Cicero's and Seneca's thoughts about politics and emotions

The article investigates Cicero’s and Seneca’s thoughts about the influence of emotions on the political life of society and political behavior. Cicero and Seneca attach great importance to the emotional background of political relations. In their opinion, uncontrollable passions of the ruler can cause fear, anger, and hatred of citizens, destabilizing the state and inciting to the murder of this hated ruler. Cicero reckons even a change of political system among the potential consequences of such emotions of the whole society (for example, the banishment of the last Roman king and the founding of the Roman Republic). According to Seneca, civil wars and wars with other nations are also the result of their influence. Both Roman authors oppose peace of mind and love for people to fear, anger, and hatred. In Cicero’s and Seneca’s opinion, they retain civil concord and render stability to the state. Cicero’s and Seneca’s thoughts have also their common contradiction. As philosophers, they discuss important political and judicial questions, following the mind, not emotions, on the one hand. On the other hand, as public figures, regarding the real state of affairs, they recognize that the influence of the speaker on the emotions of the audience for decision-making is admissible and even necessary. Their opinions differ in terminological preferences (Cicero uses commonly the term “perturbationes” for designation of the emotions, while Seneca prefers the term “adfectus”) and in Seneca’s idea about the domination of anger over all other passions.