Volume 19, 2007 - Brown University

Cicero’s Popularity Struggle: Through the Moralizing Lens of Plutarch 65
In this one statement, Plutarch summarizes the main values he intends to promote
by writing a biography of Cicero. He argues that, in politics, the proper
decision can always be expressed in words in such a way that every individual
will be able to understand why to choose it. The morally virtuous statesman will
seek to determine the proper choice and explain to the people why it is so—he
will not simply gauge what the people already prefer and pretend that he agrees
with them in order to win popularity.
Just as Plutarch uses Cicero as a model of how a politician can overcome
pressure from the crowd, so does he use Cicero as an example of the when politicians
place too much weight on public opinion. Plutarch writes that when
Cicero goes into exile, Clodius passes a resolution forbidding any man to provide
Cicero with water or fire within 500 miles of Italy, but Cicero is so admired
that most Italians ignore the decree. Indeed, according to Plutarch, many visit
him in exile. Instead of being grateful for the hospitality of his friends, however,
Plutarch writes that Cicero becomes depressed at the thought of the admiration
he has lost and at the betrayal of a few of his former friends. Plutarch attributes
Cicero’s malaise to the poison of public opinion:
Public opinion . . . has the strange power of being able . . . to erase from a
man’s character the lines formed there by reason and study; and by the force
of habit and association, it can impress the passions and feelings of the mob
on those who engage in politics, unless one is very much on guard and makes
up one’s mind that in dealing with what is outside oneself one will be concerned
only with the practical problems themselves and not with the passions
that arise out of them. (Cicero, 32)
Plutarch suggests that the public opinion has a dehumanizing effect on any politician
who tries to make himself amenable to it. The force is so strong that it can
overcome a man’s background and education; it can blind him to everything that
is just, reasonable, and logical. And it is with this force, Plutarch moralizes, that
Cicero must contend if he is eventually to be viewed as a great man worthy of
admiration.
Desiring as he does to explore moral virtue by writing about the “marks
and indications of the souls of men,” Plutarch includes extensive examples of
the witty, sarcastic, and abrasive comments with which Cicero often lambastes
his opponents (Alexander, 1). Sections 7, 25, 26, 27, and 37, among others,
include long lists of anecdotal evidence of Cicero’s derisive remarks. Plutarch
explains that “Cicero’s propensity to attack anyone for the sake of raising a
laugh aroused a good deal of ill-feeling against him” (Cicero, 27). These seemingly
minor qualities are at first glance peripheral and unimportant, but they provide
the reader with a thorough sense of Cicero’s nature and are therefore valuable
for Plutarch’s agenda in writing his biography. Indeed, to Plutarch the quips
may be just as valuable as Cicero’s greatest speeches and boldest actions. He
writes: “the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest
discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an