Greek nonsense in more's utopia

Historical Journal

Volumn 44, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 889-917

  Nelson, Eric ^a  

^a TRINITY COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 85015942153     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X01002096     Document Type: Article

References (204)

1. Thomas More, Utopia, ed. George M. Logan, Robert M. Adams, and Clarence H. Miller (Cambridge, 1995), p. 247. All quotations from Utopia in Latin and English are taken from this edition (hereafter cited as ‘More’). On occasion I have modified the translation for accuracy's sake; where this is done, it is duly noted. ‘Haec ubi Raphael recensuit, quamquam haud pauca mihi succurrebant quae in eius populi moribus legibusque perquam absurde videbantur instituta, non solum de belli gerendi ratione et rebus divinis ac religione, aliisque insuper eorum institutis, sed in eo quoque ipso maxime quod maximum totius institutionis fundamentum est, vita scilicet victuque communi sine ullo pecuniae commercio.’
2. The phrase ‘de optimo reipublicae statu’ is found in Cicero, De legibus 1.15. In this passage, Atticus explicitly compares Cicero's enterprise to what ‘was done by your beloved Plato’ (Platonem illum tuum).
3. See Cicero, De re publica, De legibus, ed. and trans. C. W. Keyes (Cambridge, MA, 1928).
4. The classic Greek discussion of the distinction between the ‘ best possible political community’ ($) and those communities which actually exist is found in Book II of Aristotle's Politics (1260b27).
5. See Aristotle, Politics, ed. and trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA, 1932).
6. More, p. 83. ‘aut eiciendum aut habendum ludibrio’.
7. More., p. 95. I have altered Adams's translation here. ‘surdissimis, inquam, haud dubie: neque hercule miror … Quid enim prodesse possit aut quomodo in illorum pectus influere sermo tam insolens.’
8. More., p. 99. ‘ita non video cur videri debeat usque ad ineptias insolens … Equidem si omittenda sunt omnia tamquam insolentia atque absurda quaecumque perversi mores hominum fecerunt ut videri possint aliena, dissimulemus oportet apud Christianos pleraque omnia quae CHRISTUS docuit.’
9. See Nigel Wilson, ‘The Name Hythlodaeus’, Moreana, 29 (1992), p. 33. Some scholars have wanted to derive ‘daeus’ from Saios, meaning ‘hostile’ or ‘wretched’, but also (very occasionally) ‘ knowing’ or ‘cunning’. This interpretation draws strength from the fact that $, not $, is the regular Greek verb meaning ‘to distribute’; however, I tend to prefer the first alternative.
10. For an account of More's toponymy, see James Romm, ‘More's strategy of naming in the Utopia’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 22 (1991), pp. 173–83. Romm despairs of identifying any organizing rubric for More's nomenclature, largely because certain names seem to allow for an ethical, as well as a ‘nonsensical’ reading. But Romm interprets the organizing principle of ‘ nonsense ’ too narrowly: once we allow for the importance of point of view, we can see how More's meaning can be conveyed both by ‘no place’ terms and by terms which seem to be nonsense, but actually contain moral significance. Ultimately, however, we should be wary of agonizing over these names to the point where we miss the joke.
11. Clarence H. Miller, ed., Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, ix (Amsterdam, 1979), p. 68. All translations from Erasmus's Latin are my own. ‘Mori cognomen tibi gentile, quod tam ad Moriae vocabulum accedit, quam es ipse a re alienus’.
12. Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami., p. 70. ‘Vale, disertissime More, et Moriam tuam gnaviter defende.’
13. See Richard Marius, Thomas More (London, 1999), p. 88.
14. One prominent example is More's 1515 Letter to Dorp (Daniel Kinney, ed., The complete works of St. Thomas More, xv (New Haven, 1986)), where he comments that Erasmus dedicated The praise of folly to ‘my patronage’.
15. See also letter 1087 from More to Erasmus (1520) in which More responds to the Antimorus, a diatribe against him written by Germain de Brie. P. S. Allen and H. M. Allen, eds., Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, IV, no. 1087 (Oxford, 1922).
16. Dominic Baker-Smith notes parenthetically that the name Morus ‘implies a family relationship to Folly’, but neglects to identify the implications of this fact for interpreting More's text. See Dominic Baker-Smith, More's Utopia (New York, 1991), p. 52.
17. More, p. 241.
18. In Book I, Thrasymachus characterizes Socrates's thoughts on justice as ridiculous, and exclaims ‘ I won't accept it if you speak such nonsense as that’ ($) (336d). English translations from Plato are taken from Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, eds., Plato: the collected dialogues, including the letters (Princeton, 1989).
19. In this case, however, I have substituted my own translation for Shorey's less literal one. The Greek texts are taken from John Burnet, ed., Platonis opera (5 vols., Oxford, 1901–1907).
20. There is no ‘governor’ (princeps) of Utopia as a whole; rather, each city's phylarchs (who represent thirty households each) elect that city's governor. See More, pp. 122–123.
21. This claim has been most recently disputed (unsuccessfully I think) in the case of English republicanism by Arihiro Fukuda in his otherwise excellent Sovereignty and the sword: Harrington, Hobbes, and mixed government in the English Civil Wars (Oxford, 1997).
22. See Jonathan Scott's incisive review in English Historical Review, 115 (2000), pp. 660–662.
23. See Quentin Skinner, The foundations of modern political thought, I (The Renaissance) (Cambridge, 1978)
24. idem, ‘Machiavelli's Discorsi and the pre-humanist origins of republican ideas’, in Gisela Buck, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli, eds., Machiavelli and republicanism (Cambridge, 1990)
25. idem, ‘Political Philosophy’, in Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler, and Jill Kraye, eds., The Cambridge history of Renaissance philosophy (Cambridge, 1988)
26. idem, Liberty before liberalism (Cambridge, 1998).
27. ‘Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi.’ Digest 1.1.10.
28. See also Institutes 1.1.1.
29. For Ciceronian and Stoic views on property, see Julia Annas, ‘Cicero on Stoic moral philosophy and private property’, in Miriam Griffith, Jonathan Barnes, eds., Philosophia togata I: essays on philosophy and Roman society (Oxford, 1989), pp. 151–173.
30. For the neo-Roman exaltation of wealth and money-making, see James Hankins, ‘ Humanism and modern political thought’, in Jill Kraye, ed., The Cambridge companion to Renaissance humanism (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 126–127.
31. Jacob Burckhardt long ago commented on the fundamentally Roman character of the Renaissance preoccupation with glory. In the chapter on ‘ Glory’ in his great study of Renaissance culture, he writes that ‘the Roman authors, who were now zealously studied, are filled and saturated with the concept of fame, and … their subject itself - the universal empire of Rome - stood as a permanent ideal before the minds of Italians’. See Jacob Burckhardt, The civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. S. G. C. Middlemore, with an introduction by Peter Burke (London, 1990), p. 104.
32. See also Markku Peltonen, Classical humanism and republicanism in English political thought: 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 34ff
33. Skinner, ‘Political philosophy’, p. 413ff.
34. For a helpful analysis of Roman ideology, see A. A. Long, ‘Cicero's politics in De officiis’ in André Laks, Malcolm Schofield, eds., Justice and generosity: studies in social and political philosophy: proceedings of the sixth Symposium Hellenisticum (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 213–240.
35. George M. Logan, The meaning of More's ‘Utopia’ (Princeton, 1983), p. 111.
36. Niccolò Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, ed. Giorgio Inglese, introduzione di Gennaro Sasso (Milano, 1984), p. 68.
37. Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio., p. 126. ‘ Perché avendo una città che vive libera duoi fini, l'uno lo acquistare, l'altro il mantenersi libera, conviene che nell'una cosa e nell'altra per troppo amore erri.’
38. Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio., p. 298. ‘ Pensando dunque donde possa nascere che in quegli tempi antichi i popoli fossero più amatori della libertà che in questi, credo nasca da quella medesima cagione che fa ora gli uomini manco forti, la quale credo sia la diversità della educazione nostra dall'antica, fondata dalla diversità della religione nostra dalla antica. Perché, avendoci la nostra religione mostro la verità e la vera via, ci fa stimare meno l'onore del mondo; onde i Gentili, stimandolo assai e avendo posto in quello il sommo bene, erano nelle azioni loro più feroci.’
39. XXIX. 19. See Montesquieu, De l 'esprit des lois, ed. Victor Goldschmidt, II (Paris, 1979), p. 308. ‘Thomas More … voulait gouverner tous les Etats avec la simplicité d'une ville grecque.’ The translation is my own.
40. In one sense, therefore, this essay constitutes a partial response to the claim advanced by Paul Rahe that Skinner's ‘neo-Romanism’ is a misleading historical category, since no significant differences exist between Greek and Roman political philosophy. This essay will try to make the case that More and his circle perceived the differences only too well, and self-consciously mounted a Greek critique of Rome. See Paul Rahe, ‘Situating Machiavelli’, in James Hankins, ed., Renaissance civic humanism: reappraisals and reflections (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 270–308.
41. This tepid endorsement, however, does not approach the Roman and neo-Roman glorification of libertas (nor that of the broader Athenian political culture which Aristotle was criticizing). Skinner discusses this issue in ‘The republican ideal ofpolitical liberty’, inBuck, Skinner, and Viroli, eds., Machiavelli and republicanism, p. 296.
42. All references to Aristotle's Ethics are found in Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics, ed. and trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA, 1926).
43. see Fred D. Miller, Jr., Nature, justice, and rights in Aristotle 's Politics (Oxford, 1995), esp. pp. 327–331.
44. It should be noted, however, that, despite Plato's comments on the effects of wealth in Republic iv, his ‘oligarchic man’ becomes avaricious, rather than opulent (Republic 554a-555a (viii)).
45. Aristotle argues that a state exhibiting extreme disparities in wealth may have one of two degenerate destinies: either it will become an ‘unmixed oligarchy’ ($)($), or the poor might revolt and establish ‘extreme democracy’ ($) (Politics 1295b39 (IV.9)). Both resulting situations will soon develop into tyranny. Indeed, in cases where one citizen or a very small number of citizens possess inordinate wealth, Aristotle goes so far as to recommend ostracism as a pre-emptive measure (1284b115–43 (III.13)). See also Republic 550c-553a (viii).
46. Plato and Aristotle are singled out in this article because they constituted by far the most important sources for Greek ethical and political theory in Renaissance and early-modern Europe - not because these two authors reflected the mainstream of Greek political philosophy. Indeed, Josiah Ober does well to remind us that Plato and Aristotle were critics, rather than purveyors of mainstream political ideas and values. See Josiah Ober, Political dissent in democratic Athens: intellectual critics of popular rule (Princeton, 1998).
47. For a discussion of a different kind of ‘ Greek republicanism’, see my ‘“True liberty”: Isocrates and Milton's Areopagitica’, forthcoming in Milton Studies, 40 (2001).
48. In Robert Nozick's vocabulary, we have here a quarrel between a ‘ historical’ theory of justice and a ‘patterned’, or ‘end-result’ theory. See Robert Nozick, Anarchy, state, and utopia (New York, 1974), pp. 153–155.
49. It is worth noting that even Seneca (himself an extremely rich man), whose De otio endorses significant aspects of the Platonist case and several of whose essays take a negative view of excessive property, emerges in De vita beata (xxiii.1–5) with an impassioned defence of private property and limitless money-making based on Roman ius.
50. Seneca, Moral essays, II, ed. and trans. John W. Basore (Cambridge, MA, 1932). For an excellent discussion of Seneca's views of property see Miriam T. Griffin, ‘Seneca Praedives’, in idem, Seneca: a philosopher in politics (Oxford, 1976), pp. 286–314.
51. M. L. van Poll-van de Lisdonk, M. Mann Phillips, and Chr. Robinson, eds., Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, xx (Amsterdam, 1993), p. 84. ‘ Aristoteles libro Politicorum ii. temperat Platonis sententiam volens possessionem ac proprietatem esse penes certos, caeterum ob usum, virtutem et societatem civilem omnia communia iuxta proverbium.’
52. J. G. A. Pocock, ed., The political works of James Harrington (Cambridge, 1977), p. 395.
53. The political works of James Harrington., pp. 166, 234–5, 382,412, 460. It is, incidentally, worth noting that Roman authorities such as Cicero, Livy, and Lucan uniformly condemned the Gracchan agrarian laws, whereas Plutarch, Appian, and the other Greek historians praised them extravagantly.
54. Marius, Thomas More, p. 72
55. Complete works, xv, p. Ixxxi.
56. See, for example, More's Letter to Dorp (1515) in Kinney, ed., Complete works, xv, p. 96.
57. Grocyn, however, preferred Aristotle to Plato, and Linacre contributed to the Aldine Aristotle. See Peter C. Bietenholz, Thomas B. Deutscher, eds., Contemporaries of Erasmus: a biographical register of the Renaissance and Reformation, II (Toronto, 1986), pp. 135–136.
58. Other associates included Richard Croke, Richard Foxe, William Latimer, Thomas Lupset, Cuthbert Tunstall, and Christopher Urswick. Bietenholz and Deutscher, eds., Contemporaries of Erasmus, I, p. 327.
59. Kinney, ed., Complete works, xv, pp. 132, 142.
60. see James McConica, English humanists and Reformation politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford, 1965), pp. 88–93
61. see also Alistair Fox, ‘Facts and fallacies: interpreting English humanism’, in Alistair Fox, John Guy, eds., Reassessing the Henrican age: humanism,politics and reform, 1500–1500 (Oxford, 1986), esp. pp. 12–14.
62. For the broader European context of the debate over Greek, see Jean-Christophe Saladin, La bataille du grec à la Renaissance (Paris, 2000).
63. La bataille du grec à la Renaissance., no. 337. ‘sine his mancum ac caecum esse litterarum studium’.
64. Allen and Allen, eds., Opus epistolarum, II, no. 428. ‘Gratulor, mi Caesari, nostro saeculo quo videmus passim repullescere Graecas litteras. Nam ut harum neglectus omnium bonarum disciplinarum, omnium elegantiorum autorum $ invexit, ita spes est futurum ut his renatis et illa reflorescant.’
65. Opus epistolarum., no. 452 [to Andrew Ammonius]. ‘Interim e Latino Graecum reddam; hanc $ in me recepi.’
66. Richard Pace, De fructu qui ex doctrina percipitur, ed. and trans. Frank Manley, Richard S. Sylvester (New York, 1967), p. 128. The translation is my own. ‘Apud Latinos vero, quicquid apparet proprium, ut in arte dicendi, & in historia, hoc totum quasi mutuo sumptum est ex Graecis. Nam Ciceronem, quantus est in arte Oratoria (Quintiliano id confitente) fecit Demosthenes & Isocrates. In Philosophia vero, Plato & Aristoteles, quorum alterum divinum, alterum sapientissimum, ut doctissimos Graecos saepe appellat. Sed Philosophia adeo apud Latinos manca est, ut nihil possit esse eruditis auribus stultius, quam Latinos Philosophos cum Graecis comparare. Quo in genere, nec Ciceronem ipsum (quod eius venia dictum sit) excipio.’
67. For an excellent discussion of Pace's œuvre, see Catherine M. Curtis's unpublished doctoral thesis, Richard Pace on pedagogy, counsel, and satire (University of Cambridge, 1996).
68. Kinney, ed., Complete works, xv, p. 220. ‘vel denique propter artes, quas liberales vocant, ac philosophiam, quibus de rebus Latini scripsere propemodum nihil’.
69. See Richard Croke, Orationes Richardi Croci duae (Paris, 1520).
70. More did not, however, reject Aristotle along with scholasticism. He tried all his life to rescue Aristotle from the schoolmen, and to arrive at a temperate assessment of the philosopher's merit. As he puts it in his Letter to Dorp, ‘ Ad Aristotelem ipsum venio quem et ego et supra multos, ita cum multis amo, quem tu [Dorp] in memorata oratione tua videris non supra multos modo, sed pro multis quoque atque adeo pro omnibus amplecti.’ See Kinney, ed., Complete works, xv, p. 100ff.
71. Pico tangled with Ficino over the latter's attack on Averroes in the Theologia platonica, sought wisdom from occult, Arabic, and kabbalistic sources (a fact which More notably glosses over in his translation of the Life), and argued for the compatibility of Plato and Aristotle (for example, in De ente et uno). Kristeller suggested the term ‘syncretist’, rather than ‘eclectic’ to designate Pico's approach in order to differentiate it from that of the ancient eclectics (i.e. Pico never suggested that all great philosophers were in fundamental agreement). See Paul Oskar Kristeller, ‘ Introduction’ to Pico's Oration on the dignity of man in Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall,Jr, eds., The Renaissance philosophy of man (Chicago, 1948), p. 220.
72. See also Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance (Stanford, 1964).
73. Anthony S. G. Edwards, Katherine Gardiner Rodgers, and Clarence H. Miller, eds., The complete works of St. Thomas More, I (New Haven, 1997), p. 68. More's text is a free translation of the biography written by Pico's nephew, Gianfranceso.
74. The complete works., p. 86.
75. Marsilio Ficino, Platonis opera omnia (Florence, 1484). For Ficino's translations of Plato and their influence, see James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance (Leiden, 1990), pp. 267ff.
76. John B. Gleason, John Colet (Berkeley, 1989), pp. 47–52.
77. See Maria Cytowska, ‘Erasme de Rotterdam et Marsile Ficin son maître’, Eos, 63 (1975), pp. 165–179.
78. In Enchiridion, Erasmus writes, ‘of the philosophers I should recommend the Platonists because in much of their thinking as well as in their mode of expression they are the closest to the spirit of the prophets and of the gospel’ (John W. O'Malley, ed., The collected works of Erasmus, lxvi (Toronto, 1988), p. 33).
79. It is important to recall that both More and Erasmus were anxious to exploit the similarities between Christian and Platonic terminology: for example, when they use the word felicitas - a marked term in this article - they are happy to have their readers take that term as part of two different, yet intrinsically similar discourses (although beatitudo was the more pious term for ‘happiness’). Indeed, the case offelicitas represents a surprising omission in Hexter's otherwise excellent discussion on the role of Christian terminology in Utopia. See Edward Surtz, J. H. Hexter, eds., The complete works of St. Thomas More, iv (New Haven, 1965), p. lxxvff.
80. Marsilio Ficino, Platonis opera (Florence, 1517),p. 232. ‘Unde sensim descendit ad mysterium suum ut omnia videlicet sint communia, ne alii minus, alii vero plus habeant, & inde invidiae, mendacia, furta, & hinc luxuria, superbia, pigritiaque nascantur.’ A similar passage from Lucian's Cynicus (which More translated into Latin in 1506) also seems to anticipate this aspect of More's argument in Utopia. In More's Latin, the Cynic declares: ‘Aurum vero, argentumque ne desideram unquam, neque ego, neque meorum amicorum quisquam.
81. Omnia nanque mala inter homines ex horum cupiditate nascuntur, & seditiones, & bella, & insidiae, & caedes. Haec omnia fontem habent plus habendi cupidinem.’ Gold and silver are particular targets of Utopia for precisely these reasons (More, p. 149ff). See Craig R. Thompson, ed., The complete works of St. Thomas More, III (Part I), (New Haven, 1974), p. 21.
82. The complete works of St. Thomas More., p. 247.
83. Erasmus, Opera omnia, ix, p. 98. ‘Qui quidem quam sint ad omnem vitae usum inutiles, vel Socrates ipse, unus Apollinis oraculo sapiens, sed minime sapienter iudicatus, documento esse potest, qui nescio quid publice conatus agere summo cum omnium risu discessit … Nam dum nubes et ideas philosophatur, dum pulicis pedes metitur, dum culicum vocem miratur, quae ad vitam communem attinet non didicit.’
84. Opera omnia., p. 100. ‘Usqueadeo neque sibi neque patriae neque suis usquam usui esse potest, propterea quod communium rerum sit imperitus et a populari opinione vulgaribusque institutis longe lateque discrepet. Qua quidem ex re odium quoque consequatur necesse est, nimirum ob tantam vitae atque animorum dissimilitudinem. Quid enim omnino geritur inter mortales non stulticiae plenum idque a stultis et apud stultos?’
85. See Gorgias 484d.
86. Erasmus, Opera omnia, ix, p. 98.
87. Opera omnia., p. 100.
88. Opera omnia., p. 190. ‘Itaque solet iis usuvenire, quod iuxta Platonicum figmentum opinor accidere iis, qui in specu vincti rerum umbras mirantur, et fugitivo illi, qui reversus in antrum veras res vidisse se praedicat, illos longe falli, qui praeter miseras umbras nihil aliud esse credant. Etenim sapiens hic commiseratur, ac deplorat illorum insaniam, qui tanto errore teneantur. Illi vicissim illum veluti delirantem rident, atque eiiciunt.’ Recall that Hythloday predicted he would be ‘thrown out’ (eiciendum) for the same reason (More, p. 83).
89. Erasmus, Opera omnia, ix, p. 102. ‘quae civitas unquam Platonis aut Aristotelis leges aut Socratis dogmata recepit?’
90. Cicero, De officiis, ed. and trans. Walter Miller (Cambridge, MA, 1997), p. 198.
91. Erasmus, Opera omnia, ix, p. 102. ‘Tum autem quae res Deciis persuasit, ut ultro sese diis manibus devoverent? Quid Q. Curtium in specum traxit nisi inanis gloria, dulcissima quaedam Siren, sed mirum quam a sapientibus istis damnata? Quid enim stultius, inquiunt, quam supplicem candidatum blandiri populo, congiariis favorem emere, venari tot stultorum applausus, acclamationibus sibi placere, in triumpho veluti signum aliquod populo spectandum circumferri, aeneum in foro stare? Adde his nominum et cognominum adoptiones, adde divinos honores homuncioni exhibitos, adde publicis ceremoniis in deos relatos etiam sceleratissimos tyrannos … Haec stulticia parit civitates, hac constat imperia, magistratus, religio, consilia, iudicia, nec aliud omnino est vita humana quam stulticiae lusus quidam.’
92. A similar passage appears in Enchiridion (O'Malley, ed., The collected works of Erasmus, lxvi, p. 27)
93. the Decii and Curtius are discussed in identical terms in the Ciceronianus (O'Malley, ed., The collected works of Erasmus, xxviii, trans. and ed. Betty I. Knott (Toronto, 1986), p. 385).
94. See also Augustine, City of God IV.20.
95. Erasmus, Opera omnia, ix, p. 191. ‘Deinde sunt quidam affectus medii quasique naturales, ut amor patriae, charitas in liberos, in parentes, in amicos’.
96. Erasmus, Opera omnia, xx, p. 84. ‘Quo loco conatur demonstrare felicissimum reipublicae statum rerum omnium communitate constare.’ David Wootton adduces this passage in his excellent discussion of Erasmus's ‘ proto-Utopianism’.
97. See Wootton, ‘ Friendship portrayed: A new account of Utopia’, History Workshop Journal, 45 (1998), pp. 25–47.
98. See also Wootton, ‘ Introduction’, to Thomas More, Utopia, with Erasmus's the sileni of Alcibiades, ed. and trans. David Wootton (Indianapolis, 1999), p. 8.
99. Erasmus, Opera omnia, xx, p. 61. ‘ Quae si mortalibus persuaderi queat, ilico facessant e medio bellum; invidia, fraus, breviter universum malorum agmen semel e vita demigret.’ This discussion bears a striking resemblance to a passage from Pace's Defructu (indeed, Pace mentions the Adagia several times in his work): ‘ Apud homines vero, ubi abest aequalitas, ibi adest magna confusio, innumeras ingenerans pestes, ut avaritiam, dolum, fraudem, & id genus alias, quas longum esset recensere … Porro communitas illa quam Pythagoras in amicitia postulavit, non nisi aequabilitas intelligenda est, astipulante ipso Platone, sic scribente in sexto de legibus, $, id est, aequalitas amicitiam facit’ (Pace, p. 58).
100. Erasmus, Opera omnia, xx, p. 84. ‘Sed dictu mirum quam non placeat, imo quam lapidetur a Christianis Platonis illa communitas, cum nihil umquam ab ethnico philosopho dictum sit magis ex Christi sententia.’ Recall Hythloday's observation that Jesus's doctrines would seem strange (aliena) among contemporary Christians (More, p. 98), and his comment that ‘neque mihi quidem dubitare subit quin vel sui cuiusque commodi ratio vel CHRISTI servatoris auctoritas … totum orbem facile in huius reipublicae leges iamdudum traxisset … ’ (p. 245).
101. Kinney, ed., Complete works, xv, p. 279. I have modified Kinney's translation here. ‘Multum providit deus cum omnia institueret communia, multum Christus cum in commune conatus est rursus a privato revocare mortales. Sensit nimirum corruptam mortalibus naturam non sine communitatis damno deamare privatum, id quod res, omnibus in rebus docet. Nec enim tantum suum praedium amat, aut suam quisque pecuniam, nec suo duntaxat generi studet, aut suo quisque collegio, sed ut quicque est quod aliquo modo vocemus nostrum ita in se illus affectus nostras a communium cultu rerum sevocat.
102. Complete works., p. 195.
103. Complete works., p. 44.
104. Cicero, De finibus v.87 (see Cicero, Definibus bonorum et malorum, ed. and trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA, 1967), p. 490)
105. Diogenes, Lives III.6 (see Diogenes Laertius, Lives of eminent philosophers, II, ed. and trans. R. D. Hicks, vol. I (Cambridge, MA, 1966), p. 281).
106. Ficino, ‘Militia et Navigatio Platonis Trina’.
107. Homer, The Odyssey, ed. W. B. Stanford, I (London, 1958), 1.3. $. A further indication that we are to connect Hythloday and Odysseus in this manner comes in Peter Giles's prefatory letter. Speaking of Hythloday, he writes ‘homo mea quidem sententia regionum, hominum, et rerum experientia vel ipso Ulysse superior’ (p. 25).
108. More, p. 45.
109. ‘Nam in philosophia, exceptis duntaxat his, quae Cicero reliquit et Seneca, nihil habent latinorum scholae, nisi vel graecum, vel quod e greca lingua traductum est.’ See Kinney, ed., Complete works, xv, p. 143. I have modified Kinney's translation here.
110. More, p. 181. ‘ nam in Latinis praeter historias ac poetas nihil erat quod videbantur magnopere probaturi’.
111. ‘quibus de rebus Latini scripsere propemodum nihil’. Kinney, ed., Complete works, xv, p. 220. Neither Kinney nor the editors of the Cambridge Utopia text adduce this passage when discussing Hythloday's second comment.
112. More, p. 181.
113. This is my primary reason for doubting John Parrish's daring claim that the name ‘ Utopia’ should be read as a nod to the penultimate sentence of Seneca's De otio, in which the ideal republic is said to be ‘nusquam’ (nowhere) (John Michael Parrish, ‘A new source for More's “Utopia”’, in Historical Journal, 40 (1997), pp. 493–8).
114. Parrish is correct that More referred to his treatise as ‘ Nusquama’ in his correspondence throughout the early fall of 1516 (see, for example, letters 461 and 467 in Allen and Allen, eds., Opus epistolarum, II). But, unlike ‘Utopia’ (an original coinage), ‘nusquam’ is a ubiquitous adverb, making any specific source for More's initial title difficult to establish. Indeed, Baker-Smith points out that, in Ficino's version of Republic IX, Glaucon tells Socrates that his republic ‘in terris vero nusquam, ut arbitror, exstat’ (Baker-Smith, More's Utopia, p. 97).
115. Moreover, several of the Utopian positions Parrish derives from the Stoics to support his case are not exclusively Stoic. For example, to account for Utopian communism he cites Diogenes's comment from the ‘Life of Zeno’ that ‘by friendship they [the Stoics] mean a common use of all that has to do with life’. But this is a common Greek saying. In the Adagia, Erasmus points out that the proverb $ is found in Plato's Laws, and makes other appearances in the works of Aristotle, Cicero, and Pythagoras (Erasmus, Opera omnia, XX, p. 86).
116. Thomas White, ‘Pride and the public good: Thomas More's use of Plato in Utopia’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 20 (1982), pp. 329–354.
117. See also Surtz's discussion of Plato in Surtz and Hexter, eds., Complete works, iv, p. clviff.
118. Baker-Smith, ‘Uses of Plato by Erasmus and More’, in Anna Baldwin and Sarah Hutton, eds., Platonism and the English imagination (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 86–99
119. More, p. 5. ‘ Praeter rem uxoriam, praeter curas domesticas, praeter publici muneris functionem et causarum undas, tot tantisque regni negotiis distrahitur, ut mireris esse otium vel cogitandi de libris.’
120. More., p. 9.
121. More., p. 33. I have modified the translation of this passage. ‘Sed huic tamen tam nihilo negotii peragendo, cetera negotia mea minus fere quam nihil temporis reliquerunt. Dum causas forenses assidue alias ago, alias audio, alias arbiter finio, alias iudex dirimo, dum hic officii causa visitur, ille negotii, dum foris totum ferme diem aliis impertior, reliquum meis; relinquo mihi, hoc est literis, nihil.’
122. Quentin Skinner, ‘Sir Thomas More's Utopia and the language of Renaissance humanism’, in Anthony Pagden, ed., The languages of political theory in early-modern Europe (Cambridge, 1987), esp. pp. 132–135.
123. Baker-Smith largely follows Skinner in his analysis of Book I (Baker-Smith, ‘Uses of Plato by Erasmus and More’, pp. 98–102).
124. More, p. 83.
125. More., p. 99. ‘Quod si aut ea dicerem quae fingit Plato in sua republica aut eta quae faciunt Utopienses in sua, haec quamquam essent (ut certe sunt) meliora, tamen aliena videri possent.’
126. More., p. 95. The contrast between this Ciceronian philosophia civilior and Platonic political theory is picked up in precisely these terms by Thomas Starkey in his A dialogue between Pole and Lupset (c. 1530).
127. Starkey has Pole explain to Lupset that ‘we loke not for such hedys as plato descrybeth in his pollycy for that ys out of hope wyth us to be found … but aftur a more cyvyle & commyn sort’. See Thomas Starkey, A dialogue between Pole and Lupset, ed. T. F. Mayer (London, 1989), p. 108.
128. More, p. 83. ‘perversis opinionibus a pueris imbuti atque infecti penitus’. Compare Hythloday's prediction that his advice will be assailed for contravening ‘perversi mores’ (p. 99).
129. More., p. 101.
130. More., p. 97.
131. More., p. 51. This argument is also advanced by Callicles during his exchange with Socrates in Gorgias 483b-486d - a discussion which largely mirrors the debate between ‘More’ and Hythloday in Book I.
132. More, p. 53.
133. More., p. 81. This is a particularly significant detail, since Hythloday has not yet referred to Plato directly. Here, without being told, ‘More’ reveals his awareness that Hythloday is ventriloquizing Plato.
134. More.
135. More., p. 51.
136. See Cicero, De officiis 1.70.
137. Interestingly, this is an aspect of the debate More stresses repeatedly in his Life of John Picus. In the biography itself, More writes of Pico that ‘ liberte a boue all thing he loued to which both his owne naturall affection & the study of philosophy enclined him’ (Complete works, I, p. 68), and in the letter to Corneo we read that philosophers ‘love liberte
138. they can not bere the prowde maners of estates: they can not serve’ (p. 85). The first clause of this second passage is More's own interpolation (the Latin is simply ‘mores pati & servire nesciunt’). Baker-Smith provides an illuminating account of the similarities between the letter and Book I of Utopia, although he does not stress the theme of‘ liberte’ in the earlier work. See Baker-Smith, ‘Uses of Plato by Erasmus and More’, esp. pp. 18–20, 99.
139. More, p. 53.
140. More., p. 101. ‘Quamobrem pulcherrima similitudine declarat Plato cur merito sapientes abstineant a capessenda republica. Quippe quum populum videant in plateas effusum assiduis imbribus perfundi, nec persuadere queant illis ut se subducant pluviae tectaque subeant: gnari nihil profuturos sese si exeant quam ut una compluantur, semet intra tecta continent, habentes satis quando alienae stultitiae non possunt mederi si ipsi saltem sint in tuto.’
141. Republic 496c (vi). I have altered the translation here. ‘… $ Consider also Hythloday's claim that’ there is no way for you to do any good when you are thrown among colleagues who would more readily corrupt the best of men than be reformed themselves. Either they will seduce you by their evil ways, or, if you remain honest and innocent, you will be made a screen for the knavery and folly of others' (More, p. 101).
142. Brendan Bradshaw provides an excellent account of the relationship between the ‘More’/Hythloday debate and Republic vi, although he neglects to comment on ‘More's’ Ciceronianism, or to emphasize that More imports an extremely specific thought from his source (i.e. that the advice of philosophers will seem like nonsense to those in the cave) which has implications for our overall view of Utopia. Bradshaw also concludes that‘ More’ is the victor in the debate. See Brendan Bradshaw, ‘More on Utopia’ in The Historical Journal, 24 (1981), pp. 1–27.
143. Republic 517d (vii).
144. More, p. 57. ‘potius multo fuerit providendum uti aliquis esset proventus vitae, ne cuiquam tam dira sit furandi primum dehinc pereundi necessitas’.
145. Thomas White tries to connect More's ‘justice ’ to Aristotelian distributive justice and, more broadly, to ideas about the ‘common good’. While helpful, however, his analysis ignores the most basic, holistic sense in which More intends the term - and, thus, the explicit critique of Roman ius. See Thomas White, ‘Aristotle and Utopia’, Renaissance Quarterly, 29 (1976), p. 657.
146. Logan, The meaning of More's ‘ Utopia’, p. 79.
147. For an analysis of the scholastic idiom during the sixteenth century, see Annabel Brett, Liberty, right and nature: individual rights in later scholastic thought (Cambridge, 1997)
148. Richard Tuck, Natural rights theories: their origin and development (Cambridge, 1979), esp. ch. 2.
149. More, p. 77. For an instance of the word being used in this way, see Aristotle, Politics 1282a37 (III.6): ‘…$)’. Wootton is correct to point out that the word is ‘unusual’ in Latin, and I believe this is a plausible solution to the conundrum.
150. See Wootton, Utopia, p. 29.
151. More, p. 67. ‘Refrenate coemptiones istas divitum ac velut monopolii exercendi licentiam. Pauciores alantur otio, reddatur agricolatio, lanificium instauretur ut sit honestum negotium quo se utiliter exerceat otiosa ista turba … Certe nisi his malis medemini, frustra iactetis exercitam in vindicanda furta iustitiam, nempe speciosam magis quam aut iustam aut utilem. Siquidem quum pessime sinitis educari et mores paulatim ab teneris annis corrumpi, puniendos videlicet tum demum quum ea flagitia viri designent quorum spem de se perpetuam a puerita usque praebuerant, quid aliud, quaeso, quam facetis fures et iidem plectitis?’
152. More., p. 243.
153. Laws 857a (ix).
154. More, p. 75. ‘ Qui quantum habeat humanitatis et commodi facile patet, quando sic irascitur ut vitia perimat, servatis hominibus atque ita tractatis ut bonos esse necesse sit, et quantum ante damni dederunt tantum reliqua vita resartiant’.
155. More., p. 145.
156. See Laws 936c (xi).
157. Hexter and others have stressed, however, that while Plato's communism in the Republic may be restricted to the class of guardians, More's is generalized. See Surtz and Hexter, eds., Complete works, IV, pp. ixxxvii, cixff. None the less, More leaves no doubt that he views the abolition of private property as a Platonic measure.
158. More, p. 101. ‘Quamquam profecto, mi More (ut ea vere dicam quae meus animus fert), mihi videtur ubicumque privatae sunt possessiones, ubi omnes omnia pecuniis metiuntur, ibi vix umquam posse fieri ut cum republica aut iuste agatur aut prospere, nisi vel ibi sentias agi iuste ubi optima quaeque perveniunt ad pessimos, vel ibi feliciter ubi omnia dividuntur in paucissimos, nec illos habitos undecumque commode, ceteris vero plane miseris.’
159. More., p. 93.
160. See, for example, Republic 345c (i), and Statesman 261d.
161. Skinner discusses this issue from a different point of view (‘Sir Thomas More's Utopia’, pp. 135–47).
162. Utopia., p. 137.
163. See De officiis 2.20. Skinner points out that Poggio made this connection.
164. See Skinner, ‘Political philosophy’, p. 423.
165. Politics 1294a21 (iv.6).
166. Politics., 1278a21 (in.3).
167. Cicero, De officiis 2.16–17. It is worth noting that Cicero cites Aristotle as his source for a temperate assessment of magnificentia.
168. Politics 1295a39–1296a22 (IV.9).
169. ‘From a theoretical point of view, when the appeal was made to antiquity, the conception of nobility could be both justified and condemned from Aristotle alone.’ See Burckhardt, The civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, p. 231.
170. Starkey, A dialogue between Pole and Lupset, p. 25.
171. More, p. 101.
172. More., p. 155. ‘usqueadeo ut plumbeus quispiam et cui non plus ingenii sit quam stipiti nec minus etiam improbus quam stultus, multos tamen et sapientes et bonos viros in servitute habeat, ob id dumtaxat quod ei magnus contigit aureorum numismatum cumulus’.
173. More., p. 163.
174. More., p. 103.
175. More emphasizes this aspect of Utopian political thought in a letter to Erasmus dated 31 October 1516. Professing himself to be gratified that men such as Giles and Busleyden approve of his treatise, he writes ‘in illa republica nostra illi tales viri, litteris ac virtute tanti, principes plane essent futuri; quum in suis quanticumque sint (sunt sane magni) magnos tamen habeant nebulones authoritate ac potentia pares, ut ne dicam superiores’ (Allen and Allen, eds., Opus epistolarum, II).
176. See Republic 412c (III)
177. Politics 1254b (I).
178. More, p. 137.
179. More., p. 155. I have altered the translation here; Adams's ‘devotion to learning’ fails to capture the particular kind of learning implied by ‘bonas artes’. ‘hi videlicet in quibus a pueritia egregiam indolem, eximium ingenium, atque animum ad bonas artes propensum deprehendere’.
180. More., p. 131.
181. See Republic 370d (II).
182. More, p. 243. ‘An non haec iniqua est et ingrata respublica, quae generosis, ut vocant, et aurificibus et id genus reliquis aut otiosis aut tantum adulatoribus et inanium voluptatum artificibus, tanta munera prodigit? agricolis contra, carbonariis, mediastinis, aurigis et fabris, sine quibus nulla omnino respublica esset … Ita quod ante videbatur iniustum, optime de republica meritis pessimam referre gratiam, hoc isti depravatum etiam fecerunt, tum provulgata lege, iustitiam.
183. Republic 422a (IV).
184. More, p. 103. ‘rapaces, improbi, atque inutiles’.
185. More., p. 241. ‘eoque necessitas urget ut sui potius quam populi, id est aliorum, habendam sibi rationem censeat’.
186. More., p. 213. I have replaced Adams's ‘society’ with ‘republic’ in this instance, in order to reflect More's concern with constitutional structures. ‘Postremo rectae opiniones (quibus et doctrina et bonis reipublicae institutis imbuti a pueris sunt) virtutem addunt.’
187. We are now in a position to dispute Hexter's claim that, for More, ‘ equality is justice’ (Surtz and Hexter, eds., Complete works, iv, p. cxxiii).
188. We should say rather that the abolition of private property (and the level social order it creates) is necessary for justice. Justice itself is the rational ordering of all elements which contribute to self-sufficiency. Athanasios Moulakis endorses Hexter's position, see, ‘Pride and the meaning of Utopia ’, History of Political Thought, II (1990), p. 247.
189. Thomas White, among others, observes that happiness is the aim of Utopian life in his study of More's Aristotelianism. The hope here is to build on that common observation by noticing that, in this respect, More is challenging the traditional values of Romanitas, and, thus, of the republican tradition as understood in his lifetime. See White, ‘Aristotle and Utopia’, p. 640.
190. See also similar comments in Logan, The meaning of More's ‘Utopia’, p. 185.
191. More, p. 71. I have modified the translation here: ‘ haud perinde splendide atque commode, felicesque magis quam nobiles aut clari degunt. Quippe ne nomine quidem opinor praeterquam conterminis admodum satis noti.’
192. More., p. 101.
193. More., p. 103.
194. More., p. 179.
195. More., p. 202.
196. See, for example, Erasmus, Opera omnia, ix, p. 96.
197. More, p. 205.
198. More., pp. 205–17. Thus, More takes Plato's case for ‘happiness’ to its logical conclusion in a way that Plato never did.
199. See Surtz on the un-Platonic military practices of the Utopians (Surtz and Hexter, eds., Complete works, iv, p. clix)
200. The classic work on the Erasmian and Utopian rejection of military glory remains Robert P. Adams, The better part of valor: More, Erasmus, Colet, and Vives, on Humanism, war and peace, 1496–1535 (Seattle, 1962). Adams's analysis, however, is coloured by his argument that the Erasmian political programme was almost exclusively ‘neo-Stoic’.
201. More, p. 161.
202. See, for example, Giles's claim that being a counselor would make More ‘ happier’ (felicior).
203. More, p. 51.
204. More., p. 135. I have replaced Adams's translation of the first sentence. ‘quandoquidem eius reipublicae institutio hunc unum scopum in primis respicit: ut quoad per publicas necessitates licet, quam plurimum temporis ab servitio corporis ad animi libertatem cultumque civibus universis asseratur. In eo enim sitam vitae felicitatem putant.’