external text
De Re Publica
also: the Republic, On the Commonwealth, nostris libris
Cicero's dialogue on the ideal state (54–51 BC), in which the elder Scipio Aemilianus is the principal speaker and the surviving fragments include the portrait of the ideal statesman (rector/moderator rei publicae). Self-cited at Att. 8.11, where Cicero measures Pompey against the work's ideal.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 8.11 §1 that ruler of the commonwealth to whom we wished all things to be referred
Cicero invokes the figure of the ideal statesman (the rector or moderator rei publicae) that he had developed in his dialogue De Re Publica; he is measuring the real Pompey against this philosophical ideal and finding him wanting.
- Ad Atticum 10.4 §4 we said rightly in those books of mine
Cicero refers to his political dialogue De Re Publica, completed in 51 BC, and to the Stoic tenet it shares with his ethics that nothing is truly good but the honourable and nothing truly evil but the base. Atticus had reminded him of his own teaching to console him.
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §2.59 \textit{On the Commonwealth}
Cicero's own dialogue De Re Publica, in which the Stoic-leaning case for natural justice is put in the mouth of Laelius. He refers the reader there for a fuller treatment of justice.
- Tusculan Disputations §4.1 the six books I wrote on the commonwealth
Cicero's dialogue De Re Publica, in six books, completed in 51 BC. He refers his reader there for his fuller treatment of the institutions and balance of the Roman state.