Thammasat University students interested in philosophy, political science, ethics, European history, literature, and related subjects may find a new book useful.

Portraying Cicero in Literature, Culture, and Politics: From Ancient to Modern Times is an Open Access book available for free download at this link:

https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/53707

The TU Library collection includes a number of books by and about Cicero.

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and philosopher who worked during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire.

His writings include texts about rhetoric, philosophy and politics, and he is considered one of Rome’s most accomplished orators and prose stylists.

Many years after his death, his writings were still influential during the Enlightenment in the 1700s, impacting such political theorists as John Locke, David Hume, Montesquieu and Edmund Burke.

For many readers, Cicero symbolized the essence of classical Latin, with learning that was considered essential for young students.

Saint Augustine, a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop in Numidia, Roman North Africa, saw Cicero as a source of wisdom and model of correct speaking and writing.

The saint adapted Cicero’s thoughts and rhetorical precepts to Christian philosophy and education and redirecting readings of the republican orator towards the instruction and cultural formation of students.

Cicero was seen as a wise statesman and politician, embodying republican values. He described how people can improve themselves through personal talents.

However, over the centuries, dictatorial regimes were never enthused about Cicero.

In his private letters, Cicero sometimes described himself as a weak and frightened person, causing problems for his family due to his political struggles.

Yet his public statements, especially his speeches, present Cicero as a virtuous person and good citizen, who sacrifices his own safety and well-being for the sake of freedom in a republic.

Here are some thoughts by Cicero from his writings, some of which are in the TU Library collection:

A war is never undertaken by the ideal State, except in defense of its honor or its safety.

• Almost no one dances sober, unless he is insane.

Pro Murena (Chapter VI, sec. 13)

• In a time of war, the law falls silent.

Pro Milone, Chapter IV, section 11.

• That which is most excellent, and is most to be desired by all happy, honest and healthy-minded people, is dignified leisure.

Pro Publio Sestio; Chapter XLV

• True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, though neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly considered punishment.

De Re Publica [Of The Republic], Book III Section 22

• If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

To Varro, in Ad Familiares IX, 4

• Constant practice devoted to one subject often prevails over both ability and skill.

Pro Balbo, section 45

• For it is not having insufficient knowledge, but persisting a long time in insufficient knowledge that is shameful; since the one is assumed to be a disease common to all, but the other is assumed to be a flaw to an individual.

De Inventione, Section 2.9.3

• Does not, as fire dropped upon water is immediately extinguished and cooled, so, does not, I say, a false accusation, when brought in contact with a most pure and holy life, instantly fall and become extinguished?

Cicero, Pro Roscio Comodeo Oratio, 17

• Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a person, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a previous age?

Chapter XXXIV, section 120

De Divinatione – On Divination

• We must not say that every mistake is a foolish one.

Book II, Chapter LII, section 90

• There is nothing so absurd that it has not been said by some philosopher.

Book II, chapter LVIII, section 119

• We do not destroy religion by destroying superstition.

Book II, chapter LXXII, sec. 148

• We are not born for ourselves alone; a part of us is claimed by our nation, another part by our friends.

De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC) Book I, section 22

• For of all gainful professions, nothing is better, nothing more pleasing, nothing more delightful, nothing better becomes a well-bred man than agriculture.

De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC) Book I, section 42.

• And we recently discovered, if it was not known before, that no amount of power can withstand the hatred of the many. The death of this tyrant (Julius Caesar), whose yoke the state endured under the constraint of armed force and whom it still obeys more humbly than ever, though he is dead, illustrates the deadly effects of popular hatred; and the same lesson is taught by the similar fate of all other despots, of whom practically no one has ever escaped such a death. For fear is but a poor safeguard of lasting power; while affection, on the other hand, may be trusted to keep it safe for ever.

De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC) Book II, section 7

• A: For what stronger proof can there be of its [philosophy’s] uselessness than that some accomplished philosophers lead disgraceful lives?

M: It is no proof at all; for as all cultivated fields are not harvest-yielding […] so all cultivated minds do not bear fruit. To continue the figure – as a field, though fertile, cannot yield a harvest without cultivation, no more can the mind without learning; thus each is feeble without the other. But philosophy is the cultivation of the soul. It draws out vices by the root, prepares the mind to receive seed, and commits to it, and, so to speak, sows in it what, when grown, may bear the most abundant fruit.

Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC) Book II, Chapter V

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)