Book II, Chapter V

Further, whoever works for the good of the state, works with Right as his end. This may be shown as follows. Right is that proportion of man to man as to things, and as to persons, which, when it is preserved, preserves society, and when it is destroyed, destroys society.¹ The description of Right in the Digest does not give the essence of right, but only describes it for practical purposes.² If therefore our definition comprehends well the essence and reason of Right, and if the end of any society is the common good of its members, it is necessary that the end of all Right is the common good, and it is impossible that that can be Right, which does not aim at the common good. Therefore Cicero says well in the first book of his Rhetoric: "Laws must always be interpreted for the good of the state."³ If laws do not aim at the good of those who live under them, they are laws only in name; in reality they cannot be laws. For it behoves them to bind men together for the common good; and Seneca therefore says well in his book "on the four virtues:" "Law is the bond of human society."⁴ It is therefore plain that whoever aims at the good of the state, aims at the end of Right; and therefore, if the Romans aimed at the good of the state, we shall say truly that they aimed at the end of Right.

That in bringing the whole world into subjection, they aimed at this good, their deeds declare. They renounced all selfishness, a thing always contrary to the public weal; they cherished universal peace and liberty; and that sacred, pious, and glorious people are seen to have neglected their own private interests that they might follow public objects for the good of all mankind. Therefore was it well written: "The Roman Empire springs from the fountain of piety."⁵

But seeing that nothing is known of the intention of an agent who acts by free choice to any but the agent himself, save only by external signs, and since reasonings must be examined according to the subject matter (as has already been said), it will be sufficient on this point if we set forth proofs which none can doubt, of the intention of the Roman people, both in their public bodies and individually.

Concerning those public bodies by which men seem in a way to be bound to the state, the authority of Cicero alone, in the second book of the De Officiis, will suffice. "So long," he says, "as the Empire of the republic was maintained not by injustice, but by the benefits which it conferred, we fought either for our allies or for the Empire. Our wars brought with them an ending which was either indulgent, or else was absolutely necessary. All kings, peoples, and nations found a port of refuge in the Senate. Our magistrates and generals alike sought renown by defending our provinces and our allies with good faith and with justice. Our government might have been called not so much Empire, as a Protectorate of the whole world." So wrote Cicero.⁶

Of individuals I will speak shortly. Shall we not say that they intended the common good, who by hard toil, by poverty, by exile, by bereavement of their children, by loss of limb, by sacrifice of their lives, endeavoured to build up the public weal? Did not great Cincinnatus leave us a sacred example of freely laying down his office at its appointed end, when, as Livy tells us, he was taken from the plough and made dictator? And after his victory, after his triumph, he gave back his Imperator's sceptre to the consuls, and returned to the ploughshare to toil after his oxen.⁷ Well did Cicero, arguing against Epicurus, in the volume De Finibus, speak in praise of him, mindful of this good deed.⁸ "And so," he says, "our ancestors took Cincinnatus from the plough, and made him dictator."

Has not Fabricius left us a lofty example of resisting avarice, when, poor man as he was, for the faith by which he was bound to the republic, he laughed to scorn the great weight of gold which was offered him, and refused it, scorning it with words which became him well. His story too is confirmed by our poet in the sixth Æneid,⁹ where he speaks of "Fabricius strong in his poverty."

Has not Camillus left us a memorable example of obeying the laws instead of seeking our private advantage? For according to Livy he was condemned to exile, and then, after that he had delivered his country from the invaders, and had restored to Rome her own Roman spoils, he yet turned to leave the sacred city, though the whole people bade him stay; nor did he return till leave was given him to come back by the authority of the Senate. This high-souled hero also is commended in the sixth Æneid, where our poet speaks of "Camillus, that restored to us our standards."¹⁰

Was not Brutus the first to teach that our sons, that all others, are second in importance to the liberty of our country? For Livy tells us how, when he was consul, he condemned his own sons to death, for that they had conspired with the enemy. His glory is made new in our poet's sixth book, where he sings how "The father shall summon the sons to die for the sake of fair liberty, when they seek to stir fresh wars."¹¹

Has not Mucius encouraged us to dare everything for our country's sake, when after attacking Porsenna unawares, he watched the hand which had missed its stroke being burnt, though it was his own, as if he were beholding the torment of a foe? This also Livy witnesses to with astonishment.

Add to these those sacred victims the Decii, who laid down their lives by an act of devotion for the public safety, whom Livy glorifies in his narrative, not as they deserve, but as he was able. Add to these the self-sacrifice, which words cannot express, of Marcus Cato, that staunchest champion of true liberty. These were men of whom the one, that he might save his country, did not fear the shadow of death; while the other, that he might kindle in the world the passionate love of liberty, showed how dear was liberty, choosing to pass out of life a free man, rather than without liberty to abide in life.¹² The glory of all these heroes glows afresh in the words of Cicero in his book De Finibus; of the Decii he speaks thus: "Publius Decius, the head of the Decii, a consul, when he devoted himself for the state, and charged straight into the Latin host, was he thinking aught of his pleasure, where and when he should take it;--when he knew that he had to die at once, and sought that death with more eager desire than, according to Epicurus, we should seek pleasure? And were it not that his deed had justly received its praise, his son would not have done the like in his fourth consulship; nor would his grandson, again, in the war with Pyrrhus, have fallen, a consul, in battle; and, a third time in continuous succession in that family, have offered himself a victim for the commonwealth." But in the De Officiis,¹³ Cicero says of Cato: "Marcus Cato was in no different position from his comrades who in Africa surrendered to Cæsar. The others, had they slain themselves, would perhaps have been blamed for the act, for their life was of less consequence,¹⁴ and their principles were not so strict. But for Cato, to whom nature had given incredible firmness and who had strengthened this severity by his unremitting constancy to his principles, and who never formed a resolution by which he did not abide, he was indeed bound to die rather than to look on the face of a tyrant."

Footnotes

1. Cf. Aristotle, Ethics, v. 6. ↩

2. "Jus est ars boni et æqui." L. 1, fr. Dig. De Justitia et Jure, i. 1.--(W.) ↩

3. De Invent. i. 38.--(W.) ↩

4. Not Seneca, but Martin, Bp. of Braga, [dagger symbol]580.--(W.) V. Biog. Univ. ↩

5. "Romanum imperium de fonte nascitur pietatis."--(WITTE.) He has not been able to trace the saying. ↩

6. De Off. ii. 8.--(W.) ↩

7. Liv. vi. 28, 29; Oros. ii. 12.--(W.) ↩

8. II. 4.--(W.) ↩

9. VI. 844.--(W.) ↩

10. Liv. v. 46; Æn. vi. 826.--(W.) ↩

11. Æn. vi. 821.--(W.) ↩

12. Witte quotes the Convito, iv. 5, where all these examples are recounted, almost in the same language. He compares Parad. vi. 46 (Cincinnatus), Purgat. xx. 25 (Fabricius), Parad. vi. 47 (Decii), Purg. i. where Cato guards the approach to Purgatory. ↩

13. I. 31 (W.), carelessly quoted. ↩

14. "Levior" al. "lenior." ↩