Work · Hellenistic, Roman & Late Antique
On Duties (De officiis)
Stoic theory of duty: the honorable and the useful coincide.
Introduction
Cicero’s last philosophical work, written in late 44 BCE as a letter in three books to his son Marcus, then a student in Athens. Book I treats the honourable (honestum) through the four cardinal virtues, Book II the useful (utile), Book III apparent conflicts between them, with examples such as the general Regulus, who returned to Carthage to keep his oath. Cicero follows the Stoic Panaetius but adds Roman cases and his own judgement. Written months after Caesar’s murder, the text is also a political statement against tyranny. It was one of the first classical works to be printed (Mainz, 1465) and was long a standard school text.
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Connections
Criticized in
- The Prince1513 · Niccolò Machiavelli
More works by Cicero
- c. 51 BCEOn the Republic
- c. 45 BCEOn Ends (De finibus)
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