The Roman Empire

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The Roman Empire
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Romans

• Contribution to political thought
• Law Administration
• Flexibility of Roman law (Republic, Empire,
  recuperated after the 15th century to sustain
  Absolutist rule, inspired most legal systems in
  the West)
• Public/Private realms

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Polybius interpretation
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Roman Republic (509 B.C. to 44 or 31 B.C.) Main
Institutions
In 88 B.C. Sulla disempowered the popular
assemblies (ex created a judiciary)
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Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

• Born in a wealthy but plebeian family (landed
  gentry)
• Studied philosophy (Athens Rhodes 79-77 B.C.)
  and law in Rome
• Influenced by the Greek philosophers and Stoicism
• Looked back into the past thinking of how to
  restore the Republic (which was collapsing under
  the expansion of the Empire)
• Aristocrat against popular rule and the
  democratic party
• Celebrated moderation, concord, and
  constitutionalism But did not necessarily
  practice them (ordered the irregular execution of
  Catiline and other leaders of the democratic
  party, had for himself a group of bodyguards that
  were not allowed in Rome)
• 75 B.C. Quaestor in Sicily (quaestors supervised
  state finances and got seats in the Senate)
• 69 B. C. Aedile
• 66 B. C. Praetor
• 63 B. C. Consul
• 62 B. C. Cicero testifies against Clodius
  (democratic leader)
• 58 B. C. Cicero is sent into exile (goes to
  northern Greece)
• 57 B. C. Recalled from exile
• 51 B. C. Proconsul of Cilicia (until middle of
  following year)
• De Republica, De Legibus
• 43 B. C. Cicero (and Quintus) proscribed and
  killed

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Works

• Laws (De Legibus) and the Republic (De Republica)
• Book VI (Scipios dream while being in Africa)
• Many Discourses
• Ciceros discourses are still a classical
  reference in rhetorics
• judicial genre (accusing and defending)
• deliberative genre (the genre of parliamentary
  and popular politics)
• demonstrative genre (ceremonies)

Cicero Homepage http//www.utexas.edu/depts/classi
cs/documents/Cic.htmlImages
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Philosophy Law

• Men are naturally gifted for virtue
• (but) Virtue needs to be practiced/used, and its
  noblest use is the government of the State, and
  the realization in fact of those very things
  that the philosophers are continuously dinning
  in our ears. For there is no principle enunciated
  by the philosophersat least none that is just
  and honourablethat has not been discovered and
  established by those who have drawn up codes of
  law for States. (131)

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Turning virtue wisdom into law

• Therefore the citizen who compels all men, by
  the authority of magistrates and the penalties
  imposed by law to follow the philosophers
  rules must be considered superior even to the
  teachers who enunciated these principles. For
  what speech of theirs is excellent enough to be
  preferred to a State well provided with law and
  custom? (132)

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The philosopher/the statesman

• For if the philosophers are repaid for the
  dangers of travel by the knowledge they gain,
  statesmen surely win a much greater reward int he
  gratitude of their fellow-citizens. (132)

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(Against Epicurean) philosophers

• How can it be reasonable, therefore, for them to
  promise to aid the State in case they are
  compelled by an emergency to do so, when they do
  not know how to rule the State when no emergency
  threatens it, though this is a much easier task
  than the other? (133)

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Citizens must engage public life

• Because it is a duty towards the country.
• not to be ruled by wicked men and not to allow
  the republic to be destroyed by them (133)

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Commonwealth

• a commonwealth is the property of a people. But
  a people is not any collection of human beings
  but an assemblage of people in large numbers
  associated in an agreement with respect to
  justice and a partnership for the common good.
  (134)
• For what is a State except an association or
  partnership in justice? (136)
• Foundation of the city

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Origins of the Commonwealth

• The first cause of such an association is the
  social spirit which nature has implanted in man.
  (134)

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Auctoritas (the city)

• For there is really no other occupation in which
  human virtue approaches more closely the august
  function of the gods than that of founding States
  or preserving those already in existence. (134)
• Auctoritas/imperium
• Auctoritasauctorbased upon the foundation of
  the city of Rome (magistrates did not use force
  they were invested with auctoritas)

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Natural Equality

• if bad habits and false beliefs did not twist
  the weaker minds all men would be like all
  others. there is no difference in kind between
  man and man (139)
• there is no human being of any race who, if he
  finds a guide, cannot attain to virtue. (137)

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Translates into legal equality

• For if we cannot agree to equalize mens wealth,
  and equality of innate ability is impossible, the
  legal rights at least of those who are citizens
  of the same commonwealth ought to be equal.
  (136)

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Law

• True law is right reason in agreement with
  nature it is of universal application,
  unchanging and everlasting (138)

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Justice

• Justice is one it binds all human society, and
  is based on one Law, which is right reason
  applied to command and prohibition. Whoever knows
  not this Law, whether it has been recorded in
  writing anywhere or not, is without justice.
  (139)
• the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law a
  silent magistrate.. (140)
• If all men knew the Law, we all would live in
  peace and friendship with each other, which
  originate in our natural inclination to love our
  fellow-men (139) which lies at the foundation of
  Justice

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God/s Men

• ...since there is nothing better than reason,
  and since it exists both in man and God, the
  first common possession of man and God is reason.
  But those who have reason in common ust also have
  right reason in common. And since right reason is
  Law, we must believe that men have Law also in
  common with the gods. Further, those who share
  Law must also share Justice Hence we must now
  conceive of this whole universe as one
  commonwealth of which both gods and men are
  members. (138)

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Differences/Similarities Between
Plato Aristotle Polybius Cicero
Human Nature
Constitution
Best government
Equality
Freedom
Other.