enable each man to keep what that which is his through the fairness of the law and of the law courts and to stop the weak from being oppressed because of their lowly state and the rich from being prevented, through envy, from maintaining or recovering what is theirs. And besides this, by whatever means they can, whether in war or at home, to increase the Republic in power, in land and in revenues. Such are the deeds of men who are great. Such deeds were achieved in our forefathers day. Men who pursue these kinds of duties will win, along with the utmost benefit to the Republic, both great gratitude and great glory to themselves.
[00:22:51] Chris Anadale: Thank you. Yeah, I think of this. This is Cicero's unsolicited advice to the republic. Right. He's writing this to Marcus. It's also presumably circulated and published for others. But he is not in power right now and has no close prospect of returning to power. And yet here is the statesman and the advice. If we were going to run this place the right way, these are the principles to follow and they illustrate the point of my teachings, that these virtuous actions will win for you not only the benefit of the Republic, the glory of having led a good republic, but gratitude and glory for you personally. So the path of virtue and the path of advantage turn out to be correct. But this then hinges upon following this kind of economic program which he thinks is going to build up rather than tear down what's left of the Republic.
[00:23:47] Ethan Alexander-Davey: This paragraph reminds me of Edmund Burke, or rather I should say Edmund Burke reminds me of Cicero here, because Burke was a big reader of Cicero.
But Burke has a line in the Reflections on the Revolution in France where he says, I'm paraphrasing here, the law gives everyone an equal right to what is his, but not a right to equal shares or to equal things.
And so there is security in the law, in following the law that benefits everyone. Whatever you have, whether it's a little or a lot, the law protects your right.
And that is the, that is the formula that Cicero is offering us here. Protect the rights, the property rights of all. That is the foundation of trust in society.
But of course, one can understand why those who have very little will be tempted by the alternative. And why I suppose I made this point before, why politicians, demagogues you might call them, will use that temptation politically because they know that the satisfaction of knowing what you have is secure is not as great for those who have very little.
[00:25:09] Coyle Neal: Yeah, I appreciate the balance Cicero attempts to strike between protecting the haves and the have nots. Right.
The law is for everybody, and we need to make sure both that the have nots are not rising up and stealing from the haves. But also that the, the haves are not oppressing the have nots. Right. You, you need both laws compelling you to pay your debts when you owe them, but also laws maybe preventing predatory lending. Like you need both of those things in order to have this balanced society that, that Cicero was calling for.
[00:25:45] Ben Peterson: Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a really interesting a problem, right, of, of the, the distribution of, of wealth that is in any, any society just about, you know, even think about, you know, communist societies, right. There's going to be disparities in wealth and property ownership and, or land or whatever resources is valuable.
And so. Yeah, how do you exactly, as Coyle just said, how do you balance protecting the have nots from oppression and from abuse?
And that's why you need it to be a law court. That's sort of. There needs to be some independence from the rich. Right. Even though it's going to be dependent on revenues largely from the rich. I mean, that's a challenge. Right.
But at the same time protects that which belongs to the rich as well from the attempted expropriation of, of the many or the poor many.
And yeah, it's one of the classic constant problems, I think. And I mean, there are echoes of this kind of thing. Oh, what I wanted to say was this language of that which is everyone should be protected in that which is his or that which belongs to him. Right.
I mean, this is in the Ten Commandments, right. One of the prohibition on stealing is kind of an implicit recognition of, of don't take what's not yours. And there is such a thing that is yours and which belongs to somebody else. Of course, I suppose one question someone might raise is to what extent does the law affect what is legally belongs to different people? Right. I mean, so you can, to the extent that the law requires redistributive taxation, right. Then you could imagine the law is, there's an endogeneity there where the law is helping to determine what is considered to belong to different people.
And so, you know, that's, that's one kind of issue that someone might raise.
[00:27:51] Katherine Bradshaw: Yeah, Ben, that's a good point. Where Cicero is not dealing with that kind of system. Of course, that's, that's more a modern invention where we have to kind of, as we've seen before, we're, we're, you know, as Coyle brought up, we're, we're dealing with slightly different issues than what that Cicero is talking about. They overlap, but there's a, there's a bit of a difference between what we're dealing with and what Cicero is dealing with. Cicero would consider the redistributive tax as falling under this kind of same problem as the debt cancellation, because it's taking from some and giving to others, which he says in this section, is the behavior that the those who are to protect the republic will refrain from such behavior.
And the balance is there. And then there's also this little comment that he adds in here. And besides this, by whatever means he can, he will increase the Republic in power, in land, and in revenues. And so again, it gets back to this is not just about. This is not just about his own personal glory, power, reputation, etc. For Cicero, it's always a connection between the private and the public, where because he's writing for the leadership class, the leadership class's behavior is always going to affect other things. And so the great man who's putting in place these policies also will augment the empire through his behaviors, whether that's through these policies or through other things, because he's just the sort of man who will do such things.
[00:29:29] Chris Anadale: Very good. Well, it's my turn to read now. And I'll read chapters 86 and 87 for Ethan to lead comment.
On the question of advice about things beneficial. Antipater of Tyre, the Stoic, who recently died in Athens, charged Panaetius with having omitted two things, the care of health and the care of money.
In my view, that excellent philosopher omitted them because they were easy, for they are certainly beneficial. But health is preserved by a knowledge of one's own body and by observing what things usually benefit or harm it, by limiting the sustenance and the comforts of one's life in order to maintain one's physical health, by refraining from pleasures, and finally through the art of those to whose field of knowledge such things belong.
Personal wealth, however, ought to be pursued by means that are free from dishonorableness, but to be preserved and also to be increased by carefulness and thrift.
Xenophon the Socratic covered those matters most conveniently in his book titled Economicus, a book which I translated from Greek into Latin when I was just about the age at which you are now.
But the whole question of seeking profit and of investing money, I wish that I could say the same, for using it is more conveniently discussed by those excellent men who sit at the central gate of Janus than by any philosopher of any school. We must therefore learn about these things, for they are relevant to that which is beneficial, which is the topic of discussion of this book.
[00:31:13] Ethan Alexander-Davey: Right. So here Cicero is realizing there are another couple topics here that ought to be discussed, and he doesn't have much time for them, but yet he's going to offer some advice on them. So we do need to be concerned about.
About health.
And one can know this. This is something one has to attend to. One can preserve one's health by knowledge of one's own body and observing what things usually benefit or harm it. Right. So this doesn't seem to be a very complicated issue.
But then the question of how we ought to use wealth. And this raises quite a bunch of questions which I think would be interesting for Modern people, for 21st century people who probably don't think about wealth in this way. And the reference to Xenophon's Economicus, which apparently he liked so much that he translated it into Latin, is quite an interesting piece where you have. Essentially, it's a Socratic dialogue. So Socrates goes and interviews some landowners and learns how to engage in agriculture, how to manage an estate. Another translation for that text is the estate manager. How to be a good manager of an estate.
And that is the honorable way to earn wealth is by managing estates. That's the most honorable way to earn wealth.
And one has to be careful and thrifty and make good use of the profit from an estate and use it for the right things. So there are all kinds of moral considerations involved in the management of an estate.
[00:33:04] Coyle Neal: Yeah, I guess I might have read that a little bit differently, where he says this criticism of the philosopher for leaving out these two things. My interpretation was Cicero actually didn't think they were that important at all.
And he will give you a paragraph on them. And then he's going on, so, yeah, maybe, I guess I hadn't thought of. They're super important. But he doesn't have time. And I just thought more in terms of these. He just doesn't care about these. So I don't know what the right read is. But I mean, they are important. So I guess your interpretation is the more obvious one. So maybe I'll have to shift mine over.
[00:33:44] Ben Peterson: I just liked this, the parenthetical. At least in the translation here, where he's talking about, look, if you want to learn how to make profit and invest, well, you got to just mostly go learn from the people who actually sit around and do that all day, the money lenders, but don't ask them about how to use it.
I'll tell you more about.
That's more. Gets into the realm of ethics. And you should repay people who've done you a good turn in the past and all the things that he's talked about. I wonder if that's kind of. That's just an interesting little jab there.
[00:34:17] Katherine Bradshaw: Yes, the Romans love to make jabs at money lenders in general, and we'll see that again very soon.
But the, the other thing. So Yalls notes made a lot of sense to me. And it was interesting that Cicero doesn't exactly say whether these are important or not important, but he does say they're easy.
And I think as moderns we go what these are easy.
They take up so much time in modern discourse.
Health is a big topic of conversation now, what is actually healthy and how much of our lifestyle is healthy. And I think that in that modern conversation, a lot of times what gets left out is what Cicero touches on really quickly here, which is that there is a level of virtue connected to health. Even though health is mostly physical, there is a level of virtue to health because it's connected to temperance. And so he says, you know, by abstaining from certain pleasures, you actually make your body more healthy. But it's. That's also a virtue that he's talked about elsewhere.
And so there's this coming together again of the useful or advantageous or beneficial and the virtuous again. And I think for Cicero this is just such an obvious connection that he doesn't feel like he needs to talk about it very much.
Oh, that it were as obvious as he thinks it is in general. And I think the same for wealth because he's talked about wealth and how to get and getting wealth a little bit in book one, where it's as long as it's not an immoral way that you got your wealth, it's good to have it.
But again, I think his idea of the fact that you have to gain it by virtuous means is so obvious that I don't really need to spend a lot of time on it. I can just touch on it and move on.
[00:36:23] Chris Anadale: Catherine, I think your comments actually reveal a good deal to me about confusion that I've been having, which was how can he be so abbreviated and so kind of glib about what seemed to us to occupy a great deal of time and attention and anguish.
How do you stay healthy? What do you need to do specifically to do so? And how do you make money? Now, the amount of life advice given about that, those seem to be the two primary topics first and foremost. And for each of these, he says, well, make wealth honorably and exercise thrift and Use moderation and temperance in taking care of your body well. Observe what helps and harms you, what foods make you feel bad. Don't eat those anymore. So this seems like the kind of advice that it may be that it's sort of for symbolic reasons it gets tucked in here at the end because if you're living a life of virtue, these things presumably either you have them and they're fine and you can maintain them, or you don't have them but they don't matter because you have virtue. But he's not going to spend a lot of time sort of degrading himself by giving you a practical how to guide for a manual for health. He'll say, consult the experts. That'll be enough, provided you've seen to your own honorableness and that the like in every other area of life. So these things, which for us are foremost are kind of afterthoughts for him because he's been dealing with something more important all along.
And that brings us to chapter 88 and Ethan, I'd like you to finish us off with chapters 88 through 90, please. And Coyle, lead comment.
[00:38:06] Ethan Alexander-Davey: It is, however, often necessary also to compare things that are beneficial.
This fourth topic was neglected by Panaeus. For both bodily advantages are often compared with external ones and external with bodily and those of the body compared among themselves and external with external.
Bodily advantages are compared with external in this sort of way.
You may prefer to have health than to be rich.
External with bodily like this, you may prefer to be rich rather than to have the greatest possible bodily strength.
Bodily advantages are compared among themselves. When good health is put before pleasure or strength before swiftness.
Externals are compared. On the other hand, when glory is preferred to riches or urban income to rural.
The words of the elder Cato belong to this class of comparison.
Someone asked him what was the most profitable activity for a family estate. He replied, to graze herds. Well, and what next? To graze them adequately and what third? To graze them though poorly and what fourth? To plough.
Then when the questioner asked what about money lending? Cato's reply was what about killing someone?
From this and many other examples, it ought to be understood that comparisons of benefits are often made. And it is correct for us to add the fourth type of question about duties. Let us then proceed to that which remains.
[00:39:42] Coyle Neal: So I know, well, two things, I guess. First, I don't think there would actually be any value in this, but I kind of do want us to have to go around and say whether we'd rather Be rich or physically strong.
There's a good icebreaker there, but it's not the main philosophical point. But I do think it's interesting how radically agriculture has changed from then until now. You. Absolutely. If you are one of the handful of small family farmers remaining, you get by on money lending. You take out. It's called an operating loan at the beginning of the year, and then that's what you have to operate on. And you hope that you sell enough cattle or crops or whatever to pay that off at the end of the year. And if you don't, then the bank owns your.
And I mean, that's just, that's how. That's how I grew up with it. Like, every year my parents would sit down with the bank and do that.
Not that grazing isn't important. It's just that it is no longer the. The only critical thing, which, again, was. Was not the main point. But I still thought that was kind of interesting. As someone with an agricultural background, the. The bigger point, of course, is the external versus the internal. Right? What. What are we using as our standard of virtue?
And Cicero doesn't.
Doesn't dismiss the external completely. Right. The external is still there and it's still relevant, but the internal is what he is primarily concerned with. Your honor, your nobility.
Are you handling your responsibilities well? If you're a farmer, are you doing a good job feeding your cattle? That matters far more than are you attractive or any of the other external things.
[00:41:20] Ben Peterson: Yeah, I took a. There's a kind of resemblance to his earlier discussions of when do. Different loyalties or obligations, you know, how do you figure out, are you obligated to your family member or your good friend or your country or your. Or a foreigner? Right. I mean, he's kind of. Well, there, there is a certain.
There's certain general principles, but there's also contextual, you know, variation depending on if you're.
[00:41:45] Ethan Alexander-Davey: If.
[00:41:45] Ben Peterson: If someone who's not in your family, but they're like starving and they need help, you know, or, or that. Whatever the situation is, that kind of something like that here, you know, if you have good health, then. Or, you know.
Yeah, he seems to say health, obviously prioritized over being rich. Right. If you. What good is being rich if you're. You don't have basic health? Right. And.
And, and so, yeah, it is. It is interesting. I mean, I, I think, I think that's the main. One of the main points I took from. It was just, you know, also you have to compare things, and you're sometimes comparing even within Those two realms, you know, the external realm or the, or the bodily realm.
And even within that, you have to compare what's of different advantage, greater advantage, given the conditions you're. You're facing.
And I just love the line from Cato about, you know, you know, what about. What about money lending? What about killing someone? Right. You know, it's a good, good. He's got a good sense of humor. It doesn't come out all that often, but it comes out sometimes.
[00:42:48] Katherine Bradshaw: Yeah. Then the humor comes out very particularly well in the Latin because these are all almost either one word or two word or three word answers.
They're even shorter in the Latin than they are in English. And so it just becomes this very snappy dialogue here.
And since Cato the Elder was known for being kind of the, the ultimate old Roman type with no nonsense, severe, almost laconic in his expressions, that makes sense.
Very.
I mean, I agree with what, what everyone has said here, but there's also, I think the, the main thing here is, is externals and internals. Yes. And then also he's making the case that, yes, you can make comparisons between goods in the same class.
From this and many other examples, it ought to be understood that comparisons of benefits are often made and that it is correct for us to add the fourth type of question about duties. So can we put these things into comparison with each other at all? Is kind of the objection he's anticipating where people say, oh, well, but if you.
And this is kind of against the Stoics and this is kind of against some of the other philosophical schools who say, like, but all the virtues are one. You've already said that all the virtues are one. And therefore they can't conflict. And therefore we cannot make a comparison of duties or benefits or anything like that. They're just, just.
They won't conflict. Well, but they do. And so you have to, to rank them.
And that's what.
And then, because Cicero is about to launch into book three, which is the, the one where he makes. He's already done the virtues, he's already done the benefits. Now we're going to talk about. No, the virtues and the benefits are the same if you look at it right. And so he's just prepping us for that third, that book three argument here as he's wrapping up his book two argument.
[00:44:54] Chris Anadale: I'll just note about these pages again that you guys have already observed it. The repetition of this Roman odium for money lending and in fact, the humor of Cato the Elder, the very severe virtuous man is that to lend money is of a totally different order of degradation. Right, Right. I would sooner kill a man than I would go into trade in money. Lending money at interest.
There's a footnote to indicate that this was actually a practice among certain notorious people, including Pompeian Brutus, I don't know if I've called them notorious, but certain Romans of the time, to lend money at high interest. But I was reminded again, despite our affection for Cicero and attempt to bring some of his insights into our own time, each of us, none of us being wealthy, each of us has a vastly different relationship to money and the way we think about commerce, trade and debt and the repayment of debt than Cicero would have been able to recognize. So this goes along with what occasionally crops up in theological and sort of online pop theological circles about usury.
Occasionally somebody will dig that one up to flog it again for clicks.
Is all money lending is all of our economy usurious and therefore contrary to God's law?
Well, there's no doubt a good conversation to be had about that, but it feels to me like Cicero is even one many removes farther from that in terms of the way that he thinks a virtuous person should conduct himself, whether in terms of farming or in terms of being related to the virtue involved in taking out and paying back debts.
[00:46:43] Ethan Alexander-Davey: I will admit that I. I asked Chris for the privilege of reading this passage because of the words of Cato the Elder in it. If I ever found myself among men who made their millions in high finance, I would recite this passage to them. Of course I would never find myself among them because why would they want to talk to me?
So it matters, right, how you earn your wealth? That's what this story tells us.
And I've said before that actors in Roman society were at the bottom of the social hierarchy. So are money lenders, Right? It is shameful to be a money lender.
And Coyle's comment I think really brings this home for us.
If agriculture today is totally dependent on the money lenders, then the social and economic order has been completely inverted. It and the people who were supposed to be at the bottom because their business is dirty is immoral, are now at the top and everyone else depends on them. Everyone now depends on the moneylenders.
So I think that.
I think it's just an interesting point that shows us how the values and the hierarchy of our modern society is a complete inversion of.
Of what exists in the ancient world.
[00:48:08] Chris Anadale: A great insight and thought with which to conclude our consideration of book two on here, this long episode of Cicero on Duties. I want to thank each of my co hosts, Ethan Alexander, Davy Coy o', Neill, Ben Peterson and Catherine Bradshaw for being with us today.
You've been listening to the Cicero on Duties podcast, a production of the Ciceronian Society. We hope you'll join us again next week when we break into the beginning of book three. Thank you for watching. Goodbye.
