Cicero, was truly a man of the state. His writings also show us he was equally a man of
philosophical temperament and affluence. Yet at times these two forces within Cicero clash
and contradict with the early stoic teachings. Cicero gradually adopted the stoic
lifestyle but not altogether entirely, and this is somewhat due to the fact of what it was
like to be a roman of the time. The morals of everyday Rome conflicted with some of the
stoic ideals that were set by early stoicism. Thus, Cicero changed the face of stoicism by
romanizing it; redefining stoicism into the middle phase.
Of Cicero it can be said he possessed a bias towards roman life and doctrine. For Cicero
every answer lay within Rome itself, from the ideal governing body to the place of
divination. Cicero does not offer any alternate answers to roman society, which robs him
of being truly a unique and bold political philosopher. This is not to say however some
of his doctrines are untrue, just that he is somewhat blinded by his roman beliefs and
assumptions.
The assumptions of Cicero can be noticed when one inspects his view of the ideal
governing body, which he expresses through Scipio (in the commonwealth). Although Cicero
presents very convincing arguments for a Composite government, clearly his view is
possibly only due towards his belief in the roman structure of government.1
Cicero was limited to roman borders of experience, and this point was best illustrated
by his disagreement with Aristotle's writings on the decay of states. Cicero was
unable to think on the level of Aristotle's logic. He quite simply used roman history
as a mapping of the paths of the decay of states.
In contrast, Aristotle understood the underlying forces and influences that transpired when
a state degraded. Cicero quite frankly could not understand the forces which Aristotle so
eloquently denoted. For Cicero, history offered the...
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