The Roman Classics and the Independence Discourse

The ancient classics, specially the romans, stand out among the various sources that Hispanic American men of letters used in order to build the revolutionary and republican discourse that legitimized the search for political autonomy and the new system of government. This paper proposes that the reading and utilization of the ancient authors provided the Chilean men of letters like Manuel de Salas, Juan Egaña, Camilo Henríquez, etc. with paradigms and examples of good government, and personal models of virtue and heroism. They referred to the roman classics as a mirror that allowed them to fashion their political ideals, to give sense to their struggles and to make sense their political success and failures. The classical writers were profusely quoted and referred to in order to express theoretical ideals and practical issues raised by the revolutionary process.

Chilean literary men and political publicists of this period chose the work of Late Republic, Augustan and Early Empire authors. Cicero provided a model of aristocratic republic, which had virtue as its foundation and oratory as its main political means. Suetonius and Livy were used to show the political and moral superiority of the republican form of governments, as well as the dangers of factionalism, civil war and moral turpitude as the causes of the republican failure. Tacitus, on the other hand, was quoted to show the pitfalls of the monarchical government. Poets such Virgil, Horace and Ovid, provided an imagery and model for heroism and virtue, and served to express the tensions between public life and the longing for a private retire existence devoted to the cultivation of letters.