The philosophers we remember are often people who "look up at the stars", who think transcendentally about the universe and life, about where human beings "came from and where they went" .
However, there is also a school of philosophers in history who advocate active participation in political life and embark on the road of power struggle, represented by the famous philosopher, politician, orator and jurist Cicero of ancient Rome.
It is said that because it was loved by the people, the streets of Rome at that time were filled with statues of Cicero
A Cicero resume
Cicero was an important figure who introduced Greek philosophy to Rome, rich in writings, although his fame was not as good as that of Julius Caesar and others in the period, but its influence was very far-reaching, and the Renaissance was even called "Cicero's revival", and his oratory was still studied and imitated by people.
"The Highest Power" is a political history novel based on this famous roman philosopher and politician, taking into account both credibility and readability, it is based on the most primitive Roman historical materials, and its description is evaluated as "like an archaeologist repairing a broken mosaic".
As soon as Supreme Power was published, it topped the New York Times bestseller list, and the first place at the time was the well-known "The Da Vinci Code." The novel, which takes Cicero's personal confidential secretary, Tyro, as its first perspective, tells the story of an ambitious ancient Roman youth who goes from studying to emerging in politics, navigating with various forces, and finally ascending to the top of power.
The story begins with Cicero, 27, a well-known lawyer who, despite his ambitions to enter politics, faces two major obstacles:
First, he has no money;
Second, he had a natural flaw in speech, a hoarse and harsh voice, and a bit of stuttering.
In ancient Rome, to enter politics, one had to first become a senator, and the criteria for a senator was to be thirty-one years old and have millions of assets, and for the first question, Cicero took the fastest and most direct approach - to marry a noble and rich wife. It was a very individual woman who gradually changed from a practical marriage to a strong and strong partnership with Cicero in the years to come.
In order to solve the second problem, Cicero took his slave, Tyro, who later became his right hand man, and began a journey of medical treatment.
Along the way, Cicero first studied philosophy in Athens, which was Cicero's first life, so much so that in his later years he wanted to retire from politics and devote himself to the practice of philosophy.
After studying in Athens, Cicero went to the academy of the Greek oratory Master Molon for guidance, where he learned his proudest art of eloquence. The dominant method of speech in Rome at the time was rhetoric, characterized by rhetoric and dancing, and Moron's eloquence was the exact opposite: don't get overly excited, get to the point, make the audience laugh, make them cry, and sit down as soon as they win sympathy—nothing dries faster than tears.
Cicero has changed dramatically here in Moron, he has become stronger because of the daily morning exercises; his voice has become more powerful, because he is going to recite while climbing; his speech is more fluent and natural, because Moron asks him not to make a speech beforehand. He spent a year here, to the fullest.
At the end of the course, his speech shocked his classmates and mentors, and Moron was silent for a long time, saying to him:
"Cicero, I congratulate you, your performance shocked me. This is Greece, and I feel sad and saddened by her fate, and now we have only one glory left, and that is our supreme eloquence. And now, you know this all too well. Go, go back, kid, conquer Rome! ”
Thus Cicero began his journey to Rome.
Cicero, who has just entered politics, has a very obvious competitive disadvantage, and he has a group of tiger-wolf competitors:
Hotencius, an aristocrat, had a wealth of political resources in his family
Pompey or Caesar—the general, with military power
Crassus was a merchant with wealth that rivaled the wealth of a country
He has to make achievements to be able to fight with these people. One day, a citizen from Sicily gave Cicero a chance to shake the political arena.
Stinius was a citizen of the Sicily and was very wealthy, he owned a thermal bath and a lot of precious collections. However, his wealth attracted the attention of the then governor of Sicily.
The governor of Sicily, named Velez, was notorious for his greed and had plundered countless fortunes. After seizing the entire collection of Stinius, he also accused him of forging and punished him with flogging.
The wronged Stinius was desperate and sought help from Cicero, the "second best lawyer in all of Rome." During his investigation, he discovered that Velez was an unscrupulous rogue who had not reported any accounts during his two years as governor of Sicily. That is, Vilez blatantly embezzled all the money.
However, the biggest difficulty in this case was not in the collection of evidence, but in the fact that Villers basically bribed all the nobles of the Senate. As Cicero's wife said:
"Thank you so much, Cicero, that you put us in a state of hostility with half of the famous men of Rome."
This justice for the weak once reached a dead end, Cicero and his friends discuss countermeasures, the dialogue of this plot in the book is really wonderful, in the face of public opposition and hesitation, Cicero made a risky decision - to find the help of the protector.
In Rome, the Protector had the power to supervise and restrain the Senate, but the nobility deprived it of this power, and any member of the Senate associated with the Protector was considered to be associated with the mob and thus stifled in his political career.
But Cicero said:
"When you find yourself in a political quagmire, all you have to do is start fighting — go to war, even if you don't know how to win, because the battle starts and everything moves, you can count on seeing everything and finding the odds."
Perhaps, there is no right or wrong in politics, only a trade-off between the pros and cons. Cicero eventually saved the innocent Stinius with the help of the Protector, and his political stance began to be officially inclined to civilians, and he was thus drawn into a larger and more complex political whirlpool.
Cicero saved Stinius, but Velez's case was not over, and Cicero needed more evidence for Velez to be truly convicted, so he set out for Sicily.
In the process, he found a large amount of evidence of Velez's violation of the law, and discovered the even greater evil behind Velez's corruption crime - treason.
The reason was that they came to a small town called Messana, where there was a huge cross on the pier, and the inhabitants of the town told Cicero that Velez had held a carnival here and that a Roman citizen had been executed on this cross. Here's what Cicero had to say to the residents:
"A Roman citizen? Cicero asked in disbelief, "It is illegal to execute a Roman citizen without going through the full trial procedure, do you know his name?" “ He shouted that his name was Gavinius, a merchant from Spain who had served in the army. Throughout the process, he kept screaming: 'I am a Citizen of Rome!' 'Every time he shouts a whip, he takes a whip." "Velez tied him to a cross and tortured him, and on it he looked right at Regium on the other side, so that he could enjoy the pain of his death and look at the roman continent at the same time."
The Roman citizen named Gavinius was charged with espionage, and in the subsequent investigation, Cicero discovered the shocking truth, it turned out that Velez accepted bribes from pirates, released pirates who should have been executed, and instead persecuted law-abiding merchants who were trading at sea, embezzled their money, and cruelly exiled them to the most terrible prisons.
Vius was executed in public because he had been saying that he was going to Rome to denounce Velez's treason, so he was killed.
Cicero took advantage of this, with his impassioned speech, to nail Veles to Rome's column of shame forever:
"You admit he said it! With that alone, I can accuse you! The man repeatedly claims to be a Roman citizen, and you turn a deaf ear and be indifferent! ...... Veles, if you are a prisoner in Persia or in the most remote part of India and are about to be dragged out for execution, what else can you shout but shout "I am a Roman citizen"? ...... It is not Gavius, not this poor man, but the universal principle that the Romans are free men! ”
The populace was utterly outraged, and the entire Senate was no longer willing to defend Velez, for it was pointless. Cicero thus won the Victory in the Veles case once and for all.
The Willes case was a big gamble for Cicero, and in terms of the outcome, Cicero won the gamble, not only for the justice he won, but also for the real political benefits of being elected as an administrator in an election.
By this point, Cicero had been glorified, but at the same time, he was caught in a more dangerous political situation.
As we have said before, in Roman politics there were three prominent figures: Pompey, who was heavily armed, Crassus, who was rich and invincible, and Holtencius, the representative of the nobility. Cicero's position in this is not so good:
Cicero and Pompey were united by their interests: Pompeo needed Cicero's eloquence, and Cicero needed Pompeo's military deterrence, but the alliance was fragile, and in fact Cicero and Pompey even looked at each other: Pompey thought philosophy was boring, while Cicero thought war was rough.
Crassus and Pompey are political enemies, Cicero helped Pompey, naturally also sided with Crassus, and the two fought each other everywhere;
Cicero's political leanings were commoners, often punching the nobility in the face and angering Hotencius many times.
At the same time, Cicero's cousin and his father died one after another, and the death of his relatives made Cicero rethink the meaning of his political life, and he quickly lifted his spirits after a brief period of confusion:
"Is politics boring? Politically weary? Politics is history that flies! It's constantly evolving and varied. Apart from politics, what other sphere of human activity evokes the noblest and most humble qualities of the human soul? What other area exposes our strengths and weaknesses so deeply? Is politics boring? It's better to say that life itself is boring! ”
Cicero is a political genius, in the face of politics, he has his own unique insights, and in the face of the crisis-ridden political situation at that time, he showed his excellent political sense of smell and talent, he did three big things, and finally broke the situation:
1. Help Pompey gain supreme military command;
2. Discovered Crassus's bribery plot;
3. Forge an alliance with Hotencius and gain the support of the nobility.
The three things Cicero did had a tight and complete chain of cause and effect behind them, and the series of events that happened at that time were also known as the "Catiline Conspiracy" in later generations. Catillin was just one of those participants, and the real confrontation actually took place between Cicero and Crassus.
The cause of the incident was the increasingspread piracy at that time, which seriously endangered the security of the Roman Republic, and Rome had to fight back. At this time, Pompey, the military genius, saw an opportunity in this crisis, and he realized that if at this time, he could serve as the supreme commander to meet the pirates, he would be able to concentrate power in his own hands.
He would become "Pompey the Great", not just a governor of the Roman Republic.
And Crassus, who was on the same page as Pompey, was also bound to gain the supreme command of this, and the two began a fierce competition, and everything that followed:
Cicero chose to help his ally, Pompey, defeat Crassus and gain supreme command, but he also offended Crassus. Cicero's situation worsened after Pompey left (to fight), lamenting while watching a Colosseum performance:
"A poor fellow was brought into the arena, and his opponents were a lion and a black panther, and it was a wonderful show, and the man used his cleverness to have two beasts kill each other... However, he accidentally stumbled and the beasts immediately tore him to shreds..... I saw Hotencius and his aristocratic friend sitting on the left, I saw Crassus and his supporters sitting on the right, and they all laughed, and I thought to myself: Cicero, the poor man in the Colosseum, isn't that you? ”
In 63 BC, Cicero decided to participate in the election of Rome's supreme consul, the final step towards the pinnacle of power. However, that election almost turned into a joke, because Crassus spent a huge amount of money to bribe voters, and almost all the places of consuls, protectors, and magistrates were bought with money, and arranged for those in his own camp.
Crassus was on the verge of success, if his opponent was not Cicero.
Cicero not only discovered Crassus's bribery and let the Senate pass the anti-bribery law in advance, but also investigated Crassus's huge conspiracy to bribe the election--launching a coup d'état, emptying the Senate, and turning Rome from a republic into a tool of dictators.
Crassus's plot violated the bottom line of the senate nobility, and once the republic was gone, the senate would be gone. Cicero immediately informed Hotencius, and the two formed a temporary alliance, and on the day of the election, the nobles collectively voted for Cicero.
"In this way, Marcus Tulius Cicero, at the time of his forty-two (the minimum age limit allowed to serve as a Roman consul), was granted the supreme power of the Roman consul, and he was unanimously elected, which is truly astonishing! ......"
At this point, a philosopher has finally reached the pinnacle of power, although there are still countless difficulties and dangers that await him in the darkness.
Cicero's life was contagious and inspiring, he had no aristocratic origins, no wealth or military background, and he made his voice "the most famous voice in the world" entirely by his own will.
However, he also gives us a sense of "violation": philosophers, who should swim in the sea of books in search of truth, why should they run to Vanity Fair to stir up the storm?
There is a conversation between Cicero and his cousin Lucius in the book, which takes place in the course of their investigation into the case of Velez, who finds the civilians who were innocently killed by Velez to the quarry, and their thoughts are endless:
"Promise me," said Lucius a moment later, "if you have acquired the right of your twilight dominion, you must not run this country so brutally and unjustly." ” "I swear," replied Cicero, "and if such a thing really happens, then, dear Lucius, you should question me why good men abandon philosophy in favor of power in the real world." In addition, you must also promise me that you must remember everything you saw in the quarry today. ”
In that historical period, the decay and decline of Rome were irreparable, corruption and power were everywhere, and the clever Cicero was not unaware, but he wanted to go into the politics of intrigue again and again, to grasp power, in order to restore the glory of "justice and freedom" in Rome.
Only by combining the historical and social circumstances of Cicero's time can we better understand the choice of such a philosopher. We must admit that he is not perfect, he is not a perfect moral model, but he is a man who both "looks up at the stars" and "walks on the road".