De Politieke Gezichten van Cicero: de Reputatie van een ‘wysgerig staatsman’ in Verlichting en Revolutie

Cicero's reputation as a politician reached a low point in the nineteenth century, but during the
Enlightenment the Roman consul was greatly admired. This article discusses the ways in which
the Dutch eighteenth centmy viewed the legendary Roman statesman. Regents such as Lieven de
Beaufort and Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel admired the way in which Cicero combined republican
principles with a capacity for pragmatic political action. Late-eighteenth-century Dutch reformers
saw him as a paragon of republican virtue. The most radical Dutch revolutionaries. however,
doubted his political courage and regarded Cicero as inferior to stern Roman republicans such
as Cato the Younger. Despite such criticism, however, Cicero's positive reputation as a great
republican statesman survived well into the Dutch nineteenth centmy.