Cicero on Our Disengaged Age
The collapse of the late Roman republic came not in an instant but over time: through a period of profound internal fracture and systemic chaos. This was a time for choosing. As the state’s civic structures atrophied, a fundamental debate arose concerning the very nature of civic duty and the common good. This era of political decomposition presented leading men with a choice between two opposing philosophical blueprints for life: a withdrawal into private concerns and disengagement from public affairs, or a commitment to active statesmanship.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of the American founding, we find ourselves in a similar period of civic fragmentation and disengagement. This is especially true for young people. This modern disengagement mirrors the Roman dilemma, a choice between the tranquil sanctuaries of repose and private interest and the arduous demands of the public square and the common good.
The orator and statesman Cicero vehemently rejected the philosophy of retreat, insisting that the survival of the res publica—and the fulfillment of individual virtue—depended on the urgent exercise of individual moral virtue in the political arena.
On the side of resignation, Lucretius argued that the universe is composed of atomistic matter. Thus, all of reality fundamentally consists of isolated bodies that can only engage each other in chaotic collision. All unity in the world is merely the temporary conjunction of fundamentally discrete and indivisible material entities that move chaotically in an infinite field of empty space or void. This atomistic physics leads directly to a contractualist politics: if there is no natural, teleological bond between men, then the state is not a natural growth but an artifice, a shield designed to prevent the “chaotic collision” of individuals in a natural state of war. The ultimate implication of this first premise for man is that he is indeed an island and that the res publica is a fiction. Atoms, being essentially singular and isolated, cannot share anything. Nor can men if they are but a collection of such atoms.
The good life, then, for Lucretius, is not one dedicated to the illusory res publica. Rather, it is a solitary life of moderate pleasure and the pursuit of wisdom in philosophy, secluded from the chaotic affairs of the world that serve only to steal peace and happiness. Lucretius seeks to guide man out of the incessant tempest of worldly concerns into the peaceful repose of Epicurean gardens.
Lucretius does not quite advocate a state of total anarchy or an anchorite isolation. In Book V of De Rerum Natura, “Of the Nature of Things,” he offers a distinctive political vision: a “covenant of safety” born of a desire to mitigate suffering. For the Lucretian, the state is a vital tool for the maintenance of ataraxia (tranquility), providing the stability necessary for the individual to pursue private repose. His is a politics of utility and strife, not of duty and concord.
Lucretius begins De Rerum Natura with an invocation to Venus whom he heralds as the only one who has “the influence to obtain for mortals the blessing of tranquil peace.” He promises that the path he intends to set forth upon will lead to his pupil’s being “released from cares, to true philosophy.” No longer buffeted about in the tempest of desire and worldly affairs, man can attain happiness in peace and repose.
The apparent piety contained in the appeal to Venus is, however, only a façade. He says later that “since this philosophy of ours often appears somewhat off-putting to those who have not experienced it, and most people recoil back from it, I have preferred to expound it to you in harmonious Pierian poetry and, so to speak, coat it with the sweet honey of muses.”
This philosophy is off-putting for at least two reasons. First, it is radically unappealing first because it contradicts ordinary experience. Lucretius reduces man to a mere bundle of atoms, stripping life of spiritual significance and rendering traditional civic aims—virtue, glory, and power—“no worthier than the dust.”
Second, this materialism necessitates political abandonment. The Lucretian philosopher retires to “tranquil sanctuaries” effectively fortified by the “teaching of the wise.” From these heights, he looks down on the “prodigious effort” of those competing for rank and wealth. Detached and resigned, the ideal Lucretian avoids the “tempest” of worldly affairs, savoring a life defined by the mere absence of pain and tumult.
Cicero contends that this view is erroneous and fatal to the Republic. He makes himself “the great enemy of the Epicurean system,” as Adam Smith later described him.
Himself a lover of wisdom, Cicero claims in De Republica that he “could have reaped richer rewards from peace than anyone else.” Yet he insists that “nature has given to mankind such a compulsion to do good, and such a desire to defend the well-being of the community,” and that Rome did not give its citizens “life and nurture unconditionally, without expecting to receive in return, as it were, some maintenance … nor did it engage simply to serve our convenience, providing a safe haven for our leisure and a quiet place for our relaxation … leaving to us for our private use only what might be surplus to its needs.” He seeks to rouse the spirit of his countrymen in the urgent cause of the defense of the republic, something achieved by the dramatic pathos of rhetoric, not the mellarium metrum of sweet poetry. Cicero counters the utilitarian view by asserting that the res publica is not merely a contract for safety, but a “partnership in law” rooted in our very nature. For Cicero, we are not isolated atoms seeking a truce, but social beings whose perfection requires the shared life of the city.
Cicero insists that there is no “occupation which brings human excellence closer to divine power than founding new states and preserving those already founded.” It is the life of the statesman that fully cultivates and exercises the moral and intellectual virtues that make men great. He says “it is not enough to possess moral excellence as a kind of skill, unless you put it into practice. … Moral excellence is entirely a matter of practice. Its most important field of practice, moreover, is in the government of a state.” Where Lucretius argues that knowledge of the true nature of things will lead one to abandon the active life and seek tranquility in contemplation, Cicero insists that “we are spurred on by nature herself to fulfil this purpose,” to exercise moral and intellectual virtue in the service of the res publica. The impulse to “defend the well being of the community … prevails over all temptations of pleasure and ease.” Only an unnatural distortion of man’s purpose could create the man of Lucretius’s ideal. “Our species is not made of solitary individuals or lonely wanderers.”
Cicero recognizes that the political community does not exist as an end in itself. Rather, it is the “partnership of citizens in a happy and honorable life,” which is the “primary purpose of forming a community, and that must be achieved for human beings by the state.” He describes this sort of life more fully, saying “the aim of our ideal statesman is the citizen’s happy life … a life secure in wealth, rich in resources, abundant in renown, and honorable in its moral character.” Elsewhere, Cicero says “all I can do is to urge on you to regard friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly what we want in prosperity or adversity.” These are precisely the sorts of things which Lucretius rejects as vain illusions.
One of Cicero’s most powerful criticisms of Lucretius is the argument that an Epicurean life of resignation and seclusion is incapable of sustaining itself. Even if this were the best life per se, it simply cannot defend itself. If too many men in the Republic taste the sweet honey of Lucretius’s teaching, too few will remain to operate the necessary elements of government in war and peace, and the tranquility of the city will be ravaged by nature, war, and internal instability.
Cicero argues, again in De Republica, that “harmony is readily maintained in a state where everyone has the same interests. It is from incompatible interests, when different policies suit different people, that discord arises.” Such discord is endemic to a Lucretian view that sees all individuals as utterly idiosyncratic and atomistic. They are utterly incapable of sharing any genuine unity and thus incapable of forming a true res publica.
Conversely, Cicero says that “when the people, in a spirit of unity, judge everything in the light of their own security and freedom, nothing, they say, is less liable to change or collapse.” Thus, Cicero is able to defend his insistence on the necessity for great men to engage in political life on account of both the benefit it provides the individual—cultivating and fully manifesting his virtue as well as meriting honor and power—and the benefit it provides to the res publica. This benefit, while most important for its inherent worthiness, also returns a supreme benefit to the individual by providing the only real space for stable and genuine tranquility.
We must defend the garden, the library, and the ivory tower with valiant effort lest they be destroyed. In such moments, Cicero tells us to “hold that course which has always been followed by the best men, ignoring the bugle for retreat.” In our own day, we would do well to attend with great care to the debate between these two philosophers. Like theirs, our republic is in disarray, her unity rent and her future precarious.
A revitalized civic education is essential to instilling a profound sense of communal welfare that directly combats the contemporary tendency toward apathy and political disengagement. This commitment demands that citizens reject the modern siren song of prioritizing isolation and personal comfort over shared responsibility, recognizing that civic health requires active participation. To secure the republic’s prosperity, civic education must champion this active virtue, compelling individuals to set aside their private repose for the urgent exercise of duty in service of the common good.
The danger of the Lucretian framework, when used as a diagnostic for our own time, is not that it encourages men to flee to the hills, but that it encourages them to view the republic as a mere service provider. When the state is viewed solely as a guarantor of private comfort, the citizen becomes a consumer of safety rather than a guardian of the common good.
We should look to Lucretius and Cicero not as direct causes of our current malaise, but as archetypes. They provide a diagnostic mirror: do we see our republic as a Lucretian contract of convenience, or a Ciceronian association of virtue? The restoration of our republic’s fading prosperity and vitality hinges on whether the vigorous enterprise of magnanimous and public-minded citizens can overpower the bugle for retreat. If a Ciceronian call to action prevails, the republic may yet be led to feel again its rightful happiness and secure this restoration. In this demanding moment of crisis, the ultimate task of giving voice to Cicero falls decisively to us.