On Duties

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

On Duties

TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND INDEXES BY

Benjamin Patrick Newton

Cornell University Press

ITHACA AND LONDON

For my M. B.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Outline

ON DUTIES

BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

BOOK THREE

Interpretative Essay

Glossary

Selected Bibliography

Index of Names and Places

Index of Subjects

Acknowledgments

It is only appropriate in a book on officia to acknowledge those who acted so amiably as teachers, colleagues, and loved ones. These men and women are the very best of individuals, those who go about their business and lives not simply out of a sense of utility but because virtue is worth pursuing for its own sake. Never fashionable, never fair-weather, always constant, always thoughtful, these are individuals whom I am honored to have worked with and known. My sincere appreciation to Charles L. Babcock and Charles E. Butterworth, who guided my studies of Latin and philosophy, respectively; to David S. Fott and Thomas L. Pangle, who very kindly offered their advice and an editor’s eye throughout the writing process, as well as to James F. Pasley, who extended every courtesy while I finished the book; and to my parents, James and Roxann Newton, and my wife, Summer D. Newton, who provided patience, love, and a spousal sabbatical. Many thanks also to Roger M. Haydon, Karen T. Hwa, Susan C. Barnett, and the anonymous reviewers of Cornell University Press, as well as to Marian H. Rogers of BiblioGenesis, for all of their aid and encouragement. I must also acknowledge my debt to Leo Strauss, whose 1959 course transcript on Cicero provided many hours of pleasure and much food for thought. Without these people, this book could not have been written.

Introduction

You hold in your hands one of the most famous books ever written by one of the most famous men who ever lived. Marcus Tullius Cicero was a preeminent Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher. He was a champion of republican government, who successfully defended the Roman commonwealth against its overthrow by Lucius Sergius Catilina; a powerful speaker, who transformed Latin into the language of learning for sixteen centuries to come; and a prudent man, who introduced philosophy into Rome, and through Rome, into Christendom and the modern world. De officiis, or On Duties, has been considered a source of moral authority throughout classical, medieval, and modern times. It was championed by thinkers of no less importance than Thomas Aquinas, Montesquieu, and Voltaire; it was of decisive influence on Hugo Grotius and his On the Law of War and Peace; and it was one of the earliest books printed on the Gutenberg press. But the true significance of On Duties lies in its examination of several fundamental problems of political philosophy, the most important being the possible conflict between the honorable (honestum) and the useful (utile). The honorable encompasses the virtues of human beings, which include justice and concern for the common good. The useful encompasses the needs of living beings, which include certain necessities and concern for private good. Only by understanding the possible conflict between these two sides of human nature may we understand our duties to our community and to ourselves. Throughout On Duties, Cicero continually poses the question, Is there a conflict between the honorable and the useful? Is there ever a time when necessity overcomes justice, or when private good conflicts with public good?

This new edition of On Duties aims to provide readers who cannot read Latin but wish to carefully study the book with a literal yet elegant translation. Over the last century there have been five complete and two piecemeal editions of On Duties,¹ all of which suffer from inaccurate translations and inadequate interpretations. But before discussing the sorts of problems found in earlier editions that directly relate to and distinguish this edition, a few words first must be said about the author and his book.

I

Marcus Tullius Cicero was the elder of two sons born into an influential equites² family in the town of Arpinum on January 3, 106 BC. He shared his hometown and heritage with Gaius Marius.³ As a young man Cicero received an excellent education, studying law with Quintus Mucius Scaevola Augur,⁴ rhetoric with Apollonius Molon of Rhodes,⁵ and philosophy with the Academic Philo,⁶ the Stoic Diodotus,⁷ and the Epicurean Phaedrus.⁸ His ardor for philosophy was immediate and lasted his entire life. As an older man he would continue to associate closely with philosophers, befriending, among others, the Academic Antiochus,⁹ the Peripatetic Marcus Pupius Piso,¹⁰ and the Stoic Posidonius,¹¹ even inviting the above Diodotus to live in his home until Diodotus’s death in 59 BC. His closest lifelong friend was the Epicurean Titus Pomponius Atticus.¹²

An ambitious man, Cicero quickly worked his way up the Roman cursus honorum, or path of honors. He first served as an advocate in the law courts and won great fame for his defense of Sextus Roscius of Ameria¹³ on a charge of patricide in 80 BC. At a time when the proscriptions¹⁴ of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix¹⁵ were still recent, and their execution by his lieutenant Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus¹⁶ were still fresh, a twenty-six-year old Cicero chose to defend a man whom Chrysogonus wished to see falsely condemned, while Sulla was alive and well. And he won.¹⁷

In 75 BC Cicero was elected to serve in Sicily as quaestor, an official who oversaw the commonwealth’s finances. He fulfilled the duties of the office so well that the Sicilians later asked him to prosecute their governor, Gaius Verres,¹⁸ for corruption and extortion in 70 BC. By that time Cicero was an aedile, an elected official who oversaw the maintenance of public buildings and regulation of festivals. He undertook the case and successfully prosecuted Verres, prevailing over the defense of Quintus Hortensius Hortalus,¹⁹ a man eight years his senior and then considered to be the most outstanding advocate in Rome.²⁰ This success helped him win the praetorship in 66 BC, an office that served various functions, such as commanding in the army or judging in the courts. In 63 BC he was elected a consul, one of two officials who served one-year appointments as heads of state and the army. Each of the preceding two offices was won by Cicero on the first attempt, at the minimum age requirement, and, perhaps most impressively, as a novus homo, or new man. It was exceedingly rare for such a new man, whose ancestors had never been senators, to be admitted into the Senate, let alone win its highest office.

During the year of Cicero’s consulship, Catilina²¹ attempted to overthrow the government. The conspirators led by Catilina were largely a group of debt-ridden senators who hoped to erase the debt record. The conspiracy was thwarted by Cicero’s vigilance in Rome, although an army had to be sent against Catilina and the remnants of his army in Etruria. The temporarily grateful Roman people gave Cicero the honorary title Pater Patriae, or Father of the Fatherland.²² But when the danger had passed, Cicero’s enemies, led by Publius Clodius Pulcher,²³ exiled him in 58 BC on the grounds that he executed the leading conspirators, who were Roman citizens, without a trial. This exile might have been avoided had he accepted Gaius Julius Caesar’s offer to join what became known as the First Triumvirate, along with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives.²⁴ The purpose of this union was to advance the careers of each of its members at the expense of the common good. But Cicero recognized the new conspiracy for what it was, and refused. His house on the Palatine was destroyed, his villa at Tusculum was ravaged, and he was forced to flee into Macedonia.

A year later his friend Titus Annius Milo,²⁵ then tribune, secured his return, and he was warmly welcomed back into Italy and Rome. But the First Triumvirate so dominated Roman politics that Cicero’s efforts to reintegrate himself into political life proved futile. Disgusted, he withdrew from politics and devoted himself to writing. It was at this time that his three most political works of philosophy were written, On the Orator in 55 BC, On the Commonwealth (or The Republic) in 51 BC, and On the Laws around 50 BC.²⁶ And yet Cicero did not remain entirely politically inactive during this time. In 53 BC he was elected augur, a priest who interpreted the will of the gods by studying the flight of birds, and in 51 BC he was sent to govern the province of Cilicia. As with his quaestorship in Sicily, he proved a just and capable governor.