An Analysis Of The Ciceronian Incorrupt Government Ideology

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) is a well-known politician, elocutionist, jurist and philosopher in the late Roman Republic. He is a regarded as one of the greatest soul figures throughout the the Ancient Roman History, moreover, admired as a noble ancient Roman citizen as well as a great orator by later historians. Although the idea of incorrupt government does not weight as much as the republicanism in the whole Ciceronianpolitical system, it is still worth delving deeper. The views he advocated in incorrupt governance are yet of practical values, and profound and far-reaching influences today. Therefore, with a title of "An Analysis of the Ciceronian Incorrupt Government Ideology", this paper presents an in-depth study on Cicero’s Incorrupt Government Ideology, focusing mainly on the analyses of its formation, core content, influence on later ages, and inspirations to the Incorrupt Government construction in China. Through meticulous exploration of the beneficiary aspects of Cicero’s thoughts on Incorrupt government, this paper is aim to shed lights on the building of an anti-corrupt government currently undergoing in China.The formation of the Ciceronianideology on incorrupt government is inevitably connected to his birth in an honorable knight family and his profoundlife experience. Once a glorious and powerful Roman consul, Cicero was forced into exile by his opponents in politics. The ups and downs in his life became new starting points of his political reflections. It is known that the circumstances create heroes. Cicero was living in a clashing time when the Roman Republic on one hand became a superpower over the Mediterranean region after defeating all the other countries, and on the other hand confronted with the crisis of increasingly rampant corruption and the deterioration of the republic system. With his vivid descriptions and eloquent speeches, Cicero worked hard to sustain the once glorious Roman Republic and defend his personal political dreams. In terms of the origins of his ideologies, they are philosophically derived from the Platonic Academica, politically similar to the Peripateticism of Aristotle, juristically deeply influenced by the Stoic Natural Law Theory. As a politician, philosopher, and state activist, Cicero learnt widely from others, hence showcased features from various schools in his ideology on incorrupt governance.This paper introduces in detail the major content of the Ciceronian incorrupt government, including the separation of powers that horizontally divides the governmental power to check and balance the power of other branches, restrict administrative power so as to avoid corruption and promote clarity and honesty, legal supervision that supervises and constrains power by law to prevent any individual abusing public power for personal interests, and the administration of officials that deterrents officials with corruptive intentions through a well-established official selection system and variant supervision. The above-mentioned three representative aspects of the ideology of incorrupt government, have been continuously developed and improved through the past two thousand years, and gradually evolved into many theories such as the "tripartite", and "equal justice under law", which are nowadays been applied in national governance.As an old Chinese saying goes "A jade can be polished by using stones form other hills", it is believed that the history is of significant importance in mirroring the rises and falls in the process of a country’s development. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, our new leadership team has taken robust action to crackdown on corruption. The improving national anti-corruption mechanism refreshes our social atmosphere, and increases the morale amongst the general public. Despite that there are considerable differences between the political system and social development at the present stage in China and those at the time of Cicero more than two thousand years ago, the construction of a clean and honest government in China can still draw lessons from the Ciceronian theories provided that we critically skim the cream and abandon the dross in accordance with our particular national conditions.