Chapter 5 - Voluntas Populi

Summary

I propose that the young Roman orator Cicero, lacking a political base, cleverly positions himself as defender of the “people’s will”: It is fundamental, justifying all power wielded in its name; it is singular, despite the many conflicting “wills” within it; it is fallible, especially when misled by demagogues; and it is thus dependent on wise elites like Cicero. I then take up the treatises De republica and De legibus, which argue for popular sovereignty and against popular power. His theory differs from the mixed constitutionalism of Polybius and Aristotle. Cicero’s innovation is rational trusteeship: The people own all of the Republic, and the senate and magistrates represent all of the people. The trusteeship principle from Roman law (ius civilis), filtered through Platonic rationalism and Stoic natural law, creates an entirely new constitutional dynamic: A rational elite guides the people’s will, which elevates them in turn to high offices of state. He watches Caesar exploit his notion of voluntas populi to remake Rome around his own brutal will. Yet it is Cicero’s “will of the people” – reliant on a ruling class, limited to voting – with which, for better or worse, we find ourselves in modern democracies.