A long time ago, Cicero expressed concerns like those we have been outlining about the likely effect of the waning of a vision of the public good on the future of the prosperous Roman Empire of his day. Fifty years before the birth of Christ, Cicero had concluded that the citizens of Rome no longer possessed the common vision required if they were to be a people at all. They had lost the moral consciousness needed to sustain their common life together. Cicero used the Latin phrase res publica to describe this common life. Literally this means “the public thing.” It can more aptly be translated as civil affairs, the commonweal, the common good, a commonwealth, or simply a republic. Cicero defined the commonweal this way:

Cicero's use of the Latin words coetus, congregatus, consensu, and communione points directly to the social union he presupposes must exist in a republic. Persons are envisioned as bound together by strong connections.