ETHICAL WRITINGS OF CICERO: DE OFFICIIS; DE SENECTUTE ; DE AMICITIA, AND SCIPIO'S DREAM. TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. BY ANDREW P. PEABODY. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1887. CICERO DE OFFICIIS. TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. BY ANDREW P. PEABODY. BOSTON: LITTLE. BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1887. Copyright, 1883, BY ANDREW P. PEABODT. UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. STACK ANNEX p/v SYNOPSIS. BOOK I. 1. Introduction. 2. Pre-eminent importance of moral science. 3. Division of the subject: (1) Tlie Eight; (2) The choice among right things ; (3) The Expedient ; (4) The choice among expedient things ; (5) The seeming conflict between the Right and the Expedient. 4. Source of the Right in the nature of man. 5. Division of the Right : (1) Prudence ; (2) Justice ; (3) Mag- nanimity ; (4) Temperance. 6. Prudence, or Wisdom. 7. Justice consists : (1) In wronging and injuring no one ; (2) In rendering to every one his own. Injustice consists : (1) In doing wrong; (2) In omitting to repel injury from others. 8. Reasons why wealth is wrongfully sought. 9. Reasons why men refrain from defending those who are wronged. 10. Apparent and real violations of good faith. 11. Justice to be observed toward enemies. 12. The rights of war. 13. Justice to slaves. 14. Beneficence. Cautions to be observed in its exercise. 15. Gratitude. 16. 17. Degrees of claims on beneficence. 18. Beneficence needs to be trained by practice. Fortitude, or Magnanimity. iv Synopsis. 19. Magnanimity void when divorced from justice. 20. Consists in supreme love and resolute choice of the right, and in a mind undisturbed by passion and by the vicissi- tudes of fortune. 21. Equanimity, how disturbed, and how maintained. 22. 23. Magnanimity needed and shown in civic no less than in military service and achievements. 24. The truly great man will sacrifice even his own reputation to the public good. 25. Disinterestedness and impartial care for the whole body politic incumbent on those in public office. 26. A great man will in prosperity keep himself free from arro- gance and superciliousness. 27. Temperance and moderation. Decorum defined. 28. Decorum consists in one's living in accordance with his own nature, taking in life the part for which he is fitted. 29. Decorum to be maintained in jest and sport. 30. 31. Wide diversities of mental constitution and proclivity fitly manifested in a corresponding diversity of manners and of social intercourse. 32. The part which we take upon ourselves in the choice of a profession or mode of life. 33. The part imposed upon us by circumstances beyond our control. 34. Decorum as regards different ages and conditions in life. 35. Decorum requires modesty and decency in dress, conduct, and speech. The coarseness and indecency of the Cynics censured. 36. Decorum requires in dress and personal habits something midway between the extremes of slovenliness and foppish- ness, of rusticity and over-refinement, of laggard laziness and inordinate haste, also an equipoise of the appetites and passions. 37. Decorum in the style of conversation. 38. Decorum excludes from the speech anger, boastfulness, and mendacity. 39. What sort of a house a man of distinguished rank should live in. Synopsis. v 40. The fitnesses of time and place. 41. How to become aware of our violations of decorum. 42. What trades and professions are to be considered respectable, and what are to be regarded as vulgar. 43. Comparison of duties. Duties of justice and benevolence to be preferred to those of prudence or wisdom. 44. To those under the head of fortitude or magnanimity. 45. Not to those of decorum. Grades of duties. BOOK II. 1. Introduction. 2. Cicero's reasons for writing on philosophical subjects. His own philosophy (of the New Academy), and its bearing on the subjects under discussion, defined. 3. The Expedient inseparable from the Right. Of all beings and objects man is most serviceable and most harmful to man. Inanimate objects made of service by human industry. 4. Beasts tamed and utilized, or, when noxious, slain by man for the benefit of man. 5. Man's harmfulness to man shown by comparison of the evil and destruction brought about by his agency with the mis- chief wrought by all other agencies. It is the province of Virtue and of the several virtues, to conciliate the kind feelings and good offices of men. 6. The part which Fortune has in human affairs small as com- pared with the good or evil done by men to men. The various influences by which men are made subservient to men. 7. The influence of fear compared with that of good will. 8. The effect of oppression and tyranny upon the allies of the Koman people and upon citizens not in favor with the ruling powers. 9. 10. The three prerequisites to fame, the love of the people, their confidence, and qualities that command their ad- miration. v i Synopsis. 11. These prerequisites of fame are all created and conferred by justice, and cannot exist independently of justice. 12. Kings were first chosen, and laws established, to secure the equal administration of justice. 13. Justice the prime factor of fame. But a young man is aided in acquiring reputation by attaching himself to the society and seeking the counsel of men already worthily eminent. 14. Favor won by ease and affability in conversation, by elo- quence at the bar, especially in the defence of accused persons. Accusation to be resorted to rarely, and only for special reasons, personal, official, or patriotic. 15. Beneficence by personal service or by money. The former more conducive to reputation. 16. 17. Pecuniary prodigality and liberality, the former to be deprecated, yet sometimes necessary, as in the aedileship for those who aspire to higher office. 18. Liberality and hospitality as conducive to reputation. 19. Personal service, especially eloquent defence in the courts of justice, the means of gaining attached and zealous friends. 20. Benefits better invested with poor but worthy men who will feel the obligation, than with rich men who will spurn it. 21. Benefits affecting classes of men or the whole community. The former to be so conferred as, if possible, to help, and never to injure the entire body politic. 22. Agrarian laws and measures looking to the cancelling or arbitrary reduction of debts are not conducive to true or enduring fame. 23. The conduct of Aratus, of Sicyon, with reference to estates confiscated by tyrants, and belonging to exiles restored by him to their country. 24. The efforts for the cancelling of debts suppressed under Cicero's consulship. The care of health and of prop- erty. 25. The comparison of things expedient or useful Synopsis. vii BOOK III. 1. Introduction. 2, There can be no real conflict between expediency and the Eight. 3, 4. This appears from the nature of the Right. 4, 5. From the nature of the Expedient. 6. The benefit of each and the benefit of all are identical. 7. Justice never to be sacrificed to expediency. The seeming repugnancy of the Eight and the Expedient can in no case and by no possibility be real. 8. Even to think otherwise is morally evil. 9. The story of Gyges, showing that concealment cannot affect the character of moral acts. 10, 11. Cases where expediency may create right, by altering the primary conditions on which the Eight depends, and other cases where the clearest show of expediency is inadequate to create right. 12. The case of the Alexandrian corn-merchant who arrives with his cargo at Ehodes in a famine, and knows that other corn -laden ships are on their way to Ehodes. Shall he tell this, or keep silence ? Arguments on both sides. 13. Must a man who is going to sell his house divulge all its defects and discomforts ? 14. A case of downright fraud in the sale of an estate. 15. 16. Legal provisions against criminal fraud, and how evaded. 17. Laws seek to prevent fraud by the power of the state ; phi- losophers, by reason and intelligence; 1 8. A case of venal complicity in fraud on the part of two of the chief citizens of Eome. 19. The idea of a good man in one's own inner consciousness in- cludes perfect and impartial justice.. 20. Men are tempted to what seem very small wrongs by the prospect of immensely greater gains. Cases of Caiua Marius and Marius Gratidianus. 21. Case of Julius Caesar. viii Synopsis. 22. Cases of the observance and of the violation of right by the Roman people. 23. Cases of casuistry discussed among the Stoics. 24, 25. Cases in which under altered circumstances a promise is not to be kept. 26. Magnanimity never to be sacrificed for expediency. Com- parison of Ulysses, according to tradition feigning insanity to release himself from his oath to avenge the marital wrongs of Menelaus, and Regulus returning to certain death in order to keep his oath-pledged faith inviolate. 27. The story of Regulus, as then current in Rome. 28. The arguments in favor of his staying at home, and violating his oath, stated. 29. Refuted. 30. Cases similar to his cited. 31. The sacredness of an oath in the earlier times. 32. The perjury of other Roman captives sent by Hannibal to demand an exchange of prisoners and bound by an oath to return, if unsuccessful. 33. Moderation, temperance, and decorum never to be sacrificed to expediency. The nullity of these virtues under the system of Epicurug. Conclusion. INTRODUCTION. THEEE are two systems of ethical philosophy, which in every age divide speculative moralists, and are recognized with a more or less distinct consciousness in the conduct of life by all in whom the moral sense has attained mature development. They are, indeed, in different ages and by different writers stated more or less explicitly, in widely varying terminology, and with modifications from culture, religion, national character, and individual proclivities. They are, also, sometimes blended by an eclecticism which cannot wholly transcend the lo\ver, yet feels the intense attraction of the higher sphere. One system is that which makes virtue a means ; the other, that which makes it an end. According to the one, we are to practise virtue for the good that will come of it to our- selves or our fellow-beings ; according to the other, we are to practise virtue for its own sake, for its intrinsic fitness and excellence, without reference x Introduction. to ulterior consequences, save when, and so far as, those consequences are essential factors in de- termining the intrinsic quality of the action. Of course, this general division admits of ob- vious subdivisions. The former system includes the selfish and the utilitarian theory of morals, the selfish making the pursuit of our own happi- ness our duty, and adaptation to that end the sole standard of right ; the utilitarian identifying vir- tue with benevolence, accounting the greatest good of the greatest number the supreme aim, and be- neficent utility the ultimate standard of duty. The alternative system, according to which virtue is to be practised, not for what it does, but for what it is, includes, also, various definitions of virtue, according as its standard is deemed to be intrinsic fitness, accordance with the aesthetic nature, the verdict of the moral sense, or conformity to the will of God. These latter theories, widely as they differ, agree in representing the right as having a validity independent of circumstances and of human judgment, as unaffected by the time-and- place element, as possessed of characteristics connate, indelible, eternal ; while the selfish and utilitarian schools alike represent it as mutable, dependent on circumstances, varying with time and place, and possessed of no attributes dis- tinctively its own. Introduction. xi In Cicero's time the left and the right wing in ethi- cal philosophy were represented by the Epicureans and the Stoics respectively, while the Peripatetics held a middle ground. The Epicureans regarded happiness or, according to their founder, painless- ness as the sole aim and end of moral conduct, and thus resolved all virtue into prudence, or judi- cious self-love, a doctrine which with such a disciple as Pliny the Younger identified virtue with the highest self-culture as alone conducive to the happiness of the entire selfhood, intellectual and spiritual as well as bodily; but with Horace and his like, and with Rousseau, who professed adherence to that school, afforded license and am- nesty to the most debasing sensuality. The Stoics regarded virtue as the sole aim and end of life, and virtue is, in their philosophy, the conformity of the will and conduct to universal nature, intrinsic fitness thus being the law and the criterion of the right. Complete conformity, or perfect virtue, is, according to this school, attain- able only by the truly wise ; and its earlier disci- ples, while by no means certain that this ideal perfectness had ever been realized in human form even by Zeno, the great master, yet admitted no moral distinction between those who fell but little short of perfection and those who had made no progress toward it. The later Stoics, however, xii Introduction. recognized degrees of goodness, and were diligent expositors and teachers of the duties within the scope of those not truly wise, by the practice of which there might be an ever nearer approach to perfection. This philosophy was, from Cicero's time till Christianity gained ascendency, the only antiseptic that preserved Koman society from utter and remediless corruption. The Peripatetic philosophy makes virtue to con- sist in moderation, or the avoidance of extremes, and places each of the individual virtues midway between opposite vices, as temperance between excess and asceticism ; generosity between prodi- gality and avarice ; meekness between irascibility and pusillanimity. It admits the reality of the intrinsically right as distinguished from the merely expedient or useful ; but it maintains that happi- ness is the supreme object and end of life, and that for this end, virtue, though essential, is not sufficient without external goods, so that the wisely vir- tuous man, while he will never violate the right, will pursue by all legitimate means such outward advantages as may be within his reach. The New Academy, whose philosophy was a blending of Platonism and Pyrrhonism, while it denied the attain ableness of objective truth, main- tained that on all subjects of speculative philoso- phy probability is attainable, and that wherever Introduction. xiii there is scope for action, the moral agent is bound to act in accordance with probability, of two courses to pursue that for which the more and the better reasons can be given. The disciples of this school accepted provisionally the Peripatetic ethics. Cicero professed to belong to the New Academy, and its ethical position was in close accordance with his nature. Opinion rather than belief was his mental habit, strong opinion, indeed, yet less than certainty. His instincts as an advocate often induced by professional exigencies, not only to cast doubt on what he had previously affirmed, but with the ardor of one who threw himself with his whole soul into the case in hand to feel such doubt before he gave it utterance made the scepticism of this school congenial to him. At the same time, his love of elegant ease and luxury and his lack of moral enterprise though not of courage when emergencies were forced upon him were in closer affinity with the practical ethics of the Peripatetics than with the more rigid system of the Stoics ; while his pure moral taste and his genuine reverence for the right brought him into sympathy with the Stoic school. Under no cul- ture short of that Christian regeneration which is less a culture than a power could he have become heroically virtiious ; under no conceivable influence xiv Introduction. could he, such as he was in his early manhood, have become grossly vicious. He believed in vir- tue, admired it, loved it. His aesthetic nature was pre-eminently true and pure. His private character indicates high-toned principle. In an age when all things were venal, no charge of cor- ruption was ever urged against him, even by an enemy. He neither bought office, nor sold its functions. Associating familiarly with well-known convivialists, who regarded a wine-debauch as always a welcome episode in the pursuits whether of war or of peace, we have no vestige of a proof that he ever transgressed the bounds of temper- ance, and there is not a word in his writings that indicates any sympathy with excesses of the table. Living at a time when licentiousness in its foulest forms was professed without shame and practised without rebuke, we have reason to believe that he led a chaste life from his youth ; and though as an advocate he was sometimes obliged to refer to sub- jects and transactions offensive to purity, and in his letters there are passages which might seem out of place in the correspondence of a Christian scholar of the nineteenth century, it may be doubted whether in all his extant writings there is a single sentence inconsistent with what a purist of his own age would have deemed a blameless moral character. Introduction. xv He has been, indeed, charged by some of his biographers with motives of the lowest order in the divorce of the mother of his children after a union of thirty years, and his marriage with a young heiress, his own ward. But by the best standard that he knew, though not by the Chris- tian standard so profligately ignored and outraged in our own section of Christendom, he was more than justified. His wife was no little of a virago, had wasted a great deal of money for him in his absence, and had willed property under her control in such a way as to give him just dis- pleasure; and it appears from his letters that he exercised the then unquestioned right of di- vorce solely on these grounds, with no specific marriage in view, and that the alliance which he actually made was preceded by overtures both to and from other candidates for that honor. More- over, the charge of mercenary views in this mar- riage is negatived by its speedy dissolution on his part, with the sacrifice of the entire and large fortune which it brought to him, on the sole ground that his bride had manifested unseemly satisfaction in the death of his daughter Tullia, whom she regarded as her rival in her husband's affection. Yet there were heights of virtue beyond Cicero's scope. He was wholly destitute of the martyr- xvi Introduction,. spirit. He was much of a Sybarite in his habits. His many villas, furnished with equal taste and splendor, gave him the sumptuous surroundings and the aesthetic leisure without which he could not regard even virtue as sufficient for his happi- ness, and times of enforced absence from wonted pursuits and enjoyments were filled with unmanly complaint and self-commiseration. He loved ap- plause, suffered keenly from unpopularity, and vacil- lated in his political allegiance, sometimes with the breeze of public opinion, sometimes with his faith in the fortunes of an eminent leader. He often worshipped with manifest sincerity the ascending star, and had little sympathy with fallen greatness. He was thoroughly patriotic, would have sacrificed for his country anything and everything except his own fame, and coveted nothing so much as oppor- tunities like that afforded by the Catilinian conspi- racy for winning celebrity by signal service to the republic. He had, too, large and profound wisdom as a statesman ; but his best judgment generally came too late for action, so that had he derived a surname from classic fable, it would have been Epimetheus, not Prometheus. As an advocate he was supple and many-sided, yet he always im- presses his reader with his sincerity, and probably a prime element of his pre-eminent success in the courts was the capacity of making a cause his own, Introduction. xvii and throwing into it for the time genuine feeling and not its mere eloquent semblance. His lot was cast in an age when only an iron will could have maintained, along with the con- scious integrity which, as I think, characterized Cicero's whole life, the perfect self-consistency which no stress could bend or warp. When we compare him with his most illustrious contempo- raries, it is impossible not to assign to him a pre- eminent place both as to private virtues and as to public services. It is only when we try him by his own standard that we have a, vivid sense of his deficiencies and shortcomings. Cicero's only son, with the heritage of his name, Marcus Tullius, seems to have inherited few of his father's distinguishing characteristics,, and not im- probably may have borne, in some respects, a close moral kindred to his high-spirited mother. He was impetuous, irascible, headstrong, brave as a soldier, and though indolent except when roused to action, not without ability and learning. At the age of sixteen he served with great credit in Pompey's army. After the defeat of Pharsalia he was sent to Athens to complete his education. He fell there into habits of gross dissipation, being led astray by one of his teachers. He, however, yielded to his father's earnest remonstrances, ex- pressed great grief and shame for his misconduct, b XV] 11 Introduction. and entered upon a regular and studious course of life, winning high credit with Cratippus his teacher, and receiving warm commendation from his father's friends resident or sojourning in Athens. He subsequently fought with distinction under Marcus Brutus, and after the battle of Phi- lippi joined Sextus Pompeius in Sicily. Pieturning to Kome when peace was concluded with the Triumvirate, he was an object of special regard with Augustus, and after holding several offices of lower grade, became his colleague in the consul- ship. He afterward went as proconsul to Asia Minor, where his name drops from history, which but for his father, might never have found place for it. When it appeared that Brutus and Cassius had effected nothing for the republic, and Antony was becoming all-powerful in the state, in the spring of 44 B. c., Cicero, deeming his life insecure, left Rome, and spent the summer successively at several of his villas in Western Italy. He beguiled his dis- appointment and sorrow at the issue of public affairs by philosophy and ethics, and this summer seems to have been, at least for posterity, the most fruitful season of his life, being the epoch of the completion of his Tusculan Disputations and his De Natura Deorum, and of the composition of several of his smaller treatises. In June of that Introduction. xix year he says, in a letter to Atticus, that he is writing for his son's benefit an elaborate treatise on Morals. " On what subject," he asks, " can a father better write to a son ? " In the latter part of the summer he started on a journey to Athens to visit his son, but was recalled by the intelli- gence of a probable understanding on amicable terms between Antony and the Senate. Deceived in this hope, he repaired to Rome, and pronounced his first Philippic against Antony in the beginning of September. In November he writes again about his ethical work, tells Atticus that he has com- pleted two books and is busy on the third, and announces and explains the title. The work was completed before the end of the year. Cicero's time was a period of eclecticism in philosophy, especially so among the cultivated Eomans, with whom philosophy was not indi- genous, but a comparatively recent importation. Cicero himself was pre-eminently a lover of philo- sophical thought, study, and discussion, and prob- ably was more intimately conversant with the history of opinions and the contents of books in that department than any man of his time; yet he seems to have lacked profound convictions on the subjects at issue among the several schools. Thus in the De Officiis, while he repeatedly pro- fesses his adherence to the New Academy and xx. Introduction. the Peripatetic doctrine of morals, he bases his discussion on the Stoic theory, and intimates very clearly that he thought his son safer under the rigid discipline of the Stoic school than under the more lax though wise tuition of his Peripatetic preceptor. It is as if a Mohammedan, while recog- nizing the divine mission of the Arab prophet, were to write for his son a treatise on the ethics of the New Testament as better adapted than the moral system of the Koran for the training and confirming of a young man in the practice of virtue. This treatise, then, may be regarded as an expo- sition of the ethical system of the Stoics of Cicero's time, yet with a special limitation, purpose, and adaptation. It is not designed for the ideally perfect philosopher, nor for a candidate for that exalted position, but for one on the lower plane of common life. It therefore defines not the moral consciousness of the truly wise man, but the spe- cific duties by the practice of which one may grow into the semblance of true wisdom. Nor does it purport to be a compendium even of these duties. It is simply a directory for a young Eoman of high rank and promise, who is going to enter upon pub- lic life, and to be a candidate for office and honor in the state. It prescribes the self-training, the social relations, and the habits of living, by which Introduction. xxi such a youth may both deserve and attain dis- tinction and eminence, and the respect and confi- dence of his fellow-citizens. Of course, many of the details in this treatise were of merely local and transient import and value; but its underlying principles are in such close harmony with the absolute and eternal right that they can never become obsolete. At the same time, the division and arrangement of the treatise give it, so far as I know, the precedence over all other ethical treatises ancient or modern. The division is exhaustive. The arrangement is such as to leave an open space for the insertion and full treatment of any topic within the scope of ethical philosophy. The First Book treats of the Eight. The right consists in accordance with nature, with the nature of things, with the nature of man. Hence is de- rived its imperative obligation upon the human conscience. Its duties are evolved from man's own consciousness. Man by his very nature de- sires knowledge, and craves materials for the active exercise of his cognitive powers. 'He is by his birth, by his instinctive cravings, by the necessity of his daily life, a gregarious being, a member of a family, of society, of the state, and as such cannot but recognize justice, including benevolence, as his imperative duty. He postulates distinction, emi- nence, a position from which he can look down on xxii Introduction. earthly fortunes as beneath him, and can sacrifice all exterior good for the service of mankind and the attainment of merited fame. He has also an innate sense of order, proportion, harmony, which can satisfy itself only by practical reference to the due time, place, manner, and measure of whatever is done or said. Hence the four virtues of Pru- dence or Wisdom, Justice, Fortitude or Magnanim- ity, and Order, Temperance, or Moderation. These virtues in their broadest significance include all human obligations, 1 and form a series of divisions, under one or another < of which may be classed every specific duty. Under each of these heads Cicero shows what was demanded by the highest sentiment of his time from a youth of spotless fame and of honorable ambition. The Second Book has Expediency, or Utility, for its subject. Outside of the province of duty or of things required there is large room for choice among things permitted, consistent with the Right, yet forming no part of it. The question that underlies this Book is, By what honorable methods, other than the discharge of express duty, can a young man secure for himself the favor, gratitude, assistance, and in case of need the suffrages of his fellow-citizens ? This Book has its proper place in a treatise on morals, because it is 1 See p. 10, note. Introduction. xxiii the author's aim throughout to discriminate be- tween the immoral and the legitimate modes of obtaining reputation and popularity. The Third Book deals with the alleged or seem- ing discrepancy between the Expedient and the Eight. Cicero denies the possibility of such mu- tual repugnance, and maintains that whatever is expedient must of necessity be right, and that what is right cannot be otherwise than expedient. In this translation I have attempted to give, not a word-for-word version of the Latin text, but a literal transcript in English of what I suppose that Cicero meant to write in his own tongue. I have not used his moods and tenses in the in- stances in which our English idiom would employ a different form of the verb. I have not infre- quently omitted the connective and illative words that bind sentence to sentence, in cases in which we should use no such words. 1 In the few obscure 1 I am strongly impressed with the belief that such words were largely employed as catch-words for the eye, and that they served the purpose now effected by punctuation and by the capital letters at the beginning of sentences. This opinion can- not of course be verified ; yet could we have phonographic re- ports of Cicero's orations, I am inclined to think that we should miss some of the conjunctions that are found in their written form. As to Greek particles I have no right to an opinion ; but I will hazard the conjecture that they would have been scattered with a more sparing hand, had the art of punctuation been coeval with " the letters Cadmus gave." xxiv Introduction. passages I have sought the aid of the best com- mentators, but have generally found them hazy or ambiguous in their interpretation where there was any room for doubt. I may have made mistakes in translating ; but if so, it has not been for lack of close and careful study, with the help of the best editions which I could procure for myself or find in the Harvard College Library. I have used Beier's text as the basis for my translation, and have preferred not to deviate from it even where a different reading seemed to me intrinsically probable ; for in every such instance Beier gives satisfactory reasons for his preferred reading, and destitute as I am of the needed appa- ratus for textual criticism, I cannot but regard his judgment in such a case as much better than my own. CICERO DE omens. BOOK I. 1. ALTHOUGH you, my son Marcus, having lis- tened for a year to Cratippus, and that at Athens, ought to be well versed in the maxims and princi- ples of philosophy, on account of the paramount authority both of the teacher and of the city, the former being able to enrich you with knowledge ; the latter, with examples, yet, as for my own benefit I have always connected Latin with Greek, and have done so, not only in philosophy, but also in my self-training as a public speaker, I think that you, too, ought to do the same, in order that you may be equally capable of either style of dis- course. 1 To this end I have, as it seems to me, been of no small service to my fellow-citizens, so that not only those ignorant of Greek literature, but highly educated men also, think that they have 1 Either philosophical discussion or oratory. 1 2 Cicero de Officiis. gained somewhat from me, both as to public speak- ing and as to philosophical discussion. Therefore, while you will be the pupil of the first philosopher of our time, and will continue so as long as you please, and that ought to be as long as you can profit by his instruction, yet by reading my writings, which dissent very little from the Peri- patetics (for both they and I regard ourselves as disciples both of Socrates and of Plato), though on the subjects of discussion I would have you freely exercise your own judgment, you will certainly acquire a fuller command of the Latin tongue. Nor in speaking thus ought I to be regarded as presumptuous. For while in the science of phi- losophy I may have many superiors, if I claim for myself what belongs properly to the orator, aptness, perspicuity, and elegance of diction, since I have passed my life in this pursuit, it is not without a good measure of right that I proffer the claim. Wherefore I earnestly exhort you, my Cicero, to read carefully not only my orations, but these books of mine on philosophy, which already in bulk are nearly equal to the orations. For while in oratory there is a greater force of expression, the more even and moderate style of writing that belongs to phi- losophy ought also to be cultivated. And indeed I do not see that it has fallen to any Greek author to exercise himself in both styles, and to pursue at once forensic eloquence and unimpassioned philo- sophical discussion ; unless, perchance, this may be Cicero de Officiis. 3 said of Demetrius Phalereus, 1 a keen disputant, and at the same time an orator, though of no great power, yet with a winning grace by which one might recognize him as a disciple of Theophrastus. But what proficiency I have made in either style let others judge ; I certainly have pursued both. Indeed, I think that Plato, too, if he had been dis- posed to attempt forensic eloquence, would have spoken with equal fluency and power; and that Demosthenes, if he had retained and had wished to put into writing what he had learned from Plato, would have done so in a style both graceful and magnificent. I have the same opinion of Aristotle and Isocrates, each of whom, charmed with his own department, held the other in low esteem. 2. But, having determined to write expressly for your benefit something at the present time, much hereafter, I have thought it best to begin with what is most suitable both to your age and to my paren- tal authority. Now, among the many important and useful subjects in philosophy that have been discussed by philosophers with precision and fulness of statement, their traditions and precepts concern- ing the duties of life seem to have the widest scope. 1 He was known chiefly as an orator ; but the list of his numer- ous works comprises philosophy, history, and poetry. Driven from Athens, he took refuge in Alexandria ; and it was owing to his influence that Ptolemy Lagi commenced the collection of books which grew into the famous Alexandrian library. No probably genuine work of Demetrius Phalereus is now extant. 4 Cicero de Officiis. Indeed, no part of life, whether in public or in pri- vate affairs, abroad or at home, in your personal con- duct or your social relations, can be free from the claims of duty ; and it is in the observance of duty that lies all the honor of life, in its neglect, all the shame. This, too, is a theme common to all phi- losophers. For who would dare to call himself a philosopher, if he took no cognizance of duty ? Yet there are some schools of philosophy that utterly pervert duty by the view which they propose as to the supreme good, and as to the opposite extreme of evil. For he who so interprets the supreme good as to disjoin it from virtue, and measures it by his own convenience, and not by the standard of right, he, I say, if he be consistent with himself, and be not sometimes overcome by natural good- ness, can cultivate neither friendship, nor justice, nor generosity ; nor can he possibly be brave while he esteems pain as the greatest of evils, or temperate while he regards pleasure as the supreme good. These things, though too obvious to need discussion, I yet have discussed elsewhere. 1 Those schools, therefore, can, if self-consistent, say nothing about duty; nor can any precepts of duty, decisive, immu- table, in accordance with nature, be promulgated, except by those who maintain that the right is to be sought solely, 2 or chiefly, 3 for its own sake. This 1 In the De Finibus. 2 As was the case with the Stoics. 8 As was the case with the Peripatetics, and, hypothetically, with the Academics. Cicero de Officiis. .5 prerogative belongs to the Stoics, the Academics, and the Peripatetics ; for the opinions of Ariston, Pyrrho, and Herillus l were long since exploded, though they might fittingly have discussed subjects pertaining to duty, if they had left any ground for the preference of one thing over another, so that there might be a way open for the ascertainment of duty. In this treatise I shall follow the Stoics, not as a translator, but drawing from their fountains at my own discretion and judgment, as much, and in such way, as may seem good. I think it fit, however, since duty is to be my sole subject, to define duty at the outset. 2 I am sur- prised that Panaetius should not have done this; for the rational treatment of any subject ought to 1 Ariston, while he regarded virtue as the supreme good, main- tained that among the external conditions and objects with which duty is conversant, there is no ground for preference, therefore no reason why one should he sought or pursued rather than another. Pyrrho, the founder of the school of the Sceptics, in denying the possibility of attaining any objective truth, denied the possi- bility of determining any condition, object, or action to be bet- ter than any other. Herillus like Ariston, a professed Stoic regarded knowledge as the supreme good, and external life, with all its doings and objects, though practically necessary, as of no ethical value, because not contributing to the supreme good. 2 Yet Cicero leaves duty (officium) undefined. Officium may be abbreviated from opificium, i. e. work-doing ; or it may be derived from ob and facia, in which case it denotes doing on account of, or for a reason, and would include all acts for which a reason, i. e. a right reason, can be given. I am inclined to think that it is in this latter sense that Cicero made choice and use of the word. 6 Cicero de Officiis. take its start from definition, that readers may un- derstand what the author is writing about. 3. The discussion of duty is twofold. One divi- sion relates to the supreme good in itself consid- ered ; the other, to the rules by which the conduct of life may in all its parts be brought into con- formity with the supreme good. Under the first head belong such questions as these : Whether all duties are of perfect obligation ; whether any one duty is greater than another ; and, in general, inquiries of a similar kind. But the duties for which rules are laid down belong, indeed, to the supreme good, as means to an end ; yet this is the less obvious, because they ^eem rather to have ref- erence to the ordering of common life. It is of these that I am going to treat in the present work. There is also another division of duty. Duty may be said to be either contingent or perfect. We may, I think, give the name of perfect duty to the abso- lute right, which the Greeks term /caT while contingent duty is what they call According to their definitions, what is right in itself is perfect duty ; that for the doing of which a satis- factory reason can be given is a contingent duty. According to Panaetius, in determining what we ought to do there are three questions to be consid- ered. It is first to be determined whether the con- 1 The direct, i. e. the intrinsically right. 2 The fitting, L e. that which is rendered right by circum- stances. Cicero de Offidis. 7 templated act is right or wrong, a matter as to which there often are opposite opinions. Then there is room for inquiry or consultation whether the act under discussion is conducive to conven- ience and pleasure, to affluence and free command of outward goods, to wealth, to power, in fine, to the means by which one can benefit himself and those dependent on him ; and here the question turns on expediency. The third class of cases is when what appears to be expedient seems repugnant to the right. For when expediency lays, as it were, vio- lent hands upon us, and the right seems to recall us to itself, the mind is distracted, and laden with two- fold anxiety as to the course of action. In this dis- tribution of the subject, while a division ought by all means to be exhaustive, there are two omissions. Not only is the question of right or wrong as to an act wont to be considered, but also the question, of two right things which is the more right ; equally, of two expedient things which is the more expedient. Thus we see that the division which Panaetius thought should be threefold ought to be distributed under five heads. First, then, I am to treat of the right, but under two heads ; then, in the same way, of the expedient ; lastly, of their seeming conflict. 4. In the beginning, animals of every species were endowed with the instinct that prompts * them to take care of themselves as to life and bodily well- being, to shun whatever threatens to do them harm, and to seek and provide whatever is necessary for 8 Cicero de Officiis. subsistence, as food, shelter, and other things of this sort. The appetite for sexual union for the produc- tion of offspring is, also, common to all animals, together with a certain degree of care for their off- spring. But between man and beast there is this es- sential difference, that the latter, moved by sense alone, adapts himself only to that which is present in place and time, having very little cognizance of the past or the future. Man, on the other hand because he is possessed of reason, by which he discerns consequences, sees the causes of things, understands the rise and progress of events, compares similar objects, and connects and associates the fu- ture with the present easily takes into view the whole course of life, and provides things necessary for it. Nature too, by virtue of reason, brings man into relations of mutual intercourse and society with his fellow-men ; generates in him a special love for his children ; prompts him to promote and attend social gatherings and public assemblies ; and awak- ens in him the desire to provide what may suffice for the support and nourishment, not of himself alone, but of his wife, his children, and others whom he holds dear and is bound to protect. This care rouses men's minds, and makes them more efficient in action. The research and investigation of truth, also, are a special property of man. Thus, when we are free from necessary occupations, we want to see, or hear, or learn something, and regard the knowl- Cicero de Officiis. 9 edge of things either secret or wonderful as essential to our living happily and well. 1 To this desire for seeing the truth is annexed a certain craving for pre- cedence, insomuch that the man well endowed by nature is willing to render obedience to no one, unless to a preceptor, or a teacher, or one who holds a just and legitimate sway for the general good. Hence are derived greatness of mind and contempt for the vicissitudes of human fortune. Nor does it indicate any feeble force of nature and of reason, that of all animals man alone has a sense of order, and de- cency, and moderation in action and in speech. Thus no other animal feels the beauty, elegance, symmetry, of the things that he sees ; while by na- ture and reason, man, transferring these qualities from the eyes to the mind, considers that much more, even, are beauty, consistency, and order to be preserved in purposes and acts, and takes heed that he do nothing indecorous or effeminate, and still more, that in all his thoughts and deeds he neither do nor think anything lascivious. From these ele- ments the right, which is the object of our, inquiry, is composed and created ; and this, even if it be not ennobled in title, yet is honorable, and even if no one praise it, we truly pronounce it in its very na- ture worthy of all praise. 1 It will be seen that, in the sequel, Cicero transposes the virtues springing from man's social nature and his desire for knowl- edge, placing wisdom or prudence first, and assigning the second place to justice. 10 Cicero de Officiis. 5. You behold, indeed, my son Marcus, the very form and, as it were, the countenance of the right, which, were it seen by the eyes, as Plato says, would awaken the intensest love of wisdom. But whatever is right springs from one of four sources. It consists either in the perception and skilful treatment of the truth ; or in maintaining good-fel- lowship with men, giving to every one his due, and keeping faith in contracts and promises ; or in the greatness and strength of a lofty and unconquered mind ; or in the order and measure that constitute moderation and temperance. 1 Although these four are connected and intertwined with one another, yet duties of certain kinds proceed from each of them ; as from the division first named, including wisdom and prudence, proceed the investigation and discovery of truth, as the peculiar office of that vir- tue. For in proportion as one sees clearly what is the inmost and essential truth with regard to any subject, and can demonstrate it with equal acute- ness and promptness, he is wont to be regarded, and justly, as of transcendent discretion and wisdom. Therefore truth is submitted to this virtue as the 1 These four virtues may be easily so enlarged in their scope as to cover the whole of life, and to comprehend the entire duty of man. Thus, Prudence embraces all selfward obligations ; Justice (which includes benevolence, and is not exclusive of piety), all duties to fellow-beings ; Fortitude (including patience, submission, and courage), duty with reference to objects and events beyond one's control ; Order (in time, place, and measure), duty with ref- erence to objects under one's control. Cicero de Officiis. 11 material of which it treats, and with which it is conversant. The other three virtues have for their sphere the providing and preserving of those things on which the conduct of life depends, so that the fellowship and union of society may be maintained, and that superiority and greatness of mind may shine forth, not only in the increase of resources and the acquisition of objects of desire for one's self, and for those dependent on him, but much more in a posi- tion from which one can look down on these very things. But order, and consistency, and moderation, and similar qualities have their scope in affairs that demand not merely the movement of the mind, but some outward action ; for it is by bringing to the concerns of daily life a certain method and order that we shall maintain honor and propriety. . 6. Of the four heads into which I have divided the nature and force of the right, the first, which consists in the cognizance of truth, bears the closest relation to human nature. For we are all attracted and drawn to the desire of knowledge and wisdom, in which we deem it admirable to excel, but both an evil and a shame to fail, to be mistaken, to be ignorant, to be deceived. In this quest of knowl- edge, both natural and right, there are two faults to be shunned, one, the taking of unknown things for known, and giving our assent to them too hastily, which fault he who wishes to escape (and all ought so to wish) will give time and diligence to reflect on the subjects proposed for his consideration. The 12 Cicero de Offidis. other fault is that some bestow too great zeal and too much labor on things obscure and difficult, and at the same time useless. These faults being shunned, whatever labor and care may be bestowed on sub- jects becoming a virtuous mind and worth know- ing, will be justly commended. Thus we learn that Caius Sulpicius was versed in astronomy, 1 as I my- self knew Sextius Pompeius to be in geometry, 2 as many are in logic, many in civil law, all which sciences are concerned in the investigation of truth, but by whose pursuit duty will not suffer one to be drawn away from the active management of affairs. For the reputation of virtue consists wholly in active life, from which, however, there is often a respite, and frequent opportunities are afforded for returning to the pursuit of knowledge. At the same time mental activity, which never ceases, may retain us, without conscious effort, in meditation on the subjects of our study. But all thought and mental action ought to be occupied either in taking counsel as to the things that are right and that appertain to a good 1 "When serving in the Macedonian war, as military tribune under Aemilius Paulus, he predicted an eclipse of the moon, and obtained liberty to announce his prediction to the assembled army, thus precluding the else inevitable terror and foreboding which pervaded the Macedonian army, and very probably turning the scale in favor of the Romans in the then imminent battle in which Perseus, the Macedonian king, was utterly overthrown. 2 Uncle of Cneius Pompeius Magnus, not in political life, but celebrated for his proficiency in geometry, jurisprudence, and philosophy. He wa8 a Stoic. Cicero de Ojjidis. 13 and happy life, or in the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge. I have thus spoken of the first source of duty. 7. Of the remaining three heads, the principle which constitutes the bond of human society and of a virtual community of life has the widest scope. Of this there are two divisions, justice, in which consists the greatest lustre of virtue, and which those who possess are termed good ; and in close alliance with justice, beneficence, which may also be called benignity or liberality. The first demand of justice is, that no one do harm to another, unless provoked by injury ; l the next, that one use com- mon possessions as common, private, as belonging to their owners. Private possessions, indeed, are not so by nature, but by ancient occupancy, as in the case of settlers in a previously uninhabited region ; or by conquest, as in the territory acquired in war ; or by law, treaty, agreement, or lot. 2 Thus it comes to pass that the territory of Arpinas is said to belong to the Arpinates, that of Tusculum to the Tuscans, and a similar account is to be given of the possessions of individual owners. Because each person thus has for his own a portion of those 1 This exception is one of the few points of discrepancy be- : tween the Ciceronian ethics and the moral precepts of Chris- tianity. 2 The veterans who settled on the public lands (coloni) re- ceived their portions of land by lot, and when a limited number from a particular corps were to be colonized, the persons to be col- onized were determined by lot. 14 Cicero de Officiis. things which were common by nature, let each hold undisturbed what has fallen to his possession. If any one endeavors to obtain more for himself, he will violate the law of human society. But since, as it has been well said by Plato, we are not born for ourselves alone ; since our country claims a part in us, our parents a part, our friends a part ; and since, according to the Stoics, whatever the earth bears is created for the use of men, while men were brought into being for the sake of men, that they might do good to one another, in this matter we ought to follow nature as a guide, to contribute our part to the common good, and by the interchange of kind offices, both in giving and receiving, alike by skill, by labor, and by the resources at our com- mand, to strengthen the social union of men among men. But the foundation of justice is good faith, that is, steadfastness and truth in promises and agreements. Hence, though it may seem to some too far-fetched, I may venture to imitate the Stoics in their painstaking inquiry into the origin of words, and to derive faith * from the fact corresponding to the promise. Of injustice there are two kinds, one, that of those who inflict injury ; the other, that of those who do not, if they can, repel injury from those on whom 1 Fides, from fit quod dictum est, a derivation certainly very improbable, but hardly more so than the derivation from irt'o-m, or, in the Aeolic dialect, Trims, which most lexicographers assign to fides. Cicero de Officiis. 15 it is inflicted. Moreover, he who, moved by anger or by some disturbance of mind, makes an unjust assault on any person, is as one who lays violent hands on a casual companion ; while he who does not, if he can, ward off or resist the injury offered to another, is as much in fault as if he were to desert his parents, or his friends, or his country. Indeed, those injuries which are purposely inflicted for the sake of doing harm, often proceed from fear, he who meditates harm to another apprehending that, if he refrains, he himself may suffer harm. But for the most part men are induced to injure others in order to obtain what they covet ; and here avarice is the most frequent motive. 8. Wealth is sought sometimes for the necessary uses of life, sometimes for indulgence in luxury. In those possessed of a higher order of mind the desire for money is entertained with a view to the increase of the means of influence and the power of generous giving. Thus, not long ago, Marcus Crassus 1 pro- 1 Surnamed Dives. He inherited this cognomen, and belonged to the fifth generation of the gens^ Licinius that had borne it. His prime ambition seems to have been to verify his name. Pliny says that the estates which he owned outside of Rome amounted in value to two hundred millions of sesterces, equivalent to little less than eight millions of dollars, no account being taken of the much greater value of money then than now. He was a man of respectable ability, of no mean reputation as an orator, and of con- siderable executive capacity ; but it was probably his wealth that gave him his place in the triumvirate with Caesar and Pompey, and that thus procured for him the command in the Parthian war, in which he lost his army and his life. 16 Cicero de Officiis. nounced no property sufficient for one who meant to hold a foremost place in the republic, unless its income would enable him to support an army. Others, again, delight in magnificent furniture, and in an elegant and profuse style of living. In all these ways there has come to be an unbounded desire for money. Nor, indeed, is the increase of property, without harm to any one, to be blamed ; but wrong-doing for the sake of gain is never to be tolerated. Most of all, however, large numbers of persons are led to lose sight of justice by the crav- ing for military commands, civic honors, and fame. The saying of Ennius, " Where kingship is concerned, No social bond or covenant is sacred," has a much broader application ; for, as to whatever is of such a nature that but few can be foremost in it, there is generally so keen a rivalry that it is exceed- ingly difficult to keep social duty inviolate. This was recently illustrated by the audacity of Caius Caesar, who overturned all laws, human and divine, to obtain the sovereignty which he had shaped for himself in the vagaries of his fancy. In this re- spect it is indeed unfortunate that it is, for the most part, in the greatest minds and in men of transcendent genius that the desire for offices civil and military, for power and for fame, is rife. The more heed, therefore, is to be taken against criminal conduct in this matter. Cicero de Offidis. 17 But in every form of injustice it makes a very es- sential difference whether the wrong be committed in some disturbance of mind, which is generally brief and temporary, or whether it be done advisedly, and with premeditation. For those things which are done from some sudden impulse are more venial than what is done with plan and forethought. Enough has now been said with regard to the in- fliction of injury. 9. For omitting to defend the injured, and thus abandoning duty, there are many reasons in cur- rent force. Men are sometimes unwilling to incur the enmity, or the labor, or the cost involved in such defence; or by mere carelessness, indolence, sloth, or engrossment in pursuits or employments of their own, they are so retarded in their movements as to leave undefended those whom they ought to protect. It will thus be seen that Plato is not entirely in the right when he says of philosophers, that because they are engaged in the investigation of truth, and because they despise and count as naught what most persons eagerly seek and are al- ways ready to fight with each other for, they are therefore just men. 1 They indeed attain one part of justice, in injuring no one : they fail as to the other part ; for, kept inactive by their zeal for learn- ing, they forsake those whom they ought to defend. Plato thinks, too, that they will take no part in pub- 1 1 This is the substance of a discussion in the 6th Book of Plato's Eepublic. 2 18 Cicero de Officiis. lie affairs, unless by compulsion. But it were more fitting that they should do this of their own accord ; for the very thing which it is right to do, can be termed virtuous only if it be voluntary. There are, also, those who, either from the over-anxious care of their property or from misanthropic feeling, profess to confine their attention to their own affairs, so as to avoid even the appearance of doing injury to any one. They are free from one kind of injustice ; they fall into the other; for they forsake social duty, inasmuch as they bestow upon it neither care, nor labor, nor cost. Since, then, we have assigned to each of the two kinds of injustice its inducing causes, having previously determined the constitu- ent elements of justice, we shall easily ascertain the specific duty of any particular occasion, unless we be blinded by inordinate self-love. However, the care of other men's concerns is difficult. Although Chremes, in Terence's play, thinks nothing human indifferent to him, yet because we perceive and feel the things, prosperous or adverse, which happen to ourselves more keenly than those that happen to others, which we see, as it were, at a great distance, we decide concerning them otherwise than we should concerning ourselves in like case. There- fore those give good counsel who forbid our doing that as to the equity of which we have any doubt. For equity is self-evident ; doubt implies a suspi- cion of wrong. 10. But there are frequent occasions when those Cicero de Officiis. 19 things which are generally regarded as worthy of a just man, and one of good report, such as the restor- ing of a trust or the fulfilment of a promise, are re- versed, and become the opposite of right, and what belongs to truth aud good faith seems to change its bearing, so that justice demands its violation. Here reference is fittingly made to what I have laid down as the fundamental principles of justice, first, that injury should be done to no one, and in the next place, that service should be rendered to the com- mon good. When these principles are modified by circumstances, duty is also modified, and is not al- ways the same. There may perchance be some promise or agreement, the fulfilment of which is harmful to him to whom the promise was made or to him who made it. Thus, to take an instance from the popular mythology, if Neptune had not kept his promise to Theseus, 1 Theseus would not have been bereft of his son, Hippolytus ; for, of the 1 Among the myths as to the parentage of Theseus, there is one which makes him the son of Poseidon, or Neptune, who was said to have promised to grant him three wishes, two of which had already been granted, when Phaedra, his wife, accused her step-son Hippolytns of an attempted criminal intrigue with her. Theseus claimed of Poseidon his son's destruction, and Poseidon accord- ingly sent a bull from the water to frighten the horses of Hippo- lytus, as he was driving in his chariot by the sea-shore. The horses upset the chariot, and dragged Hippolytus till he died. Theseus too late ascertained that his son was innocent, and that his wife had falsely accused him because he had repulsed her advances toward a criminal intimacy. 20 Cicero de Officiis. three wishes which Neptune had promised to grant him, the third, as the story runs, was his demand in anger for the death of Hippolytus, the granting of which plunged him into the deepest sorrow. Prom- ises, then, are not to be kept, when by keeping them you do harm to those to whom they are made ; nor yet if they injure you more than they benefit him to whom you made them, is it contrary to duty that the greater good should be preferred to the less. 1 For instance, if you engaged to appear as an advo- cate in an impending lawsuit, and meanwhile your child became severely ill, you would not fail in your duty to your client by breaking your promise ; on the other hand, he to whom you made the promise would be false to his duty, if he complained of your desert- ing him. Again, who does not perceive that promises extorted by fear, 2 or obtained by fraud, are not to be kept ? Indeed, such promises are made void, in 1 The Hebrew conception of righteousness, " He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not," is certainly in closer accord- ance with the absolute right than this maxim of Cicero. Yet Cicero's example under this head really belongs to another cate- gory, that of circumstances so altered as in the very nature of the case to make a promise void. 2 A Fpromise wrong in itself cannot be rightfully made, even under stress of fear; and if made, should not be kept ; for two wrongs cannot make a right. But a promise which one has a right to make, as that of a ransom for one's life, is sacred in the forum of conscience, if not binding in law. If a man regards his life as worth a certain price, and offers that price, there is no rightful reason why he should not pay it. Cicero de Officiis. 21 most cases by praetorian edict, 1 in some by express statutes. There are, also, wrongs committed by a sort of chicanery, which consists in a too subtle, and thus fraudulent, interpretation of the right. Hence comes the saying : The extreme of right is the extreme of wrong. Under this head, there have been many vio- lations of the right in the administration of public affairs, as in the case of him who, during a thirty days' truce with an enemy, ravaged the enemy's ter- > ritory by night, on the pretext that the truce had been agreed upon for so many days, not nights. 2 Nor can we approve of our fellow-citizen, if the story is true, that Quintus Fabius Labeo, or some one else, I know of the matter only by hearsay, being ap- pointed by the Senate as an umpire between the people of Kola and those of Neapolis about their boundaries, when he came to the spot, argued with each party separately that they should not be greedy or covetous, but should rather recede than advance in their demands of each other. When they had 1 The praetor urbanus was virtually the chief justice of Rome. \ On entering upon the duties of his office he published a manifesto, or edictum, stating the principles to be recognized by him in the interpretation and application of the laws. The principles laid down in these successive edicts, and those involved in praetorian decisions under them, unless abrogated or nullified by express legislation, were regarded as having the force of law, and corre- sponded to what we familiarly term judge-made law. 2 There are two transactions of this kind on record, one of Cleomenes, the Spartan king, in a war with Argos ; the other, of the Thracians, when at war with the Boeotians. 22 Cicero de Offitiis. both complied with his advice, there remained some territory between these previously contiguous states ; and so he fixed their bounds in accordance with their respective claims, and adjudged the interme- diate territory to the Roman people. 1 This, indeed, is swindling, not arbitration. Shrewdness like this is to be shunned in transactions of every kind. 11. There are also certain duties to be observed toward those who may have injured you. For there is a limit to revenge and punishment, nay, I know not whether it may not be enough for him who gave the provocation to repent of his wrong-doing, so that he may not do the like again, and that others may be the less disposed to do as he has done. In the public administration, also, the rights of war are to be held sacred. While there are two ways of contending, one by discussion, the other by force, the former be- longing properly to man, the latter to beasts, recourse must be had to the latter if there be no opportunity for employing the former. Wars, then, are to be waged in order to render it possible to live in peace without injury ; but, victory once gained, those are to be spared who have not been cruel and inhuman in war, as our ancestors even admitted to citizenship 1 Quintus Fabius Labeo lived more than a century before Cicero. Valerius Maximus tells the same story, but without ex- pressing any doubt as to the name of the umpire. He adds that the same Labeo, after a victory over Antiochus, King of Mace- donia, having made peace on condition of the surrender of half of the king's fleet, cut all the vessels into halves, so as utterly to destroy the fleet. Cicero de Officiis. 23 the Tuscans, the Aequi, the Volsci, the Sabines, the Hernici ; while they utterly destroyed Carthage and Numantia. I could wish that they had not de- stroyed Corinth ; but I believe that they had some motive, especially the convenience of the place for hostile movements, the fear that the very situa- tion might be an inducement to rebellion. 1 In my opinion, peace is always to be sought when it can be made on perfectly fair and honest conditions. In this matter had my opinion been followed, we should now have, not indeed the best republic pos- sible, but a republic of some sort, which is no longer ours. Still further, while those whom you conquer are to be kindly treated, those who, laying .down their arms, take refuge in the good faith of the com- mander of the assailing army, ought to be received to quarter, even though the battering-ram have al- ready shaken their walls. 2 In this respect justice used to be so carefully observed by our people, that by the custom of our ancestors those who received into allegiance states or nations subdued in war were their patrons. Indeed, the rights of war are prescribed with the most sacred care by the fecial law 3 of the Eoman people, from which it may be 1 Corinth had two ports, one commanding the Ionian, the other the Aegean sea. 2 It was the established custom of the Eomans to admit to quarter enemies who surrendered before the application of the battering-ram to their walls. 3 So called from the fetiales, priests whose duty it 4 was, as heralds, to perform all the ceremonies connected with the declara- 24 Cicero de Officiis. understood that no war is just unless after a formal demand of satisfaction for injury, or after an express declaration and proclamation of hostilities. Popil- ius, as commander, held control of a province. A son of Cato served his first campaign in his army. When Popilius saw fit to discharge one of the legions, he discharged also Cato's son, who served in that same legion. But when the youth remained in the army for love of military service, Cato wrote to Popilius that if he permitted his son to stay, he must make him take a second oath of military duty, else, the term of the first oath having expired, he could not lawfully fight with the enemy. Thus there used to be the most scrupulous observance of the right in the conduct of war. There is, indeed, extant a letter of Marcus Cato the elder to his son Marcus, in which he writes that he has heard of his son's discharge by the consul, after service in Mace- donia in the war with Perseus, and warns him not to go into battle, inasmuch as it is not right for one who is no longer a soldier to fight with the enemy. 1 tion of war, the ratifying of peace, and the making of treaties. These forms were regarded as religious solemnities. 1 Commentators in general see here two versions of the same story, and suppose one of the two to be spurious. Yet there is no reason other than the internal evidence for rejecting either, and they may both be true of the same Cato and the same son. The Ligurian war in which Popilius was commander occurred four years before the war with Perseus. In the former, Marcus Cato the younger may have made his first campaign, and in the latter, Cicero de Officiis. 25 12. In this connection it occurs to my mind that in the early time the name denoting an enemy en- gaged in actual war was the word employed to de- note a foreigner, the unpleasantness of the fact being thus relieved by the mildness of the term ; for he whom we call a foreigner bore with our ancestors the appellation which we now give to an enemy. The laws of the Twelve Tables show this, as, for instance, " A day assigned for trial with a foreigner," "Perpetual right of ownership as against a for- eigner." l What can more truly indicate gentleness though no longer a tiro or novice in the art of war, he may have been discharged as before, and his father have repeated his legal objection to the son's continuous service. 1 This passage can be literally rendered only by retaining the Latin terms employed, as thus: " He who by our present usage would be called perduellis was in former time called hostis, the unpleasantness of the fact being thus relieved by the mildness of the term; for him whom we now term pcregrinus our ancestors called hostis. The laws of the Twelve Tables show this, as, for instance, ' A day assigned for trial cum hoste,' ' Perpetual right of ownership adversus hostem.' " In extant Latin literature the use of hostis in the sense of enemy seems to have been nearly, if not quite, universal. There is, indeed, a passage in Plautus in which the word is evidently used in the sense of foreigner; but this appears to be a reference to the title in the law of the Twelve Tables cited above, status dies cum hoste. It seems by no means unlikely that the two meanings of hostis may have co-existed in early use. Hostis probably is derived from the same root with ecrrla (whence comes Vesta), a hearth, or what was the same thing as to the rites of domestic worship an altar; and if so, hoslis might mean either a stranger to be received to the hospitality of the hearth, or an enemy to be made a victim at the altar. Hostia, an ani- 26 Cicero de Offidis. of spirit than calling him with whom you are at war by so mild a name ? Yet time has made that word harsher ; for it has ceased to denote a foreigner, and has retained, as properly belonging to it, its application to an adversary in arms. Even when there is a contest for power, and fame is sought in war, there ought still to underlie the conflict the same grounds that I have named above as just causes for war. But the wars waged for superiority in honor or in dominion should be conducted with less bitterness of feeling than where there are actual wrongs to be redressed. For as we contend with a fellow-citizen in one way if he is an enemy, in a very different way if he is a rival, the contest with the latter being for honor and promotion, with the former for life and reputation, so our wars with the Celtiberi and the Cimbri were waged as with enemies, to determine not which should come off conqueror, but which should survive ; while with the Latins, the Sabines, the Samnites, the Carthagin- ians, Pyrrhus, the contest was for superiority. The Carthaginians, indeed, violated their treaties ; Han- nibal was cruel ; the others were more worthy of mal sacrificed, and hostire, to strike, throw light upon this last meaning. Some of the old lexicographers, including no less a man than Scaliger, derive hostis from the pronoun 6'