"

What is the meaning, then, of this absurd acceptation, unless
some one wishes to make the whole of Athos a monument? For
what is Athos or the vast Olympus? * * *

XXXVII. I will endeavor in the proper place to show it,
according to the definitions of Cicero himself, in which,
putting forth Scipio as the speaker, he has briefly explained
what a commonwealth and what a republic is; adducing also
many assertions of his own, and of those whom he has
represented as taking part in that discussion, to the effect
that the State of Rome was not such a commonwealth, because
there has never been genuine justice in it. However,
according to definitions which are more reasonable, it was a
commonwealth in some degree, and it was better regulated by
the more ancient than by the later Romans.

It is now fitting that I should explain, as briefly and as
clearly as I can, what, in the second book of this work, I
promised to prove, according to the definitions which Cicero,
in his books on the Commonwealth, puts into the mouth of
Scipio, arguing that the Roman State was never a
commonwealth; for he briefly defines a commonwealth as a
state of the people; the people as an assembly of the
multitude, united by a common feeling of right, and a
community of interests. What he calls a common feeling of
right he explains by discussion, showing in this way that a
commonwealth cannot proceed without justice. Where,
therefore, there is no genuine justice, there can be no
right, for that which is done according to right is done
justly; and what is done unjustly cannot be done according to
right, for the unjust regulations of men are not to be called
or thought rights; since they themselves call that right
(_jus_) which flows from the source of justice: and they say
that that assertion which is often made by some persons of
erroneous sentiments, namely, that that is right which is
advantageous to the most powerful, is false. Wherefore, where
there is no true justice there can be no company of men
united by a common feeling of right; therefore there can be
no people (_populus_), according to that definition of Scipio
or Cicero: and if there be no people, there can be no state
of the people, but only of a mob such as it may be, which is
not worthy