[5] So then, there is need of magistrates, without whose prudence and diligence the city cannot exist. On the Laws. Q: I understand very clearly, and I now think that any other law must be neither recognized as nor even called a law. [20] Q: That is truly more convenient and suitable for the method of conversation we have begun. He was the fir… Therefore, who would judge a man to be prudent and, may I say, clever not from his own deportment but from some external circumstance? Do we say about those who are conspicuous for their individual vices, or even many vices, that they are wretched because of losses or damages or tortures, or because of the significance and the disgrace of their vices? [10] Well, the divine mind cannot exist without reason, nor can divine reason not have this force in prescribing by law things that are correct and depraved. The first complete English translation of both of Cicero's works for over sixty years. M. TVLLIVS CICERO (106 – 43 B.C.) Moreover, the same virtue is in human being and god, and it is not in any other species besides; and virtue is nothing other than [nature] fully developed and taken all the way to its highest point. [18] Q: Truly, brother, you trace deeply and, as is proper, from the fountain head of what we are asking about. What more monstrous thing can be said than that? O worthy deed, for which not only educated but also boorish men may blush! Are persons innocent and shameful in order to hear good things [about themselves], and do they blush in order to collect good hearsay? Now the universe obeys the god, and the seas and lands obey the universe, and human life complies with the orders of the supreme law. Now if that is true for right, so also for justice; and if for that, then the remaining virtues should also be cultivated for themselves. Therefore, the similarity between human being and god is natural. And although human beings have taken the other things of which they are composed from mortal stock, and those things are fragile and frail, the soul has been implanted by god. [missing text] Whatever good thing that is praiseworthy necessarily has in itself that for which it is praised; for good itself is not by opinions but by nature. Cicero: The Republic, the Laws (translation). A: Most correctly, and indeed with it as leader there will be no way to err. When it has grown up and been fully developed, it is rightly named wisdom. M: Then since we should maintain and preserve the form of republic that Scipio taught to be the best in that book, and since all laws should be tailored to that type of city, and since customs should be planted and not everything should be consecrated in writing, I will trace the root of right from nature, with which as our leader we should pursue the entire debate. –Walter Nicgorski, [In the section that follows the discussion among Cicero (M for Marcus), Atticus Pomponius (A) and Quintus (Q) is turning to the topic of the law and, as the reader will see, with a zealous interest in the true foundations or bases for any good legal order.]. [7] But if it seems good, let us settle here in the shade and return to the part of the conversation where we digressed. For I see that your dear, famous Plato did so, at whom you marvel, whom you rank ahead of all [others], whom you greatly cherish. Or that I compose formulas for covenants and judicial decisions? Thus out of so many species there is no animal besides the human being that has any notion of god. The authors, Yves LASSARD and Alexandr KOPTEV, are historians of the Roman period and more particularly, specialists in the sources of Roman law. There is no doubt that he who is called liberal or benevolent is following duty, not profit. Nevertheless, unless Quintus prefers that we discuss something else, I will undertake it; and since we are unoccupied, I will speak. Oxford University Press, 1998. Nature makes common conceptions for us and starts forming them in our minds so that honorable things are based on virtue, disgraceful things on vices. English Title: The republic of Cicero Translated from the Latin; and Accompanied With a Critical and Historical Introduction. VIII). His (Zetzel's) commentary, by far the bulk of this book, guides any Latin reader through Cicero's text and philosophy without giving away too much in translation. Laws Book I. I. Atticus. So, they said, the chief and ultimate law is the mind of god compelling or forbidding all things by reason. [30] That is enough of an argument that there is no dissimilarity within the species; if there were, no one definition would encompass all. [31] Not only in correct actions but also in depravities there is a remarkable similarity of the human race. If the Thirty at Athens had wanted to impose laws, or if all the Athenians delighted in tyrannous laws, surely those laws should not be held to be just for that reason? What can be called fouler than avarice, what more monstrous than lust, what more scorned than cowardice, what more despicable than dullness and foolishness? [43] And if right has not been confirmed by nature, they may be eliminated [missing portion of the text] In fact where will liberality be able to exist, where affection for the fatherland, where piety, where the will either to deserve well of another or to return a service? All rights reserved. %PDF-1.3 Nor, even if a people accepts something ruinous, will that be a law of any kind among a people. This type of command was first entrusted to the most just and wisest men, and that was extremely effective in our own republic as long as regal power ruled over it. On the Commonwealth survives only in part, and On the Laws was never completed. [text is missing] For whence comes that Pythagorean saying? The speeches, with an English translation. So to what do you call me, or what are you urging on me? The Laws, moreover, presents the results of Cicero's reflections as to how the republic needed to change in order not only to survive but also to promote justiceDavid Fott’s vigorous yet elegant English translation is faithful to the originals.
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