 True virtue presupposes obedience to the true God. But something like true virtue, namely love of honour, may lead to something like justice and peace, as it did in the Roman Republic (City of God, V.12). Earlier, Augustine had offered to prove that by Cicero’s definition, the Romans never had a republic: “I shall attempt to show that no such commonwealth ever existed, because true justice was never present in it” (City of God II.21, p. 80; see also the entry on  ancient political philosophy  (§6. Cicero and the Roman Republic), since the Romans did not obey the true God (cf. XIX.21). But this is only an argumentum ad hominem. As Augustine says, “There was, of course, according to a more practicable definition, a commonwealth of a sort” (II.21, p. 80). It is only by an unduly narrow definition that it can be said that non-Christians cannot form a commonwealth. Motivated by love of honour, the Romans were able to live together in an approximation to peace, justice and happiness, though not in “true” peace, justice and happiness. Justice in some measure is essential to anything that deserves to be called a commonwealth. 