Lucius Crassus and Cicero

If we remember anything about Cicero’s political ideas, it is that he believed in the right and duty of the senate to exercise supremacy in Rome, but that he also advocated a concordia ordinum, an alliance between and recognition of the common interests of senators and equites, to whom property and the status quo were sacred. Closely connected with this is the idea of a consensus omnium bonorum, a wider alliance to include most of the plebs, and Italy. In the service of this ideal of unity he believed that the conservative statesman should be concordiae causa sapienter popularis, though he should consult the true interests of the people even more than their wishes; and that all government should be mild and conciliatory. These are the views by which we distinguish him from his more obstinate optimate contemporaries, above all Cato, who are less flexible, more rigidly reactionary.

Alliance · Cicero · Duty · Epistemology · Government (linguistics) · Ideal (ethics) · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Property (philosophy) · Reactionary · Status quo · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Studies and Legal History · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy

• Cicero’s autobiography

  Open Access•Catherine Steel, Catherine Elizabeth Wannan Steel•Cahiers du Centre Gustave Glotz•2012

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