Cicero’s Practical Philosophy

4. Cicero’s Constantia in Theory and Practice

79 4 Cicero’s Constantia in Theory and Practice Catherine Tracy Cicero’s interest in philosophy was both theoretical and practical.He wrote extensively on the philosophical schools of his day and also related his own practical circumstances to the philosophical views that he held.1 The extent to which his theoretical philosophical affiliations affected his practical and political behavior is a subject that interested Cicero himself, as it has also interested many of his critics and admirers. Cicero often argued, in particular, that he preferred the freedom of thought allowed by the anti-­ dogmatic skepticism of Philo of Larissa’s Academy to such philosophies as Epicureanism and Stoicism.2 This skepticism allowed the weighing of the relative merits of any course of action without obedience to a dogmatic set of principles, and the making of decisions based on what seemed, according to the available evidence, to be most probably true. The discovery of new evidence could, therefore, cause one to change one’s mind and behave in a manner that contradicted the previous decision. 80  Catherine Tracy Cicero often claimed to follow this skeptical approach. But in practice Cicero was guided by his determination to justify his earlier decisions and actions.Regardless of his theoretical philosophical freedom, Cicero the politician considered that constantia, which he gene­ rally uses to mean “firmness” or “consistency,” was essential to his political and public appeal. Public statements that he may originally have made in response to specific exigencies he later tried not to contradict, even when circumstances or context had changed. This may have been a pragmatic response to the demands of his electorate, who would not support a vacillating and unreliable magistrate, but Cicero’s concern to achieve constantia was more than just pragmatic. His correspondence, combined with references in his speeches and treatises, show that the achievement of constantia became a guiding moral and philosophical principle for him that overrode his theoretical belief in skepticism. The extent to which Cicero was influenced by the desire to appear consistent is best seen in the conflicting demands of his populist and elite audiences: Cicero had to please both, and his efforts to do so without too obviously contradicting himself show the value he laid on public constantia. More direct evidence of Cicero’s concern with constantiaisshowninthenumerousreferencesinCicero ’scorrespondence, especially in his letters to Atticus, to his anxiety on the subject: Cicero ’s desire to appear consistent, though often unattained, frequently influenced his actions despite Atticus’s more cautious advice. Cicero’s stated adherence to the skeptical philosophical stance—that inconsistency might be justified if changed circumstances warranted it— was, in fact, a veneer that imperfectly covered Cicero’s more practical and entrenched belief: that the appearance of public consistency was necessary for a homo novus to succeed in politics. Cicero’s Populism It is sometimes assumed that Cicero’s more populist statements were expressed for purely pragmatic electoral reasons, since they seem, in sentiment at least, to contradict his attempts in other contexts to fit himself into the inner circle of the ruling class. But his populist rhetoric, though clearly required by the context of the contio, should Cicero’s Constantia in Theory and Practice   81 not be dismissed as irrelevant to the rest of Cicero’s career. Indeed, a comparison of Cicero’s populism with statements from more elite contexts shows that Cicero did not freely contradict himself.If Cicero used populist rhetoric for immediate pragmatic ends, he did not subsequently disregard what he had said just because the context had changed. This was a society, after all, in which verbal contracts were binding, especially when there were witnesses to prove the contract.3 The statements that Cicero made in contio speeches that verbally raised the populus up to supreme authority in the state were not easily said and then easily forgotten—at least not by Cicero. Cicero’s speeches De Lege Agraria 2 and 3 are good examples of this sort of populist language.These speeches, addressed to crowds of ordinary Romans on the subject of agrarian reform, have been described as Cicero’s worst descent into insincerity. Cicero is against agrarian reform (we know this from his letters as well as from these speeches), and most people assume that the populus should have been in favor of it; but Cicero persuades his audience to dismiss the bill while giving the crowd clear assurances of their wisdom and authority. Commentaries on Cicero’s De Lege Agraria have tended to describe Cicero’s...