Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on today's show is

Daniel J. Mahoney. He's an old friend, an emeritus professor at Assumption College, and a new senior

fellow at the Claremont Institute. He's the author of many important books, including the other

Sol Shonitzen and The Idol of Our Age. And he is a brand new book

out May 24th entitled The Statesman as Thinker, Portraits of Greatness, Courage, and Moderation.

Dan, thanks very much for coming on 10 blocks. And this, I should say, is being recorded in our brand

new podcast studio.

So your book, it's really a terrific read, it opens with the Roman politician and philosopher

Cicero, who you argue provides in both his life and writings a model of statesmanship that exemplifies a greatness of soul,

the ideal of magnanimity. Why did you focus on Cicero and what is meant by magnanimity?

Perhaps I'll start with the, by the way, Brian I'm very happy to be here, and we are indeed

very old friends.

Magnanimity is the Latinate version of Megalusukia, which is the Greek phrase for greatness

of soul. It's a phrase used several times by Aristotle in his Nicomachean ethics, and he defines greatness of soul as the

crown of the virtues. Aristotle is famous for delineating what the tradition calls the cardinal

virtues, courage, moderation, prudence, justice.

And there's no, and magnanimity in a way is the strangest of the cardinal virtues,

because it is undoubtedly a virtue, a kind of greatness of a peak of the soul, you know, somebody who is

worthy of honor because they embody the fullness of the moral virtues and also the intellectual

virtue or part intellectual virtue, which is prudence.

But the Magnanimous Man, as described by Aristotle, is very austere, even haughty, distant,

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