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Unlike the political buzz words of our own time, Cicero’s language reveals a political understanding of reality and is not founded in abstract notions but in the substance of human nature. Dr. Fleming begins this discourse with a detailed explanation of the res publica: the terms from which republic is derived in English. The “public thing” of Cicero’s contemplation is a far cry from contemporary notions of democracy, yet reveals a keen understanding of natural order and realism characteristic of the Aristotelian school that Cicero synthesizes for our understanding. This is in contrast to the Epicurean school, which Dr. Fleming suggests is the ancient forerunner of the ideology of classical liberalism and the political world which envelopes the West in confusion today. While Aristotle observed man in natural orders of society bounded with family, religion, property, and a hierarchical order headed by divine reason, Epicurus dreamed of liberation from hierarchy and duty through the abolition of piety and an instruction in materialism. The contrast between the Aristotelian tradition and the Epicurean is also a contrast between Cicero’s republican virtues and the corrupt notions that consume and debase modern public life.
Cicero’s defense of the mixed constitution of the Roman Republic was an inspiration to the classically educated writers of the American Constitution, but Cicero’s own respect for the ancient monarchy of Rome contrasts with the tendency of Americans, indoctrinated with the notions of the Declaration of Independence, to think less of their loyal and royalist ancestors. Thus, American republicanism sows the seeds of alienation from all ancestors, for other institutions of the ancient regime are now condemned on the same grounds that the Epicurean Paine dismissed monarchy in Common Sense. Cicero’s analysis of the origins and symptoms of mob rule are also valuable. Cicero’s diagnosis of the ills of his age helps us better understand our own, according to our speaker.
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