This rapid sketch of the transactions of Cicero’s times, will, it is hoped, not be deemed impertinent, but may rather be considered as assisting the general reader to form an adequate estimate of the great object which Cicero had in view, when he drew up this celebrated treatise, which was to revive the veneration of the Roman people for their ancient institutions, now in danger from the machinations of lawless men, at the head of whom was Cæsar, who denying in the senate a future existence, expressed his contempt for all religion. But it has been objected to Cicero that he was insincere, and that he called upon his countrymen to venerate what was often the object of his ridicule. The leading men of Rome who formed the sacerdotal order, from the earliest periods and under all circumstances maintained their influence over the people, chiefly by that religion they had been brought up in the veneration of, and especially by the observance of auspices. But in time the credulity of the Romans began to relax. Men like Cicero had for their religion the glorious doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and a great majority of his enlightened equals no doubt entertained his opinions. Others, and among them was his brother Quintus, from various motives, as has always been the case in the history of superstitions, persevered in the prejudices they had received from education. Prejudices acquired in infancy from our earliest and dearest protectors, and to relinquish which, seems to require the relinquishment of all reverence for those we most venerate. When therefore Cicero ridicules the religious observances of his times, it is to enlightened men he sometimes addresses himself; just as men have in all times laughed at absurdities they do not care publicly to assail: and at other times he may have used his ridicule to expose the most stupid superstitions indiscriminately to all. When in his Republic he praises the institution of auspices, however he may be charged with inconsistency, it was done from great and public motives, and not from selfish ones. There is no hypocrisy in this conduct, as we understand the word; and if we examine the whole bearing of Cicero’s life, the policy which the circumstances of it, sometimes obliged him to, will not offend liberal minds. In estimating therefore the character of Cicero, it is well to remember Dr. Middleton’s remark in his preface “and in every thing especially that relates to Cicero, I would recommend the reader to contemplate the whole character, before he thinks himself qualified to judge of its separate parts, on which the whole will always be found the surest comment.”

The first book is the most complete of the whole six: the opening however is imperfect. Cicero in his own person enters into a discussion whether governments should be administered by contemplative philosophers, or by active practical men. He recapitulates the arguments on both sides of the question, often discussed by the ancients, and decides the question in consonance with those feelings which had governed his very active life. The eloquence and force of some of the passages are inimitable. They will be applicable to all times as long as civil government exists among men. But in this country where the experiment of a popular government is trying upon so comprehensive a scale, the grandeur of the sentiments deserves the attention of every man. As where he states as an argument of those who shun active occupations, that it is dangerous to meddle with public affairs in turbulent times, and disgraceful to associate with the low and disreputable men who are conspicuous at those periods; that it is vain to hope to restrain the mad violence of the vulgar, or to withdraw from such a contest without injury; “As if,” he adds with a generous enthusiasm, “there could be a more just cause for good and firm men, endowed with noble minds, to stand forth in aid of their country, than that they may not be subject to bad men; nor suffer the republic to be lacerated by them, before the desire of saving it may come too late.”

After disposing of this question, he proceeds with great address to open the plan of his work, and presents in all the beautiful simplicity of the times, Scipio, his friend Lælius, with some of their most accomplished cotemporaries, seated, not in the gorgeous saloon of a Lucullus or Crassus, but in the sunny part, because it was the winter season, of the lawn of Scipio’s country place; where they had convened to pass the Latin holidays in discussing philosophical questions. Here, upon an inquiry being instituted into the cause of two suns reported to have been seen in the heavens, occasion is found to introduce in a very pleasing manner, the astronomical knowledge of the day, which Cicero was well versed in. Scipio is made here to deliver a magnificent passage, beginning at the 17th section. “Who can perceive any grandeur in human affairs,” &c.⁹ This inquiry about celestial phenomena, which appeared so foreign to a philosophical investigation on the principles of government, is admirably closed and without the abruptness being perceived, by Lælius asking how it can interest him that Scipio should be solicitous about the two suns, “when he does not inquire the cause why two senates, and almost two people exist in one republic.” At the general request Scipio consents to deliver his opinion of government. He defines a republic to be the “public thing,” or common interest of all: and he shews most satisfactorily that human beings congregate not on account of their weakness, but that they are led thereto by the social principle, which is innate in man, and leads him even in the midst of the greatest abundance to seek his fellow. He successively examines the despotic, the aristocratic, and democratic forms of government: their advantages and disadvantages; and concludes that a fourth kind of government, moderated and compounded from those three is most to be approved. This is subsequently recurred to and enlarged upon. Many persons will be surprised that the balanced representative form of government, which has but in modern times received the sanction of the wisest nations, should have been shadowed forth in an apparently speculative opinion, two thousand years ago. We must however remember, that in the numerous small independent states of Greece; their various forms of government, the tyranny of their kings, the oppression of the aristocracies, and the violence of the people, had produced many discussions among their writers. Few of these have come down to us. Yet Cicero was familiar with them, and it is evident that his plan of a mixed government was drawn from this source. There is a passage to this effect preserved in the Anthology of Stobæus, of Hyppodamus. He says that royalty, which is a copy of divinity, is insufficient, on account of the degeneracy of human nature. That it must be limited by an aristocracy, where the principle of emulation leads men to excel each other: and that the citizen also should be admitted into that mixed government as of right: but cautiously, as the people are apt to fall into disorders. These opinions also flattered the Romans, for in fact it was substantially their own form of government, which consisted of consuls, patricians, and the people and their tribunes.

Scipio in the 43d section, gives an eloquent passage from Plato, where the excesses of the multitude are painted in the strongest language; a passage which might well have been inspired by the French revolution.

Scipio opens the second book with the origin of the Roman people, adopting the received opinions concerning the early history of Rome, of Romulus, and the succeeding kings. These opinions have of late, been much controverted. Niebuhr whose erudition appears to be inimitable, whatever success he may be thought to have had in shaking them, has substituted nothing satisfactory in their place, at least as far as we may gather from his first volume. One thing may be safely asserted, that Cicero might well present in his republic, those traditions of the times, as the real history of his country, because the Roman people were acquainted with no other. He could not call upon them to venerate the founders of Rome and their institutions, and tell them at the same time they had never existed. Niebuhr himself strengthens the account given at section 19, Book II., of the Greek descent of the first Tarquin, by observing that the clay vases made at Tarquinii were painted, and resembled in colour and drawing some discovered near Corinth. He says they are found only in the district of Tarquinii, and that the circumstance implies a peculiar intercourse between Corinth and Tarquinii.

In the 22d section of the 2d Book, is another passage with which Niebuhr is not satisfied, and which even Professor Mai terms “vexatissimum locum.” Cicero says the Roman people were distributed by Servius into six classes, whose entire elective force was one hundred and ninety-three centuries. To give the landed proprietors who were rated in the first class, a majority of this number, or ninety-seven votes, three centuries of horse with six suffrages, meaning those inscribed in the great census or register, in contradistinction to the horsemen set apart from the mass of the whole people; the century of carpenters, and the first class, constituted together eighty-nine centuries. Eight more centuries taken from the other five classes and added to this number, made ninety-seven, being a majority of one over ninety-six, and thus in Cicero’s words “Confecta est vis, populi universa.” The unwearied erudition of Niebuhr, to which great deference is due, is not satisfied with the simplicity of this statement of the Roman Constitution, but assails it with an unusual bitterness of critical spirit. He supposes the passage from its genuine state to have been corrupted by successive transcribers and commentators, to the order in which Professor Mai has thought proper to give it to the public, and that in its original state it stood thus. “Nunc rationem videtis esse talem ut prima classis, addita centuria quæ ad summum usum urbis fabris tignariis est data: LXXXI centurias habeat; quibus ex CXIV centuriis, tot enim reliquæ sunt, equitum centuriæ cum sex suffragiis solæ si accesserunt,” &c.

“Now you will perceive the plan was such, that the first class, a century being added from the carpenters on account of their great utility to the city, consisted of eighty-one centuries; to which if from the one hundred and fourteen centuries, for so many remain, only the centuries of horse with six suffrages are added,” &c. I forbear to add his very curious reasons for this proposed restoration, and which, not to be deemed extravagant, require to be judged by those familiar with the emendations of ancient MSS. It will be perceived, however, that he makes the whole number of centuries to consist of one hundred and ninety-five; and that he gives the landed proprietors a majority of ninety-nine over the ninety-six centuries belonging to the other five classes, which appears superfluous in a system which aimed at the appearance of moderation, “ne superbum esset.” Substantially the system appears to have been this. The Roman people were distributed into six classes, having one hundred and ninety-three centuries or votes. The first class consisting of men of rank and property, with the centuries of horse, had ninety-six votes; leaving ninety-seven votes to the other five classes. In order, however, to give the ascendancy to the first class in the least offensive way, the century of blacksmiths and carpenters was added to the first class, under pretence of their great utility to the city; but really because they were dependent upon the first class and the cavalry for employment, and could be relied upon. In this manner the first class secured a majority of ninety-seven votes. The second book closes with a declaration from Scipio, that unless the most perfect justice is observed, no government can prosper.

The third book opens with a philosophical analysis of the faculties of man, introductory to the great principle of the immutable nature of justice, which it appears was fully discussed in this book, of which so small a portion is preserved. A splendid picture is drawn in the second section of an accomplished statesman, such as Cicero himself had aimed to be, and which from a passage in one of his letters to Atticus, appears to have been farther elaborated in the sixth book. It relates to a triumph about which he felt some anxiety after his government of Cilicia. “If this idea of a triumph which even you approve, had not been infused into me, you would not have had to look far for the perfect citizen described in the sixth book.”¹⁰ Philus is called upon to defend the cause of injustice after the manner of Carneades the Greek sophist. The powerful passage contained in the seventeenth section is delivered by him. It was reserved for Lælius to close the discussion as the advocate of justice. Scarce any part of his discourse is preserved. Some fragments have, however, been collected by Professor Mai, preserved by Nonius the Philologist, and by Lactantius. In the one, Lælius is made to declare, that the Roman youth ought not to be permitted to listen to Carneades, who if he thought as he spoke, was a bad man; and if he was not, as he preferred to believe, his discourse was nevertheless detestable. One of the passages from Lanctantius is that well known exposition of eternal right, or natural law of justice of which conscience is the voice.

“There is indeed a law, right reason, which is in accordance with nature; existing in all, unchangeable, eternal. Commanding us to do what is right, forbidding us to do what is wrong. It has dominion over good men, but possesses no influence over bad ones. No other law can be substituted for it, no part of it can be taken away, nor can it be abrogated altogether. Neither the people or the senate can absolve us from it. It wants no commentator or interpreter. It is not one thing at Rome, and another thing at Athens: one thing to-day, and another thing to-morrow; but it is a law eternal and immutable for all nations and for all time. God, the sole Ruler, and universal Lord, has framed and proclaimed this law. He who does not obey it, renounces himself, and is false to his own nature: he brings upon himself the direst tortures, even when he escapes human punishments.”¹¹

The fourth book of which a mere fragment is preserved, appears to have treated of domestic manners, the education of youth, and of Roman life, public and private. We have lost here many fine pictures of the simplicity of Roman manners, at that flourishing period of the republic, as well as of the progress of luxury, which was not inconsiderable. A fragment of this book is preserved in Nonius, where Scipio opposes the collection of a revenue, necessary perhaps to make good those deficiencies which extravagance had produced. “Nolo enim eundem populum imperatorem et portitorem esse terrarum. Optimum autem et in privatis familiis et in republica vectigal duco esse parsimoniam.” “I am not willing that the same people should be the sovereigns and the toll-gatherers of the world. I look upon economy to be the best revenue for the republic, and for private individuals.”

The fifth book is also a mere fragment. St. Augustin has preserved some notices of it, from which it appears that it treated very much of the ancient Roman institutions, with a view to show the degeneracy of the times in which Cicero wrote. In the fifth section of this book, he speaks of the comfortable enjoyment of life depending upon legal marriages and lawful children; from whence perhaps we may gather the obligation which the dissolute manners of the times had laid him under, of asserting the value of these ties, as well as his own veneration for them.

Of the sixth book no part whatever has come down to us with this MSS: but the important fragment on a future state preserved in Macrobius, warrants our supposing that he was naturally led in a treatise so highly philosophical, to pass from the consideration of human morals, to the great object which moral conduct has in view: the resisting of human weakness, for the sake of fitting the immortal part of our nature for a higher condition of being. The dream of Scipio, encumbered as it is by some of the pedantry of the schools, is a production of the highest order, upon this most sublime of all subjects.