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Aequabilitas in Cicero's Political Theory, and the Greek Tradition of Proportional Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Elaine Fantham
Elaine Fantham
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Toronto
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Extract

This inquiry starts from two passages in book 1 of Cicero's de Re Publica, both concerned with the failings of democracy as a political form. The first occurs in Scipio Aemilianus' opening criticism of the three unmixed constitutions. The weakness of democracy is that (1. 43)

cum omnia per populum geruntur quamvis iustum atque moderatum, tamen ipsa aequabilitas est iniqua, cum habet nullos gradus dignitatis:

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , December 1973 , pp. 285 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1973

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References

page 285 note 1 Aequabilis occurs once in Plautus, at Capt. 302, ‘vis hostilis cum istoc fecit meas opis aequabiles’. Here the adjective retains the passive force of the suffix—‘levelled down’, ‘reduced to equality’. It is probably coined for its metrical convenience since with their cretic endings -abilis forms are well-fitted to occupy the verse-ends of both senarii and Trochaic septenarii. Cf. from Captivi alone the following verse-ends: 56, imrnemorabiles; 402, discordabili; 518, sperabilest, and 684, memorabile.

page 286 note 1 For the dating of Ad Herennium see Caplan, (Cicero) ad Herennium, Introduction, p. xxvi: he assigns it on internal evidence to 86–82 B.C. The passages are: Inv. 1. 2: non ius aequabile quid utilitatis haberet acceperat; Rhet. Her. 3. 3. 4: Iustitiae partibus utemur… si docemus in omnibus aequabile ius statui convenire.

page 286 note 2 Rhet. Her. 3. 2. 3. It will be noticed that this is clearly related to Aristotelian ‘proportional justice’; cf. E.N. 5. 9. 1133b.

page 286 note 3 Aequabilitas here is not merely a device for variatio: whereas the preceding aequitas denotes equal rights or shares received, aequabilitas is the virtue of impartiality which distributes them.

page 286 note 4 1. 188: sit ergo in iure civili finis hic, legitimae atque usitatae in rebus causisque civium aequabilitatis conservatio; 2. 209: si… aequabilitatem communis iuris praestantia dignitatis aut fortune suae transeunt.

page 286 note 5 See Wirszubski, C., Libertas as a Political Ideal at Rome during the late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 9 ff. Wirszubski shows that in the argument of the democrats at de Re P. 1. 47, aequa libertas is given a more positive sense, comparable to the use of aequabilitas in 1. 43 and 53. He is, however, unintentionally misleading when (p. 12) he identifies complete equalitarianism with aequabilitas without comment on Cicero's earlier usage of the noun. Both aequa libertas and aequabilitas are given wider reference in de Re P. 1. 43 and 47 than their previous usage in Cicero.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Wirszubski's identification of aequabilitas in 1. 43. 2 with Greek is taken up by Lepore, E., Il Principe Ciceroniano e gli Ideali Politici della Tarda Reppublica (Naples, 1952) pp. 258–65, who discusses also the Ciceronian demand for gradus dignitatis and his varying attitudes to and interpretations of these gradus in the public statements of the speeches.Google Scholar

page 287 note 1 Compare for aequitas here, Lactantius Inst. Div. 5. 14. 19–20: ‘quare neque Romani neque Graeci iustitiam tenere potuerunt, quia dispares multis gradibus homines habuerunt (20). Ubi enim non sunt universi pares, aequitas non est, et excludit inaequalitas ipsa iustitiam.’ Lactantius is arguing directly against the Ciceronian rejection of democratic equality, which he calls aequitas: Earlier, in 5. 14. 5, where he defines aequitas in terms of political equality, he refers to ‘aequitatem. se cum ceteris coaequandi quam Cicero aequabilitatem vocat’. This is referred by Mai to de Re P. 1. 43, and is, I argue, Cicero's regular use of aequabilitas in the de Re Publica, except for the correction implied in 1. 53 where he attempts to detach the concept from literal aequitas.

page 287 note 2 ‘Cicéron, Platon, et le Vote Secret’, Historia xix. 1, pp. 39–66. He only discusses the theme of this paper briefly on pp. 64–5, but has established the vital connection between proportional justice and timocratic election procedure, which is found in both Plato and Cicero, and is the basis for the further arguments of my paper.Google Scholar

page 287 note 3 For Cicero's use of the Laws in de Re Publica compare Sabine and Smith, Cicero on the Commonwealth, p. 156 n. 10: de Re P. 2. 3 ff. = Laws 704 b ff. Boyancé in Hommages à M. Renard, i (Latomus ci) 129 sees Laws 711 b ff. as source of Cicero's portrait of the Princeps in de Re P. Book 5 (now fragmentary). There is no doubt that Plato's Laws were the inspiration for the Prooemia and legislation of Cicero's de Legibus.

page 289 note 1 The textual problem of 65 where the manuscripts read and producing an untranslatable and syntactically defective sentence, does not affect the political interpretation of the passage. On this see Morrow, : Plato's Cretan City (Princeton, 1960), p. 132 and n. 115. He notes, however, that this property classification is also designed to rationalize the tax burdens and perhaps also distributions: this allusion to ‘means tests’ or ‘progressive taxation’ suggests an economic motive to which not even the most doctrinaire democrat could object. We cannot argue that Plato is assuming an automatic correlation between a man's capacity for but it is common Greek political practice and hence highly probable.Google Scholar

page 289 note 2 Compare Graham, , Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece (Manchester, 1963), p. 56 for colonists (Thuc. 1. 27 on the new colonists of Epidamnus) and evidence for similar equal distribution in the Cyrene and Black Corcyra decrees.Google Scholar