Abstract

In Cicero’s eyes, the violence of war reduced man to a feral state: it was then necessary to counter the animal furor with ratio. In this perspective, the limitation of violence did not respond only to a legal precept or a moral rule but consisted in the ability of the virtuous man to govern the passions, even as basic and destructive as those related to the dimension of war. The need to regulate war, therefore, appears first and foremost to be the fruit of an inner option based on solid philosophical foundations and on a clear political awareness. In the eyes of the legal philosopher a reconstruction of Cicero’s path, beyond his intellectual biography, is key to reflecting on the genealogy of temperamenta bella