Cicero believes that everyone of society has a shared reality. In the Republic, power is passed from tyrants to kings and to other aristocratic cliques or factions. There is no party or faction that controls power in Rome for a long period of time. Cicero explains that people who are viewed as “foreign” or different from the citizens of Rome are susceptible to “corruption and decay”. Along with foreigners, Cicero also believed that the aristocratic politicians in Rome created factions. Cicero claims that the aristocracy has proved to be the leading cause of corruption. Cicero claims that Rome is a mixture of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, but he fears that the avarice of politicians is overwhelming. These factions ultimately led to corruption in the state or Senate, “When certain men control a state thanks to wealth or birth or some other advantage, that is an oligarchy, but the members call it an aristocracy. If the people hold supreme power and everything is done according to their decisions, that is called liberty, though in fact it is license” (Cicero, 65). The corruption in the Republic stemmed from private interest in the place of the public. The Republic was a plea to the wealthy, powerful individuals of society to restore order and justice. In Book One, Cicero states that it is human nature to fulfill the purpose of increasing wealth and …show more content…
Politics was written to describe the social relationships between the regime and the self. Aristotle makes the case that individuals of a polis are a product of their regime, environment, and interactions with other people. Because places and relations existed before the individual, the individual was shaped to sustain life in the environment or regime. Aristotle claims that an individual would not be the same self if they did not have the same interactions with people in the regime. The regime creates a collective meaning, order, and justice by how we interact with others. Aristotle believes that the basic idea of “arete” or moral excellence shapes people of the regime. The idea that people of the regime follow the guidelines of moral excellence provides the regime with justice, morality, and fulfillment, “The virtue of justice belongs to the city; for justice is an ordering of the political association, and the virtue of justice consists in the determination of what is just” (Aristotle, 12). Aristotle believes that the polis is made up by the men who govern it. Aristotle would support the claim that a corrupt regime is governed by unjust politicians and a democratic regime is ruled by fair and just politicians. Individuals of a polis cannot fulfill their own function outside the polis. Cities exist by