On Cicero’s Political Idea

Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle in Classical Greece constructed political systems and the notion of citizen with limited rights, based on the city-state and from the perspective of virtues. But in the Hellenistic period, city-states declined while states rose. In the background of the general community, philosophers in Hellenistic age regarded ethics as the first philosophy; deliberated political virtues from ethics; replaced the priority of city-states with that of individual and the principle of justice with that of freedom. Cicero’s political idea was influenced by the two traditions of Classical Greece and Hellenistic age. Cicero developed his political philosophy by combining the reality of Rome to balance the conflicts between his two identities of politician and philosopher. The first important aspect of Cicero’s political idea is the concept of Lawful state. He treated the state as a lawful existence. The state is made up of law and legal subjects. Cicero discussed the political system from the respect of law and stood for republic. Senate, administrator and tribune carry out their powers within the common legal rights. Cicero’s idea of popular sovereignty is the source of the thought of lawful state. What Cicero referred to "people" is a community constituted by different races with legal rights, in other words, a state. Based on the natural right, Cicero endowed people with complete rights. He treated the god as the foundation of the law, requested the Roman citizens to worship god, and respected it as a public religion. Cicero’s concept of citizen religion provides basal argumentation for the idea of lawful state and popular sovereignty.