Augustine, City of God 2.21: The discussion of this topic was put off to the next day, when it was the subject of a heated debate in Book 3. Philus himself undertook to give the argument of those who believe that the conduct of public affairs is impossible without injustice, while making a strong plea not to be taken to believe this himself. He gave a careful presentation of the case of injustice against justice: he tried to show by plausible arguments and examples that the former is useful to the state, while the latter is useless. Then Laelius at the request of everyone took up the defense of justice and asserted as strongly as possible that there is nothing so dangerous to a state as injustice, and that in fact a state cannot exist or be maintained without a high degree of justice.

When this subject had been discussed to everyone's satisfaction, Scipio returned to the previous topic; he recalled and commended his brief definition of the commonwealth, in which he had said that it was the concern of the people and that the people was not any large assemblage, but an assemblage associated with one another by agreement on law and community of interest.

[1a] Cicero, Letters to Atticus 7.3.2: If I had not had that idea about a triumph, which you also approve of, then you would not find me much short of that man who is described in the sixth book. Why should I be silent with you, who gobbled up those books? As it is, I will have no doubts about abandoning so grand a thing, if it is better to do so; it is impossible for both to proceed together, to campaign for a triumph and to speak freely on public affairs.

[1b] You are awaiting the complete foresight of this leader, which derives its name from seeing ahead. [+ Nonius 42.3]

[1c] Therefore this citizen must so prepare himself as always to be armed against things which disturb the stability of the state. [+ Nonius 256.27]

[1d] That discord of the citizens which is called sedition because people go apart in following different leaders. [+ Nonius 25.3]

[1e] And in fact in a civil discord, when the respectable citizens are more important than the majority, I believe that citizens should be weighed rather than counted. [+ Nonius 516.17]

[1f] The passions exercise powerful control over thoughts; they compel and command innumerable things, and since they can in no way be fulfilled and satiated, they drive to every sort of crime those whom they have inflamed with their enticements. [+ Nonius 424.31]

Raymond Geuss originally encouraged me to undertake this translation; I owe him and Quentin Skinner thanks for publishing it in this series, and I am also grateful to Richard Fisher, Elizabeth Howard, Caroline Drake, and Jane Van Tassel of Cambridge University Press for their expert advice and assistance.

A preliminary draft of the translation of Book 1 of On the Laws was used by students in Contemporary Civilization CI101 in the core curriculum of Columbia College; I am grateful to David Johnston, the director of the course, for including it in the course reader, and to the students in my own section who offered useful corrections and suggestions. Susanna Zetzel has offered advice on numerous passages and has improved the introduction immeasurably. Robert Kaster and Gareth Williams generously read a draft of the entire book and have offered many corrections of my Latin, English, and logic. The remaining faults are my own.

This translation was begun during a sabbatical leave in 1993 and completed during a research leave in 1997–98 aided by a Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. I am grateful both to Columbia University and to the Guggenheim Foundation for their support. I received practical assistance of other kinds from my good friends Douglas Kilburn, Robert Phinney, and Scott Decker, who supplied water, heat, and light, without which the revision of this book would have taken far longer to complete.

[1] <When he saw that everyone was> eager to hear him, SCIPIO began to speak as follows: I will tell you something that Cato said in his old age. As you know, I was deeply attached to him and admired him very greatly; following the judgment of both my fathers and my own desire, I devoted myself to him completely from an early age, and I could never get enough of what he said: he had so much experience of public affairs, in which he had taken part with great distinction for a very long time, both in civil and military matters; he was so measured in speaking, mixing wit with seriousness; and he was passionately fond of both learning and teaching. His life was in complete harmony with his speaking style. [2] Cato used to say that the organization of our state surpassed all others for this reason: in others there were generally single individuals who had set up the laws and institutions of their commonwealths – Minos in Crete, Lycurgus in Sparta, and in Athens, which frequently changed its government, first Theseus, then Draco, then Solon, then Clisthenes, then many others; finally, when Athens was drained of blood and prostrate, it was revived by the philosopher Demetrius of Phalerum. Our commonwealth, in contrast, was not shaped by one man's talent but by that of many; and not in one person's lifetime, but over many generations.

[1] MARCUS: Then I will continue to follow that divine man whom I perhaps praise more frequently than I need to because of the admiration for him which moves me.

ATTICUS: You mean Plato, I suppose.

MARCUS: Precisely, Atticus.

ATTICUS: You could never praise him too much or too often. Even my own people, who never want anyone except their own founder to be praised, permit me to esteem him at my own discretion.

MARCUS: A good decision on their part. What could be more worthy of your own refinement? Your life and language appear to me to have achieved that most difficult combination of seriousness and humaneness.

ATTICUS: I'm very glad to have interrupted you, since you have given me such a grand statement of your opinion. But go on.

MARCUS: Then shall we start by praising the law in accordance with the true praise appropriate to its kind?

ATTICUS: Yes, just as you did with the religious law.

[2] MARCUS: You see, then, that this is the power of the magistrate, that he be in charge and ordain behavior that is right and useful and in accordance with the laws. Just as the laws are in charge of the magistrates, so the magistrates are in charge of the people; it can truly be said that a magistrate is a law that speaks, and a law is a silent magistrate.

[11] ATTICUS: I recognize that grove and the oak tree of the people of Arpinum:

I have read about them often in the Marius. If that oak tree survives, this is surely it; it's certainly old enough.

QUINTUS: It survives, Atticus, and it will always survive: its roots are in the imagination. No farmer's cultivation can preserve a tree as long as one sown in a poet's verse.

ATTICUS: How so, Quintus? What sort of thing do poets sow? In praising your brother, I suspect that you are looking for praise for yourself.

[2] QUINTUS: Be that as it may, as long as Latin literature has a voice, there will always be an oak at this spot called “Marius's,” and as Scaevola says about my brother's Marius, “it will grow old for countless generations.” But perhaps you think that your beloved Athens has been able to keep the olive tree on the Acropolis alive forever, or that the palm that they show today on Delos is the same as the tall and slender tree that Homer's Ulysses says that he saw there: many other things in many places last longer in recollection than they could in nature.

Fragments of the preface

1 [4.7f Ziegler]. Augustine, Epist. 91.3: Take a brief look at that book On the Commonwealth, from which you drank up that attitude of a patriotic citizen, that there is for good men no limit or end of looking out for one's country.

2 [fr. 1a]. Thus, since our country provides more benefits and is a parent prior to our biological parents, we have a greater obligation to it than to our parents. (+ Nonius 426.8)

3 [fr. 1d]. From which those people call <us> away. (+ Arusianus 7.457.14k).

4 [fr. 1b]. Pliny, Natural History, praef. 22: Cicero is honest: in On the Commonwealth he announces that he is Plato's companion.

5 [fr. 1c]. Pliny, Natural History, praef. 7: There is also a kind of public rejection of the learned. Even Cicero uses it, although his genius is beyond all doubt; more surprising is that he does so through a spokesman: “and not for the very learned: I don't want Persius to read this, I do want Iunius Congus to.” If Lucilius, the creator of verbal wit, thought that he had to speak this way, and Cicero thought that he had to borrow it, especially when writing about the commonwealth, how much more do I have a reason to defend myself from some judge?

[1] ATTICUS: Since we have already walked enough and you have to make a start on a new topic, why don't we move and sit down for the rest of the conversation on the island in the Fibrenus – I think that that is the name of the other river?

MARCUS: Certainly. I use that spot regularly with great pleasure, whether I am thinking something over or reading or writing something.

[2] ATTICUS: For my part, since I have just now come here, there are no bounds to my pleasure, and I have only contempt for grand villas and marble pavements and paneled ceilings. Those water channels that some people call “Nile” or “Euripus” can only arouse laughter when you have seen this spot. And just as you, in speaking of law and justice a little while ago, made nature the standard for everything, so too in seeking aids for mental relaxation and pleasure nature is best. I used to wonder – I thought that there was nothing here but rocks and mountains, basing my opinion on your own speeches and poetry – I wondered, as I said, why you took such pleasure in this place. Now I wonder why when you are away from Rome you ever go anywhere else.

[3] MARCUS: When I have enough free time, particularly at this season, I seek out the beauty and the healthfulness of this place – though that is not very often.

The translation of On the Commonwealth is based on C. [K.] Ziegler (ed.), M. Tullius Cicero: De re publica (7th ed., Leipzig, 1969), and (for the continuous portions of the palimpsest and the Dream of Scipio). J. Zetzel (ed.), Cicero: De re publica: Selections (Cambridge, 1995). The translation of On the Laws is based on K. Ziegler (ed.), M. Tullius Cicero: De legibus (3rd ed., rev. by W. Goerler: Heidelberg, 1979). Most departures from these editions are indicated in the notes. It should be noted that a new critical edition of both texts is being prepared by J. G. F. Powell for Oxford Classical Texts.

On the Commonwealth differs in the format of the dialogue from On the Laws in that the latter is pure dialogue, with no narrator, and changes of speaker are marked (by convention) with the name of the speaker followed by a colon, as in dramatic texts; in On the Commonwealth, by contrast, there is a narrator, and in the Latin text speakers are often introduced by phrases such as “Then Scipio said.” To avoid extremely stilted translation, these phrases have been replaced here by the same dramatic convention as is used in On the Laws.

With respect to the order and presentation of the fragments of On the Commonwealth, there have been many departures from Ziegler's text.