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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.

423

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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.

42424