Town Hall

Cicero and the Constitution

November 18, 2022

How did Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman statesman and philosopher, influence the Founding generation, the Constitution, and American political thought? Join Scott Nelson, author of Cicero, Politics, and the 21st Century; Benjamin Straumann, author of Crisis and Constitutionalism: Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution; and Caroline Winterer, author of The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780-1910, for a conversation exploring the political ideas of Cicero, his impact on America, and what we can learn from him today. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.


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Participants

Scott B. Nelson is research and strategy advisor at the Austrian Economics Center. His most recent book is Tragedy and History: The German Influence on Raymond Aron’s Political Thought. He has recently completed his next work Cicero, Politics, and the 21st Century, co-authored with Matthew Edwards.

Benjamin Straumann is ERC Professor of History at the University of Zurich, research professor of Classics at New York University, Alberico Gentili Senior Fellow at NYU’s Institute for International Law and Justice. He is the author of several books, including, Crisis and Constitutionalism: Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution, and is currently working on a five-year research project on Cicero’s thought as well as its historical legacy. 

Caroline Winterer is Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies, and by courtesy, professor of classics and of education at Stanford University. She is the author of several books, including The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780-1910, and most recently, Time in Maps: From the Age of Discovery to Our Digital Era

Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.


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