Cicero on Civil Strife
"What remains but to pray for concord, when discord brings ruin?"—Cicero, Ad Atticum, 10.4.
Jacques Louis David — "The Death of Socrates" (1787), public domain
"What remains but to pray for concord…"
In 49 BC, as Julius Caesar approached Rome with his army, Cicero wrote to his friend Atticus: "Quid reliqui est nisi ut oremus concordiam? Dissensio enim exitialis est." (Ad Atticum, 10.4). He saw the city sliding toward civil war, powerless to stop it.
A statesman’s last resort: hope.
For Cicero, who spent his life championing the Republic’s laws and traditions, this was agony. His letters from this period—urgent, raw, even frantic—are a window into the collapse of the old Roman order. He could only watch, warn, and, finally, hope for unity.
At the collapse of the Roman Republic, Cicero saw the old bonds that held Rome together snapping. Writing to his friend Atticus in 49 BC, as Caesar marched on Rome, Cicero's letters drip with anxiety and resignation.
