A res publica entre a ideia e a história: filosofia, eloquência e tradição no pensamento político-jurídico de Marco Túlio Cícero

Abstract

In the first century BC, the successive political crises inflicted irreversible transformations to the Roman Republic. One of the recurrent explanations attributed guilt to the men of the present who abandoned the mos maiorum. In this context, the Romans, so attached to the legacy of the patres, turned to their past even more, in the hope that the recall of the achievements of their ancestors would reintroduce the respect to the customs and, with that, would preserve the constitution. For that, it was necessary to investigate the tradition and, at the end, to write history. Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the brightest minds to realize these new challenges of the Rome that became an empire, but that could not sacrifice the pillars of its culture. Thus, he outlines a conception of res publica as the best constitution that, taking Roman history as a starting point, is a balance between populus, Senate and magistrates, a stable mixed form that ensures freedom. But Cicero recognizes the need for good politicians, first citizens and models of virtue, to guide the city to good paths according to the predictions of the political movements. The rector is also an orator and a man who knows philosophy, revealing himself the only one capable of writing history, whereby one understands that this political-juridical configuration traced by Cicero is not merely a reproduction of the Rome of his own time or the past. The best res publica according to Cicero is an idea, a theory that is born from experience and is directed to it. This means that mans continuous action for the development of his rational nature produces the optimus status civitatis: by trial and error, the maiores have managed to obtain a form of government able to promote moral perfection according to nature, and now it is possible for the man of the present to conceive whatever is the best. He inherits the excellent constitution of his parents, but he needs to reshape it according to the demands of the new context in which he is situated. Therefore, by the union between theory and political-juridical practice, Cicero harmonizes tradition and innovation, nature and history. This work begins with the political tradition in Antiquity to establish the main political, juridical and moral aspects that compose the structure of the idea of res publica in Cicero, followed by an incursion on its foundations, such as nature, eloquence, philosophy and history. As a result, it is identified that history legitimizes the idea of republic because it is set as the beginning and the end of the theory.