Selected Works. Marcus Tullius Cicero

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СКАЧАТЬ And yet this very question has been decided on many occasions before and since; but in the war with Pyrrhus the decision rendered by Gaius Fabricius, in his second consulship, and by our senate was particularly striking. Without provocation King Pyrrhus had declared war upon the Roman People; the struggle was against a generous and powerful prince, and the supremacy of power was the prize; a deserter came over from him to the camp of Fabricius and promised, if Fabricius would assure him of a reward, to return to the camp of Pyrrhus as secretly as he had come, administer poison to the king, and bring about his death. Fabricius saw to it that this fellow was taken back to Pyrrhus; and his action was commended by the senate. And yet, if the mere show of expediency and the popular conception of it are all we want, this one deserter would have put an end to that wasting war and to a formidable foe of our supremacy; but it would have been a lasting shame and disgrace to us to have overcome not by valour but by crime the man with whom we had a contest for glory.

      Which course, then, was more expedient for Fabricius, who was to our city what Aristides was to Athens, or for our senate, who never divorced expediency from honour—to contend against the enemy with the sword or with poison? If supremacy is to be sought for the sake of glory, crime should be excluded, for there can be no glory in crime; but if it is power for its own sake that is sought, whatever the price, it cannot be expedient if it is linked with shame.

      That well-known measure, therefore, introduced by Philippus, the son of Quintus, was not expedient. With the authority of the senate, Lucius Sulla had exempted from taxation certain states upon receipt of a lump sum of money from them. Philippus proposed that they should again be reduced to the condition of tributary states, without repayment on our part of the money that they had paid for their exemption. And the senate accepted his proposal. Shame upon our government! The pirates’ sense of honour is higher than the senate’s. “But,” someone will say, “the revenues were increased, and therefore it was expedient.” How long will people venture to say that a thing that is not morally right can be expedient? Furthermore, can hatred and shame be expedient for any government? For government ought to be founded upon fair fame and the loyalty of allies.

      On this point I often disagreed even with my friend Cato; it seemed to me that he was too rigorous in his watchful care over the claims of the treasury and the revenues; he refused everything that the farmers of the revenue asked for and much that the allies desired; whereas, as I insisted, it was our duty to be generous to the allies and to treat the publicans as we were accustomed individually to treat our tenants—and all the more, because harmony between the orders was essential to the welfare of the republic.{104} Curio, too, was wrong, when he pleaded that the demands of the people beyond the Po were just, but never failed to add, “Let expediency prevail.” He ought rather to have proved that the claims were not just, because they were not expedient for the republic, than to have admitted that they were just, when, as he maintained, they were not expedient.

      XXIII. The sixth book of Hecaton’s “Moral Duties” is full of questions like the following: “Is it consistent with a good man’s duty to let his slaves go hungry when provisions are at famine price?”

      Hecaton gives the argument on both sides of the question; but still in the end it is by the standard of expediency, as he conceives it, rather than by one of human feeling, that he decides the question of duty.

      Then he raises this question: supposing a man had to throw part of his cargo overboard in a storm, should he prefer to sacrifice a high-priced horse or a cheap and worthless slave? In this case regard for his property interest inclines him one way, human feeling the other.

      “Suppose that a foolish man has seized hold of a plank from a sinking ship, shall a wise man wrest it away from him if he can?” “No,” says Hecaton; “for that would be unjust.”

      “But how about the owner of the ship? Shall he take the plank away because it belongs to him?”

      “Not at all; no more than he would be willing when far out at sea to throw a passenger overboard on the ground that the ship was his. For until they reach the place for which the ship is chartered, she belongs to the passengers, not to the owner.”

      “Again; suppose there were two to be saved from the sinking ship—both of them wise men—and only one small plank, should both seize it to save themselves? Or should one give place to the other?”

      “Why, of course, one should give place to the other, but that other must be the one whose life is more valuable either for his own sake or for that of his country.”

      “But what if these considerations are of equal weight in both?”

      “Then there will be no contest, but one will give place to the other, as if the point were decided by lot or at a game of odd and even.”

      “Again, suppose a father were robbing temples or making underground passages to the treasury, should a son inform the officers of it?”

      “Nay; that were a crime; rather should he defend his father, in case he were indicted.”

      “Well, then, are not the claims of country paramount to all other duties”

      “Aye, verily; but it is to our country’s interest to have citizens who are loyal to their parents.”

      “But once more—if the father attempts to make himself king, or to betray his country, shall the son hold his peace?”

      “Nay, verily; he will plead with his father not to do so. If that accomplishes nothing, he will take him to task; he will even threaten; and in the end, if things point to the destruction of the state, he will sacrifice his father to the safety of his country.”

      Again he raises the question: “If a wise man should inadvertently accept counterfeit money for good, will he offer it as genuine in payment of a debt after he discovers his mistake?” Diogenes says, “Yes”; Antipater, “No,” and I agree with him.

      If a man knowingly offers for sale wine that is spoiling, ought he to tell his customers? Diogenes thinks that it is not required; Antipater holds that an honest man would do so. These are like so many points of the law disputed among the Stoics. “In selling a slave, should his faults be declared—not those only which he seller is bound by the civil law to declare or have the slave returned to him, but also the fact that he is untruthful, or disposed to ramble, or steal, or get drunk?” The one thinks such faults should be declared, the other does not.

      “If a man thinks that he is selling brass, when he is actually selling gold, should an upright man inform him that his stuff is gold, or go on buying for one shilling{105} what is worth a thousand?”

      It is clear enough by this time what my views are on these questions, and what are the grounds of dispute between the above-named philosophers.

      XXIV. The question arises also whether agreements and promises must always be kept, “when,” in the language of the praetors’ edicts, “they have not been secured through force or criminal fraud.”

      If one man gives another a remedy for the dropsy, with the stipulation that, if he is cured by it, he shall never make use of it again; suppose the patient’s health is restored by the use of it, but some years later he contracts the same disease once more; and suppose he cannot secure from the man with whom he made the agreement permission to use the remedy again, what should he do? That is the question. Since the man is unfeeling in refusing the request, and since no harm could be done to him by his friend’s using the remedy, the sick man is justified in doing what he can for his own life and health.

      Again: suppose that a millionaire is making some wise man his heir and leaving him in his will a hundred СКАЧАТЬ