Rhetoric, Roman Values, and the Fall of the Republic in Cicero's Reception of Plato

277 Pages·2016·1.79 MB·English

by  Hugh Crumley

Rhetoric, Roman Values, and the Fall of the Republic in Cicero’s Reception of Plato
by
Robert Dudley
Department of Classical Studies
Duke University

Date:_______________________
Approved:

___________________________
Jed Atkins, Supervisor

___________________________
William Johnson

___________________________
Micaela Janan

___________________________
Gregson Davis

___________________________
Melanie Möller

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy in the Department of
Classical Studies in the Graduate School
of Duke University

2016

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ABSTRACT
Rhetoric, Roman Values, and the Fall of the Republic in Cicero’s Reception of Plato
by
Robert Dudley
Department of Classical Studies
Duke University

Date:_______________________
Approved:

___________________________
Jed Atkins, Supervisor

___________________________
William Johnson

___________________________
Micaela Janan

___________________________
Gregson Davis

___________________________
Melanie Möller

An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of
Classical Studies in the Graduate School of
Duke University

2016
Copyright by
Robert Dudley
2016
Abstract
This dissertation seeks to identify what makes Cicero’s approach to politics
unique. It is the strategy of this dissertation to turn to Cicero’s unique interpretation of
Plato as the crux of what made his thinking neither Stoic nor Aristotelian nor even
Platonic (at least, in the usual sense of the word) but Ciceronian. As the author
demonstrates in his reading of Cicero’s correspondences and dialogues during the
downward spiral of a decade that ended in the fall of the Republic (that is, from Cicero’s
return from exile in 57 BC to Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon in 49 BC), it is through
Cicero's reading of Plato that the former develops his characteristically Ciceronian
approach to politics—that is, his appreciation for the tension between the political ideal
on the one hand and the reality of human nature on the other as well as the need for
rhetoric to fuse a practicable compromise between the two. This triangulation of political
ideal, human nature, and rhetoric is developed by Cicero through his dialogues de
Oratore, de Re publica, and de Legibus.

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Contents
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... viii
Introduction.................................................................................................................................... 1
Intro.1 Outline of Chapters ...................................................................................................... 4
Intro.2 My Contribution .......................................................................................................... 6
Intro.3 Why Plato?................................................................................................................. 11
Intro.4 The Monoliths of Roman Thought vs Cicero’s Triangulation of Nature, Culture, and
Ideal ....................................................................................................................................... 12
Intro.5 Plato or Aristotle? ...................................................................................................... 19
Intro.6 The Stoic School ........................................................................................................ 23
Intro.7 Isocrates and Plato ..................................................................................................... 26
Intro.8 The Triad of Rule, Exemplarity, and Singularity ....................................................... 35
Intro.9 Attentiveness (Aufmerksamkeit), Roman Values, and Platonic Forms ...................... 39
Chapter 1. The Correspondences ................................................................................................. 45
Thesis .................................................................................................................................... 48
1.1 The Pre-Dialogic Era ....................................................................................................... 49
1.2 The Dialogic Era .............................................................................................................. 61
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 85
Chapter 2. de Oratore .................................................................................................................. 86
Thesis .................................................................................................................................... 86
2.1 The Influence of Philo of Larissa and Antiochus of Ascalon ........................................... 86

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2.2 Ciceronian Pragmatism and the Stoic Ideal ..................................................................... 88
2.3 The Platonic Framing of Ciceronian Questions ............................................................... 91
2.4 The Gorgias in Book 1 ..................................................................................................... 92
2.5 The Interlude of Book 2 ................................................................................................. 110
2.6 The Phaedrus in Book 3 ................................................................................................. 119
Conclusion: a Prelude to de Re publica and de Legibus ...................................................... 135
Chapter 3. de Re publica ............................................................................................................ 138
Thesis .................................................................................................................................. 139
3.1 Book 2 and Knowledge of the Soul ............................................................................... 139
3.2 Book 6 and Knowledge of the Cosmos .......................................................................... 160
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 199
Chapter 4. de Legibus ................................................................................................................ 200
Thesis .................................................................................................................................. 201
4.1 Foreword to Analysis of Book 1: The Phaedrus and the Nexus between Legislature,
Rhetoric, and Self-Knowledge ............................................................................................. 201
4.2 The Intrusion of the Phaedrus ........................................................................................ 206
4.3 Natural Law and Human Nature (later revealed as Self-Knowledge) ............................ 213
4.4 The Limitations of Reason and Alternative Forms of Persuasion .................................. 220
4.5 Self Knowledge and Rhetoric ........................................................................................ 229
4.6 Books 2 and 3 ................................................................................................................ 237
4.7 The Reprise of Plato in Book 2 ...................................................................................... 239
4.8 Concord amidst Controversy: the Lessons of de Legibus in Action, and Cicero’s Optimate
Audience ............................................................................................................................. 245

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4.9 The Controversies of Book 3 ......................................................................................... 247
4.10 The Ciceronian Turn to Plato ....................................................................................... 250
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 256
Epilogue ..................................................................................................................................... 259
Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 261
Biography .................................................................................................................................. 269

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Acknowledgements
The author wishes to express sincere appreciation to Professor Atkins for his expertise in
guiding this project from its beginnings and to Professor Johnson for his tireless effort in reading
and rereading drafts of this manuscript. In addition, special thanks to Prof. Dr. Möller of Freie
Universität Berlin whose familiarity with the Ciceronian corpus as well as relevant theory in
attentiveness and exemplarity (see esp. Introudction and Chapter 4) has been instrumental in
perfecting the argument. Thanks also to my friends and family for their support and
encouragement till the very end.

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Introduction
Cicero not only occupies an important place in the history of political thought, but
also presents a dynamic notion of political leadership that is not without relevance to the
most pressing political problems of our own time—that is, the polarization of right- and
left-wing politics, the fiasco of failed attempts to replace regimes in the Middle East with
democracy, the guerilla tactics of our most aggressive enemies hiding in plain sight, and
the fraught relationship with Russia that threatens to lead to another cold war. Underlying
this recoil of bad decisions is a false premise, namely our undying faith in systems of
justice that we expect to channel and redirect the tides of human passions, as if the latter
were mere conduits of water to be channeled through a Roman matrix of aqueducts. What
we are forgetting is that human nature does not flow in one direction. What we are
ignoring are the necessary political tools of rhetoric and persuasion, by which human
populations can be brought to a more advantageous relationship with the system in place.
If Cicero has anything to teach us today, it is this: The system is nothing without
the people. It is one thing to have theory, but another to devise a pragmatic approach to
that theory. It is one thing to have a good system in place, but another to instill concord in
the hearts of the people, since it is ultimately up to them to make the system work.
Concord is so important that it is better to have an imperfect system the people are
convinced to trust than a perfect system that can only hope to function through coercion.
Of course, the measure of a great state, I would argue, is the rhetorical ability of its
leadership to win the people over to as close an approximation to perfection as is
humanly possible, but such a view of politics necessarily spells out a prioritization of
1
rhetoric over the system (for Cicero, this ideal order would entail that the people entrust
their interests to the senatorial elites, on the one hand, and that the senatorial elites make
good on the people’s trust on the other without resorting to compromises of their own
estate, as the Gracchi had done in their confiscation and redistribution of private land).1
This prioritization of rhetoric over the system is not something that we tend to
take seriously; hence, the denigration of “mere rhetoric” in the rhetoric of our own
politicians (which is itself an ancient rhetorical trick!); hence, the bafflement of
politically active scientists and economists who expect the logic of their arguments to
speak for itself. This systematic view of politics is not a modern phenomenon. In Cicero’s
time as well, the system was prioritized over rhetoric; hence, the Stoic Cato the Younger,
instead of Cicero, rose to prominence in the political party opposed to Julius Caesar. Cato
the Younger, as Cicero recounts to Atticus in his letters, had a keen sense for justice in
the bills he legislated, but he was tactless in respect to his alienation of the equestrian
class. Cato the Younger wanted to institute an audit to make the Equestrian tax-
collectors, the Publicans, more answerable to their exploitation of Roman provinces. Cato
prioritized the system and, in this respect, was monolithic in his thinking. Cicero, on the
other hand, agreed with Cato in principle, but realized that the implementation of this
system against the consent of the Equestrians would be too divisive and work against
winning over an important constituency at a crucial time in the Republic’s history (Att.

1 To cite an example of where Cicero permits an imperfection to the system, see my discussion of Cicero’s
critique of Cato in Att. 2.1. In this letter, Cicero complains of Cato’s pushing a bill that would make the
Equestrian class more accountable in their taxing of provincials. Though Cicero agreed with Cato in
principle, he faulted him for the alienation of the Equestrian class. Cicero’s strategy was to permit the
morally egregious practices of the Equestrians in return for their support in stabilizing the Republic.
2