Roman Political Thought

Dean Hammer
For many Polybius (ca. 200118 bce) serves as
the entre into Roman political thought: a
Greek theorizing about a Roman political
system that had already achieved empire. For
Polybius, Romes ability to attain power while
also preserving liberty lay in large part in its
political system, which contained aristocratic
(the senate), democratic (the people), and
monarchical (the consuls) elements. Political
power, according to Polybius well- known formulation, is distributed among different parts
of the state so that no one institution holds
power. Each part brings to the system its own
inclinations and interests and each requires the
cooperation of the other in order to get
something done. In times of emergency, the
state acts in concord and support (Polybius
2011: 6.18.2). In times of peace, the efforts of
one part toward supremacy a fact of human
nature can be counterworked and thwarted
by the others (Polybius 2011: 6.18.7).
Polybius is, of course, talking about the
Roman Republic (ca. 50931 bce), a period
whose beginning is shrouded in myth and end
dissolves in violence. The Roman Republic was
not quite the closed oligarchy once assumed.
Nor was Rome the democracy that some have
claimed. Rather, Romes political institutions
were a complex and historically layered array
of hierarchically organized units with the populus meeting in assemblies of various types and
with various functions being the source of
legitimacy and power but having limited
venues for participation and expression, the
senate having limited formal powers but largely
controlling what can be done, the annually
elected consuls possessing both imperium (the
power of command) and auspicia (the right to
consult the gods about state matters), and the
tribunes of the plebs serving primarily as a

protection or advocate of the people through

their power to intercede on behalf of citizens
against state coercion or veto any action or
decision by a magistrate.
We know Rome politically through its institutions. But ultimately what held the system
together or at least what regulated competition
and steered it toward public ends for a long
while was an abiding sense of tradition. The
central concept of Roman political life was the
mos maiorum (the custom, or mores in the
plural, of ancestors). When Ennius, the first
great Roman poet, writes, On ancient customs
and manly vigor the Roman state stands
(Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque)
(fr.156 Sk; my translation), he is not referring to
a particular legal or constitutional framework
but to a relationship with and attitude toward
the past. The mos maiorum oriented Roman citizens to a sense of civic virtue and duty through
stories of deeds that were reinforced by visual
reminders, public ceremonies, celebrations, orations, and exempla, models of virtue.
Rome was a community of tradition, but
hardly of consensus. The conflicts that inhered
in the Roman Republic ran deep, and were frequently organized around contending claims
about the meaning and inclusiveness of these
ancestral traditions. The conflicts were
numerous: struggles between patricians and
plebs, often referred to as the conflict of the
orders; between the propertied and unpropertied classes; between enfranchised Romans and
disenfranchised Italians; between the leading
elite families and the novi homines (new men
rising to top positions); and between elites who
divided (or were categorized by others) broadly
as populares (populists, those who invoked
the power of the people, often by way of the
tribunes, to address problems of debt, poverty,
and landlessness) and optimates (the best,
those who used the senate, the most
conservative political body in Rome, to protect
property and elite privilege).

The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, First Edition. Edited by Michael T. Gibbons.

2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118474396.wbept0897

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The Republic would eventually be exhausted
in the last century bce by dynastic competition, tumultuous violence, naked self-interest,
hypocrisy, corruption, and terror until
Octavian finally emerged as sole ruler with the
defeat of Antony in 31 bce. Octavian, later
given the title Augustus (from augere, to
increase) and Princeps (or first man, a
term used in Republican Rome to refer to the
most eminent member of the senate), would
hold the formal power of the state. Whatever
continuities there might initially have been
with the Republic, therise of Augustus forever
placed Romes political fate in the hands of a
single, and largely unaccountable, ruler.
This political context is critical for understanding two aspects of Roman political
thought. First, the Romans thought through
and with their history. To the contemporary
political theorist steeped in abstraction, Roman
political thought seems mired in a hopelessly
complex array of names, places, laws, and
events. But in this complexity we can locate the
conceptual core of Roman political thought.
For the Romans, the human artifacts that surrounded them provided a foundation, like
Livys Ab urbe condita (From the founding of
the city, the opening words of Livys History
(Livy 1998)), by which they related not just to
those things, but also to each other. A full
appreciation of the range and diversity of
Roman political thought, thus, must reach
beyond abstract philosophic arguments and
look to historiography, poetry, letters, and
orations.
This cultural context is important for a second reason. As obnoxiously confident as the
Romans were about their destiny, they were
equally consumed by the precariousness of
their hold on power and, unlike Polybius, the
fragility of their own system. What makes
Roman political thought so interesting is that it
does not seek refuge in an ideal state or in ideal
conditions of politics. The question that drives
Roman political thought in all its diversity is
not How do we create anew? but Where do
we go from here? and How can we get back to
where we were? It is born from a deep political

crisis, an attempt, amid corruption, violence,

chaos, and despotism to reconstitute a terra
recognita to make sense of, to know again,
and to recognize the political world they
inhabit.

Cicero and the Res Publica Amissa

(The Lost Republic)
Cicero (10643 bce) introduced Rome to
political thought. The hallmark of Ciceros
political thought is an ongoing mediation between the eternal order of the cosmos and the
contingent expressions of human politics and
culture. However much Cicero repeated that
our true place is with the gods, he could not
imagine a home outside politics. However
important reason may be as the distinctive and
divine attribute of humans, ultimately our
affection for the things we have come to know
orient and bind us to them. The mark of
Ciceros works lay in his unswerving attachment to the res publica that was disintegrating
even as he spoke.
Cicero is credited with bringing Greek philosophy to a Roman audience. But to understand Cicero as a mere translator is to
misconceive Ciceros project. Ciceros On the
Republic (Cicero 2000), modeled after Platos
Republic, takes on its own distinctive Roman
coloring. When Cicero talks about the best
state, he is not imagining a Platonic ideal but a
model and pattern, perfected in time, of
natures impetus. If Ciceros founder shares the
divinity that Plato associates with the philosopher, it is not in his or her proximity to the
Forms, but in the ability to authorize ideas; to
get others to obey what philosophers have difficulty getting others to even believe (Cicero
2000: 1.2.3, 1.7.12). Furthermore, the perfection of the state does not derive from the vision
of a single lawgiver or legislator who stands
outside politics and enforces his will, but from
the enactment of politics by multiple founders,
in a long period of several centuries and
many ages of men (Cicero 2000: 2.1.2; also
2.21.37). Where Plato locates the ideal outside
time thus making time into the enemy of

3
politics Cicero cannot imagine the perfection
of something without the experience that time
brings.
Neither state nor regime adequately captures the associational aspects that Cicero sees
as characteristic of the res publica. What makes
a gathering into a res publica is that there must
be iuris consensus, an agreement on justice, and
utilitatis communione societus, a partnership
for the common interest (Cicero 2000: 1.25.39).
Justice for Cicero is not just the ordering of
ones own actions; since it is guided by our
social instinct, justice functions to promote
and strengthen society (Cicero 1913:
1.28.100). The social nature of the res publica is
given a particular form as a societas, or partnership. Although societas connotes a range of
natural associations, the term also has a more
legal denotation in Latin, and one that frames
Ciceros understanding of political association.
It refers to a type of contractual agreement or
partnership, one whose features are immediately recognizable in the Roman political
system, in which: (1) individuals contribute
property or work toward a common aim; (2)
profits and losses continue to be shared, either
equally or in proportion to an agreed-upon
recognition of differences in service or other
contributions; and (3) the parties remain of
the same mind (Gaius 19461953: 3.14951).
A social partnership is categorized as a
particular category of contract, a consensual
contract, which does not have explicit, objective
conditions but requires ongoing agreement.
Viewing the res publica as a social partnership in which the nature and extent of power is
the subject of ongoing negotiation helps us
understand both the emergence and the importance of the mixed constitution in Ciceros
thought. The magistrates (expanded to include
the tribunes) have potestas, which is a necessary
executive power to implement decisions. The
senate provides auctoritas, which is an affective
form of power that derives from recognition
and respect for ones words and actions.
Auctoritas smoothes out the commanding
power of potestas by giving standing, continuity, and dignity to the partnership. And

libertas manifests itself as public choice, not

just as a protection from domination and
encroachments on property, but as a way of
collectively and publicly proposing, deciding,
and binding each other to the disposition of
public things. What is striking and distinctive
in Ciceros approach to politics is the personal
tone: society is neither an abstraction nor a
complex arrangement of explicit laws, but a
people bound together through trust, affection, recognition of service, tradition, status,
and regard for need.

Lucretius and the Limits of Power

Lucretius (ca. 94ca. 55/51 bce), of whom we
know little, reveals just how diverse the strands
of political thought in Rome were. He looks
outside Rome: to nature, generally, and
Epicurus, specifically, to provide a philosophic
language by way of poetry for his Roman audience. Lucretius beginning point is physics, in
which he posits a nonteleological, kinetic, infinite universe comprised of solids and the void.
The formation of compounds, including
humans, is not governed by any larger design
or purpose but by a virtually infinite array of
chance encounters, capable of producing different worlds.
To know ones self is to know the physical
processes that comprise the self. Part of that
knowledge is simply the recognition of the
material sensations of pleasure and pain. This
knowledge also allows us to make judgments
about whether avoiding or desiring something
can lead to tranquility associated with hdon
(pleasure), the aim of Epicureanism. Hdon is
not indulgence but can best be understood as
the absence of pain or freedom from mental
disturbance.
The knowledge of nature not only provides
the basis by which one orients thought and
action, but also serves as a lens through which
social development and organization can be
interpreted and critiqued. For Lucretius, all
compounds have a distinct power implanted by
nature, have a natural sense of how to use that
power, and have their power limited. Lucretius

4
discussion of human communities can be read
as tracing the various appearances of sovereignty that are then undermined by a violation
of one of these natural conditions of power.
One alienates one power (handing it over to
someone or something else), confuses ones
natural sense of power with a communitycreated sense of power, or fails to recognize the
boundaries of power.
Viewing social development from the perspective of our natural power results in a devastating critique of the meaningfulness and
usefulness of categories associated with the mos
maiorum. Religion, for example, encourages us
to be terrified of natural phenomena, to look to
the gods to explain our affairs, and to live in
terror about what happens to us after we die. So
too society teaches us that happiness lies in the
pursuit of honor and glory, a pursuit that results
in an endless and fruitless quest to sate desires
that have no natural limits nor permanence. Even
our fear of death arises from a misconception of
our sensual nature: we are finite beings who, on
our death, will dissipate back into the universe.
Although Lucretius replaces the majesty of
the Roman state with the majesty of nature
(1924: 5.7), it is not majesty devoid of politics.
Political communities are types of natural compounds joined by compacts that are premised
on the recognition of natural boundaries, aims,
and relationships. The health of a compound
requires two things, both of which bear on the
contemporaneous Roman state. First, a healthy
compound requires that its boundaries be protected against bombardment and its body from
depletion. Its strength must be continually supplemented and nourished. The problem of
empire, for example, is that it simply becomes
too large and, thus, too difficult to protect and
nourish. Second, a compound requires an
ordering of internal relations of power that are
premised on the recognition of both limits and
capabilities. In Lucretius account, and it is
unique among extant Epicurean accounts, the
response to turbatio, the turmoil among individuals, is a Republic in which men create
magistrates, establish justice (iustitia) (which
for Epicureans is simply an arrangement over

not harming or being harmed that frees social

life from disturbance), and form laws (leges)
(1924: 5.11434; also 6.13) that everyone submits to by their own will (sponte sua) (1924:
5.1147). It is precisely that turbatio that now
threatens to dissolve the Roman state.
One of the enduring paradoxes of Epicureanism, generally, and Lucretius philosophical poem, specifically, is how frequently
their seeming disavowal of politics ends up being
invoked by political actors and thinkers: from the
anti-Caesarian elements at the end of the Roman
Republic to the American revolutionaries at the
beginning of the American republic. Lucretius
importance does not lie in his vision of a political
system as much as in the language he provides to
address the limits of politics.

Sallust and the Constraints of Desire

If Lucretius takes us outside the assumptions of
Roman political life to in turn critique them,
then Sallust (ca. 8635/34 bce) problematizes
the central concept of Roman political life, the
mos maiorum (or the custom of ancestors),
seeking its restoration. Sallust employs a frequent Roman claim in describing the work of
the historian as recalling the memory of great
deeds, exempla that once inflamed the spirit of
subsequent generations to imitate the deeds of
the past. The problem, as Sallust continues, is
that the inheritance of the past has become so
confused that it no longer functions to provide
true standards by which subsequent generations can measure themselves. Instead, a
perverse competition has ensued in which
individuals seek to rival their ancestors in
riches and extravagance rather than in uprightness and diligence (1921: 4.7). Not surprisingly, then, when Sallust looks back, he is
tracing an inheritance that can no longer be
relied upon to provide any orientation beyond
the immediacy of ones desires.
Sallust is most frequently associated with the
notion of a health-giving metus hostilis, or fear
of an enemy. According to Sallust, with the
destruction in 146 bce of Carthage, their
longstanding rival and nemesis, Romans

5
became lax, indulgent, and self-interested. The
claim itself is not novel in ancient political
thought. But Sallust, in talking about the loss of
an enemy, is exploring something more
significant; namely, how communities organize
desire. The coherence of a community what
holds it together as something more than an
aggregate of individual desires requires a
force powerful enough to shape and constrain
those desires. Sallusts discussion of early Rome
traces the mechanisms by which the organizing
principles of Roman life were given shape.
Carthage is important, not only because its
destruction removes an important constraint, but
also because the prosecution of the war and the
expansion of Romes empire altered the constellation of constraints that formed Romes political
inheritance and shaped individual dispositions.
The final defeat of Carthage weakened the martial
impetus that lay at the heart of the Roman conception of virtus. And the absence of any real
threats altered the calculus of action. But the
importance of Carthage does not lie simply in the
removal of the constraint of fear. It reveals for
Sallust how Romes foreign ventures had implications for the institutional organization of desire.
Romes empire had grown so large and so complex that its maintenance required that the people
relinquish their power to provincial administrators and the senate. Absent the dispersion of
power, there were no checks or limits on how
those resources were acquired, or how they could
be employed. As Sallust writes:
Affairs at home and in the field were managed
according to the will of a few men, in whose
hands were the treasury, the provinces, public
offices, glory, and triumphs. The people were
burdened with military service and poverty.
The generals divided the spoils of war with a
few friends. Meanwhile the parents or little
children of the soldiers, if they had a powerful
neighbour, were driven from their homes.
(1921: 41.78)

It is in this altered context that we can understand how the practice of plundering, learned
on the battlefield, could have such free reign at
home.

In casting about for a solution to the

corruption, Sallust looks neither to the patricians nor to the new men, both of whom have
succumbed to this corrosive environment,
their inheritances now inextricably linked. The
inheritance of the past had become so confused that it no longer functioned to provide a
true standard by which subsequent generations
could measure themselves. Instead, a perverse
competition had ensued in which individuals
sought to rival their ancestors in riches and
extravagance rather than in uprightness and
diligence (1921: 4.7). Sallust, thus, casts about
for an alternate genealogy, one that emphasizes
the populus Romanus as the heirs of the
founding of the Republic and the only force
strong enough to counter the centripetal competition for power. Sallust is not making a radically democratic argument nor is the populus
Romanus without its problems. In recalling the
genealogy of the Republic, Sallust is identifying
four features that have been lost: decisions
were made in public; leaders were accountable;
laws were equal; and the people had a say in the
governance of the Republic. The exempla that
Sallust provides are not of particular individuals performing great deeds, but of the consequences of forgetting these conditions and of
the moments in which these principles were
reasserted. The importance of these conditions
for Sallust is that they are the basis by which
differences can be settled, ambition channeled,
and agreements reached.

Virgil and Violence

Where Cicero, Lucretius, and Sallust stood on
one side of the civil war, watching the dissolution of the Republic, with Virgil (7019 bce)
we are witnessing the beginning of the political
thought of the principate, a state organized by
political forces that seem as powerful and as
abstract as any divine forces. Gone is the language of the res publica: libertas, populus, and
nobiles, and the salience of such institutions as
the consuls, senate, tribunes, and assembly. In
its place is the language of imperium that is
global in its scope and singular in its rule: a rule

6
that, as Virgil writes, will have no bounds in
space or time (191618: 1.278). However
grand the ideals of gloria, pietas, and pax, Virgil
reveals their human dimension in the experiences of memory, affection, and loss.
We can begin to understand Virgils contributions by thinking about the alternative
approaches to political thought available to
him. One alternative is the Greek (specifically
Homeric) epic tradition, which privileges the
greatness of the individual warrior. A second
alternative is recourse to an ideal community,
whether Platos republic, Epicurus community
of sages, or even Ciceros res publica. A final
alternative is a form of political escapism, a
flight from the public world to an increasingly
private and interior one. Virgil variously draws
on each of these strands: in his creation of a
post-Troy epic tale, in his invocation of the
golden age, and in his pastoral poetry. But
Virgils thinking never seems to find solace in
these alternatives. His thought, instead, continually arises from, and returns to, the experience of action in the world.
Virgils world is one saturated in violence.
Nothing neither nature nor culture, neither
innocence nor guilt, neither piety nor impiety,
neither hero nor coward is untouched by violence. Violence is not mastered; its effects are
not reversed by glory; it is not joined to
courage; it is not justified by power; nor is it
redeemed by righteousness. Nor can the violence be forgotten. Each character is entangled
in the realization that there is no forgetting;
that the past cannot be undone. Virgils poetry
implicates his audience in the disorienting
confusion and staggering sense of loss that
connects the bloodshed of Troy, the bloodshed
in Italy in the virtual civil war between the
Trojans and Latins, tied by marital bonds, and
the late Republican civil war. And, very importantly, the victor in that early civil war, Aeneas,
is shown at the end destroying the leader of the
other side in cold anger and hatred and in
revenge for another killing. Virgil thus leaves
his audience/readers with a big question (the
contemporary relevance of which was obvious):
where is the new victor (Octavian) going to

take his people and country? What is the peace

he will establish going to be like? What Sallust
and Livy do through history, Virgil does
through epic: raising, dramatizing, and illuminating questions of the highest political importance and principle that agitated his time. What
is seared into Roman consciousness by way of
Virgil is that the Romans, however paradoxically, are connected through the fragmenting
effects of violence. The possibility of peace,
pax, derives from recognizing the horror of
boundless violence so that the community can
re-establish limits and engage in the cooperative task of rebuilding. Stated slightly differently, violence forges a common plight; treaties
and agreements form a common future.

Livy and Felt Meanings

Livys History, like Virgils poetry, can be read
as a response to the violence and fractured
politics of the fallen Republic. Livys work
shows a variety of influences: an annalistic
tradition that chronicled names and events; a
Hellenistic historiographic tradition that
embellished the past by creating dramatic
encounters between characters, inventing
speeches, and inferring emotions; and a
Roman rhetorical tradition that taught
lessons, or exempla, by which individuals
were to take their cues about character and
conduct. Livy (59 bce17 ce) is important to
political thought, not because he posits a set
of theories or analytic categories, but because
he explores how political concepts like liberty,
authority, and power are organized by
affective associations that are forged in history, transmitted as cultural memories, and
enacted as human practices. Political concepts
appear as felt meanings, given coherence as
structures of feelings.
Livys ideas in Ab urbe condita appear as an
alternative to Platos philosopher-king and
Aristotles model of phronesis, both of which
ultimately look to reason as the mechanism by
which communities can be organized and made
to endure. There is no philosopher or founder
who can stand outside time and history and

7
organize the community. For Livy (as for Cicero
in the Republic, where this is conceptualized
more theoretically), Rome has successive
founders who are able to craft through visual
reminders (like Livys own history) a common
identity and core concepts of authority and liberty. Yet, no matter how important elites may be
(or may want to be) in directing the people, they
are never able to completely define those meanings for the populace. They are never able to fix
interpretations. The people, as Livys History
makes clear, are continually and vigorously
engaged in acts of interpretation that derive as
much from their own experiences and conditions as from anything elites might contrive.
Whether begrudgingly recognizing this or not,
Livys psychological history traces the animating
role of popular vision in the emergence of liberty and the effects of political blindness experienced by both elites and masses in the corruption
of the community.
The trajectory of the early books of Livys Ab
urbe condita is toward the increasing openness
of Roman politics, not out of a principled belief
in rights but because the health of the community
depends on the shared, though not necessarily
harmonious, ability to orient and organize
shared meanings. The concern becomes more
pronounced as Livy turns his attention to the
periphery of the empire, asking the question,
Who will fight for us? Livys History becomes
a reflection on the loss of, and in turn the possibility of renewing, the animating spirit of Roman
politics, even if the terms of that renewal were
forever changed. Livys history speaks to an age
when there are no longer deserts and wildernesses out of which may be created new communities but only the rubble of the past:
populations divided in their loyalties, born of
different historical experiences, and oriented
toward divergent and opposing ends.

Seneca the Younger and the Jurisdiction

of the Self
One of the striking aspects of Roman political
thought is how it is impacted by the practice of
politics. Even Stoicism, a philosophy often

associated with withdrawal from politics in its

Greek expression, assumes prominence in the
political life of Rome, notably in Cato the
Youngers suicide in defiance of Caesars tyranny, in Seneca (ca. 4 bce65 ce) serving as
advisor to Nero, in the so-called Stoic opposition to successive emperors, and culminating
in the rule by Marcus Aurelius (121180 ce).
For Stoics, the only true aim of human
thought and action is moral good. The practice
of Stoicism teaches one to live in conformity
with a rationally ordered universe by controlling how one receives and responds to
stimuli, stripping away ones subjective or emotional evaluations. Politics is classified as
something indifferent since it does not affect
ones choice of moral goodness. But Stoicism
does not teach isolation. Human moral
development requires others. One learns who
one is and ones relationship to the cosmos by
way of reflection, in which one sees ones self as
part of the rational order of the universe, and
by way of experience, in which one learns
about ones self as an embodied, perceiving
being who must put into concrete action the
axioms of moral goodness.
Senecas political thought is an exploration
of the struggle to maintain this moral jurisdiction over ones self in a political world that
actively subverts the boundaries of moral and
immoral, proper and improper, and legal and
illegal (Seneca 1932, 1971, 1996). Seneca
attempts to restore our jurisdiction as a free,
moral being in two ways. First, philosophy
becomes a guardian, a way of life, that fashions
a new genealogy (one not of nobility but of
nobleness), models of action (notably Socrates),
and precepts to practice. Philosophy also
provides a partner to engage in continual
conversation with and cross-examination of
oneself. Through the practice of philosophy,
we enter moral adulthood, in which we are in
charge of ourselves. We are ready for citizenship.
Seneca provides a second way of restoring
jurisdiction, and that is by constituting a
broader conception of citizenship, one that
makes one free by right of nature even if not by
right of Roman citizenship. As part of one

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great, universal body where we are created
from the same source and for the same end, we
have duties that arise from our mutual affection toward others. In claiming the world as
our country we have an even greater arena in
which to engage in human interaction, fairness,
and justice. Senecas model is Socrates, an
example of world citizen who was able to move
about as a free man under thirty tyrants.
Marcus Aurelius will later take this conception
of world citizenship even further. To be without a
polis is to be torn from the unity of the universe
and the concord of others. The person without a
polis is like a xenos, an alien who has no understanding of his surroundings, or a phugas, an
exile from reason, or a ptchos, a beggar who
must depend on others (1916: 4.29). This
citizenship has implications for our relationship
with others. We are joined in fellowship with and
love of our neighbor. That love for Marcus derives
from the embrace of the being of things. To love
ones self is to love ones Nature, which is to love
another. Augustine will pick up on these strands:
we are like strangers in a foreign land, but where
Marcus directs us to recognize our earthly relationship to others, Augustine enjoins us to recognize our citizenship in the City of God.

Tacitus and the Malady of Despotism

In some striking ways Tacitus, in looking back
at the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius,
and Nero, and having lived under Domitian,
complements Senecas exploration of the loss of
moral bearings (Tacitus 1970, 2004). Like
Seneca, Tacitus pessimism does not seem to
stem solely from the character of the tyrant.
Rome had known tyrants before. What marks
the difference between Romes earlier experiences of tyranny and the emergence of the principate is the seeming complicity of the
aristocracy and people. These perplexities led
Tacitus to a diagnosis that something more
enduring had penetrated into Roman political
life. He is referencing a far less visible, far more
experiential, way in which despotism alters the
cues by which individuals develop their political
attitudes, dispositions, and aspirations.

Tacitus is talking about the loss of political

bearings: ones sense of the clarity by which
institutions and norms transmit expectations,
channel ambition, and recognize accomplishments. With the progress of despotism, every
marker whether distinctions of legal and
illegal, honorable and dishonorable, or trustworthy and untrustworthy can mean its
opposite. As Tacitus takes us inside the individual
while the individual attempts to navigate
through thisunknowable and unreliable realm,
we see the consequences of this transformation
of the political landscape as ambition is channeled into melancholy, delirium, and servility.
For Tacitus, despotism appears as a malady,
like that of insanity (as described by the
medical writer, Celsus), which requires that the
mind of the patient be turned from vain
imaginings to something more real. Tacitus
writings aim to restore the lost sentiments of a
political self by prompting the patient to recall
whatever glimmers of sanity might remain.
Tacitus asymmetrical, often jarring syntax
highlights pretext, juxtaposes truth and
falsehood, and emphasizes the discordant
relationship between events. Tacitus writings
are meant to agitate, prod, provoke, and awaken
the individual and the community from its
despotic slumber. Tacitus political thought,
true to its Roman form, does not seek escape
but immerses one in the ugliness of the
deformed political soul in order to restore ones
political bearings.
There is an element of truth to Virgils claim
that Roman greatness lies not in philosophy
but in rule. The Romans were suspicious of the
abstract philosophizing characteristic of the
Greeks. Although seen by some as ploddingly
practical, Roman political thought is enlivened
by its intimate connection to the practice of
politics. Roman political thought, thus, does
not easily reduce to tidy theories or offer a
vision of perfectibility but continually grappled
with the tragic dimensions and limits of its
own power: whether a founding mired in violence, a conception of glory that would turn
citizen against citizen until the Republic was
destroyed, a tradition of manly liberty that

9
would give way to hypocrisy and sycophancy,
or ultimately a city that would crumble, just as
it had destroyed so many cities before.

Acknowledgment
My thanks to Kurt Raaflaub, J. E. Lendon, and
Elizabeth Meyer for their helpful comments.
SEE ALSO: Augustine of Hippo: Aurelius
Augustinus (354430); Aurelius, Marcus (12180);
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (10643 bce);
Cosmopolitanism; Epictetus (mid-1st2nd century
ce); Epicurus (341270 bce); Polybius (ca. 200118
bce); Republics; Stoicism; Tacitus, Publius
Cornelius (ca. 56115/18?)
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Further Reading
Asmis, E. (2004) The State as a Partnership:
Ciceros Definition of Res Publica in His Work
On the State, History of Political Thought,
25,56999.
Brunt, P. A. (1988) The Fall of the Roman Republic
and Related Essays. Oxford: Clarendon.
Cicero, M. T. (1996) Tusculan Disputation, trans.
J.E. King. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Connolly, J. (2007) The State of Speech: Rhetoric and
Political Thought in Ancient Rome. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Edwards, C. (1993) The Politics of Immorality in
Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Feldherr, A. (1998) Spectacle and Society in Livys
History. Berkeley : University of California Press.
Flower, H. (2011) Roman Republics. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Foucault, M. (1990) The History of Sexuality,
Volume 3: The Care of the Self, trans. R. Hurley.
New York: Vintage Books.
Galinsky, K. (1996) Augustan Culture: An
Interpretive Introduction. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Garstens, B. (2009) Saving Persuasion: A Defense of
Rhetoric and Judgment. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Habinek, T. (1998) The Politics of Latin Literature:
Writings, Identity, and Empire in Ancient Rome.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hadot, P. (1995) Philosophy as a Way of Life:
Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, ed.
A. Davidson, trans. M. Chase. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hammer, D. (2008) Roman Political Thought and
the Modern Theoretical Imagination. Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press.
Hammer, D. (forthcoming) Roman Political
Thought: From Cicero to Augustine. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hammer, D. (Ed.) (forthcoming) A Companion to
Greek Democracy and the Roman Republic.
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Hlkeskamp, K.-J. (2010) Reconstructing the Roman
Republic: An Ancient Political Culture and
Modern Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.

10
Jaeger, M. (1997) Livys Written Rome. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Kapust, D. (2011) Republicanism, Rhetoric, and
Roman Political Thought: Sallust, Livy, and
Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lintott, A. (1999) The Constitution of the Roman
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Millar, F. (1998) The Crowd in Rome in the Late
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Mouritsen, H. (2001) Plebs and Politics in the Late
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Powell, J. G. F. (Ed.) (1996) Cicero the Philosopher:
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Raaflaub, K. (Ed.) (1986) Social Struggles in
Archaic Rome: New Perspective on the Conflict of

the Orders. Berkeley : University of California

Press.
Reydams-Schils, G. (2005) The Roman Stoics: Self,
Responsibility, and Affection. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Schofield, M. (1995) Ciceros Definition of Res
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Philosopher: Twelve Papers. Oxford: Clarendon,
pp. 6383.
Syme, R. (1939) The Roman Revolution. Oxford:
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Vasaly, A. (1993) Representation: Images of the
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