De Officiis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
De Officiis (On Duties or On Obligations) is an essay by Marcus Tullius Cicero divided into three books, where Cicero explains his view on the best way to live.
Contents |
[edit] Origin
It was written in the year 44 BC, Cicero's last year alive, when he was 62 years old. Cicero was at this time still active in politics, trying to stop revolutionary forces from taking control of the Roman Republic. This did none the less happen the following year, when Cicero himself was killed trying to escape.
The essay was written in the form of a letter to his son with the same name, who studied philosophy in Athens, though judging from its form, it is likely that Cicero wrote to a larger audience. The essay was written toward the end of his life, likely in September and November of 44 BC, and published posthumously.
De Officiis has been described as an attempt to turn common men into good citizens. It criticizes the recently overthrown dictator Julius Caesar in several places, and with his dictatorship as a whole.
[edit] Contents
Cicero was influenced heavily by the Greek philosophers, especially of the Stoic movement. The essay discusses what is honor and what is expedient, and what to do when they conflict. Cicero believed they are one in the same, and that they only appear to be in conflict.
Cicero claims that the absence of political rights corrupts moral values. Cicero also speaks of a natural law that is said to govern both humans and gods alike; this has been compared to the writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Cicero urged his son Marcus to follow nature and wisdom, as well as politics, and warns against pleasure and indolence. Cicero's essay relies heavily on anecdotes, much more than his other works, and is written in a more leisurely and less formal style than his other writings, perhaps because he under the circumstances was forced to write it hastily. Like the satires of Juvenal, Cicero's De Officiis refers frequently to current events of his time.
[edit] Legacy
The legacy of this work is huge. Even though it was a pagan work, St. Ambrose in 390 declared it legitimate for the Church to use (along with everything else Cicero, and the equally popular pagan philosopher Seneca, had written). It subsequently became the moral authority during the Middle Ages. Of the Church Fathers, Saint Augustine, St. Jerome and even more so St. Thomas Aquinas, are known to have read it. To illustrate its importance, 700 handwritten copies of it still exist in the libraries around the world; these copies would have been produced before the invention of printing in the mid-15th century. Only the Latin grammarian Priscian boasts more, with 900. Following the invention of the printing press, De Officiis was the second book to be printed -- second only to the Gutenberg Bible.
In the 16th century, Erasmus developed a pocket version of it, since he thought it so important that one should always be able to keep it at hand. T. W. Baldwin said that "in Shakespeare's day De Officiis was the pinnacle of moral philosophy". Sir Thomas Elyot, in his popular Governour (1531), lists three essential texts for bringing up young gentlemen: Plato's Works, Aristotle's Ethics, and De Officiis.
In the 18th century, Voltaire said of De Officiis "No one will ever write anything more wise". And Frederick the Great thought so highly of the book that he asked the scholar Christian Garve to do a new translation of it, even though there had been already two German translations since 1756. Garve went ahead with the project anyhow, and added 880 pages of commentary.
It continues to be one of the most popular of Cicero's works because of its style, and because of the information it gives about Roman political life under the Republic.
[edit] Quotes
- Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense.
- No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.
- Of evils one should choose the least.
[edit] Resources and further reading
- Why Cicero's De Officiis? By Ben R. Schneider, Jr. Professor Emeritus of English at Lawrence University.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero et al, Cicero: On Duties (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), Cambridge University Press (February 21, 1991).
- Nelson, N. E., Cicero's De Officiis in Christian Thought, University of Michigan Studies in Language and Literature 10 (1933).
