CICERONIAN IDEAS IN ANDRIUS VOLANAS’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THEORY

Abstract

Andrius Volanas was a sixteenth-century Lithuanian Calvinist leader. He was known not only for his political activities, but also gained notoriety as the author of De libertate politica sive civili (1572), in which he studies the main social and political problems of
Lithuania. In this book we can find political and social ideas that were modern not only for Lithuania of that time, but also for Europe, where different protestant theologians were trying to define the new social and political frames of social and political life, and in so doing were trying to find the keys to political modernization. They sought inspiration not only among their contemporaries, but also in ancient Hellenistic philosophy. The Roman philosopher Cicero was one of their most popular sources of inspiration. Andrius Volanas and others had used Cicero’s ideas to look for new vectors in political and social life.