Cicero and the Republic - how it frames us in 2026

Cicero, the citizen and the art of Political Oratory 

This article argues that we have become a society of autonomous individuals, framed via cultural identity, living within contemporary societies that view and engage in our classical social contract with scepticism and a globalised cynicism.  

The question I pose, is has our social contract been damaged and to what extent? Has neoliberalism and its mechanisms of individual empowerment paradoxically disempowered the traditional virtues of classical liberalism and citizens pursuit of virtue and the good life? How do we see ourselves, what drives us, a sense of engagement with the greater societal good or a cultural sense of autonomy and atomised identity? 

As generational change views life through lens of personal empowerment and identity, a rejection of social contract liberalism has emerged as we grapple with interpretations of what politics is, and as discussed in my first article, who we are as zoon politikon – political animals. The reconstruction of social contract liberalism redirects our endeavours, our passions, our ideals and aspirations, not in coalition with a state, or indeed our Republic, but via cultural group, a group driven by our identities and not our civic duty and pursuit of virtue.  

Politics and our social contract has been realigned – a new Overton window has emerged, or indeed, as will be discussed in the next article, a Gramscian hegemonic shift. But politics, as we see, and as we truly know through the cadence of history is not the ambiguity of the neoliberal progressive, and idealist, but a pursuit of a reality that forms us on a structural basis.  

Politics forms us and Marcus Cicero was to give his life for this clear and undeniable truth. Cicero, the great Roman Republican orator, philosopher and politician understood and understands the truth; politics, Cicero who evidences clearly, is not a series of vague ideals which assert an individual's pursuit of self-determination, but a realignment of power to achieve one clear goal – justice. Just as Rawls would reinterpret the practical nature of both social contract theory, and liberalism by returning to the omnipresent virtue of justice, Cicero, whose aim through rhetorical dialogue, discussion, and political discourse, was a voice of reason, one that supported the ideals of the Roman Republic, amidst a period of societal turmoil and instability.  

Justice in turmoil, justice in the face of individual pursuit of power and self-determination. The role of the politician, as Hannah Arendt argues so powerfully, is not to venture via personal ambition to war, not to weaponize guns or university campus, but to use politics to weaponize thought, dialogue and a collective engagement with the state mechanism. The aim of the citizen, so apparent in the contemporary chambers of idenity, is to ferment the bond of unity to the city state. This aim is one which does not reflect personal ambition or equality, but an implementation of order and structure, which offers citizens, via politics, virtue and the pursuit of happiness; in this case Republican order.  

The term republic comes from the Latin term “res publica” or the “public thing” and we are animals of the state and thus citizens, within a public environment. Our public realm has been eroded post neoliberalism, and yet we see the symbiotic rise of identity and a pluralism offered by post modernism, and this has come at the expense of societal breakdown, increased division and a rejection of citizenship.  

Cicero was to see this in Rome, the demise of the Republic and the rise of Caesar’s authoritarianism, and ultimately his execution. But citizenship offers a unique development of the individual being of something greater, somethkng that may not be perfect, may not offer equality or self-fulfilment, it certainly does not offer utopia or all answers to our inadequacies, and yet recognises, there is something greater than the individual; there is a state and above all there is justice, and, “The good life is impossible without a good state; and there is no greater blessing than a well – ordered state”.1 

We are citizens above anything else, and although Cicero’s adherence to patriotism and loyalty to the state, has been relegated to a postmodern sideshow, the Republic and citizenship, offers the tangibility of safety, security and above all engage with our own human nature. The institutions of the state, the forums of government and of the law, offer through the structure of a Republic the ideal foundation for our freedom and identity – we, us, I am moulded and given freedom through the public, and for Cicero in particular, public discourse.  

Thus, it entails that we are not isolated and discarded to the challenge of the state of nature in isolation, but are part of a greater whole, and by being so, we have obligations.  

So, how does a crumbling Republic, a crumbling social contract in contemporary realignment of societal priorities, reassert justice, and political engagement that unites though a commonality of civic pride and virtue? We turn to Cicero, who, I argue, is more prevalent than ever as we search for the answers to the eternal questions of individual autonomy within the confines of the city state.  

Group think vagueness assertion and assertion of individual rights, see the rejection of responsibility. This is a rejection, this piece argues a rejection of the art of politics, the art of political oratory, and as our institutions have engaged deeper into critical theory empowerment, the demise of politics and the classical interpretation of social contract thinking and behaviour. A carnivorous contemporary fourth estate offers endless images of societal breakdown and international relations disaster, but I argue, and evidence via Cicero, the metamorphism of a status quo much nearer home is a danger to the innate nature of our political harmony and body politic.  

Marcus Cicero argues,  

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gate is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself”. 2 

Bold language indeed, the symbolism of an enemy within conjuring the imagery of the miners’ strike and the 1980’s attack on the trade union movement. Indeed, neoliberalism has moved on from its victory over organised labour, to an “enemy within” which erodes the institutions and political discourse, not only industrial and collective, but the very essence of our political discourse 

Is this a notion too far within a mature, diverse political arena? Perhaps, I hear the progressive argument, but I argue nothing of the sort.  Politics is not the art of ivory tower self-introspection and search of idealistic impossibilities, but of the engagement and imposition of finite possibilities – the art of running the polis. The beauty of Marcus Cicero lies in his belief in politics and the endless pursuit of virtue in that of a greater good driven though a belief in political oratory, the beauty of persuasion of others to engage in their citizens duty; of individual development only within the confines of a communal interest.  

This is important. Contemporary politics is bedevilled via the echo chamber of the convinced talking only with the convincer – of a vacuum of political debate, and this is reflected in the overt lack of political oratory and sophistication of argument in mainstream media and the internet. Cicero’s concern of the rotting of the republic, is that as we witness the decline of political citizens who look beyond individual empowerment. There are those, within the city state, within contemporary UK society, who see the institutions of politics as a means of economic and cultural empowerment – Cicero's “treason from within” - I argue - is the neoliberal framework that has and is superseding the state and citizenship.  

Our civic institutions have endured the austerity of both fiscal and progressive dogma. Cicero knew only too well that the purity of the republic is forged by good will and collective desire for a pursuit of justice through virtu – of the art of politics as the art of looking beyond our own desires. The rise of the oligarch – Caesar or Putin – destroys the art of politics, destroys political oratory and ultimately our own destiny as political animals; zoon politikon, he would be murdered by those who would place individual autonomy above the importance of the running of the state.  

Fools would brutally murder Cicero, and there are fools who have abandoned politics for a pursuit of revolutionary change and power; “Violence” argued Conor Cruise O’Brien, “is sometimes needed for voice of moderation to be heard”. Not true – violence is the death of politics and political oratory; Cicero, as told by Plutarch, was executed brutally, as “Herennius cut off his head, by Antony’s command, and his hands — the hands with which he wrote the Philippics”. Cicero was correct. Oratory would outlast violence, as our democracy is still robust, our social contract in place, but his execution is metaphor for our times – the greatest of orators, the most robust defender of politics and the Republic, dies at the hands of those who seek individual power at the expense of the politics.