Cicero’s Philosophical Leadership, an Academic Consideration

In Pro Murena, Cicero argues that Cato’s rigid philosophical comportment to politics reflects a mistaken understanding both of philosophy and of politics. By implication, he suggests that there is an approach to philosophy that is compatible with political leadership. Specifically, he argues that a thoroughgoing commitment to the philosophy of the Platonic Academy (i.e., Academic Philosophy) is entirely compatible with a thoroughgoing commitment to political leadership in the late Roman Republic. This essay looks at the most famous treatment of philosophical leadership in the Platonic corpus, the philosopher ruler of the Republic, and asks to what extent Cicero’s depiction of politics and philosophy is consonant with that account.