What should we do with a tyrant?

A timeless question, for at least the past two and a half millennia

Cicero, his friend Atticus, and his brother Quintus at Cicero’s villa in Arpinum, Richard Wilson, c.1771-75. Image from galleryofthemasters.com.

It’s hard to be in beautiful Syracuse, Sicily, as am I right now, and not think of tyrants. As I explained in a previous post, discussing Plato’s adventures in the city, it seems that for a long while Syracuse was bent on exchanging one tyrant for another. But the prompt for the current essay was actually composed several centuries later, in March 49 BCE, to be precise.

Marcus Tullius Cicero was writing to his lifelong friend Atticus because he was trying to make up his mind whether to support Julius Caesar—whom he perceived to be a potential tyrant—or Gnaeus Pompey, who was nominally defending the Republic, but in fact had a good chance of himself becoming a tyrant, if given the opportunity. Here is what struck me forcefully in what Cicero writes:

[In order] not to surrender myself wholly to sorrowful reflexions, I have selected certain theses, so to speak, which have at once a general bearing on a citizen’s duty, and a particular relation to the present crisis: Ought one to remain in one’s country when under a tyrant? If one’s country is under a tyrant ought one to labour at all hazards for the abolition of the tyranny, even at the risk of the total destruction of the city? Or ought we to be on our guard against the man attempting the abolition, lest he should rise too high himself? Ought one to assist one’s country when under a tyrant by seizing opportunities and by argument rather than by war? Is it acting like a good citizen to quit one’s country when under a tyrant for any other land, and there to remain quiet, or ought one to face any and every danger for liberty’s sake? … Even if one does not approve an abolition of a tyranny by war, ought one still to enroll oneself in the ranks of the loyalists? Ought one in politics to share the dangers of one’s benefactors and friends, even though one does not think their general policy to be wise? … By keeping myself at work on questions such as these, and discussing both sides both in Greek and Latin, I at once distract my mind for a time from its anxieties, and at the same time attempt the solution of a problem now very much to the point. (Letter IX.4)

There is so much going on here, and it is so pertinent to similar situations throughout history, including in recent times, that I’d like to unpack it carefully.

First off, notice how Cicero begins and ends the above passage: he explains to Atticus that he is very much facing a difficult political, ethical, and personal conundrum; he is anxious about it and wishes to clear his mind as much as possible. So what does he do? He philosophizes about it! Specifically, he writes both to himself (in Greek and Latin, as he says) and to his best friend, so that he can better articulate what he thinks and why. This is excellent advice to both counter one’s anxieties and to better be able to make up one’s mind about a difficult issue: write it down and you will feel a bit more in control of things (alleviates anxiety); at the same time, you’ll be able to look at your own arguments clearly spelled out in black on white (aids dispassionate evaluation).

The middle of the letter consists of a careful articulation of the different aspects of Cicero’s conundrum. Should he support Caesar or Pompey? Should he fight with the latter against the first one? Should he adopt his friends’ course of action even if he doesn’t necessarily think it’s the best option? At what cost to one’s country should a tyrant be opposed? Is it better to fight tyranny by argument and civil action or by violence and war?

These are not easy questions, but Cicero was in an excellent position to evaluate them. Several years earlier, in 63 BCE, he was Consul—the highest political office in the Roman Republic—when he had to face the Catiline conspiracy to overthrow the government. He did so in an exemplary manner, by a combination of diplomacy and measured use of force. Catiline was defeated in battle, his chief supporters neutralized, and Cicero himself given the title of Father of the Country by a grateful Senate. (Never mind that he was shortly thereafter sent into exile, with the very same people who earlier acclaimed him now finding themselves not willing to lift a finger to help.)

The alternatives that Cicero contemplates in his letter to Atticus very much encapsulate perennial moral dilemmas, whether we are facing an actual tyrant or not. Specifically, what is the extent of our duty to our country and to our fellow citizens, as distinct from our duty to ourselves, our family, and our friends? What political situations, if any, justify the use of violence?

Imagine asking yourself such questions during fascist Italy or Nazi Germany in the early part of the 20th century. Or in Tiananmen Square in China in 1989. Or in the US on January 6, 2021. Or in Ukraine at this very moment. Or in plenty of other places and times since that day in 49 BCE in which Cicero wrote to Atticus.

I can give you my provisional answers to some of these questions, with the large caveats that they are very much provisional, as I may very well change my mind about them even as a result of the discussion that will follow this post; and that so far I have not actually had to face any set of circumstances that remotely compare to those mentioned above, though to be frank my wife and I did very seriously contemplated leaving the US in the wake of the events following the 2020 Presidential election [1].

Should we remain in our country under a tyranny? It depends on a complex series of factors, including how effective we may be as part of the opposition inside or outside the country, and what other duties we have toward our relatives and friends.

Should we oppose tyranny? Yes, always.

Should we do so by violent means? Only as a last resort.

Should we face “any danger” to oppose tyranny? Well, ideally, but few of us are perfectly moral beings (i.e., sages). As Epictetus puts it:

Consider at what price you sell your integrity; but please, for God’s sake, don’t sell it cheap. (Discourses I, 2.33)

Should we follow a course of action we disagree with in order to stick with our friends? No, I don’t think so, unless such course of action is likely to have few if any negative consequences anyway, in which case keeping our friendships becomes paramount.

What did Cicero end up doing? He reluctantly joined Pompey’s forces opposing Caesar, and lost the civil war. He was pardoned by Caesar and retired away from political life. But then Caesar the tyrant was killed by Brutus, Cassius, and a number of others, which brought Cicero back into the fray, this time facing new would-be tyrants, like Mark Anthony and Octavian (the future first emperor, Augustus).

Cicero courageously opposed Anthony, who got sufficiently pissed off that he sent a centurion to murder him in 43 BCE, the year after the Ides of March. Cicero was then 63, and just the year before he had written several philosophical treaties that are still read and discussed today. Anthony, by contrast, is remembered for his sad affair with Cleopatra and his sound defeat at the battle of Actium, at the hand of Octavian. The arduous sentence is for posterity to issue.

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[1] To be clear: our problem wasn’t whether Donald Trump would or would not win the election. That’s up to the people, in a semi-democratic system like the American one. Our problem was whether Trump would manage to illegally overturn the results of the election, or even possibly seize power by way of a coup d’état. That would have been troublesome. (If you think Trump did win the 2020 election and was deprived of the Presidency by fraud then you have a problem with reality, but you are very unlikely to be reading this newsletter anyway.)