New Fragments of Cicero's de Re Publica
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New Fragments of Cicero's de re PublicaAuthor(s): Friedrich SolmsenSource: Classical Philology, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Oct., 1940), pp. 423-424Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/264041
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NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS
NEW FRAGMENTS OF CICERO'S DE RE PUBLICA
In De civ. Dei xix. 21Augustine
reverts tothe
task to which he hasdevoteda good deal of energy in the first books of the work, namely, the refutation of
the notion of iustitia put forward by Cicero in De re publica iii: Quaprop-ter nunc est locus ut quam potero breviter ac dilucide expediam .... secun-
dum definitiones quibus apud Ciceronem utitur Scipio in libris de re publica
nunquam rem publicam fuisse Romanam. He is going to refute Cicero
through Cicero. Thus, we are not surprised to find him in the next sentences
referring to Scipio's definitions of res publica and of populus. These
definitions have been duly incorporated by the editors of De re publica amongthe fragments of Book iii. Yet, unless Augustine departed from his original
intention, the sentence Justitia porro ea virtus est quae suum cuique tribuit
(xix. 21; p. 390, 1. 15 [Dombart-Kalb]) must also be a quotation from De re
pub. iii; for he uses this definition in the same way and to the same end as the
others, insisting that the Roman state failed to live up to it. So far from
suum cuique tribuere, they denied God what is God's. There would be no
point in Augustine's argument unless we assume that this actually was Scip-io's definition in his great speech in De re pub. iii. And, after all, we have his
word that he is proceeding secundum definitiones quibus apud Ciceronem
utitur Scipio. This is not the place to go into the history of this definition of
iustitia, which was adopted by Ulpian (Dig. i. 1. 10), found a place at thebeginning of the Institutiones and was in the Middle Ages echoed by Dante
in De monarchiaand by many other writers.l It will suffice to note that Cicero
shows his familiarity with it in De inv. ii. 160; De legg. i. 19; De nat. deor. ii. 38;De off. i. 15. He refers to it also in the doxographic exposition at the begin-
ning of Book iii (sec. 10), which we know through Lactantius. Yet, it is one
thing to mention the definition in a historical account among a variety of
approaches and another to make the principal character adopt it as the basis
of his discussion.
I startedby citing
the first sentence ofchapter
xxi. Inchapter
xxAugus-tine contrasts the bona aeterna with res ista, our earthly existence. The
last sentence of this chapter contains his judgment on the res ista :
Non veris animi bonis utitur quoniamnon est vera sapientia quae intentionemsuam in his quae prudenterdiscernit,gerit ortiter,cohibet emperanterustequedis-tribuitnon ad illum dirigit finemubi erit Deus omnia in omnibus,aeternitatecertaet pace perfecta.
The description of the activities of the earthly sapientia is astonishinglyconcrete. I do not pretend to have any definite evidence that Augustine bor-
rowed the description from a pagan writer, but I think it will be well to bearin mind (1) that Cicero endowed his rector or princeps with the four Pla-
1Cf. Leopold Wenger, Suum cuique in antiken Urkunden in Aus der Geistesweltdes Mittelalters (Munster i. W., 1935), pp. 1415-25, and, more generally, Felix Senn,Les Origines de la notion de jurisprudence (Paris, 1926), passim.
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NOTES AND DISCUSSIONSOTES AND DISCUSSIONS
tonic cardinal virtues2 (which Plato himself had divided among the different
classes), (2) that the four virtues are not among the Platonic dogmas which
the Neo-Platonists were anxious to revive, and (3) that this sentence marksthe transition to Augustine's final refutation of Cicero's political theories.
For good reasons Augustine reserved the mention of Cicero and his work to
the next sentence,3 but this should not stop us from recognizingthat the words
prudenter discernit, gerit fortiter, cohibet temperanter iusteque distribuit
are a hit at the De re publica. They indicate (more definitely than the frag-ments quoted in n. 2) how Cicero expected his rector to employ each of his
four Platonic virtues. Iusteque distribuit recalls the definition of iustitia
which we have just vindicated for Book iii.FRIEDRICHSOLMSEN
OLIVETCOLLEGE,MICHIGAN
PLATO CRATYLUS 398 c-e: TRANSLATION AND
INTERPRETATION
HERMOGENES: ut the hero. What would he be?
SOCRATES: his is not hard to see; for their name, indicating its origin from
pwos, as been but slightly changed (rapiKTaL).
HERM.: How do you mean?
Soc.: Do younot
knowheroes are
demigods?HERM.: Well, what then?
Soc.: All have probably fallen in love (yey6vaatv epaaOiveTE)l' either as gods
with a mortal woman or as mortals with a goddess. If you examine this in the
early Attic, you will understand it better. For it will show that in addition to the
word ipcosrom which heroes have been derived (ey-y6vaaLv),2 there has been a slight
change (Trap7ryAkvov iUTri) favoring respectability (6v6arToS XapLv).3
2 Cf. De re pub. vi. 1. 6 (Macr. in Somn. Scip. i. 1. 8).
3 Notice quapropter at the beginning of this sentence.
1The text followed here is that of manuscripts lettered by Schanz as B, G, H, P, T:
7r&vres t7rov yesy6vaoav paoOEVT'es iXOeoi Ov7Tl'S i Ov77TOlOeai. In spite of the very highauthority of these MSS, modern editors have preferred a reading that involved a
genitive absolute--paafVO7os .... 0eo0 ... OvTrog--and hat was seen by an anon-
ymous in the now lost Gudianus 44. This anonymous made a transposition of two
of the words, and in this form it stands in the editions of Heindorf, Bekker, Stallbaum,
Schanz, Burnet, etc. A correction in Schanz's G is somewhat similar. Modern editors
probably preferred this reading of the Anonymous because it squared with one defi-
nition of heroes -- children of gods -as in Laws 853 c4Gsfev irauolv .... Tols ipoatv.
2 A second yey6va-Lavoccurs here in the sense of etymologically derived -a mean-
ing common in the Cratylus. Its occurrence here has misled editors into thinking that
both verbs should have the same meaning. However, there is an evident purpose to at-
tain variety of expression in this entire passage. This is shown by the use of 7raprjKat
and later 7rapqyJThvov iaT'iv as synonymous.
36vjwaTrosXa&ptis called sine dubio corruptum by Schanz and variously emended
by others. But this use of ovo,uaneeds only to be compared with that of Apol. 34 e4:
TrJXLK,bve OPTa TOoTO TOpIvoCLaXovTa.
tonic cardinal virtues2 (which Plato himself had divided among the different
classes), (2) that the four virtues are not among the Platonic dogmas which
the Neo-Platonists were anxious to revive, and (3) that this sentence marksthe transition to Augustine's final refutation of Cicero's political theories.
For good reasons Augustine reserved the mention of Cicero and his work to
the next sentence,3 but this should not stop us from recognizingthat the words
prudenter discernit, gerit fortiter, cohibet temperanter iusteque distribuit
are a hit at the De re publica. They indicate (more definitely than the frag-ments quoted in n. 2) how Cicero expected his rector to employ each of his
four Platonic virtues. Iusteque distribuit recalls the definition of iustitia
which we have just vindicated for Book iii.FRIEDRICHSOLMSEN
OLIVETCOLLEGE,MICHIGAN
PLATO CRATYLUS 398 c-e: TRANSLATION AND
INTERPRETATION
HERMOGENES: ut the hero. What would he be?
SOCRATES: his is not hard to see; for their name, indicating its origin from
pwos, as been but slightly changed (rapiKTaL).
HERM.: How do you mean?
Soc.: Do younot
knowheroes are
demigods?HERM.: Well, what then?
Soc.: All have probably fallen in love (yey6vaatv epaaOiveTE)l' either as gods
with a mortal woman or as mortals with a goddess. If you examine this in the
early Attic, you will understand it better. For it will show that in addition to the
word ipcosrom which heroes have been derived (ey-y6vaaLv),2 there has been a slight
change (Trap7ryAkvov iUTri) favoring respectability (6v6arToS XapLv).3
2 Cf. De re pub. vi. 1. 6 (Macr. in Somn. Scip. i. 1. 8).
3 Notice quapropter at the beginning of this sentence.
1The text followed here is that of manuscripts lettered by Schanz as B, G, H, P, T:
7r&vres t7rov yesy6vaoav paoOEVT'es iXOeoi Ov7Tl'S i Ov77TOlOeai. In spite of the very highauthority of these MSS, modern editors have preferred a reading that involved a
genitive absolute--paafVO7os .... 0eo0 ... OvTrog--and hat was seen by an anon-
ymous in the now lost Gudianus 44. This anonymous made a transposition of two
of the words, and in this form it stands in the editions of Heindorf, Bekker, Stallbaum,
Schanz, Burnet, etc. A correction in Schanz's G is somewhat similar. Modern editors
probably preferred this reading of the Anonymous because it squared with one defi-
nition of heroes -- children of gods -as in Laws 853 c4Gsfev irauolv .... Tols ipoatv.
2 A second yey6va-Lavoccurs here in the sense of etymologically derived -a mean-
ing common in the Cratylus. Its occurrence here has misled editors into thinking that
both verbs should have the same meaning. However, there is an evident purpose to at-
tain variety of expression in this entire passage. This is shown by the use of 7raprjKat
and later 7rapqyJThvov iaT'iv as synonymous.
36vjwaTrosXa&ptis called sine dubio corruptum by Schanz and variously emended
by others. But this use of ovo,uaneeds only to be compared with that of Apol. 34 e4:
TrJXLK,bve OPTa TOoTO TOpIvoCLaXovTa.
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