- Lived:
- 106–43 BCE · Arpinum and Rome
- Tradition:
- Roman; Academic skeptic; the great translator and transmitter of Greek philosophy into Latin — and into politics
- The Big Idea:
- Above every statute ever passed stands a higher law — "right reason in agreement with nature" — by which all human laws, and all rulers, can themselves be judged.
- In their words:
- "True law is right reason in agreement with nature... there will not be one law at Rome and another at Athens, one now and another later, but one eternal and unchangeable law for all nations and all times."
- If you remember one thing:
- Philosophy speaks in words like quality, essence, moral, and humanity because one overworked Roman politician, watching his republic die, sat down and built the vocabulary.