HARPER'S CLASSICAL LIBRARY. 
 
 C I C E R O'S 
 THREE BOOKS OF OFFICES, 
 
 AND OTHER MORAL WORKS,
 
 ( 
 
 CICERO'S 
 THREE BOOKS OF OFFICES, 
 
 OB MORAL DUTIES; 
 
 CATO MAJOR, AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE; L.ELIUS, AN ESSAY 
 
 ON FRIENDSHIP; PARADOXES; SCIPIO'S DREAM; 
 
 AND LETTER TO QTJINTUS ON THE 
 
 DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE. 
 
 WITH KOTE8, DESIGNED TO EXHIBIT A COMPARATIVE VEBV OX THE OPINIONS 
 
 07 CIOEBO, AND THOSE OF MODERN MORALISTS AND ETHICAL 
 
 PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 BY CYBUS B. EDMONDS. 
 
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 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
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 1892
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 THK present volume comprises the most popular moral treatises 
 of Cicero. In preparing an edition adapted to the wants of the 
 student, the editor has addressed himself to two principal objects. 
 The first, to produce a close and faithful translation, avoiding on 
 the one hand, the freedom of Mehnoth's elegant paraphrase, and 
 on the other, the crudeness and inaccuracy of the so-called literal 
 translation of Cockinan ; the second, to present the opinions of 
 modern moralists, chiefly of our own country, in juxtaposition 
 with those of Cicero, that the reader may be enabled to estimate 
 the changes which have passed over the human mind in relation 
 to these subjects, and perceive how far these changes have been 
 occasioned by the promulgation of the Christian religion. 
 
 A subsidiary design has been to show, by parallel passages, to 
 what extent the writings of modern moralists have been tinctured 
 with the thoughts of the Roman philosopher ; and to point out 
 particular instances in which their arguments and illustrations are 
 identical. 
 
 In briefly sketching the subjects of the following treatises, wo 
 shall for the most part adopt the observations of Dunlop, in his 
 " History of Roman Literature." The first, and most important 
 treatise, is 
 
 TnB OFFICES, or three books of " Moral Duties." Of these the 
 first two are supposed to be chiefly derived from a lost work of 
 Panaetius, a Greek philosopher, who resided at Rome in the second 
 century before Christ. In the first book he treats of what is 
 virtuous in itself, and shows in what manner our dutiea ar
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 founded in morality and virtue, in the right perception of truth, 
 justice, fortitude, and decorum, which four qualities are referred 
 to as the constituent parts of virtue, and the sources from which 
 all our duties are derived. In the second book, the author en- 
 larges on those duties which relates to utility, the improvement 
 of life, and the meaiis of attaining wealth and power. This divi- 
 sion of the work relates principally to political advancement, and 
 the honorable means of gaining popularity, among which aro 
 enumerated generosity, courtesy, and eloquence. Thus far Cicero 
 had, in all probability, closely followed the steps of Panaotius. 
 Garve, in his commentary on Moral Duties, remarks that, when 
 Cicero comes to the more subtle and philosophic parts of his sub- 
 ject, he evidently translates from the Greek, and that he has not 
 always found words in his own language to express the nicer dis- 
 tinctions of the Greek schools. The work of Panastius, however, 
 was left imperfect, and did not comprise the third part of tho 
 subject, namely, the choice and distinction to be made when 
 virtue and utility were opposed to each other. On this topic, ac- 
 cordingly, Cicero, in the third book, was left to his own resources ; 
 the discussion, of course, relates only to the subordinate duties, as 
 the true and undoubted Tionestum can never be put in competition 
 with private advantage, or be violated for its sake. As to the 
 minor duties the great maxim inculcated is, that nothing should 
 be accounted useful or profitable but what is strictly virtuous ; 
 and that, in fact, there ought to bo no separation of the principles 
 of virtue and utility. Cicero enters into some discussion how- 
 ever, and lays down certain rules to enable us to form a just 
 estimate of both in cases of doubt, where seeming utility comes 
 into competition with virtue. 
 
 The author has addressed the work to his son, and has repre- 
 sented it as written for his instruction. " It is," says Kelsall, 
 " the noblest present ever made by a parent to a child." Cicerc 
 declares that he intended to treat in it of all the duties, but it is 
 generally considered to have been chiefly drawn up as a manual 
 of political morality, and as a guide to young Romans of his son's 
 age and rank, which might enable them to attain political emi- 
 nence, and tread with innocence and safety " tho slippery steeps 
 cf power '
 
 PREFACE. vll 
 
 The DIALOGUE ON FRIENDSHIP is addressed with peculiar pro- 
 priety to Atticus, who, as Cicero tells him In his dedication, can 
 not fail to discover his own portrait in the delineation of a perfect 
 friend. Here, as elsewhere, Cicero has most judiciously selected 
 the persons of the dialogue. They were men of eminence in the 
 state, and, though deceased, the Romans had sach veneration foi 
 their ancestors, that they would listen with the utmost interest 
 even to the imaginary conversation of a Scsovola or a Laelius,. 
 The memorable and hereditary friendship which subsisted between 
 Laelius and the younger Scipio Africanus, rendered the former a 
 suitable example. To support a conversation on this delightful 
 topic, Fannius the historian, and Mucius Sceevola the augur, both 
 sons-in-law of Laslius, are supposed to pay a visit to their father 
 immediately after the sudden and suspicious death of Scipio 
 Africanus. The recent loss which Laslius had thus sustained, 
 leads to an eulogy on the inimitable virtues of the departed hero, 
 and to a discussion on the true nature of that tie by which they 
 had been so long connected. Cicero, in early youth, had been 
 introduced by his father to Mucius Scsevola, and, among other in- 
 teresting conversations which he thus enjoyed an opportunity of 
 hearing, he was one day present while Scsovola related the sub- 
 stance of the conference on Friendship, which he and Fannius 
 had held with Laelius a few days after the death of Scipio. Many 
 of the ideas and sentiments which Loalius uttered are declared by 
 Scaovola to have originally flowed from Scipio, with whore tho 
 nature and laws of friendship formed a favorite topic This, per- 
 haps, is not entirely a fiction, or merely asserted to give tho stamp 
 of authenticity to the dialogue. 
 
 The TEEATISE ON OLD AGE is not properly a dialogue, but a 
 continued discourse delivered by Cato the censor at the request cf 
 Scipio and Laolius. It is undoubtedly one of the most interesting 
 pieces of the kind which have descended to us from antiquity ; 
 and no reader can wonder that the pleasure experienced in its 
 composition, not only, as ho says, made him forget tho infirmities 
 of old age, but even rendered that portion of existence agreeable. 
 In consequence of the years to which Cicero had attained at tho 
 time of its composition, and the circumstances in which he was 
 then placed, it must indeed have been composed with peculiar
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 interest and feeling. It was written by him when he was sixty-three, 
 and is addressed to his friend Atticns (who had nearly reached the 
 game age), with a view of rendering their accumulating burdens 
 as light as possible. In order to give his precepts the greater 
 force, he represents them as delivered by the elder Cato, in the 
 eighty-fourth year of a vigorous and useful old age, on the occa- 
 sion of Lselius and the younger Scipio expressing their admiration 
 at the wonderful ease with which he still bore the weight of 
 years. This affords the author an opportunity of entering into a 
 full explanation of his ideas on the subject, his great object being 
 to show that by internal resources of happiness the closing period 
 may be rendered not only supportable but comfortable. He enu- 
 merates those causes which are commonly supposed to constitute 
 the infelicity of advanced age under four general heads : that it 
 incapacitates from mingling in the affairs of the world ; that it 
 produces infirmities of the body that it disqualifies for the en- 
 ioyment of sensual gratifications ; and that it brings us to the 
 verge of death. Some of these disadvantages he maintains are 
 imaginary, and for any real pleasures of which old men are de- 
 prived, he shows that many others more refined and elevated may 
 be substituted. The whole work is agreeably diversified, and 
 illustrated by examples. 
 
 The PARADOXES contain a defense of six peculiar opinions or 
 paradoxes of the Stoics, something in the manner of those which 
 Oato was wont to promulgate in the senate. These are, that what 
 s morally right (honestum) is alone good ; that the virtuous can 
 want nothing for complete happiness; that there are no degrees 
 either in crimes or good actions ; that every fool is mad ; that the 
 wise alone are wealthy and free ; and that every fool is a slave. 
 The Paradoxes, indeed, seem to have been written as an exercise 
 of rhetorical wit, rather than as a serious disquisition in philoso- 
 phy, and each is personally applied to some individual. 
 
 The narrative, entitled SCIPIO 's DREAM is put into the month 
 of the younger Scipio A.fricanns, who relates that, in his youth, 
 when he first served in Africa, he visited the court of Massinissa, 
 the steady friend of the Komans, and particularly of the Corne- 
 lian family. During the feasts and entertainments of the day, the 
 conversation turned on the words and actions of the first great
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 Scipio. His adopted son having retired to rest, the shade of the 
 departed hero appeared to him in a vision, and darkly foretelling 
 the future events of his life, encouraged him to tread in the paths 
 of patriotism and true glory ; announcing the reward provided in 
 heaven for those who have deserved well of their country. 
 
 The circumstances of time and place selected for this dream, as 
 well as the characters introduced, have been most felicitously 
 chosen ; and Cicero has nowhere more happily united sublimity 
 of thoaght with brilliant imagination. 
 
 The letter, On THE DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE, is one of the most 
 remarkable of the kind that has ever been penned. It was ad- 
 dressed by Cicero to his brother Quintus, on the occasion of his 
 government in Asia being prolonged to a third year. Availing 
 himself of the rights of an elder brother, as well as of the 
 authority derived from his superior dignity and talents, Cicero 
 counsels and exhorts him concerning the due administration of his 
 province, particularly with regard to the choice of his subordinate 
 officers, and the degree of trust to be reposed in them. He 
 earnestly reproves him, but with much fraternal tenderness and 
 affection, for his irritability of temper ; and concludes with a beau- 
 tiful exhortation to strive in all respects to merit the praise of his 
 contemporaries, and bequeath to posterity an unsullied name.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 PREFACE v 
 
 OFFICES, OR MORAL DUTIES, BOOK I. ..... 1 
 
 OFFICES, OR MORAL DUTIES, BOOK II 77 
 
 OFFICES, OR MORAL DUTIES, BOOK III 115 
 
 L.ELIUS, AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP 169 
 
 CATO MAJOR, AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE 216 
 
 PARADOXES 263 
 
 SCIPIO'S DREAM 288 
 
 LETTER TO QUINTUS ON THE DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE . 306 
 
 INDEX 329
 
 CICERO DE OFFICES: 
 
 A 
 TREATISE CONCERNING THE MORAL DUTIES OF MANKIND. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 Mv SON MARCUS, 
 
 I. Although, as you have for a year been studying under 
 Cratippus, and that, too, at Athens, you ought to be well fur- 
 nished with the rules and principles of philosophy, on account 
 of the pre-eminent reputation both of the master and the city, 
 the one of which can improve you by his learning, the other 
 by its examples ; yet as I, for my own advantage, have always 
 combined the Latin with the Greek, not only in philosophy but 
 even in the practice of speaking, I recommend to you the same 
 method, that you may excel equally in both kinds of compo- 
 sition. In this respect, indeed, if 'I mistake not, I was of great 
 sarvice to our countrymen ; so that not only such of them as 
 are ignorant of Greek learning, but even men of letters, think 
 they have profited somewhat by me both in speaking and rea- 
 soning. 
 
 Wherefore you shall study, nay, study as long as you 
 desire, under the best philosopher of this age and you 
 ought to desire it, as long as you arc not dissatisfied with 
 the degree of your improvement ; but in reading my works, 
 which are not very different from the Peripatetic because 
 we profess in common to be followers both of Socrates and 
 Plato as to the subject-matter itself, use your own judg- 
 ment; but be assured you will, by reading my writings, 
 render your Latin style more copious. I would not have it 
 supposed that this is said in ostentation ; for, while I yield 
 the superiority in philosophy to many, if I claim to myself 
 the province peculiar to an orator that of speaking with pro-
 
 2 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK L 
 
 priety, perspicuity, and elegance I seem, since I have spent 
 my life in that pursuit, to lay claim to it with a certain degree 
 of right. 
 
 Wherefore, my dear Cicero, I most earnestly recommend 
 that you carefully peruse not only my Orations, but even my 
 philosophical works, which have now nearly equaled them in 
 extent ; for there is in the former the greater force of lan- 
 guage, but you ought to cultivate, at the same time, the equa- 
 ble and sober style of the latter. And, indeed, I find, that it 
 has not happened in the case of any of the Greeks, that the 
 same man has labored in both departments, and pursued both 
 the former that of forensic speaking and the latter quiet 
 mode of argumentation ; unless, perhaps, Demetrius Phalereus 
 may be reckoned in that number a refined reasoner, a not 
 very animated speaker, yet of so much sweetness, that you 
 might recognize the pupil of Theophrastus. How far I have 
 succeeded in both, others must determine ; certain it is 
 that I have attempted both. Indeed, I am of opinion that 
 Plato, had he attempted forensic oratory, would have spoken 
 with copiousness and power ; and that had Demosthenes 
 retained and repeated the lessons of Plato, he would have de- 
 livered them with gracefulness and beauty. I form the same 
 judgment of Aristotle and Isocrates, each of whom was so 
 pleased with his own pursuit that he neglected that of the 
 other. 
 
 II. But having resolved at this time to write to you some- 
 what, and a great deal in time to come, I have thought proper 
 to set out with that subject which is best adapted to your 
 years and to my authority. For, while many subjects in phi- 
 losophy, of great weight and utility, have been accurately and 
 copiously discussed by philosophers, the most extensive iseems 
 to be what they have delivered and enjoined concerning the 
 duties of mankind ; for there cdn be no state of life, amid 
 public or private affairs, abroad or at home whether you 
 transact any thing with yourself or contract any thin^ with 
 another that is without its obligations. In the due discharge 
 of that consists all the dignity, and in its neglect all the dis- 
 grace, of life. 
 
 This is an inquiry common to all philosophers ; for wher^ 
 is the man who will presume to style himself a philosopher, 
 and lay down no rules of duty ? But there are certaiw
 
 CHAP. ii. CICERO'S OFFICES. 3 
 
 schools which pervert all duty by the ultimate objects of 
 good and evil which they propose. For if a man should 
 lay down as the chief good that which has no connection 
 with virtue, and measure it by his own interests, and not 
 according to its moral merit ; if such a man shall act consist- 
 ently with his own principles, and is not sometimes influenced 
 by the goodness of his heart, he can cultivate neither friendship, 
 justice, nor generosity. In truth, it is impossible for the man 
 to be brave who shall pronounce pain to be the greatest evil, 
 or temperate who shall propose pleasure as the highest good. 1 
 
 1 Cicero thus enters briefly but definitely into the most vexed, and yet 
 the most fundamental, question of ethics : What is that which constitutes 
 human conduct morally right or wrong? In doing so, he plainly nvoy-s 
 his own conviction that this great distinction is not dependent upon tho 
 mere expediency or inexpediency of the supposed conduct. The many 
 eminent moral philosophers of modern times, and especially of our own 
 country, may be comprehensively divided into the two classes of those 
 who maintain, and those who oppose, tho principle thus enunciated by 
 Cicero. A very condensed view of tho leading philosophers of these 
 schools will not be uninstructive. 
 
 The most celebrated of the earlier opponents of the principle laid down 
 by Cicero was Hobbes, of Malmesbury, who flourished in the J 7th cen- 
 tury. His system takes no account of moral emotions whatever. He 
 makes pure selfishness tho motive and end of all moral actions, and 
 makes religion and morals alike to consist in passive conformity to tho 
 dogmas and laws of tho reigning sovereign. 
 
 Perhaps the best reply to this latter notion was given by Cicero him- 
 self, in his treatise, "Do Lcgibus:" "Tho impulse," ho says, "which 
 directs to right conduct, and deters from crime, is not only older than 
 the ages of nations and cities, but coeval with that Divine Being who 
 Bees and rules both heaven and earth. Nor did Tarquin less violate that 
 eternal law, though in his reign there might have been no written law 
 at Romo against such violence ; for the principle that impels us lo right 
 conduct, and warns us against guilt, springs out of the nature of things. 
 It did not begin to be law when it was first written but when it origi- 
 nated, and it is coeval with tho Divine Mind itself." 
 
 The most noted cotemporary opponents of these views were Cudworth 
 and Dr. Clarke ; the sum of whoso moral doctrine is thus stated in Mack- 
 intosh's "Progress of IMiical Philosophy: "Man can conceive nothing 
 without, at the same time, conceiving its relation to other things. Ho 
 must ascribe the same law of perception to every being to whom he as- 
 cribes thought. Ho cannot, therefore, doubt that all tho relations of all 
 thingjs to all must have always been present to tho Eternal Mind. Tho 
 relations in this sense are eternal, however recent tho things may be be- 
 tween whom they subsist. The whole of these relations constitute truth ; 
 6he knowledge of them is omniscience. These eternal different relations 
 of things involve a conseauent eternal fitness orunfitness in the applica-
 
 4 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK I. 
 
 Though these truths arc so self-evident that they require 
 no philosophical discussion, yet they have been treated by 
 me elsewhere. I say, therefore, that if these schools are 
 
 tion of things one to another, with a regard to which the will of God 
 always chooses, and which ought likewise to determine the wills of all 
 subordinate rational beings. These eternal differences make it fit and 
 reasonable for the creatures so to act ; they cause it to be their duty, or 
 lay an obligation on them so to do, separate from the will of God, and 
 antecedent to any prospect of advantage or reward." 
 
 This system professes to base all morals upon pure reason, as applied 
 to the fitness of things. A single passage from the work of Sir James 
 Mackintosh points out the fallacy it involves. " The murderer who 
 poisons by arsenic acts agreeably to his knowledge of the power of that 
 substance to kill, which is a relation between two things as much as 
 the physician who employs an emetic after the poison, acts upon his be- 
 lief of the tendency of that remedy to preserve life, which is another re- 
 lation between, two things. All men who seek a good or bad end by 
 good or bad means, must alike conform their conduct to some relation 
 between their actions as means, and their object as an end. All the re- 
 lations of inanimate things to each other are undoubtedly observed as 
 much by the criminal as by the man of virtue." 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury, a little later, made a considerable advance in ethical 
 philosophy, by placing virtue in the prevalence of love for the system of 
 which we are a part, over the passions pointing to our individual wel- 
 fare ; and still further, by admitting an intrinsic power in all, of judging 
 of moral actions by a moral sense. In his general principles Leibnitz, to 
 a great extent, concurs : though the latter appears to have lost himself 
 in a refinement of the selfish system, by considering the pleasure con- 
 nected with tho exercise of this virtuous benevolence as the object in 
 the view of the benevolent man. 
 
 Malebranche places all virtue in " the love" of tho universal order, as 
 it eternally existed in tho Divine reason, where every created reason 
 contemplates it. 
 
 The metaphysician of America, designated by Robert Hall, "that pro- 
 digy of metaphysical acumen," Jonathan Edwards, places moral excel- 
 lence in the love to being (that is, sentient being) in general. This good 
 will should bo felt toward a particular being first, in proportion to his 
 degree of existence ("for," says he, "that which is great has more ex- 
 istence, and is further from nothing, than that which is little"); and, sec- 
 ondly, in proportion to tho degree in which that particular being feels 
 benevolence to others. 
 
 With tho 18th century arose a far higher system of morals, under tho 
 auspices of tho celebrated Dr. Butler. Ho makes CONSCIENCE the ruling 
 moral power in the complex constitution of man, and makes its dictates 
 the grand criterion of moral Tightness and wrongness. A few of his own 
 words will explain the essence of his system. " Man," says ho, "from 
 his make, constitution, or nature, is, in the strictest and most proper 
 sense, a law to himself; he hath the rule of right within, and what is 
 wanting is that ho honestly attend to it. Conscience does not only offer
 
 CHAP. n. CICERO'S OFFICES. 5 
 
 self-consistent, they can say nothing of the moral duties. 
 Neither can any firm, permanent, or natural rules of duty 
 be laid down, but by those who esteem virtue to be solely, 
 
 itself to show us the way we should walk in, but it likewise carries its 
 own authority with it, that it is our natural guide the guide assigned 
 us by the Author of our nature. It, 'therefore, belongs to our condition 
 of being. It is our duty to walk in that path, and to follow this guide, 
 without looking about to see whether we may not possibly forsake them 
 with impunity." "Butler's Sermons," Serm. 3. 
 
 With David Hume, who was cotemporary with Butler, the principle 
 against which Cicero protests assumes a systematic character. The doctrine 
 of the utility of actions, as that which constitutes them virtuous, was set 
 forth with the whole force of his genius and eloquence. How far Dr. Paley 
 acquiesces in the principles of Hume, and how far, on the other hand, ho 
 may seem to have been a disciple of Butler, will be seen by two brief pass- 
 ages in his " Moral and Political Philosophy." A comparison of the two, 
 and especially a consideration of his attribution of an abstract moral char- 
 acter to actions, will reveal the grand defect of Paley 's ethical system. The 
 most masterly refutation of that system that ever appeared is to bo found 
 in the ethical work of Jonathan Dymond, in which an irrefragable super- 
 structure of practical morals is built, chiefly on tho foundation of Dr. Butler. 
 The former of the passages referred to is as follows: ""We conclude that 
 God wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures ; and this conclusion 
 being once established, we are at liberty to go on with the rule built upon 
 it, namely, ' that the method of coming at tho will of God, concerning any 
 action, by tho light of nature, is to inquire into tho tendency of that action 
 to promote or diminish the general happiness.' So, then, actions are to 
 bo estimated by their tendency. "Whatever is expedient is right. It is 
 tho utility of any moral rule alone which constitutes tho obligation of it." 
 Tho second is as follows : " Actions, in tho abstract, are right or wrong 
 according to their tendency ; tho agency is virtuous or vicious according 
 to his design.' " Paley's Moral philosophy," book 1, chaps. 5, and 6. 
 
 A still later philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, however, is the great apos- 
 tle of tho principle of expediency as tho foundation of ethics. His theory, 
 also, as tho basis of moral obligation, may bo learned by two character- 
 istic passages : " Nature has placed mankind under the government of 
 two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point 
 out what we ought to do. as well as to determine what we shall do. 
 On the one hand, tho standard of right and wrong ; on tho other, the chain 
 of causes and effects are fastened to their throne." " Bontham's Introd. 
 of Morals," vol. ). c. 1. And again : " But is it never then, from any other 
 consideration than that of utility that wo derive our notions of right and 
 wrong ? I do not know ; I do not care. Whether moral sentiment can 
 bo originally conceived from any other sense than a view of utility, is 
 one question : Whether, upon examination and reflection, it can, in point 
 of fact, bo persisted in and justified on any other ground, by a person re- 
 flecting within, is another. Both are questions of speculation ; it mat- 
 ters not, comparatively, how they are decided." Id. vol. 1, c. 2. 
 
 In conclusion, tho two most enlightened philosophers of modern times,
 
 C CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK L 
 
 or by those who deem it to be chiefly, desirable for its own 
 sake. The teaching of duties, therefore, is the peculiar study 
 of the Stoics, of the Academics, and the Peripatetics ; because 
 the sentiments of Aristo, Pyrrho, and Herillus, have been 
 long exploded. Yet even those professors would have been 
 entitled to have treated upon the duties of men, had they left 
 us any distinction of things, so that there might have been 
 a path open to the discovery of duty. We shall, therefore, 
 upon this occasion, and in this inquiry, cbietly follow the 
 Stoics, not as their expositors, but by drawing, as usual, 
 from their sources, at our own option and judgment, so much 
 and in such manner as we please. 1 I therefore think proper, 
 as my entire argument is on moral obligation, to define what a 
 duty is, a definition which I am surprised has been omitted 
 
 Dugald Stewart and Dr. Thomas Brown, have returned to the principle 
 thus simply laid down by Cicero, in repudiation of the Epicurian theory, 
 that expediency, or its tendency to produce happiness, is the moral cri- 
 terion of actions, and have supported it by an unexampled array of pro- 
 found and ingenious argument and eloquent illustration. A single re- 
 conciling principle may be given in the words of Dugald Stewart: " An 
 action may be said to be absolutely right, when it is in every respect 
 suitable to the circumstances in which the agent is placed ; or, in other 
 words, when it is such as, with perfectly good intentions, under the guid- 
 ance of an enlightened and well-informed understanding, he would have 
 performed. An action may be said to be relatively right, when the in- 
 tentions of the agent are sincerely good, whether his conduct be suitable 
 to his circumstances or not. According to these definitions, an action 
 may be right in one sense and wrong in another an ambiguity in lan- 
 guage, which, how obvious soever, lias not always been attended to by 
 the writers on morals. It is the relative rectitude of an action which 
 determines the moral desert of the agent ; but it is its absolute rectitude 
 which determines its utility to his worldly interests and to the welfare 
 of society. And it is only so far as relative and absolute rectitude coin- 
 cide, that utility can bo affirmed to be a quality of virtue." "Outlines 
 of Moral Philosophy," part 2, sec. 6. 
 
 A similar truth is enunciated by Sir Thomas Brown, in his " Christian 
 Morals," first published in 171G: "Make not the consequence of virtue 
 the ends thereof Be not beneficent for a name or cymbal of applause, 
 nor exact and just in commerce for the advantages of trust and credit, 
 which attend the reputation of true and punctual dealing ; for these re- 
 wards, though unsought for, plain virtue will bring with her. To havo 
 other by-ends in good actions sours laudable performances, which must 
 have deeper roots, motives, and instigations, to give them the stamp of 
 virtues." "Christian Morals," part 1, sec. 10. 
 
 1 Cicero, though generally adopting the principles of the Stoics, still 
 professes himself an Eclectic philosopher, culling from all systems what
 
 CHAP. in. CICERO'S OFFICES. 7 
 
 by Pansetius ; because every investigation which is rationally 
 undertaken, concerning any subject, ought to set out with a 
 definition, that it may be understood what is the subject of dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 III. All questions concerning duty are of two sorts. The 
 first relates to the final good ; the second consists of those 
 rules which are to regulate the practice of life in all its rela- 
 tions. 1 Examples of the former are as follows : Whether 
 all duties are perfect in themselves ? Whether one duty is 
 of more importance than another ? together with other ques- 
 tions of the same nature. Now the rules for moral duties 
 relate, indeed, to the final good ; but it is not so perceptible 
 that they do, because they seem chiefly to refer to the regu- 
 lation of ordinary life, and of them we are to treat in this book. 
 
 But there is another division of duty : for one is called a 
 mean duty, the other a perfect duty. If I -mistake not, the 
 complete or perfect duty is the same with what we call a 
 direct one, and by the Greeks is called xuTogda/ua. As to 
 that duty which is mean they call it xud^xov, and they thus 
 define those terms. Whatever duty is absolute, that they 
 call a perfect duty ; and they call that duty, for the per- 
 
 appeared to bear most distinctly tho stamp of truth, but not submitting 
 to the authority of any. Horace makes a similar profession respecting 
 himself 
 
 "Nullias addictus juraro in verbi magistri, 
 Quo me cumque rapit tempestas deferor hospes." 
 
 First. Epist. First Book, linea 14, 15. 
 
 "The Roman orator," says Sir. J. Mackintosh, "though in speculative 
 questions he embraced that mitigated doubt which allowed most ease 
 and freedom to his genius, yet in those moral wrirings where his heart 
 was most deeely interested, followed tho severest sect of philosophy, 
 and became almost a Stoic." "Progress of Ethical Philosophy." 
 
 1 Cicero, in his work on Moral Ends (De Finibus), briefly defines 
 ethics, or morality, as tho ars vivendi, or doclrina bene vivendi ; that is, tho 
 art of living wisely. The terms ethics is derived from the Greek rf&iKij, 
 which, in signification, is equivalent with tho Latin mos, mores, whence 
 the adjective moralis, and tho English word morals. Aristotle, in the 
 second book of hia " Ethics," addressed to his son, Nichomachus, says 
 that moral science received tho name of ethics from tho word Ida?, 
 " habit, use, or custom," since it is from habitual experience, and tho 
 routine of customary conduct, that moral dispositions and principles are 
 gradually formed and changed. Perhaps the definition of Dr. Thomas 
 Brown can not be improved : " Ethics is the science which relates to our 
 mutual affections, not simply as phenomena, but as they aro virtuous or 
 vicious, right or wrong."
 
 8 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 formance of which a probable reason can be assigned, a mean 
 duty. 1 
 
 In the opinion, therefore, of Panaetius, there is a threefold 
 consideration for determining our resolution ; for men doubt 
 whether the thing which falls under their consideration be 
 of itself virtuous or disgraceful, and in this deliberation minds 
 are often distracted into opposite sentiments. They then 
 examine and deliberate whether or not the subject of their 
 consideration conduces to the convenience or enjoyment of life, 
 to the improvement of their estate and wealth, to their interest 
 and power, by which they may profit themselves or their 
 relations ; all which deliberation falls under the category of 
 utility. The third kind of doubtful deliberation is, when an 
 apparent utility seems to clash with moral rectitude ; for 
 when utility hurries us to itself, and virtue, on the other hand, 
 seems to call us back, it happens that the mind is distracted 
 in the choice, and these occasion a double anxiety in delibera- 
 tion. In this division (although an omission is of the worst 
 consequence in divisions of this kind), two things are omitted ; 
 for we are accustomed to deliberate not only whether a 
 thing be virtuous or shameful in itself, but, of two things that 
 are virtuous, which is the more excellent ? And, in like man- 
 ner, of two things which are profitable, which is the more 
 profitable ? Thus, it is found that the deliberation, which ho 
 considered to be threefold, ought to be distributed into five 
 divisions. We must, therefore, first treat of what is virtuous 
 in itself, and that under two heads ; in like manner, of what 
 is profitable; and we shall next treat of them compara- 
 tively. 
 
 IV. In the first place, a disposition has been planted by 
 nature in every species of living creatures to cherish them- 
 selves, their life, and body ; to avoid those things that appear 
 hurtful to them ; and to look out for and procure whatever 
 
 1 " It was thus that they (the Stoics) were obliged to invent a double 
 morality ; one for mankind at large, from whom was expected no moro 
 than the KaOyKov, which seems principally to have denoted acts of duty, 
 done from inferior or mixed motives ; and the other, which they appear to 
 have hoped from their ideal wise men, is Karopdupa, or perfect observance 
 of rectitude, which consisted only in moral acts, done for mere reverence 
 for morality, unaided by any feelings ; all which (without the exception 
 of pity) they classed among the enemies of reason and the disturbers of 
 the human soul." Sir. J. Mackintosh's " Progress of Ethical Philosophy."
 
 CHAP. IT CICERO'S OFFICES. 9 
 
 is necessary for their living, such as food, shelter, and the 
 like. Now the desire of union for the purpose of procreating 
 their own species is common to all animals, as well as a 
 certain degree of concern about what is procreated. But 
 the greatest distinction between a man and a brute lies in 
 this, that the latter is impelled only by instinct, and applies 
 itself solely to that object which is present and before it, 
 with very little sensibility to what is past or to come ; l but 
 
 1 " It seems evident that animals, as well as men, learn many things 
 from experience, and infer that the same events will always follow from 
 the same causes. By this principle they become acquainted with the 
 more obvious properties of external objects, and gradually, from their 
 birth, treasure up a knowledge of the nature of fire, water, earth, stones, 
 heights, depths, etc., and of the effects which result from their operation. 
 The ignorance and inexperience of the young are here plainly distinguish- 
 able from the cunning and sagacity of the old, who have learned by long 
 observation to avoid what hurt them, and to pursue what gave ease or 
 pleasure. This is still more evident from the effects of discipline and 
 education on animals, who, by the proper application of rewards and 
 punishments, may bo taught any course of action, the most contrary to 
 their natural instincts and propensities. Is it not experience which ren- 
 ders a dog apprehensive of pain when you menace him, of lift up the 
 whip to beat him ? Is it not even experience which makes him answer 
 to his name, and infer from such an arbitrary sound that you mean him 
 rather than any of his fellows, and intend to call him when you pronounce 
 it in a certain manner, and with a certain tone and accent ? 
 
 " In all these cases wo may observe, that the animal infers some fact 
 beyond what immediately strikes his senses ; and that this inference is 
 altogether founded on past experience, while the creature expects from 
 the present object the same consequences which it has always found iu 
 its observation to result from similar objects. 
 
 " But though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from obser- 
 vation, there are also many parts of it which they derive from the origi- 
 nal hand of Nature, which much exceed the share of capacity they pos- 
 sess, on ordinary occasions, and in which they improve little or nothing 
 by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate INSTINCTS, 
 and are so apt to admire as something very extraordinary and inexpli- 
 cable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. But our wonder 
 will perhaps cease to diminish when we consider that the experimental 
 reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which 
 the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of instinct, or 
 mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves, and in its chief 
 operations is not directed by any such relations or comparison of ideas 
 as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the instinct 
 be different, yet still it is an instinct which teaches a man to avoid the 
 fire, as much as that which teaches a bird, with such exactness, the art 
 of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery." Hume's 
 " Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding," sec. 9. 
 
 1*
 
 10 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOKL 
 
 man, because endowed with, reason, by which he discerns con- 
 sequences, looks into the causes of things and their progress, 
 and being acquainted, as it were, with precedents, he compares 
 their analogies, and adapts and connects the present with what 
 is to come. It is easy for him to foresee the future direction of 
 all his life, and therefore he prepares what is necessary for pass- 
 ing through it. 
 
 Nature, likewise, by the same force of reason, conciliates 
 man to man, in order to a community both of language and 
 of life : above all, it implants in them a strong love for their 
 offspring ; it impels them to desire that companies and 
 societies should be formed, and that they should mingle in 
 them ; and that for those reasons, man should take care to 
 provide for the supply of clothing and of food ; and that not 
 only for himself, but for his wife, his children, and for all 
 whom he ought to hold dear and to protect. This is an affec- 
 tion which arouses the spirit and makes it more strenuous for 
 action. 
 
 The distinguishing property of man is to search for and 
 to follow after truth. Therefore, when relaxed from our 
 necessary cares and concerns, we then covet to see, to hear, 
 and to learn somewhat ; and we esteem knowledge of things 
 either obscure or wonderful to be the indispensable means 
 of living happily. 1 From this we understand that truth, 
 simplicity, and candor, are most agreeable to the nature 
 of mankind. To this passion for discovering truth, is 
 added a desire to direct ; for a mind, well formed by na- 
 ture, is unwilling to obey any man but him who lays down 
 rules and instructions to it, or who, for the general advan- 
 tage, exercises equitable and lawful government. From this 
 
 1 " Nature lias made it delightful to man to know, disquieting to him 
 to know only imperfectly, while any thing remains in his power that can 
 make his knowledge more accurate or comprehensive ; and she has done 
 more than all this : she hag not waited till we reflect on the pleasure 
 which we are to enjoy, or the pain which we are to suffer. It is suffi- 
 cient that there is something unknown which has a relation to some- 
 thing that is known to us. We feel instantly the desire of knowing this 
 too. We have a desire of knowledge which nothing can abate ; a desire 
 that in some greater or less degree extends itself to every thing which 
 we are capable of knowing, and not to realities merely but to all the 
 extravagances of fiction." Dr. Thomas Brown's "Lectures on the Phi- 
 losophy of the Human Mind."
 
 BHAP. v. CICERO'S OFFICES. 11 
 
 proceeds loftiness of mind, and contempt for worldly inter- 
 ests. 1 
 
 Neither is it a mean privilege of nature and reason, that man 
 is the only animal who is sensible of order, of decency, and of 
 propriety, both in acting and speaking. In like manner, no 
 other creature perceives the beauty, the gracefulness, and the 
 harmony of parts, in those objects which are discerned by the 
 sight. And analogous perception to which nature and reason 
 convey from the sight to the mind ; and consider that beauty, 
 regularity, and order in counsels and actions should be still 
 more preserved. She is cautious not to do aught that is inde- 
 cent or effeminate, or to act or think wantonly in any of our 
 deliberations or deeds. The effect and result of all this produces 
 that honestum which we are now in search of; that virtue 
 which is honorable even without being ennobled ; and of which 
 we may truly say, that even Avere it praised by none it would 
 be commendable in itself. 
 
 V. My Son Marcus, you here perceive at least a sketch, and, 
 as it were, the outline of virtue ; which, could we perceive her 
 with our eyes, 2 would, as Plato says, kindle a wonderful love of 
 wisdom. But whatever is virtuous arises from some one of 
 those four divisions : for it consists either in sagacity and the 
 perception of truth ; or in the preservation of human society, 
 by giving to every man his due, and by observing the faith of 
 contracts ; or in the greatness and firmness of an elevated and 
 unsubdued mind ; or in observing order and regularity in all 
 our words and in all our actions, in which consists moderation 
 and temperance. 
 
 1 The same sentiment, with reference to the love of knowledge, ia 
 more beautifully expressed by Virgil: 
 
 " Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscoro causas ; 
 Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum 
 Subjocit pedibus, strepituinquo Acherontis avari." 
 
 Georg. II. lines 490-492. 
 
 2 Our bodily eyes.] " This is a fine and a celebrated sentiment of Plato. 
 'Oiplf (says he, in his Phedro), rifuv o^vrurrj TUV did rov csufiaro^ fp^erai 
 aloOqaeuv, f/ Qpovr) elf OVK dpdrct, detvoilc yup uv irapelxeiv fpuraf, el 
 TOIOVTOV eavTijp ivapyeg eltiuhov Trapeixero elq diptc lov : ' Our eyesight 
 (says he), is the most exquisite of our senses, yet it does not serve us to 
 discern wisdom ; if it did, what a glow of love would she kindle within 
 us.' The reader may, perhaps, observe with what propriety Cicero ap- 
 plies to virtue what Plato says of wisdom." Guthrie.
 
 12 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 Though these four divisions are connected and interwoven 
 with one another, yet certain kinds of duties arise from each 
 of them. As, for instance, in that part which I first de- 
 scribed, and under which I comprehended sagacity or wisdom, 
 consists the search after and discovery of truth ; and this is 
 the characteristic function of that virtue : for the man who is 
 most sagacious in discovering the real truth in any subject, 
 and who can, with the greatest perspicacity and quickness, 
 both see and explain the grounds of it, is justly esteemed 
 a man of the greatest understanding and discernment. From 
 hence it follows that truth is, as it were, the subject-matter 
 wl.ich this faculty handles, and on which it employs itself. 
 As to the other three virtues, they necessarily consist in acquir- 
 ing and preserving those things with which the conduct of life 
 is connected, in order to preserve the community and relations 
 of mankind, and to display that excellence and greatness of 
 soul which exhibits itself as well in acquiring resources and 
 advantages both for ourselves and for our friends, as, still more 
 concpicuously, in properly disregarding them. As to order, 
 resolution, moderation, and the like, they come into that rank 
 of virtues which require not only an operation of the mind, 
 but a certain degree of personal activity ; for it is in observing 
 order and moderation in those things which constitute the 
 objects of active life, that we shall preserve virtue and de- 
 cency. 
 
 VI. Now, of the four divisions under which I have ranged 
 the nature and essence of virtue, that which consists in the 
 knowledge of truth principally aftects the nature of man. 
 For all of us are impelled and carried along to the love of 
 knowledge and learning, in which we account it glorious to 
 excel, but consider every slip, mistake, ignorance, and de- 
 ception in it, to be hurtful and shameful. In this pursuit, 
 which is both natural and virtuous, two faults are to be 
 avoided. The first is, the regarding things which we do not 
 know as if they were understood by us, and thence rashly 
 giving them our assent. 1 And he that wishes, as every 
 man ought to wish, to avoid this error, must devote both 
 his time and his industry to the study of things. The other 
 fault is, that some people bestow too much study and pains 
 
 1 " The highest perfection of human reason is to know that there is an 
 infinity of truth beyond its reach." Pascal.
 
 CHAP. VTL CICERO'S OFFICES. 13 
 
 upon things that are obscure, 1 difficult, and even immaterial in 
 themselves. When those faults are avoided, all the pains and 
 care a man bestows upon studies that are virtuous in them- 
 selves, and worthy of his knowledge, will be deservedly com- 
 mended. Thus we have heard how Caius Sulpicius 2 excelled in 
 astronomy, and Sextus Pompeius, to my own knowledge, in 
 mathematics ; many also in. logic, and more in the civil law, 
 all which are arts that serve to investigate truth, in the pursuit 
 of which our duty forbids us to be diverted from transacting 
 our business, because the whole glory of virtue consists in ac- 
 tivity. Yet this is often intermitted, and frequent are our re- 
 turns to our studies. Then there is an incessant working of 
 the mind, which, without our taking pains, is sufficient to keep 
 us in the practice of thinking. Now, all our thoughts, and 
 every motion of the mind, should be devoted either to the 
 forming of plans for virtuous actions, and such as belong to a 
 good and happy life, or else to the pursuits of science and 
 knowledge. I have now treated of at least the first source of 
 duty. 
 
 VII. Now, as to the other three, the most extensive system 
 is that by which the mutual society of mankind, and, as it 
 were, the intercourse of life, is preserved. Of this there are 
 two parts: justice, in which virtue displays itself with the 
 most distinguished luster, and from which men are termed 
 good ; and allied to this, beneficence, which may likewise be 
 termed benevolence, or liberality. Now, the chief province 
 of justice is, that no person injure another, unless he is pro- 
 
 1 " The emperor Antoninus very finely thanks the gods, that when ho 
 applied to the study of philosophy he was taught by Junius Rusticus to 
 avoid this error. Tov c/f iavrbv OTTUC tTi6vfj.i)aa (f>i^oao<J>iaf, jxi) 
 t/jnrtaeiv elf riva ao(j>iaTi/v fiydZ uiroKad.iaai tnl roi)f avyypa<j>el ff 
 av7i/.oyiafj.ovf tivaXiieiv, ij frspl rH ftereupoAoyiKil Karayiveadai : ' That 
 when I applied my mind to the study of philosophy, I did not meet with 
 a sophist for my instructor ; neither did I spend my time in reading 
 mean authors, nor was I embarrassed by the uselees studies of astrology." 
 Guthrie. 
 
 2 " Wo have, in the Roman history, a remarkable story of this noble- 
 man, by which wo may see the excellent effects of learning in a man of 
 consideration, who knows how to time it welL For wo are told, that 
 while he served against the Macedonians, under Julius JSmilius, ho fore- 
 told to the Roman soldiers an eclipse, and explained its causes, and 
 thereby prevented the consternation they otherwise would have fallen 
 into, and which, seizing the enemies, they were easily routed by the 
 Romans." Guthrie.
 
 14 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOR i. 
 
 voked 1 by suffering wrong ; next, that public property be ap- 
 propriated to public, and private to individual, use. 
 
 Now, by nature no property is private, but dependent either 
 on ancient possession (as when men formerly came into unoc- 
 cupied territories) ; or victory (as when they have taken posses- 
 sion of it in war) ; or public constitution, contract, terms, or 
 lot. By those, the land of Arpinum is regarded as belonging 
 to the Arpinates ; the Tusculan, to the Tusculans. The like 
 division holds with regard to matters of private property. 
 Thus, as every man holds his own, each should possess 
 that portion which fell to his share of those things that 
 by nature were common ; and it follows, that no man can 
 covet another's property without violating the laws of human 
 society. 1 
 
 But (as has been strikingly said by Plato) we are not 
 born for ourselves alone, and our country claims her share, 
 and our friends their share of us ; and, as the Stoics hold, 
 
 1 " Dictat autem ratio homini (says Grotius, de Jure Belli ac Paris, lib. 
 2, cap. 20, 5), nihil agendum quod noceatur Iwmini alleri, nisi, id bonum 
 habeat aliquid propositum. In solo autem inimici dolore, ita nudj spectato, 
 nuttum est bonum nisi falsum et imaginarium : Now, reason tells men 
 that we should do no hurt to another man, unless it is to serve some 
 good end, for, from the mere pain of another person, there can result no 
 good but what is mistaken and imaginary." Vidplura in loc. cit. 
 
 a This subject has been extensively investigated by modern moralists 
 and jurists. Paley, in one of his chapters on property, adduces and com- 
 ments upon the principal theories that have been advanced. Those of 
 Mr. Locke, and of Paley himrelf, may bo briefly given in the words of tho 
 latter. " Each man's limbs and labor are his own exclusively ; by occu' 
 pying a piece of ground a man inseparably mixes his labor with it, by 
 which means tho piece of ground becomes thenceforward his own, as you 
 can not take it from him without depriving him at the same time of 
 something which is indisputably his." This is Mr. Locke's solution. Dr. 
 Paley adds: "The real foundation of our right (i. e., to private property) 
 is THE LAW OF THE LAND. It is tho intention of God that the produce 
 of the earth bo applied to tho use of man ; this intention can not be ful- 
 filled without establishing property; it is consistent, therefore, with his 
 will that property be established. The land can not bo divided into 
 separate property without leaving it to tho law of the country to regu- 
 late that division ; it is consistent, therefore, with tho same will, that 
 the law should regulate tho division ; and, consequently, ' consistent with 
 the will of God,' or 'right.' that I should possess that share which these 
 regulations assign me. By whatever circuitous train of reasoning you 
 attempt to derive this right, it must terminate at last in the will of God ; 
 the straightest, therefore, and shortest way of arriving at this will, is tho 
 best Paley's " Moral and Political Philosophy," book 3, chap. 4.
 
 CHAP. vra. CICERO'S OFFICES. 15 
 
 all that the earth pioduces is created for the use of man, so 
 men are created for the sake of men, that they may mutually 
 do good to one another ; in this we ought to take nature for our 
 guide, to throw into the public stock the offices of general utility 
 by a reciprocation of duties ; sometimes by receiving, sometimes 
 by giving, and sometimes to cement human society by arts, by 
 industry, and by our resources. 
 
 Now the foundation of justice is faithfulness, which is a 
 perseverance and truth in all our declarations and in all our 
 promises. Let us therefore (though some people may think it 
 over nice) imitate the Stoics, who curiously examine whence 
 terms are derived, and consider that the word fides, or faithful- 
 ness, is no other than a performance of what we have promised. 1 
 But there are two kinds of injustice ; the first is of those who 
 offer an injury, the second of those who have it in their power 
 to avert an injury from those to whom it is offered, and yet do 
 it not. For if a man, prompted either by anger or any sudden 
 perturbation, unjustly assaults another man, such a one seems 
 as it were to lay violent hands on one's ally ; and the man who 
 does not repel or withstand the injury, if he can, is as much to 
 blame as if he deserted the cause of his parents, his friends, or 
 his country. 
 
 Those wrongs, however, which are inflicted for the very pur- 
 pose of doing an injury, often proceed from fear ; as for instance, 
 when a man who is contriving to injure another is afraid, unless 
 he executes what he is meditating, that he may himself sustain 
 some disadvantage ; but the great incentive to doing wrong is 
 to obtain what one desires, and in this crime avarice is the most 
 pervading motive. 
 
 Vffl. Now riches are sought after, both for the necessary 
 purposes of life and for the enjoyment of pleasure. But in 
 men of greater minds the coveting of money is with a view 
 to power and to the means of giving gratification. As M. 
 Crassus lately used to declare, that no man who wanted to 
 have a direction in the government had money enough, unless 
 by the interest of it he could maintain an army. Mag- 
 nificent equipages, likewise, and a style of living made up 
 of elegance and abundance give delight, and hence the 
 desire for money becomes boundless. Nor indeed is the 
 
 1 Fides, quiayud quod dictum est.
 
 10 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 mere desire to improve one's private fortune, without injury 
 to another, deserving of blame ; but injustice must ever be 
 avoided. 
 
 But the main cause why most men are led to a forgetful- 
 ness of justice is their fafling into a violent ambition after 
 empire, honors, and glory. For what Ennius observes that 
 
 " No social bonds, no public faith remains 
 Inviolate ;" 
 
 has a still more extensive application ; for where the object of 
 ambition is of such a nature as that several can not obtain pre- 
 eminence, the contest for it is generally so violent that nothing 
 can be more difficult than to preserve the sacred ties of society. 
 This was shown lately in the presumption of C. Caesar, who, in 
 order to obtain that direction in the government which the 
 wildness of his imagination had planned out, violated all laws, 
 divine and human. But what is deplorable in this matter is, 
 that the desire after honor, empire, power, and glory, is gener- 
 ally most prevalent in the greatest soul and the most exalted 
 genius ;' for which reason every crime of that sort is the more 
 carefully to be guarded against. But in ever species of injust- 
 ice it is a very material question, whether it is committed 
 through some agitation of passion, which commonly is short- 
 lived and temporary, or from deliberate, prepense, malice ; for 
 those things which proceed from a short, sudden fit, are of 
 slighter moment than those which are inflicted by forethought 
 and preparation. But enough has been said concerning inflict- 
 ing injury. 
 
 IX. Various are the causes of men omitting the defense 
 of others, or neglecting their duty toward them. They are 
 either unwilling to encounter enmity, toil, or expense; or, 
 perhaps, they do it through negligence, listlessness, or lazi- 
 ness ; or they are so embarrassed in certain studies and pur- 
 suits, that they suffer those they ought to protect to be ne- 
 glected. Hence we must take care lest Plato's observation 
 with respect to philosophers should be falsified: "That they 
 
 1 Milton thus expresses a similar idea : 
 
 " Fame is the spur which the clear spirit doth raise 
 (That last infirmity of noble mind) 
 To scorn delights and live laborious days." Lycidas.
 
 CHAP. IT. CICERO'S OFFICES. 17 
 
 are men of integrity, because they are solely engaged in the 
 pursuit of truth, and despise and neglect those considera- 
 rations which others value, and which mankind are wont to 
 contend for among themselves." For, while they abstain 
 from hurting any by the infliction of injury, they indeed assert 
 one species of honesty or justice, but they fail in another ; be- 
 cause, being entangled in the pursuits of learning, they abandon 
 those they ought to protect. Some, therefore, think that they 
 would have no concern with the government unless they were 
 forced to it ; but still, it would be more just that it should be 
 done voluntarily ; for an action which is intrinsically right is 
 only morally good in so far as it is voluntary. 1 There are 
 others who, either from a desire to improve their private for- 
 tune, or from some personal resentments, pretend that they 
 mind their own affairs only that they may appear not to do 
 wrong to another. Now such persons are free from one kind 
 of injustice, but fall into another ; because they abandon the 
 fellowship of life by employing in it none of their zeal, none of 
 their labor, none of their abilities. Having thus stated the two 
 kinds of dishonesty or injustice, and assigned the motives 
 for each kind, and settled previously the considerations by 
 which justice is limited, we shall easily (unless we are extremely 
 selfish) be able to form a judgment of our duty on every occa- 
 sion. 
 
 For, to concern ourselves in other people's affairs is a 
 delicate matter. Yet Chremes, a character in Terence, thinks, 
 that there is nothing which has a relation to mankind 
 in which he has not a concern. 2 Meanwhile, because we 
 have the quicker perception and sensation of whatever 
 happens favorably or untowardly to ourselves than to 
 others, which we see as it were at a greater distance, the 
 
 1 Tho principle of the spontanoousnesg and intelligence of all actions 
 being essential to their moral character, seems, if it be admitted, at onco 
 fatal to those numerous schemes of ethics, which make the moral char- 
 acter of conduct to depend on its essential utility inasmuch as on the 
 latter showing a morally good action may not only bo performed under 
 compulsion, but even with the deliberate and sole intention of producing 
 the opposite results, namely, those which are in every aspect the most 
 mischievous 
 
 2 Heautontimorumenos, Act I., Scene 1: Homo sum: humani nihil 
 a me alienum puto. Augustin, who was made bishop of Hippo, A.D. 395, 
 mentions the universal applause with which this admirable sentiment was
 
 18 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 judgment we form of them is very different from what we 
 form of ourselves. Those therefore are wise monitors who 
 teach us to do nothing of whicli we are doubtful, whether it is 
 honest or unjust ; for whatever is honest manifests itself by 
 its own luster, but doubt implies the entertainment of in- 
 justice. 
 
 X. But occasions frequently happen in which those duties 
 which are most worthy of an honest, and of such as we call a 
 worthy man, are altered and changed to their contraries. 
 For example, to return a deposit, to perform a promise, and 
 other matters that are relative to truth and honesty, sometimes 
 alter so that it is just they should not be observed ; for it is 
 proper to have recourse to those fundamentals of honesty which 
 I laid down in the commencement : in the first place, that of 
 injuring no person ; and, secondly, that of being subservient to 
 the public good. When these conditions are altered by cir- 
 cumstances, the moral obligation, not being invariably identical, 
 is similarly altered. 
 
 A promise, as a paction, may happen to be made, the 
 performance of which may be prejudicial either to the party 
 promising, or to the party to whom the promise is made. 
 For (as we see in the play) had not Neptune performed his 
 promise to Theseus, the latter would not have been bereaved 
 of his son Hippolytus ; for it is recorded, that of three wishes 
 to be granted him, the third, which he made in a passion, 
 was the death of Hippolytus, which, having been granted, 
 he sunk into the most dreadful distress. Therefore, you 
 are not to perform those promises which may be prejudicial 
 to the party to whom you promise, nor if they may be more 
 hurtful to you than they can be serviceable to him. It is 
 inconsistent; with our duty that the greater obligation should 
 be postponed to the less. For instance, suppose you should 
 promise to appear as the advocate of another person while 
 his cause is depending : now, if your son was to be seized 
 violently ill, in the mean time, it would be no breach of duty 
 
 received in the theater. He himself has left us an expression of tho 
 same idea in the following words : 
 
 " Omnis homo est omni homini proximus, nee ulla cogitanda est longin- 
 quitas generis ubi est natura communis." 
 
 " Every man is most closely connected with his every fellow man, nor 
 should any distance of relationship enter into consideration where there 
 is a common nature."
 
 CHAP. x. CICERO'S OFFICES, 19 
 
 in you not to perform what you promise ; the other person 
 would rather depart from his duty if he should complain that 
 he had been abandoned. Who, then, does not see that a man 
 is not bound by those promises which he makes either when 
 coerced by fear, 1 or seduced by deceit ? Many such promises 
 are cancelled by the edict of the praetor's court, some by tho 
 laws ; for very often wrongs arise through a quirk, and through 
 a too artful but fraudulent construction of the law. Hence, 
 " the rigor of law is the rigor of injustice," is a saying that 
 has now passed into a proverb. Many injuries of this kind 
 happen even in state affairs : thus, when a general has con- 
 cluded a truce with his enemy for thirty days, yet ravaged that 
 enemy's territories every night, because the truce was only for 
 so many days, not for the nights. Nor, indeed, if it is true, is 
 the conduct of our countryman, Quintus Fabius Labeo, to bo 
 approved of, or whoever he was (for I have the story only by 
 report), who, being appointed an arbiter by the senate to settle 
 a boundary between the people of Nola and those of Naples, 
 counseled each of those people separately to do nothing covet- 
 ously, and that each ought rather to draw back than advance. 
 Both of them taking this advice, a space of unoccupied 
 ground was left in the middle. lie, therefore, adjudged to 
 oach people the boundary to which they had confined them- 
 selves, and all that was in the middle to the people of Rome. 
 This was not to give judgment, but to cheat ; wherefore 
 we ought to avoid all chicane of that kind in every transaction. 1 
 
 1 Seo conclusion of note, pp. 19, 20. 
 
 a With these imperfect, and in some respects most faulty, notions 
 touching tho obligations of promises, it will bo instructive to compare 
 the principles of modern moralists. Tho following is a brief digest of 
 these principles as given by Paley (" Moral and Political Philosophy," 
 book 3, chap. 5): "They who argue from innate moral principles, sup- 
 pose a sense of tho obligation of promises to bo one of them ; but with- 
 out assuming this, or any thing else, without proof, tho obligation to per- 
 form promises may bo deduced from tbo necessity of such a conduct to 
 the well-being, or tho existence, indeed, of human society. 
 
 ' Men act from expectation. Expectation is, in most cases, determined 
 by the assurances and engagements which aro received from others. If 
 no dependence could be placed upon these assurances, it would bo im- 
 possible to know what judgment to form of many future events, or how 
 to regulate our conduct with respect to them. Confidence, therefore, in 
 promises is essential to the intercourse of human life ; because without 
 it tho greatest part of our conduct would proceed upon chance. But 
 there could bo no confidence in promises, if men wero not obliged to
 
 20 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOR i 
 
 XL Certain duties are also to be observed, even toward 
 those who have wronged you ; for there is a mean even in 
 
 perform them ; the obligation, therefore, to perform promises is essential 
 to tho same ends, and in the same degree. Where the terms of promise 
 admit of more senses than one, tho promise is to bo performed ' in that 
 sense in which the promiser apprehended at the tune that the promisor 
 received it.' " Dr. Paley sums up his argument in tho following words- 
 ' : From the account we have given of the obligation of promises, it ia 
 evident that this obligation depends upon tho expectations which we 
 knowingly and voluntarily excite. Consequently, any action or conduct 
 toward another, which wo are sensible excites expectations in that other, 
 is as much a promise, and creates as strict an obligation, as the most 
 express assurances." The exceptions which Paley admits to tho obliga- 
 tion of promises are tho following ; " 1. Promises are not binding where 
 the performance is impossible. 2. Promises are not binding whero the 
 performance is unlawful. 3. Promises are not binding where they con 
 tradict a former promise. 4. Promises are not binding before accept 
 anco ; that is, before notice given to the promisee. 5. Promises are not 
 binding which aro released by the promisee. And, 6. Erroneous prom- 
 ises are not binding in certain cases ; as where tho error proceeds from 
 the mistake or misrepresentation of the promisee ; or, secondly. "When 
 the promise is understood by tho promisee to proceed upon a certain 
 supposition, or when the promiser apprehended it to be so understood, 
 and that supposition turns out to be false ; then the promise is not bind- 
 ing." It is only necessary to cite another passage with reference to ex- 
 torted promises. It seems obvious here to remark, that in the case of 
 promises, or even declarations, unjustly extorted as by the highway- 
 man or tho inquisitor a doubt may very naturally arise, whether the 
 absence of all right on tho part of the extorting party, does not involve 
 a correlative freedom on tho part of the victim, to declare the truth, or 
 to fulfill the promise. This point Dr. Paley leaves (unnecessarily, as I 
 think), undecided. " It has," he says, " long beep controverted among 
 moralists, whether promises be binding which are extorted by -violence 
 or fear. Tho obligation of all promises results, we have seen, from the 
 necessity or the use of that confidence which mankind repose in them. 
 The question, therefore, whether these promises are binding, will depend 
 upon this : whether mankind, upon the whole, are benefited by the con- 
 fidence placed on such promises? A highwayman attacks you ; anti 
 being disappointed of his booty, threatens or prepares to murder you. 
 You promise, with many solemn asseverations, that if he will spare you.* 
 life he shall find a purse of money left for him at a place appointed. 
 Upon the faith of this promise ho forbears from further violence. New. 
 your life was saved by the confidence reposed in a promise extorted by 
 fear ; and the lives of many others may be saved by the same. This ia 
 a good consequence. On the other hand, confidence in promises like thesa 
 greatly facilitates the perpetration of robberies ; they may be made tha 
 instruments of almost unlimited extortion. This is a bad consequence ; 
 and in the question between tho importance of these opposite conse- 
 quences, resides the doubt concerning tho obligations of such promises."
 
 CHAP. XL CICERO'S OFFICES. 21 
 
 revenge and punishments. Nay, I am not certain whether 
 it is not sufficient for the person who has injured you to 
 repent of the wrong done, so that he may never be guilty of 
 the like in future, and that others may not be so forward to 
 offend in the same manner. 1 Now, in government the laws 
 of war are to be most especially observed ; for since there are 
 two manners of disputing, one by debating, the other by 
 fighting, though the former characterizes men, the latter, 
 brutes, if the former can not be adopted, recourse must be had 
 to the latter. Wars, therefore, are to be undertaken for this 
 end, that we may live in peace without being injured ; but 
 when we obtain the victory, we must preserve those enemies 
 who behaved without cruelty or inhumanity during the war : 
 for example, our forefathers received, even as members of 
 their state, the Tuscans, the ^Equi, the Volscians, the Sabines, 
 and the Hernici, but utterly destroyed Carthage and Nu- 
 mantia. I am unwilling to mention Corinth ; but I believe 
 they had some object in it, and particularly they were induced 
 to destroy it, lest the advantages of its situation should invite 
 the inhabitants to make war in future times. In my opinion, 
 we ought always to consult for peace, which should have in 
 it nothing of perfidy. Had my voice been followed on this 
 head, we might still have had some form of government (if 
 not the best), whereas now we have none. And, while we 
 are bound to exercise consideration toward those whom we 
 
 1 " Tho insolence and brutality of anger, when we indulge its fury 
 without check or restraint is, of all objects, the most detestable. But 
 we admire that noble and generous resentment which governs its pur- 
 suit of the greatest injuries, not by the rage which they are apt to ex- 
 cite in the breast of the sufferer, but by the indignation which they 
 naturally call forth in that of the impartial spectator ; which allows no 
 word, no gesture, to escape it beyond what this more equitable senti- 
 ment would dictate ; which never, even in thought, attempts any greater 
 vengeance, nor desires to inflict any greater punishment, than what 
 every indifferent person would rejoice to see executed." Smith's "Moral 
 Sentiments," part 1, chap. 5. 
 
 " The nobleness of pardoning appears, upon many occasions, superior 
 even to the most perfect propriety of resenting. When either proper 
 acknowledgments have been made by the offending party, or even with- 
 out any such acknowledgments, when the public interest requires that 
 rho most mortal enemies should unite for the discharge of some import- 
 ant duty, the man who can cast away all animosity, and act with con- 
 fidence and cordiality toward the person who had most grievously offended 
 him, seems justly to merit our highest admiration." Id. part 6, uection 3.
 
 22 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK L 
 
 have conquered by force, so those should be received into our 
 protection who throw themselves upon the honor of our 
 general, and lay down their arms, even though the battering 
 rams should have struck their walls. In which matter justice 
 was cultivated with so much care among our countrymen, that 
 it was a custom among our ancestors that they who received 
 under their protection cities, or nations conquered in war, be- 
 came their patrons. 
 
 Now, the justice of war was most religiously pointed out 
 by the fecial law of the Romans. From this it may bo 
 understood that no war is just unless it is undertaken to 
 reclaim property, 1 or unless it is solemnly denounced and 
 proclaimed beforehand. Popilius, as general, held a province 
 where Cato's son served in his army. It happened that 
 Popilius thought proper to disband one legion ; he dismissed, 
 at the same time, Cato's son, who was serving in that legion. 
 When, however, through love of a military life, he remained 
 in the army, his father wrote to Popilius, that if he suffered 
 him to continue in the service he should, for a second time bind 
 him by the military oath ; because the obligation of the former 
 having been annulled, he could not lawfully fight with the enemy. 
 
 So very strict was their observance of laws in making 
 war. There is extant a letter of old Cato to his son on this 
 occasion, in which he writes, " That he heard he had got his 
 discharge from the consul, while he was serving as a soldier in 
 Macedonia, during the war with Perseus. He, therefore, en- 
 joins him to take care not to enter upon action ; for he declares 
 that it is not lawful for a man who is not a soldier to fight with 
 an enemy. 
 
 XII. And, indeed, there is another thing that I should 
 observe, that he who ought properly be termed perduellis, 
 that is, a stubborn foe, is called a hostis, and thereby the 
 softness of the appellation lessens the horror of the thing ; for 
 by our ancestors he was called hostis whom we now call a 
 
 1 To reclaim property, etc.] " The formal and public declaration of war 
 was an indispensable preliminary to it among the Romans. This declar- 
 ation was either conditional or simple. The conditional was when it was 
 made cum rerum repetitions, which sometimes not only implied satisfac- 
 tion for property but punishment upon the offender. A simple declara- 
 tion was without any condition, as when an injury could not be repaired ; 
 or when war was first declared by the other party." See Grotius, lib 3. 
 chap. 3. De Jure Betti, etc. Guthrie.
 
 CHAP. xm. CICERO'S OFFICES. 23 
 
 stranger. This the twelve tables demonstrate : as in the 
 words, " a day appointed for the hostis to plead ;" and again, 
 " a Roman's right of property, as against a hostis, never 
 terminates." What can exceed the gentleness of this, to call 
 those with whom you were at war by so soft an appellation ? 
 It is true that length of time has affixed a harsher significa- 
 tion to this word, which has now ceased to be applied to the 
 stranger, and remains peculiar to him who carries arms 
 agains us. 
 
 Meanwhile, when we fight for empire, and when we 
 seek glory in arms, all those grounds of war which I have 
 already enumerated to be just ones, must absolutely be in 
 force. But wars that are founded upon the glory of con- 
 quest alone, are to be carried on with less rancor ; for, as 
 we treat a fellow-citizen in a different manner as a foe, than 
 we do as an antagonist ; as with the latter the struggle is 
 for glory and power, as the former for life and reputation ; 
 thus we fought against the Celtiberians and the Cimbrians 
 as against enemies, the question being not who should com- 
 mand but who should exist ; but we fought for empire against 
 the Latines, the Sabines, the Samnites, the Carthaginians, and 
 Pyrrhus. The Carthaginians, 'tis true, were faithless, and 
 Hannibal was cruel, but the others were better principled. 
 The speech of Pyrrhus about ransoming the captives is a noble 
 one : 
 
 In war not crafty, but in battle bold, 
 
 No wealth I value, and I spurn at gold. 
 
 Be steel the only metal shall decree 
 
 The fate of empire, or to you or me. 
 
 The gen'rous conquest be by courage tried, 
 
 And all the captives on the Roman side, 
 
 I swear, by all the gods of open war, 
 
 As fate their lives, their freedom I will spare. 
 
 This sentiment is truly noble, and worthy the descendant of the 
 ^Eacidae. 
 
 XIII. Nay, if even private persons should, induced by 
 circumstances, make a promise to the enemy, even in this 
 fidelity should be observed. Thus Regulus, when he was 
 made a prisoner by the Carthaginians in the first Punic war, 
 being sent to Rome to treat of an exchange of prisoners, 
 he swore that he would return. The first thing he did when 
 he came to Rome was to deliver his opinion in the senate that
 
 24 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i 
 
 the prisoners should not be restored ; and after that, when he 
 was detained by his relations and friends, he chose to deliver 
 himself up to a cruel death rather than to falsify his word to 
 the enemy. 
 
 But in the second Punic war, after the battle of Cannae, 
 Hannibal sent ten Romans to Rome, under an oath that they 
 would return to him unless they procured the prisoners to 
 be ransomed ; but the censors disfranchised, as long as they 
 lived, all Of them that were perjured, as well as him who 
 had devised a fraudulent evasion of his oath. For when, by 
 the leave of Hannibal, he had left the camp, he returned 
 soon after, to say that he had forgotten something ; and then 
 again leaving the camp he considered himself free from the 
 obligations of his oath, which he was with regard to the 
 words but not the meaning of them ; for in a promise, what 
 you thought, and not what you said, is always to be consid- 
 ered. 1 But our forefathers set us a most eminent example 
 of justice toward an enemy ; for when a deserter from 
 Pyrrhus offered to the senate to dispatch that prince by poison, 
 the senate and C. Fabricius delivered the traitor up to Pyrrhus. 
 Thus they disapproved of taking off by treachery an enemy 
 who was powerful, and was carrying on against them an ag- 
 gressive war. 
 
 Enough has now been said respecting the duties connected 
 with warfare ; but we must bear in mind, that justice is due 
 
 1 As oaths are designed for the security of the imposer, it is manifest 
 that they must bo interpreted and performed in the sense in which tho 
 imposer intends them ; otherwise they afford no security to him. And 
 this is the meaning and reason of tho rule, "jurare in animum impon- 
 entis." Paley's " Moral and Political Philosophy," book 3, chap. 10. 
 
 Against tho practice of administering oaths as demoralizing, we may 
 instance two authorities. " The effect," says Dymond, " of instituting 
 oaths is to diminish the practical obligation of simple affirmation. Tho 
 law says you must speak the truth when you are upon your oath, which 
 is the same thing as to say that it is less harm to violate truth when you 
 are not on your oath. The court sometimes reminds a witness that ho 
 is upon oath, which is equivalent to saying, If you were not we should 
 think leas of your mendacity. The same lesson is inculcated by the as- 
 signation of penalties to perjury and not to falsehood." " There is," saya 
 Godwin, in his "Political Justice," book 6, c. 5, "no cause of insincerity, 
 prevarication, and falsehood more powerful than the practice of admin- 
 istering oaths in a court of justice. All attempts to strengthen the obli- 
 gations of morality, by fictitious and spurious motives, will, in the sequel, 
 be found to have no tendency but to relax them."
 
 CHAP. nv. CICERO'S OFFICES. 25 
 
 even to the lowest of mankind ; and nothing can be lower 
 than the condition and fortune of a slave. And yet those 
 prescribe wisely who enjoin us to put them upon the same 
 footing as hired laborers, obliging them to do their work, 
 but giving them their dues. Now, as injustice may be done 
 two ways, by force or fraud ; fraud being the property of a 
 fox, force that of a lion ; both are utterly repugnant to 
 society, but fraud is the more detestable. But in the whole 
 system of villainy, none is more capital than that of the men, 
 who, when they most deceive, so manage as that they may 
 seem to be virtuous men. Thus much, then, on the subject of 
 justice. 
 
 XIV. Let mo now, as I proposed, speak of beneficence 
 and liberality, virtues that are the most agreeable to the 
 nature of man, but which involve many precautionary con- 
 siderations. For, in the first place, we are to take care lest 
 our kindness should hurt both those whom it is meant to 
 assist, and others. In the next place, it ought not to exceed 
 our abilities ; and it ought to be rendered to each in proportion 
 to his worth. This is the fundamental standard of justice to 
 which all these things should be referred. For they who do 
 kindnesses which prove of disservice to the person they pre- 
 tend to oblige, should not be esteemed beneficent nor generous, 
 but injurious sycophants. And they who injure one party in 
 order to be liberal to another, are guilty of the same dishones- 
 ty as if they should appropriate to themselves what belongs to 
 another. 1 
 
 Now many, and they especially who are the most 
 ambitious after grandeur and glory, rob one party to enrich 
 another ; and account themselves generous to their friends if 
 they enrich them by whatever means. This is so far from 
 being consistent with, that nothing can be more contrary to, 
 our duty. We should therefore take care to practice that kind 
 of generosity that is serviceable to our friends, but hurtful to 
 
 1 " Liberality in princes is regarded as a mark of beneficence. But 
 when it occurs that the homely bread of 010 honest and industrious i 
 often thereby converted into delicious cakes for the idle and the prodigal, 
 we soon retract our heedless praises. The regrets of a prince for having 
 lost a day were noble and generous, but had ho intended to havo spent 
 it in acts of generosity to his greedy courtiers, it was better lost than 
 misemployed after that manner." Hume's " Dissertation on tho Pas- 
 sions," section 2. 
 
 8
 
 26 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK I. 
 
 none. Upon this principle, when Lucius Sylla and Caius 
 Cassar took property from its just owners and transferred 
 it to strangers, in so doing they ought not to be accounted 
 generous ; for nothing can be generous that is not at the samo 
 time just. 
 
 Our next part of circumspection is, that our generosity 
 never should exceed our abilities. For they who are more 
 generous then their circumstances admit of are, first, guilty 
 in this, that they wrong their relations ; because they bestow 
 upon strangers those means which they might, with greater 
 justice, give or leave to those who are nearest to them. Now 
 a generosity of this kind is generally attended with a lust to 
 ravish and to plunder, in order to be furnished with the means 
 to give away. For it is easy to observe, that most of them are 
 not so much by nature generous, as they are misled by a kind 
 of pride to do a great many things in order that they may 
 seem to be generous ; which things seem to spring not so 
 much from good will as from ostentation. Now such a simula- 
 tion is more nearly allied to duplicity than to generosity or 
 virtue. 
 
 The third head proposed was, that in our generosity we 
 should have regard to merit ; and, consequently, examine both 
 the morals of the party to whom we are generous, and his dis- 
 position toward us, together with the general good of society, 
 and how far he may have already contributed to our own in- 
 terest. Could all those considerations be united, it were the more 
 desirable ; but the object in whom is united the most numerous 
 and the most important of them, ought to have the greatest 
 weight with us. 
 
 XV. But as we live not with men who are absolutely 
 perfect and completely wise, but with men who have great 
 merit if they possess the outlines of worth, we are, I think, 
 from thence to infer, that no man is to be neglected in whom 
 there appears any indication of virtue ; and that each should 
 be regarded in proportion as he is adorned with the milder 
 virtues of modesty, temperance, and that very justice of which 
 I have so largely treated. For fortitude and greatness of spirit 
 is commonly too violent in a man who is not completely wise 
 and perfect ; but the aforesaid virtues seem to belong more to 
 a good man. 
 
 Having said thus much of morals ; with regard to the
 
 CHAP. XVL CICERO'S OFFICES. 27 
 
 kindness which a person expresses for us, our first duty is, 
 to perform the most for him by whom we are most beloved. 
 Now we are to judge of kindness, not like children, by a sort of 
 ardor of affection, but by its stability and constancy. But if 
 its merits are such that we are not to court but to requite 
 the kindness, the greater ought our care to be ; for there is 
 no duty more indispensable than that of returning a kind- 
 ness. Now if, as Hesiod enjoins, we ought, if it is in our 
 power, to repay what we have received for mere use with 
 interest, how ought we to act when called upon by kindness ? 
 Are we not to imitate those fertile fields which yield far more 
 than they have received ? For, if we readily oblige those 
 who we are in hopes will serve us, how ought we to behave 
 toward those who have served us already ? For as 
 generosity is of two kinds, the one conferring a favor, the 
 other repaying it, whether we confer it or not is at our own 
 option, but the not repaying it is not allowable in a good 
 man, provided he can do so without injury to any. Now 
 there are distinctions to be made as to the benefits received ; 
 and it is clear that the greatest return is due in each case to 
 the greatest obligation. Meanwhile, we are above all things 
 to consider the spirit, the zeal, and the meaning with which 
 a favor is conferred. For many confer numerous favors 
 with a sort of recklessness, without any judgment or prin- 
 ciple, upon all mankind promiscuously, or influenced by sudden 
 perturbation of mind, as if by a hurricane : such favors aro 
 not to be esteemed so highly as those which result from judg- 
 ment, consideration, and consistency. But in conferring or re- 
 quiting kindness, the chief rule of our duty ought to be, if all 
 other circumstances are equal, to confer most upon the man who 
 stands in greatest need of assistance. The reverse of this is 
 practiced by the generality, Avho direct their greatest services to 
 the man from whom they hope the most, though he may stand 
 in no need of them. 
 
 XVI. Now society and alliances among men would be 
 best preserved if the greatest kindness should be manifested 
 where there is the nearest relation. But we ought to go 
 higher, if we are to investigate the natural principles of 
 intercourse and community among men. The first is, that 
 which is perceived in the society of the whole human race, 
 and of this the bond is speech and reason, which by
 
 28 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK L 
 
 teaching, learning, communicating, debating, and judging, 
 conciliate men together, and bind them into a kind of 
 natural society. There is nothing in which we differ more 
 from the nature of brutes than in this ; for we very often 
 allow them to have courage, as for instance, horses and 
 lions ; but we never admit that they possess justice, equity, 
 and goodness; because they are void of reason and speech. 
 Now this is the kind of society that is most extensive with 
 mankind among themselves, and it goes through all ; for 
 here a community of all things that nature has produced for 
 the common use of mankind is preserved, so that they 
 may be possessed in the manner proscribed by laws and civil 
 statutes : of which laws themselves some are to be observed in 
 accordance with the Greek proverb, "that all things among 
 friends are to be in common." Now this community consists 
 of things which are of that nature which, though placed 
 by Ennius under one head, may be applied to many. " He 
 (says that author) who kindly shows the bewildered traveler 
 the right road, does as it were light his lamp by his own ; 
 which affords none the less light to himself after it has lighted 
 the other." 
 
 By this single example he sufficiently enjoins on us to 
 perform, even to a stranger, all the service we can do 
 without detriment to ourselves. Of which service the 
 following are common illustrations : " That we are to debar 
 no man from the running stream ;" " That we are to suffer any 
 who desire it to kindle fire at our fire ;" " That we are to give 
 faithful counsel to a person who is in doubt :" all which are par- 
 ticulars that are serviceable to the receiver without being det- 
 rimental to the bestower. We are therefore to practice them, 
 and be constantly contributing somewhat to the common good. 
 As the means, however, of each particular person are very 
 confined and the numbers of the .indigent are boundless, our 
 distributive generosity ought still to be bounded by the princi- 
 ple of Ennius "it nevertheless gives light to one's self" that 
 we may still be possessed of the means to be generous to our 
 friends. 
 
 XVII. Now the degrees of human society are many. 
 For, to quit the foregoing unbounded kind, there is one more 
 confined, which consists of men of the same race, nation, 
 and language, by which people are more intimately connected
 
 CHAP. xvir. CICERO'S OFFICES. 29 
 
 among themselves. A more contracted society than that con- 
 sists of men inhabiting the same city ; for many things are in 
 common among fellow-citizens, such as their forum, their tem- 
 ples, their porticos, their streets, their laws, their rites, their 
 courts of justice, their trials, not to mention their customs, and 
 intimacies, with a great number of particular dealings and inter- 
 courses of numbers with numbers. There is a still more con- 
 tracted degree of society, which is that of relatives ; and this 
 closes, in a narrow point, the unbounded general association of 
 the human race. 
 
 For, as it is a common natural principle among all animated 
 beings that they have a desire to propagate their own species, 
 the first principles of society consists in the marriage tie, the 
 next in children, the next in a family within one roof, where 
 every thing is in common. This society gives rise to the city, 
 and is, as it were, the nursery of the commonwealth. Next fol- 
 lows the connection of brotherhood, next that of cousins, in their 
 different degrees ; and, when they grow too numerous to be 
 contained under one roof, they are transplanted to different 
 dwellings, as it were to so many colonies. Then follow mar- 
 riages and alliances, whence spring more numerous relationships. 
 The descendants, by this propagation, form the origin of com- 
 monwealths ; but the ties and affections of blood bind mankind 
 by affection. 1 
 
 For there is something very powerful in having tne monu- 
 
 1 " Families arc so many centers of attraction, which preserve man- 
 kind from being scattered and dissipated by the repulsive powers of self- 
 ishness. The order of nature is evermore from particulars to generals. 
 As in the operations of intellect wo proceed from the contemplation of 
 individuals to the formation of general abstractions, so in the develop- 
 ment of the passions, in like manner we advance from private to public 
 affections; from the love of parents, brothers, and sisters, to those moro 
 expanded regards which embrace the immense society of human kind." 
 Robert Hall's "Sermon on Modern Infidelity." In apparent opposi- 
 tion to this view stands the theory of President Edwards, which was 
 afterward extensively adopted in an aggravated form. " True virtue, 
 according to him (says Sir James Mackintosh, " Progress of Ethical Phi- 
 losophy"), consists in benevolence, or love to being 'in general," which 
 he afterward limits to 'intelligent being,' though sentient would have 
 involved a moro reasonable limitation. This good will is felt toward a 
 particular being, first in proportion to his degree of existence ('for,' says ho, 
 4 that which is great has moro existence, and is further from nothing 
 than that which is little),' and secondly, in proportion to the degree in 
 which that particular being feels benevolence to others." Perhaps the ablest
 
 30 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 ments of our ancestors the same, in practicing the same 
 religious rites, and in having the same places of interment. 
 But among all the degrees of society, none is more excel- 
 
 refutation of these principles, in a brief compass, is found in the following 
 note by the Rev. Robert Hall in the Sermon above quoted. 
 
 "It is somewhat singular that many of the fashionable infidels have 
 hit upon a definition of virtue which perfectly coincides with that of cer- 
 tain metaphysical divines in America, first invented and defended by that 
 most acute reasoner, JONATHAN EDWARDS. They both place virtue ex- 
 clusively in a passion for the general good ; or, as Mr. Edwards expresses 
 it, love to being in general ; so that our love is always to bo proportioned 
 to the magnitude of its object in the scale of being : which is liable to 
 the objections. I have already stated, as well as to many others which 
 the limits of this note will not permit mo to enumerate. Let it suffice to 
 remark, (1.) That virtue, on these principles, is an utter impossibility ; 
 for the system of being, comprehending the great Supreme, is infinite : 
 and, therefore, to maintain the proper proportion, the force of particular 
 attachment must be infinitely less than the passion for the general good; 
 but the limits of the human mind are not capable of any emotion so 
 infinitely different in degree. (2.) Since our views of the extent of the 
 universe are capable of perpetual enlargement, admitting the sum of ex- 
 istence is ever the same, we must return back at each step to diminish 
 the strength of particular affections, or they will become disproportionate, 
 and consequently, on these principles, vicious ; so that the balance must 
 be continually fluctuating, by the weights being taken out of one scalo 
 and put into the other. (3.) If virtue consists exclusively m love to being 
 in general, or attachment to the general good, the particular affections 
 are, to every purpose of virtue, useless, and even pernicious ; for their im- 
 mediate, nay, their necessary tendency is to attract to their objects a pro- 
 portion of attention which far exceeds their comparative value in the 
 general scale. To allege that the general good is promoted by them, will 
 bo of no advantage to the defense of this system, but the contrary, by 
 confessing that a greater sum of happiness is attained by a deviation 
 from, than an adherence to, its principles ; unless its advocates mean by 
 the love of being in general the same thing as the private affections, 
 which is to confound all the distinctions of language, as well as all the 
 operations of mind. Let it be remembered, we have no dispute respect- 
 ing what is the ultimate end of virtue, which is allowed on both sides to 
 be the greatest sum of happiness in the universe. The question is mere- 
 ly, what is virtue itself? or, in other words, what are the means appointed 
 for the attainment of that end ? 
 
 "There is little doubt, from some parts of Mr. Godwin's work, entitled 
 'Political Justice,' as well as from his early habits of reading, that he 
 was indebted to Mr. Edwards for his principal arguments against the 
 private affections; though, with a daring consistency, he has pursued 
 his principles to an extreme from which that most excellent man would 
 have revolted with horror. The fundamental error of the whole system 
 arose, as I conceive, from a mistaken pursuit of simplicity : from a wish 
 to construct a moral system, without leaving sufficient scope for the infi-
 
 CHAP. xni. CICERO'S OFFICES. 31 
 
 lent, none more stable, than when worthy men, through a sim- 
 ilarity of manners, are intimately connected together ; for, as I 
 have often said, even when we discern the Jionestum in another 
 it touches us, and makes us friends to the man in whom it resides. 
 Now, though virtue of every kind attracts and charms us to 
 the love of those who possess it, yet that love is strongest that 
 is effected by justice and generosity. For nothing is more 
 lovely, nothing is more binding, than a similarity of good dis- 
 positions ;' because among those whose pursuits and pleasures 
 are the same, every man is pleased as much with another as he 
 is with himself, and that is effected which Pythagoras chiefly 
 contemplates in friendship, " that many become one." A strong 
 community is likewise effected by good offices mutually confer- 
 red and received-; and, provided these be reciprocal and agree- 
 
 nite variety of moral phenomena and mental combination ; in consequence 
 of which its advocates were induced to place virtue exclusively in some 
 one disposition of mind : and, since the passion for the general good is 
 undeniably the noblest and most extensive of all others, when it was 
 once resolved to place virtue in any one thing, there remained little room 
 to hesitate which should be preferred. It might have been worth while 
 to reflect, that in the natural world there are two kinds of attraction ; 
 one, which holds the several parts of individual bodies in contact ; an- 
 other, which maintains the union of bodies themselves with the general 
 system : and that, though the union in the former case is much more 
 intimate than in the latter, each is equally essential to the order of the 
 world. Similar to this is the relation which the public and private affec- 
 tions bear to each other, and their use in the moral system. 
 
 1 " Friendship, founded on the principles of worldly morality, recog- 
 nized by virtuous heathens, such as that which subsisted between Atti- 
 cus and Cicero which the last of these illustrious men had rendered 
 immortal is fitted to survive through all the vicissitudes of life; but it 
 belongs only to a union founded on religion, to continue through an end- 
 less duration. The former of these stood the shock of conflicting opin- 
 ions, and of a revolution that shook the world ; the latter is destined to 
 survive when the heavens are no more, and to spring fresh from the 
 ashes of the universe. The former possessed all the stability which is 
 possible to sublunary things; the latter partakes of the eternity of God. 
 Friendship, founded on worldly principles, is natural, and, though com- 
 posed of the best elements of nature, is not exempt from its mutability 
 and frailty ; the latter is spiritual, and, therefore, unchanging and im- 
 perishable. The friendship which is founded on kindred tastes and 
 congenial habits, apart from piety, is permitted by the benignity of 
 Providence to embellish a world, which, with all its magnificence and 
 beauty, will shortly pass away ; that which has religion for its basis, will 
 ere long be transplanted, in order to adorn the paradise of God." 
 Robert Hall's " Sermon on the death of Dr. Ryland."
 
 32 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 able, those among whom they happen are bound together in 
 close association. 
 
 But when you view every thing with reason and reflection, 
 of all connections none is more weighty, none is more dear, 
 than that between every individual and his country. Our 
 parents are dear to us ; our children, our kinsmen, our frienas, 
 are dear to us ; but our country comprehends alone all the 
 endearments of us all. For which what good man would 
 hesitate to die if he could do her service ? The more execrablj 
 unnatural, therefore, are they who wound their country by 
 every species of guilt, and who are now, and have been, em- 
 ployed in her utter destruction. But where a computation or 
 comparison set up, of those objects to which our chief ^utj 
 should be paid, the principal are our country and our parents, 
 by whose services we are laid under the strongest obligations ; 
 the next are our children and entire family, who depend upon 
 us alone, without having any other refuge ; the next our agree- 
 able kinsmen, who generally share our fortune in common. The 
 necessary supports of life, therefore, are due chiefly to those I have 
 already mentioned ; but the mutual intercourses of life, counsels, 
 discourses, exhortations, consultations, and even sometimes re- 
 proofs, flourish chiefly in friendships, and those friendships are 
 the most agreeable that are cemented by a similarity of manners. 
 
 XVIIL But in performing all these duties we are care- 
 fully to consider what is most necessary to each, and what 
 every one of them could or could not attain even without us. 
 Thus the relative claims of relationship and of circumstances 
 will not always be identical. Some duties are owing to some 
 more than to others. For instance, you are sooner to help 
 your neighbor to house his corn, than your brother or your 
 friend ; but if a cause be on trial, you are to take part with 
 your kinsman, or your friend, rather than with your neigh- 
 bor. These considerations, therefore, and the like, ought to be 
 carefully observed in every duty; and custom and practice 
 should be attained, that we may be able to be correct assessors of 
 our duties, and, by adding or subtracting, to strike the balance, by 
 which we may see the proportion to which every party is entitled. 
 
 But as neither physicians, nor generals, nor orators, how- 
 ever perfect they may be in the theory of their art, can evei 
 perform any thing that is highly praiseworthy, without expe- 
 rience and practice, so rules have indeed been laid down for the
 
 CHAP. xrs. CICERO'S OFFICES. 33 
 
 observation of duties, as I myself am doing ; but the import- 
 ance of the matter demands experience and practice. I have 
 now, I think, sufficiently treated of the manner in which the 
 hanestum, which gives the fitness to our duties, arises from 
 those matters that come within the rights of human society. 
 
 It must be understood, however, at the same time, that 
 when the four springs from which virtue and honesty arise 
 are laid open, that which is done with a lofty spirit, and one 
 which scorns ordinary interests, appears the most noble. 
 Therefore the most natural of all reproaches is somewhat of 
 Lfl3 following kind : 
 
 Young men, ye carry but the souls of women ; 
 That woman of a man. 
 
 Or somewhat of the following kind : 
 
 Salmacis, give me spoils without toil or danger. 
 
 On the other hand, in our praises, I know not how it is, but 
 actions performed with magnanimity, with fortitude, and 
 virtue, we eulogize in a loftier style. From hence Marathon, 
 Salamis, Plataea, Thermopylae, Leuctra, have become the field 
 of rhetoricians ; and among ourselves, Cocles, the Decii, the 
 two Scipios, Cneius and Publius, Marcus Marcellus, and a 
 great many others. Indeed, the Roman people in general 
 are distinguished above all by elevation of spirit ; and their 
 fondness for military glory is shown by the fact that we 
 generally see their statues dressed in warlike habits. 
 
 XIX. But that magnanimity which is discovered in toils 
 and dangers, if it be devoid of justice, and contend not for 
 the public good, but for selfish interest, is blamable ; for, 
 so far from being a mark of virtue, it is rather that of a 
 barbarity which is repulsive to all humanity. By the Stoics, 
 therefore, fortitude is rightly defined, when they call it 
 "valor fighting on the side of justice." No man, there- 
 fore, who has acquired the reputation of fortitude, attained 
 his glory by deceit and malice ; for nothing that is devoid of 
 justice can be a virtue. 
 
 It is, therefore, finely said by Plato, that not only the 
 knowledge that is apart from justice deserves the appellation 
 of cunning rather than wisdom, but also a mind that is ready 
 to encounter danger, if it is animated by private interest, and 
 
 2*
 
 34 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 not public utility, deserves the character of audaciousness 
 rather than of fortitude. We, therefore, require that all men 
 of courage and magnanimity should be at the same time 
 men of virtue and of simplicity, lovers of truth, and by 
 no means deceitful ; for these qualities are the main glory of 
 justice. 
 
 But there is one painful consideration, that obstinacy, and 
 an undue ambition for power, naturally spring up from this 
 elevation and greatness of spirit ; for, as Plato tells us, the 
 entire character of the Lacedaemonians was inflamed with 
 the desire of conquest. Thus the man who is most distin- 
 guished by his magnanimity, is most desirous of being the 
 leading, or rather the only potentate of all. Now, it is a 
 difficult matter, when you desire to be superior to all others, 
 to preserve that equability which is the characteristic of 
 justice. Hence it is that such men will not suffer themselves 
 to be thwarted in a debate, nor by any public and lawful 
 authority ; and in public matters they are commonly guilty 
 of corruption and faction, in order to grasp at as great 
 power as possible ; and they choose to be superior by means 
 of force, rather than equals by justice. But the more diffi- 
 cult the matter is, it is the more glorious; for there is no 
 conjuncture which ought to be unconnected with justice. 
 
 They, therefore, who oppose, not they who commit, in- 
 justice are to be deemed brave and magnanimous. Now, 
 genuine and well-considered magnanimity judges that the 
 honestum, which is nature's chief aim, consists in realities 
 and not in mere glory, and rather chooses to be than to 
 seem pre-eminent : for the man who is swayed by the prej- 
 udices of an ignorant rabble is not to be reckoned among 
 the great ; but the man of a spirit the most elevated, through 
 the desire of glory, is the most easily impelled into acts of 
 injustice. This is, indeed, a slippery situation ; for scarcely 
 can there be found a man who, after enduring trials and 
 encountering dangers, does not pant for popularity as tlio 
 reward of his exploits. 1 
 
 1 " It must be strongly impressed upon our minds," says Dr. Johnson. 
 " that virtue is not to be pursued as oue of the means to fame, but fame 
 to bo accepted as the only recompense which mortals can bestow on 
 virtue to bo accepted with complacency, but not sought with eager- 
 ness. Tho true satisfaction which is to be drawn from the consciousness
 
 CHAP. xx. CICERO'S OFFICES. 35 
 
 XX. A spirit altogether brave and elevated is chiefly dis- 
 cernible by two characters. The first consists in a low estimate 
 of mere outward circumstances, since it is convinced that a 
 man ought to admire, desire, or court nothing but what is 
 virtuous and becoming ; and that he ought to succumb to no 
 man, nor to any perturbation either of spirit or fortune. 1 
 The other thing is, that possessed of such a spirit as I have 
 just mentioned, you should perform actions which are great 
 and of the greatest utility, but extremely arduous, full of 
 difficulties and danger both to life and the many things 
 which pertain to life. 
 
 In the latter of those two characters consist all the glory, 
 the majesty, and, I add, the utility ; but the causes and the 
 efficient means that form great men is in the former, which 
 contains the principles that elevate the soul, and gives it a 
 contempt for temporary considerations. Now, this very excel- 
 lence consists in two particulars : you are to deem that only to 
 be good that is virtuous ; and that you be free from all mental 
 irregularity. For we are to look upon it as the character of 
 a noble and an elevated soul, to slight all those considerations 
 that the generality of mankind account great and glorious, 
 and to despise them, upon firm and durable principles ; while 
 strength of mind, and greatness of resolution, are discerned in 
 bearing those calamities which, in the course of man's life, 
 are many and various, so as not to be driven from your nat- 
 ural disposition, nor from the dignity of a wise man : for 
 it is not consistent that ho who is not subdued by fear should 
 be subjugated by passion ; nor that he who has shown him- 
 self invincible by toil, should be conquered by pleasure." 
 Wherefore, we ought to watch and avoid the love of money : 
 
 that we shall sharo tho attention of future times, must arise from tho 
 hope that with our name our virtues will bo propagated, and that those 
 whom we can not benefit in our lives may receive instruction from our 
 examples, and incitement from our renown." Rambler. 
 
 1 ''It is tho business of moralists to detect tho frauds of fortune, and 
 to show that she imposes upon tho careless eye by a quick succession of 
 ahadows, which will sink to nothing in tho gripe ; that she disguises life 
 In extrinsic ornaments, which servo only for show, and aro laid aside in 
 the hours of solitude and of pleasure ; and that when greatness aspires 
 aither to felicity or to wisdom, it shakes off those distinctions which 
 fiazzle tho gazer and awe the suppliant." Dr. Johnson. 
 
 * " Be not a Hercules furens abroad, and a poltroon within thyself. 
 To chase our enemies out of the field, and bo led captive by our vices;
 
 36 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 for nothing so truly characterizes a narrow, groveling dispo- 
 sition as to love riches ;' and nothing is more noble and more 
 exalted than to despise riches if you have them not, and if 
 you have them, to employ them in beneficence and liber- 
 ality.' 
 
 An inordinate passion for glory, as I have already ob- 
 served, is likewise to be guarded against ; for it deprives us 
 of liberty, the only prize for which men of elevated senti- 
 ments ought to contend. Power is so far from being desirable 
 in itself, that it sometimes ought to be refused, and some- 
 times to be resigned. We should likewise be free from all 
 disorders of the mind, from all violent passion and fear, as 
 well as languor, voluptuousness, and anger, that we may 
 possess that tranquillity and security which confer alike 
 consistency and dignity. Now, many there are, and have 
 been, who, courting that tranquillity which I have mentioned 
 here, have withdrawn themselves from public affairs and taken 
 refuge in retirement. Among these, some of the noblest 
 and most leading of our philosophers ; s and some persons, 
 of strict and grave dispositions, were unable to bear with 
 the manners either of the people or their rulers ; and some 
 have lived in the country, amusing themselves with the 
 management of their private affairs. Their aim was the 
 same as that of the powerful, that they might enjoy their 
 liberty, without wanting any thing or obeying any person ; 
 for the essence of liberty is to live just as you please. 
 
 to beat down our foes, and fall down to our concupiscences, are solecisms 
 in moral schools, and no laurel attends them." -Sir Thomas Browne's 
 " Christian Morals." 
 
 1 " To me avarice seems not so much a vice as a deplorable piece of 
 madness. To conceive ourselves urinals, or be persuaded that we arc 
 dead, is not so ridiculous, nor so many degrees beyond the power of 
 hellebore, as this. The opinions of theory, and positions of men, are not 
 so void of reason as their practiced conclusions. Some have held that 
 snow is black, that the earth moves, that the soul is air, fire, water ; bat 
 all this is philosophy, and there is no delirium if wo do but speculate tho 
 folly and indisputable dotage of avarice to that subterraneous idol and god 
 of the earth." Sir Thomas Browne's " Religio Medici." 
 
 2 "A reader, of very ordinary erudition," says Guthrio, "may easily 
 perceive how greatly the best historians and poets among the Romans 
 were indebted to this and the foregoing chapter, which have served as a 
 commonplace for their finest sentiments." 
 
 3 Such arc Pythagoras, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plata 
 Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, etc.
 
 CHAP. xxi. CICERO'S OFFICES. 37 
 
 XXI. Therefore, as the object of those who are ambitious 
 for power, and of those who court retirement, and whom I 
 have just now described, is the same, the former imagine 
 that they can attain it if they are possessed of great resources, 
 and the latter, if they can be contented with their own, 
 and with little. In this matter the sentiments of neither arc 
 to be absolutely rejected. But a life of retirement is more 
 easy, more safe, less tiresome, and less troublesome than any 
 other ; while the life of those who apply themselves to the 
 affairs of government, and to the management of a state, 
 is more beneficial to mankind, and more conducive to glory 
 and renown. 
 
 Allowances, therefore, are to be made for those who having 
 no management in public matters, with an excellent genius, 
 give themselves up to learning; and to those who being 
 hindered by feebleness of health, or for some very weighty 
 reason, retire from affairs of government, and leave to others 
 the power and the honor of the administration ; but when 
 men, who have no such excuses, say that they despise that 
 power and those offices which most admire, such men are 
 so far from deserving praise that they incur censure. It is 
 difficult to condemn their judgment in despising and under- 
 valuing popularity ; but then they seem to dread the toils 
 and troubles of affronts and repulses as involving ignominy 
 and infamy. For some there are who, in opposite matters, 
 are very inconsistent with themselves; they spurn most 
 rigidly at pleasure, but they droop in pain ; they despise 
 glory, but sink under unpopularity ; and that, too, with no 
 little inconsistency. 
 
 But the men who inherit from nature appliances for 
 government ought, laying aside all excuses, to undertake the 
 discharge of all public offices and the management of state 
 affairs ; for neither can a state be governed, nor can magnan- 
 imity display itself, by any other means. I am not, however, 
 sure whether those who undertake the management of public 
 affairs ought not to be equally distinguished by magnanimity 
 as philosophers, if not more so, and impresssd with a con- 
 tempt of common affairs and to possess that tranquillity, 
 that calm of mind, I have so much recommended ; I mean, 
 if they wish to live without anxiety, with dignity &ml 
 consistency.
 
 38 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK L 
 
 This may be the more easily practiced by philosophers, 
 because in their lives there is less exposed for fortune to 
 strike at ; because their necessities are more contracted ; and 
 because, if any thing adverse should happen, they can not fall 
 so heavily. It is not, therefore, without reason, that in the 
 mind of those who undertake the management of public 
 affairs, more violent passions are excited, and mightier mat- 
 ters are to be attempted, than by those who are retired ; 
 they, therefore, ought to possess greater elevation of spirit, 
 and freedom from disquiets. But, whoever enters upon public 
 life ought to take care that the question, how far the measure 
 is virtuous, be not his sole consideration, but also how far 
 he may have the means of carrying it into execution. In 
 this he is chiefly to take care that through indolence he do 
 not meanly despond, nor through eagerness too much pre- 
 sume. Thus, in all affairs, before you undertake them, a 
 diligent preparation should be entered into. 
 
 XXII. But, since most persons are of opinion that the 
 achievements of war are more glorious than civil affairs, 
 this judgment needs to be restricted ; for many, as generally 
 is the case with high minds and enterprising spirits, espe- 
 cially if they are adapted to military life and are fond of 
 warlike achievements, have often sought opportunities of 
 war from their fondness for glory ; but if we are willing to 
 judge truly, many are the civil employments of greater im- 
 portance, and of more renown, than the military. 
 
 For though Themistocles is justly praised his name is 
 now more illustrious than that of Solon, and his glorious 
 victory at Salamis is mentioned preferably to the policy of 
 Solon, by which he first confirmed the power of the Areopagus 
 the one should not be considered more illustrious than 
 the other ; for the one availed his country only for once the 
 other is lastingly advantageous ; because by it the laws of 
 the Athenians, and the institutions of their ancestors, are 
 preserved. Now, Themistocles could not have stated any 
 respect in which he benefited the Areopagus, but the former 
 might with truth declare that Themistocles had been advan- 
 taged by him ; for the war was carried on by the counsels of 
 that senate which was constituted by Solon. 
 
 We may make the same observation with regard to 
 Pausanias and Lysander among the Lacedemonians ; for all
 
 CHAP. xxn. CICERO'S OFFICES. 39 
 
 the addition of empire which their conquests are supposed to 
 have brought to their country is not to be compared to the 
 laws and economy of Lycurgus ; for indeed, owing to these 
 very causes they had armies more subordinate and courageous. 
 In my eyes, Marcus Scaurus (who flourished when I was but 
 a boy) was not inferior to Caius Marius ; nor, after I came 
 to have a concern in the government, Quintus Catulus to 
 Cneius Pompey. An army abroad is but of small service 
 unless there be a wise administration at home. Nor did 
 that good man and great general, Africanus, perform a more 
 important service to his country when he razed Numantia, 
 than did that private citizen, P. Nasica, when at the same 
 period he killed Tiberius Gracchus. An action which it 
 is true was not merely of a civil nature ; for it approaches 
 to a military character, as being the result of force and 
 courage ; but it was an action performed without an army, 
 and from political considerations. 
 
 That state described by the following line is best for a 
 country, for which I understand that I am abused by the 
 wicked and malicious : 
 
 Arms to the gown, and laurels yield to lore. 1 
 
 For, not to mention other persons, when I was at the 
 helm of government did not " arms yield to the gown ?" 
 For never did our country know a time of more threatening 
 danger or more profound tranquillity ; so quickly, through 
 my counsel and my diligence, did the arms of our most prof- 
 ligate fellow citizens drop of themselves out of their hands. 
 What so great exploit as this was ever performed in war, 
 or what triumph can be compared with it ? 
 
 The inheritance of my glory and the imitation of my 
 actions are to descend to you, my son Marcus, therefore it 
 is allowable for me to boast in writing to you. It is, how- 
 ever, certain that Pompey, who was possessed of much 
 military glory, paid this tribute to me, in the hearing of 
 many, that in vain would he have returned to his third 
 triumph, had not my public services preserved the place 
 in which he was to celebrate it. The examples of civil 
 
 1 Orig. Cedant arma togce, concedal laurea linguae. The author is 
 here speaking of his conduct in suppressing Catiline's conspiracy.
 
 40 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 courage are therefore no less meritorious than those of mili- 
 tary ; and they require a greater share of zeal and labor than 
 the latter. 
 
 XXIII. Now all that excellence which springs from a 
 lofty and noble nature is altogether produced by the mental 
 and not by the corporeal powers. 1 Meanwhile, the body 
 ought to be kept in such action and order, as that it may be 
 always ready to obey the dictates of reason and wisdom, in 
 carrying them into execution, and in persevering under 
 hardships. But with regard to that honcstum we are treating 
 of, it consists wholly in the thoughtful application of the 
 mind ; by which the civilians who preside over public affairs 
 are equally serviceable to their country as they who wage 
 wars. For it often happens that by such counsels wars are 
 either not entered into, or they are brought to a termination ; 
 sometimes they are even undertaken, as the third Punic war 
 was by the advice of Marcus Cato, whose authority was 
 powerful, even after he was dead. 
 
 Wisdom in determining is therefore preferable to 
 courage in fighting ; but in this we are to take care that we 
 
 1 " As a previous observation, it is beyond all doubt that very much 
 depends on the constitution of the body. It would be for physiologists 
 to explain, if it were explicable, the manner in which corporeal organ- 
 ization affects the mind. I only assume it as a fact, that there is in tho 
 material construction of some persons, much more than of others, some 
 quality which augments, if it do not create, both the stability of their 
 resolution and the energy of their active tendencies. There is some- 
 thing that, like the ligatures which one class of the Olympic combatants 
 bound on their hands and wrists, braces round, if I may so describe it, 
 and compresses the powers of tho mind, giving them a steady forcible 
 spring and reaction, which they would presently lose if they could bo 
 transferred into a constitution of soft, yielding, treacherous debility. Tho 
 action of strong character seems to demand something lirm in its material 
 basis, as massive engines require, for their weight and for their working, 
 to be fixed on a solid foundation. Accordingly, I believe it would bo 
 found that a majority of the persons most remarkable for decisive char- 
 acter have possessed great constitutional physical firmness. I do not 
 mean an exemption from disease and pain, nor any certain measure of 
 mechanical strength, but a tone of vigor, the opposite to lassitude, and 
 adapted to great exertion and endurance. This is clearly evinced in re- 
 spect to many of them, by the prodigious labors and deprivations which 
 they have borne in prosecuting their designs. The physical nature haa 
 seemed a proud ally of the moral one, and, with a hardness that would 
 never shrink, has sustained the energy that could never remit." Foster's 
 Essays "On Decision of Character," Letter 2.
 
 CHAP. xini. CICERO'S OFFICES. 41 
 
 are not swayed by an aversion to fighting rather than by a 
 consideration of expediency. 1 Now in engaging in war 
 we ought to make it appear that we have no other view but 
 peace. But the character of a brave and resolute man is 
 not to be ruffled with adversity, and not to be in such 
 confusion as to quit his post, as we say, but to preserve a 
 presence of mind, and the exercise of reason, without 
 departing from his purpose. And while this is the charac- 
 teristic of a lofty spirit, so this also is that of a powerful 
 intellect, namely, to anticipate futurity in thought, and to 
 conclude beforehand what may happen on either side, and, 
 upon that, what measures to pursue, and never be surprised 
 so as to say, "I had not thought of that." Such are the 
 operations of a genius, capacious and elevated ; of such a 
 one as relies on its own prudence and counsel ;* but to rush 
 
 1 See Paloy's broad statement, that expediency is the fundamental test 
 of all morality. Book 2, chap. 6. 
 
 * The rarity of self-reliance, notwithstanding the commonness of the 
 weakness that stimulates it, is thus strikingly shown by the great essayist 
 above quoted : " The first prominent mental characteristic of the person 
 whom I describe, is a complete confidence in his own judgment. It will, 
 perhaps, bo said that this is not so uncommon a qualification. I, how- 
 ever, think it is uncommon. It is, indeed, obvious enough that almost 
 all men have a flattering estimate of their own understanding, and that 
 as long as this understanding has no harder task than to form opinions 
 which are not to be tried in action, they have a most self-complacent as- 
 surance of being right. This assurance extends to the judgments which 
 they pass on the proceedings of others. But let them be brought into 
 the necessity of adopting actual measures in an untried situation, where, 
 unassisted by any previous example or practice, -they are reduced to de- 
 pend on the bare resources of judgment alone, and you will see in many 
 cases this confidence of opinion vanish away. The mind seems all at 
 once placed in a misty vacuity, where it reaches round on all sides, but 
 can find nothing to take hold of. Or if not lost in vacuity, it is over- 
 whelmed in confusion ; and feels as if its faculties were annihilated in 
 the attempt to think of schemes and calculations among the possibilities, 
 chances, and hazards which overspread a wide untrodden field ; and thia 
 conscious imbecility becomes severe distress, when it is believed that con- 
 sequences, of serious or unknown good or evil, are depending on the de- 
 cisions which are to bo formed amid so much uncertainty. The thought 
 painfully recurs at each step and turn, I may by chanco bo right, but it 
 is fully as probable I am wrong. It is like the case of a rustic walking 
 in London, who, having no certain direction through the vast confusion 
 of streets to the place whero he wishes to be, advances, and hesitates, 
 and turns, and inquires, and becomes, at each corner, still more inextric- 
 ably perplexed. A man in this situation feels ho shall bo very unfortun-
 
 42 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 precipitately into the field, and to encounter an enemy with 
 mere physical force has somewhat in it that is barbarous and 
 brutal. When the occasion, however, and its necessity 
 compel it, we should resist with force, and prefer death to 
 slavery or dishonor. 
 
 XXIV. But Avith regard to overthrowing and plundering 
 of cities, great consideration is required that nothing be done 
 rashly, nothing cruelly. 1 And this is the part of a great 
 man, after he has maturely weighed all circumstances, to 
 punish the guilty, to spare the many; and in every state of 
 fortune not to depart from an upright, virtuous conduct. 
 For, as you find (as I have already observed) men who prefer 
 military to civil duties, so will you find many of that cast who 
 look upon dangerous and violent resolutions to be more 
 splendid and more dignified than calm and digested measures. 
 We should never so entirely avoid danger as to appear 
 irresolute and cowardly ; but, at the same time, we should 
 
 ate if he can not .accomplish more than he can understand. Is not this 
 frequently, when brought to the practical test, the state of a mind not 
 disposed in general to undervalue its own judgment?" Foster's Essay 
 " On Decision of Character," Letter 2. 
 
 1 "If," says Paley, "the cause and end of war be justifiable, all the 
 means that appear necessary to the end are justifiable also. This is the 
 principle which defends those extremities to which the violence of war 
 usually proceeds ; for, since war is a contest by force between parties 
 who acknowledge no common superior, and since it includes not in its 
 idea the supposition of any convention which should place limits to the 
 operations of force, it has naturally no boundary but that in which force 
 terminates the destruction of the life against which the force is direct- 
 ed. Let it be observed, however, that the license of war authorizes no 
 acts of hostility but what are necessary or conducive to the end and ob- 
 ject of the war. Gratuitous barbarities borrow no excuse from this plea : 
 of which kind is every cruelty and every insult that serves only to exas- 
 perate the sufferings, or to incense the hatred, of an enemy, without 
 weakening his strength, or in any manner tending to procure his submis- 
 sion ; such as the slaughter of captives, the subjecting of them to indig- 
 nities or torture, the violation of women, the profanation of temples, the 
 demolition of public buildings, libraries, statues, and in general the de- 
 struction or defacing of works that conduce nothing to annoyance or de- 
 fense. These enormities are prohibited not only by the practice of civil- 
 ized nations, but by the law of nature itself, as having no proper tend- 
 ency to accelerate the termination, or accomplish the object of the war, 
 and as containing that which in peace and war is equally unjustifiable 
 ultimate and gratuitous mischief." " Moral and Political Philosophy," 
 book 6, chap. 12. .
 
 CHAP. xxiv. CICERO'S OFFICES. 43 
 
 avoid unnecessarily exposing ourselves to danger, than which 
 nothing can be more foolish. 
 
 In encountering dangers, therefore, we are to imitate the 
 practice of the physicians who apply to gentle illnesses 
 gentle medicines, but are forced to apply more desperate and 
 more doubtful cures to more dangerous diseases. It is the 
 part of a madman to wish for an adverse tempest in a calm, 
 but of a wise man to find relief against the tempest by what- 
 ever means ; and the rather if one incurs more advantage by 
 accomplishing the matter than disadvantage by keeping it in 
 suspense. Now the conducting of enterprises is dangerous 
 sometimes to the undertakers, and sometimes to the state ; 
 and hence some are in danger of losing their lives, some their 
 reputation, and some their popularity. But we ought to be 
 more forward to expose our own persons than the general 
 interests to danger, and to be more ready to fight for honor 
 and reputation than for other advantages. 
 
 Though many have been known cheerfully to venture not 
 only their money but their lives for the public ; yet those 
 very men have refused to suffer the smallest loss of glory 
 even at the request of their country. For instance, Calli- 
 cratidas, who, after performing many gallant actions at the 
 head of the Lacedaemonian armies, during the Peloponnesian 
 war, at last threw every thing into confusion by refusing to 
 obey the directions of those who were for removing the fleet 
 from Arginusae, and not for fighting the Athenians ; to 
 whom his answer was, that if the Lacedaemonians lost that 
 fleet they could fit out another, but that he could not turn his 
 back without dishonor to himself. 'Tis true, the blow that 
 followed upon this was not very severe to the Lacedaemonians ; 
 but it was a deadly one, when, from a fear of public odium, 
 Cleombrotus fought with Epamonidas, and the power of the 
 Lacedaemonians perished. How preferable was the conduct 
 of Quintus Maximus, of whom Ennius says : 
 
 " Tho man 1 who saved his country by delay, 
 No tales could move him, and no envy sway; 
 And thus the laurels on his honored brow, 
 In age shall flourish, and with time shall grow." 
 
 1 The verses quoted here by Enniua seem to have been in high repu- 
 tation with the Romans ; for Virgil has borrowed tho first of them, and 
 applied it, as our author does, to tho conduct of Fabiua Maximus against 
 IlatfnibaL
 
 44 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 This is a species of fault which ought also to be avoided 
 in civil matters ; for there are some men who, from a dread 
 of unpopularity, dare not express their opinions however 
 excellent they may be. 
 
 XXV. All who hope to rise in a state ought strictly to 
 observe two rules of Plato. The first is, that they so keep 
 in view the advantage of their fellow-citizens as to have 
 reference to it in whatever they do, regardless of their indi- 
 vidual interest. 1 The second is, that their cares be applied 
 to the whole of the state, lest while they are cherishing one 
 part they abandon the others. For the administration of 
 government, like a guardianship, ought to be directed to the 
 good of those who confer, and not of those who receive the 
 trust.* Now, they who consult the interests of one part of 
 
 1 " Political power is rightly exercised only when it subserves the wel- 
 fare of the community. The community, which has the right to with- 
 hold power, delegates it of course for its own advantage. If in any case 
 its advantage is not consulted, then the object for which it was delegated 
 is frustrated ; or, in simple words, the measure which does not promote- 
 the public welfare is not right. It matters nothing whether the commun- 
 ity have delegated specifically so much power for such and such purposes ; 
 the power, being possessed, entails the obligation. Whether a sovereign 
 derives absolute authority by inheritance, or whether a president is in- 
 trusted with limited authority for a year, the principles of their duty aro 
 the same. The obligation to employ it only for the public good is just 
 as real and just as great in one case as in the other. The Russian and 
 the Turk have the same right to require that the power of their rulers 
 shall bo so employed as the Englishman or American. They may not 
 bo able to assert this right, but that does not affect its existence, nor the 
 ruler's duty, nor his responsibility to that Almighty Being before whom 
 ho must give an account of his stewardship. These reasonings, if they 
 needed confirmation, derive it from the fact that the Deity imperatively 
 requires us, according to our opportunities to do good to man." Eymond'a 
 Essay 3, cap. 2 
 
 2 " Political powers (says Dymond) is rightly possessed only when it 
 is possessed by the consent of the community." Ibid. 
 
 The doctrine of the essential sovereignty of the people, and the dele- 
 gated power of all governors is thus laid down by Milton : " It is thus 
 manifest that the power of kings and magistrates is nothing else but 
 what is only derivative, transferred, and committed to them in trust from 
 the people to the common good of them all, in whom the power yet re- 
 mains fundamentally, and can not be taken from them without a viola- 
 tion of their natural birthright ; and from hence Aristotle, and tho best 
 of political writers, have defined a king, ' him who governs to tho good 
 and profit of his people, and not for his own ends.' " Milton's " Tenure 
 of Kings and Magistrates." And again : " It follows that since the king 
 or magistrate holds his authority of the people, both originally and nat-
 
 CHAP. xxv. CICERO'S OFFICES. 45 
 
 a community and neglect another, introduce into the state 
 the greatest of all evils, sedition and discord. From this 
 partiality some seem to court the people, some each great 
 man, but few the whole. Hence the great discords among 
 the Athenians, and in our government not only seditions 
 but the most destructive wars, which every worthy and brave 
 citizen who deserves to rise in the state will avoid and de- 
 test; he will give himself entirely up to the service of 
 his country, without regard to riches or to power, and he 
 will watch over the whole so as to consult the good of all. 
 He will even be far from bringing any man into hatred or 
 disgrace, by ill-grounded charges, and he will so closely 
 attach himself to the rules of justice and virtue, that how- 
 ever he may give offense he will preserve them, and incur 
 death itself rather than swerve from the principles I have 
 laid down. 
 
 Of all evils, ambition and the disputes for public posts are 
 the most deplorable. Plato, likewise, on this subject, says 
 very admirably, " that they who dispute for the management 
 of a state, resemble mariners wrangling about who should di- 
 rect the helm." He then lays down as a rule that we ought 
 to look upon those as our enemies who take arms against 
 the public, and not those who want to have public affairs di- 
 rected by their judgment. For instance, Publius Africanus and 
 Quintus Metellus differed in opinion, but without animosity. 
 
 Nor, indeed, are those to be listened to who consider that 
 we ought to cherish a bitter resentment against our enemies, 
 and that this is characteristic of a high-minded and bravo 
 man ; for nothing is more noble, nothing more worthy of a 
 great and a good man, than placability and moderation. 1 
 
 urally, for their good in the first place, and not his own, then may tho 
 people, as oft as they shall judge it for the best, either choose him or re- 
 ject him, retain him or depose him, though no tyrant, merely by the lib- 
 erty and right of free-born men to be governed as seems to them best. 
 This, though it can not but stand with plain reason, shall be made good 
 also by Scripture : ' When thou art come into tho land which the Lord 
 thy God giveth thee, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all 
 the nations about me.' Deut. xvii. 14. These words confirm us that 
 the right of choosing, yea of changing their own government, is by the 
 grant of God himself in tho people." Ibid. 
 
 1 It is impossible not to remark how far the popular standard of duty, 
 and tho modem laws of honor, fall below this high and almost Christian 
 morality of Cicero.
 
 46 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i, 
 
 Nay, amid free nations and equality of rights, an equability 
 and loftiness of temper is necessary, to prevent our falling 
 into an idle, disagreeable peevishness, when we are irritated 
 by persons approaching us unseasonably, or preferring to us 
 unreasonable requests. Yet this politeness and moderation 
 ought to be so tempered, that for the sake of the interests of 
 the state severity should be employed, otherwise public busi- 
 ness could not be carried on. Meanwhile, all reprimands and 
 punishments ought to be inflicted without abuse, without re- 
 gard to the party so punishing or reprimanding, but to the 
 good of the state. 
 
 We ought, likewise, to take care that the punishment be 
 proportioned to the offense, 1 and that some be not punished 
 for doing things for which others are not so much as called 
 to account. Above all things, in punishing we ought to 
 guard against passion ; for the man who is to pronounce a 
 sentence of punishment in a passion, never can preserve that 
 mean between what is too much and too little, which is so 
 justly recommended by the Peripatetics, did they not too 
 much commend the passion of anger, by asserting it to be a 
 useful property of our nature. For my part, I think that it 
 ought to be checked under all circumstances ; 2 and it were 
 to be wished that they who preside in government were like 
 
 1 " A slight perusal of the laws by which the measures of vindictive 
 and coercive justice are established, will discover so many disproportions 
 between crimes and punishments, such capricious distinctions of guilt, 
 and such confusion of remissness aud severity, as can scarcely be be- 
 lieved to have been produced by public wisdom, sincerely and calmly 
 studious of public happiness." Dr. Johnson. 
 
 a "Be ye angry, and sin not;" therefore, all anger is not sinful; I sup- 
 pose because some degree of it, and upon some occasions, is inevitable. 
 It becomes sinful, or contradicts, however, the rule of Scripture, when it is 
 conceived upon slight and inadequate provocation, and when it continues 
 long. Paley's "Moral and Political Philosophy," book 3, chap. 7. 
 
 "From anger in its full import, protracted into malevolence, aud exert- 
 ed in revenge, arise, indeed, many of the evils to which the life of man 
 is exposed. By anger operating upon power are produced the subver- 
 sion of cities, the desolation of countries, the massacre of nations, and 
 all those dreadful and astonishing calamities which fill the histories of 
 the world, and which could not be read at any distant point of time, when 
 the passions stand neutral, and every motive and principle are left to its 
 natural force, without some doubt of the truth of the relation, did we not 
 seo the same causes still tending to the same effects, and only acting with 
 less vigor for want of the same concurrent opportunities." Dr. Johnson.
 
 CHAP. xxvi. CICERO'S OFFICES. 47 
 
 the laws, which in punishing are not directed by resentments 
 but by equity. 
 
 XXVI. Now, during our prosperity, and while things flow 
 agreeably to our desire, we ought with great care to avoid 
 pride and arrogance ; for, as it discovers weakness not to bear 
 adversity with equanimity, so also with prosperity. That 
 equanimity in every condition of life is a noble attribute, and 
 that uniform expression of countenance and appearance which 
 we find recorded of Socrates, and also of Caius Laelius. 
 Though Philip of Macedon was excelled by his son in his 
 achievements and his renown, yet I find him superior to him 
 in politeness and goodness of nature ; the one, therefore, al- 
 ways appeared great, while the other often became detestable. 
 So that they appear to teach rightly, who admonish us that 
 the more advanced we are in our fortune the more affable 
 ought we to be in our behavior. Pansetius tells us his 
 scholar and friend, Africanus, used to say, that as horses, 
 grown unruly by being in frequent engagements, are deliv- 
 ered over to be tamed by horse-breakers, thus men, who grew 
 riotous and self-sufficient by prosperity, ought, as it were, to 
 be exercised in the traverse of reason and philosophy, that they 
 may learn the inconstancy of human affairs and the uncertainty 
 of fortune. 
 
 In the time of our greatest prosperity we should also have 
 the greatest recourse to the advice of our friends, and greater 
 authority should be conceded to them than before. At such a 
 time wo are to take care not to lend our ears to flatterers, or to 
 suffer ourselves to be imposed upon by adulation, by which it 
 is easy to be misled : for we then think ourselves such as may 
 be justly praised, an opinion that gives rise to a thousand 
 errors in conduct; because, when men are once blown up 
 with idle conceits, they are exposed to ignominious rid- 
 icule and led into the greatest mistakes. So much for this 
 subject. 
 
 One thing you are to understand, that they who regulate 
 public affairs perform the greatest exploits, and such as 
 require the highest style of mind, because their business is 
 most extensive and concerns the greatest number. Yet there 
 are, and have been, many men of great capacities, who in 
 private life have planned out or attempted mighty matters, 
 and yet have confined themselves to the limits of their own
 
 48 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 affairs ; or, being thrown into a middle state, between philoso- 
 phers and those who govern the state, have amused themselves 
 with the management of their private fortune, without swelling 
 it by all manner of means, not debarring their friends from the 
 benefit of it, but rather, when occasion calls upon them, shar- 
 ing it both with their friends and their country. This should 
 be originally acquired with honesty, without any scandalous or 
 oppressive practices ; it should then be made serviceable to as 
 many as possible, provided they be worthy ; it should next bo 
 augmented by prudence, by industry, and frugality, without 
 serving the purposes of pleasure and luxury rather than of gen- 
 erosity and humanity. The man who observes those rules may 
 live with magnificence, with dignity, and with spirit, yet with 
 simplicity and honor, and agreeably to (the economy of ) hu- 
 man life. 
 
 XXVII. The next thing is, to treat of that remaining part 
 of virtue in which consist chastity and those (as we may 
 term them) ornaments of life, temperance, moderation, and all 
 that allays the perturbations of the mind. Under this head 
 is comprehended what in Latin we may call decorum (or the 
 graceful), for the Greeks term it the n^enor. Now, its quality 
 is such that it is indiscernible from the honestum ; for what- 
 ever is graceful is virtuous, and whatever is virtuous is grace- 
 ful. 
 
 But it is more easy to conceive than to express the differ- 
 ence between what is virtuous and what is graceful (or 
 between the honestum and the decorum] ; for whatever is 
 graceful appears such, when virtue is its antecedent. What 
 is graceful, therefore, appears not only in that division of 
 virtue which is here treated of, but in the three foregoing 
 ones ; for it is graceful in a man to think and to speak with 
 propriety, to act with deliberation, and in every occurrence 
 of life to find out and persevere in the truth. On the other 
 hand, to be imposed upon, to mistake, to falter, and to bo 
 deceived, is as ungraceful as to rave or to be insane. Thus, 
 whatever is just is graceful ; whatever is unjust is as un- 
 graceful as it is criminal. The same principle applies to 
 courage ; for every manly and magnanimous action is worthy 
 of a man, and graceful ; the reverse, as being unworthy, is un- 
 graceful. 
 
 This, therefore, which I call gracefulness, is a universal
 
 CHAP. rxvm. CICERO'S OFFICES. 49 
 
 property of virtue, and a property that is self-evident, and not 
 discerned by any profundity of reasoning ; for there is a cer- 
 tain gracefulness that is implied in every virtue, and which may 
 exist distinctly from virtue, rather in thought than in fact : as 
 grace and beauty of person, for example, can not be separated 
 from health, so the whole of that gracefulness which I here 
 speak of is blended with virtue, but may exist separately in the 
 mind and in idea. 
 
 Now, the definition of this is twofojd : for there is a general 
 gracefulness that is the property of all virtue, and that includes 
 another, which is fitted to the particular divisions of virtue. 
 The former is commonly defined to be that gracefulness that is 
 conformable to that excellence of man, in which he differs from 
 other sentient beings ; but the special, which is comprised un- 
 der the general, is defined to be a gracefulness so adapted to 
 nature as to exhibit propriety and sweetness under a certain 
 elegant appearance. 
 
 XXVIII. We may perceive that these things are so 
 understood from that gracefulness which is aimed at by the 
 poets, and of which elsewhere more is wont to be said ; for 
 we say that the poets observe that gracefulness to be when 
 a person speaks and acts in that manner which is most 
 becoming his character. Thus if ^Eacus or Minus should 
 say : 
 
 Let them hato me, so they fear me ; 
 Or 
 
 The father's belly is his children's grave, 
 
 it would seem unsuitable, because we know them to have been 
 just persons ; but when said by an Atreus, they are received 
 with applause, because the speech is worthy of the character. 
 Now, poets will form their judgment of what is becoming in 
 each individual according to his character ; but nature herself 
 has stamped on us a character in excellence greatly surpassing 
 the rest of the animal creation. 
 
 Poets, therefore, in their vast variety of characters, consider 
 what is proper and what is becoming, even in the vicious : but 
 as nature herself has cast to us our parts in constancy, modera- 
 tion, temperance, and modesty ; as she, at the same time, in- 
 structs us not to be unmindful how we should behave to man- 
 kind, the effect is, that the extent both of that gracefulness 
 
 3
 
 50 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK L 
 
 which is the general property of all virtue, and of that par- 
 ticular gracefulness that is adapted to every species of it, is 
 discovered. For as personal beauty, by ihe symmetrical dis- 
 position of the limbs, attracts our attention and. pleases the 
 eye, by the harmony and elegance with which each part cor- 
 responds to another, so that gracefulness which manifests itself 
 in life, attracts the approbation of those among whom we live, by 
 ;Jae order, consistency, and modesty of all our words and deeds. 
 There is, therefore, a degree of respect due from us, suited 
 10 every man's character, from the best to the worst : for it 
 is not only arrogant, but it is profligate, for a man to disre- 
 gard the world's opinion of himself; but, in our estimate of 
 human life, we are to make a difference between justice and 
 moral susceptibility. 1 The dictate of justice is to do no 
 
 1 Justice and moral susceptibility.'] Orig. Justiciam et verecundiam. 
 This is a very fine passage, and deserves to be explained. Verecundia is 
 commonly translated bashfulness or modesty ; but in the sense of our au^ 
 thor here, neither of these two words will do ; nor am I sure that tho 
 word decency, or any word in tho English tongue, comes fully up to his 
 meaning, which is, an inborn reverence for what is right, and which sup- 
 plies the place of, and sometimes controls, the law. Many actions may 
 be agreeable to law, and yet disagreeable to this inborn principle. The 
 tragedian Seneca has distinguished them very finely. He brings in 
 Pyrrhus, saying, 
 
 Pyr. Lex nulla capto parcit aut poenam impedit. 
 To this Agamemnon replies, 
 
 Ag. Quod non vetat lex, hoc vetat fieri pudor. 
 
 Pyr. "No law exempts a captive from the sword." 
 
 Ag. "Where the law does not, moral duties bind." 
 Our author inculcates the same principles in many other parts of his 
 works ; and it was afterward admitted by Justinian into his Institutes. 
 "Fide commissa appellata sunt, quia nullo vinculo juris, sed tantum pu- 
 dore eorum qui rogabantur, continebantur." " Deeds of trust were so 
 called, because the party intrusted was not obligated by law, but by con- 
 science or morality." Ovid has a very noble sentiment, which he seems 
 to have taken from our author and from Plato. 
 
 Nondum justiciam facinus mortale fugarat, 
 
 Ultima de superis ilia reliquit humum ; 
 Proque metu, populum, sine vi, pudor ipso regebat. 
 " Nor justice yet had fled from Iniman crimes, 
 Of all their godheads she the last remained; 
 For awful conscience, in those happy times, 
 Ruled without fear, and without force restrained." 
 ferecundia or pudor, therefore, is properly an inward abhorrence of
 
 OHAP. xxvnx CICERO'S OFFICES. 5] 
 
 wrong ; that of moral susceptibility is to give no offense to 
 mankind, and in this the force of the graceful is most percept- 
 ible. By these explanations I conceive that what we mean by 
 the graceful and becoming may be understood. 
 
 Now the duty resulting from this has a primary tendency 
 to and agreement with and conservation of our nature ; and 
 if we follow it as a guide we never shall err, but shall attain 
 
 moral turpitude, through which the conscience is awed, and may be said 
 to blush. Plato, and from him Plutarch, makes justice and this verecun- 
 dia to bo inseparable companions. " God (says the former), being afraid 
 lest the human race should entirely perish upon earth, gave to mankind 
 justice and moral susceptibility, those ornaments of states and the bonds 
 of society." 
 
 It is on the possession of this moral susceptibility, anterior to ard in- 
 dependent of human laws, that Bishop Butler founds his ethical system. 
 Thus he says of man, that " from his make, constitution, or nature, he 
 is, in the strictest and most proper sense, a law to himself;" that "he 
 hath the rule of right within," and that (i what is wanting is only that he 
 honestly attend to it ;" and, in enforcing the authority of this natural 
 monitor, "your obligation to obey this law ia its being the law of your 
 nature. That your conscience approves of and attests to such a course 
 of action is itself alone an obligation. Conscience does not only ofler 
 itself to show us the way wo should walk in, but it likewise carries its 
 own authority with it, that it is our natural guide the guide assigned 
 us by the Author of our nature. It, therefore, belongs to our condition 
 of being ; it is our duty to walk in that path, and to follow this guide, 
 without looking about to see whether we may not possibly forsake them 
 with impunity." It is with a like reference that Lord Bacon says : 
 " The light of nature not only shines upon the human mind through the 
 medium of a rational faculty, but by an internal instinct, according to 
 the law of conscience, which is a sparkle of the purity of man's first 
 estate." But a parallel passage from tho pen of Cicero himself, affords a 
 still fuller and loftier enunciation of this principle : " There is, indeed, 
 one true and original law, conformable to reason and to nature, diffused 
 over all, invariable, eternal, which calls to the fulfillment of duty and to 
 abstinence from injustice, and which calls with that irresistible voice 
 which is felt in all its authority wherever it is heard. This law can not 
 be abolished or curtailed, nor affected in its sanctions by any law of man. 
 A whole senate, a whole people, can not dispense from its paramount 
 obligation. It requires no commentator to render it distinctly intelligible, 
 nor ia it different at Rome, and at Athens, at the present, and in ages to 
 come ; but in all times and in all nations, it is, and has been, and will 
 be, one and everlasting one as that God, its great Author and promul- 
 gator, who is the common sovereign of all mankind, is himself one. No 
 man can disobey it without flying, as it were, from his own bosom and 
 repudiating his nature, and in this very act will inflict on himself the 
 severest of retributions, even though he escape what is commonly re- 
 garded as punishment."
 
 52 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 to that natural excellence which consists in acuteness and 
 sagacity, to that which is best adapted to human society, and to 
 that which is energetic and manly. 1 But the chief force of the 
 graceful lies in that suitableness of which I am now treating. 
 For not only those emotions of a physical kind, but still more 
 those of the mind are to be approved as they are comforrnablc 
 to nature. For the nature .and powers of the mind are two- 
 fold; one consists in appetite, by the Greeks called OQUTJ (i, e. 
 impulse), which hurries man hither and thither ; the other in 
 reason, which teaches and explains what we are to do, and 
 what we are to avoid. The result is, that reason should direct 
 and appetite obey. 
 
 XXIX. Now every human action ought to be free from 
 precipitancy and negligence, nor indeed ought we to do any 
 thing for which we can not give a justifiable reason. This 
 indeed almost amounts to a definition of duty. Now we 
 must manage so as to keep the appetites subservient to 
 reason, that they may neither outstrip it nor fall behind 
 through sloth and cowardice. Let them be ever composed 
 and free from all perturbation of spirit; and thus entire 
 consistency and moderation will display themselves. For 
 those appetites that are too vagrant and rampant as it were, 
 either through desire or aversion, are not sufficiently under 
 the command of reason ; such, I say, undoubtedly transgress 
 bounds and moderation. For they abandon and disclaim 
 that subordination to reason, to which by the law of nature 
 they are subjected, and thereby not only the mind but the 
 body is thrown into disturbance. Let any one observe the 
 very looks of men who are in a rage, of those who are 
 agitated by desire or fear, or who exult in an excess of joy; 
 all whose countenances, voices, motions, and attitudes, are 
 changed. 
 
 But to return to my description of duty. From these par- 
 ticulars we learn that all our appetites ought to be contracted 
 and mitigated ; that all our attention and diligence ought to 
 be awake, so that we do nothing in a rash, random, thought- 
 less, and inconsiderate manner. For nature has not formed 
 us to sport and merriment, but rather to seriousness, and 
 studies that are important and sublime. Sport and merriment 
 
 x In other words, to wisdom, justice, and fortitude.
 
 CHAP. xxx. CICERO'S OFFICES. 58 
 
 are not always disallowable : but we are to use them as we do 
 sleep and other kinds of repose, when we have dispatched our 
 weighty and important affairs. Nay, our very manner of jok- 
 ing should be neither wanton nor indecent, but genteel and 
 good-humored. For as we indulge boys not in an unlimited 
 license of sport, but only in that which is not inconsistent with 
 virtuous conduct, so in our very jokes there should appear 
 some gleam of a virtuous nature. 
 
 The manner of joking is reduceable under two denomina- 
 tions ; one that is ill-bred, insolent, profligate, and obscene ; 
 another that is elegant, polite, witty, and good-humored. 
 We have abundance of this last, not only in our Plautus, 
 and the authors of the old Greek comedy, but in the writings 
 of the Socratic philosophers. Many collections have likewise 
 been made by various writers, of humorous sayings, such as 
 that made by Cato, and called his Apopthegms. The dis- 
 dinction, therefore, between a genteel and an ill-mannered 
 joke is a very ready one. The former, if seasonably 
 made, and when the attention is relaxed, is worthy of a 
 virtuous man; the other, if it exhibit immorality in its 
 subject, or obscenity in the expression, is unworthy even of a 
 man. There is likewise a certain limit to be observed, even 
 in our amusements, that we do not give up every thing to 
 amusement, and that, after being elevated by pleasure, we 
 do not sink into some immorality. Our Campus Martius, 
 and the sport of hunting, supply creditable examples of 
 amusement. 
 
 XXX. But in all our disquisitions concerning the nature of 
 a duty, it is material that we keep in our eye the great excel- 
 lence of man's nature above that of the brutes and all other crea- 
 tures. They are insensible to every thing but pleasure, and are 
 hurried to it by every impulse. Whereas the mind of man is 
 nourished by study and reflection, and, being charmed by the 
 pleasure of seeing and hearing, it is ever either inquiring or 
 acting. But if there is a man who has a small bias to pleasure, 
 provided he is not of the brute kind (for there are some who 
 are men only in name) ; but, I say, if he is more high-minded 
 even in a small degree, though he may be smitten with pleas- 
 ure, he yet, through a principle of shame, hides and disguises 
 his inclination for it. 
 
 From this we are to conclude that mere corporeal pleasure
 
 54 CICERO'S OFFICES. EOOKI. 
 
 is unworthy the excellence of man's nature ; and that it ought 
 therefore to be despised and rejected ; but that if a man 
 shall have any delight in pleasure, he ought to be extremely 
 observant of limits in its indulgence. Therefore the nourish- 
 ment and dress of our bodies should be with a view not to our 
 pleasure, but to our health and our strength ; and should we 
 examine the excellence and dignity of our nature, we should 
 then be made sensible how shameful it is to melt away in pleas- 
 ure, and to live in voluptuousness and effeminacy ; and how 
 noble it is to live with abstinence, with modesty, with strict- 
 ness, and sobriety. 
 
 We are likewise to observe that nature has, as it were, en- 
 dowed us with two characters. The first is in common to all 
 mankind, because all of us partake in that excellency of 
 reason, which places us above the brutes ; from which is 
 derived all that is virtuous, all that is graceful, and by which 
 we trace our connections with our several duties. The other 
 character is peculiar to individuals. For, as there are great 
 dissimilarities in our persons some for instance are swift in 
 running, others strong in wrestling; and in style of beauty 
 some have a dignity, and others a sweetness of aspect so are 
 there still greater varieties in our minds. 
 
 Lucius Crassus and Lucius Philippus had a great deal of 
 wit; but in Caius Caesar, the son of Lucius, it was greater 
 in degree, and more elaborate. In their cotemporaries, 
 Marcus Scaurus, and young Marcus Drusus, there was a 
 remarkable seriousness ; in Caius La3lius great hilarity ; but 
 in his friend Scipio greater ambition, and a graver style of 
 life. As to the Greeks, we are told of Socrates that he was 
 agreeable and witty ; his conversation jocose, and in all his 
 discourse a feigner of opinions whom the Greeks called 
 el'par. On the other hand, Pythagoras and Pericles, without 
 any gayety, attained the highest authority. Among the 
 Carthaginian generals, Hannibal, we learn, was crafty, and 
 Quintus Maximus among our own generals was apt at con- 
 cealment, secrecy, dissimulation, plotting, and anticipating the 
 designs of enemies. In this class the Greeks rank Themis- 
 tocles, and lason of Phera3, above all others ; and place among 
 the very first, that cunning and artful device of Solon, when, 
 to secure his own life, and that he might be of greater service 
 to his country, he counterfeited madness. In opposition to
 
 CHAP. xxxi. CICERO'S OFFICES. 55 
 
 those characters, the tempers of many others are plain and 
 open. Lovers of truth and haters of deceit, they think that 
 nothing should be done by stealth, nothing by stratagem; 
 while others care not what they suffer themselves, or whom 
 hey stoop to, provided they accomplish their ends; as we 
 have seen Sylla and Marcus Orassus. In which class Lysander 
 the Lacedaemonian, we are told, had the greatest art and per- 
 severance, and that Callicratides, who succeeded to Lysander in 
 the command of the fleet, was the reverse. We have known 
 some others, who though very powerful in conversation, 
 always make themselves appear undistinguished individuals 
 among many ; such were the Catuli, father and son, and 
 Quintus Mucius Mancia. I have heard from men older than 
 myself, that Publius Scipio Nasica was of the same cast, but 
 that his father, the same who punished the pernicious designs 
 of Tiberius Gracchus, was void of all politeness in conver- 
 sation : and the same of Xenocrates, the most austere of 
 philosophers, and from that very circumstance a distinguished 
 and celebrated man. Innumerable, but far from being blam- 
 able, are the other differences in the natures and manners of 
 men. 
 
 XXXL Every man, however, ought carefully to follow out 
 his peculiar character, provided it is only peculiar, and not 
 vicious, that he may the more easily attain that gracefulness of 
 which we are inquiring. For we ought to manage so as never 
 to counteract the general system of nature ; but having taken 
 care of that, we are to follow our natural bias ; insomuch, that 
 though other studies may be of greater weight and excellence, 
 yet we are to regulate our pursuits by the disposition of our 
 nature. It is to no purpose to thwart nature, or to aim 
 at what you can not attain. We therefore may have a still 
 clearer conception of the graceful I am recommending, from 
 this consideration, that nothing is graceful that goes (as the 
 saying is) against the grain, that is, in contradiction and oppo- 
 sition to nature. 
 
 If any thing at all is graceful, nothing surely is more so 
 than a uniformity through the course of all your life, as 
 well as through every particular action of it ; and you 
 never can preserve this uniformity, if, aping another man's 
 nature, you forsake your own. For as we ought to converse 
 in the language we are best acquainted with, for fear of
 
 56 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK L 
 
 making ourselves justly ridiculous, as those do who cram in 
 Greek expressions ; so there ought to be no incongruity in our 
 actions, and none in all the tenor of our lives. 1 
 
 Now so powerful is this difference of natures, that it may be 
 the duty of one man to put himself to death, and yet not of 
 another, though in the same predicament. For was the pre- 
 dicament of Marcus Cato different from that of those who sur- 
 rendered themselves to Caesar in Africa ? Yet it had been 
 perhaps blamable in the latter, had they put themselves to 
 death, because their lives were less severe, and their moral 
 natures more pliable. But it became Cato, who had by per- 
 petual perseverance strengthened that inflexibility which nature 
 had given him, and had never departed from the purpose and 
 resolution he had once formed, to die rather than to look upon 
 the face of a tyrant. 8 
 
 1 " Decency, or a proper regard to age, sex, character, and station in 
 the world, may bo ranked among the qualities which are immediately 
 agreeable to others, and which by that means acquire praise and appro- 
 bation. An effeminate behavior in a man, a rough manner in a woman, 
 these are ugly because unsuitable to each character, and different from 
 the qualities which we expect in the sexes. It is as if a tragedy abound- 
 ed in comic beauties, or a comedy in tragic. The disproportions hurt the 
 eye, and convey a disagreeable sentiment to the spectators, the source 
 of blame and disapprobation. This is that indecorum which is explained 
 so much at large by Cicero in his Offices." Hume's "Principles of 
 Morals," sec. 8. 
 
 2 The guilt of suicide lias been palliated by Godwin, and utterly de- 
 nied by Hume. The following remarks emanated from a sounder moral- 
 ist than either: 
 
 " The lesson which the self-destroyer teaches to his connections, of 
 sinking in despair under the evils of life, is one of the most pernicious 
 which a man can bequeath. The power of tho example is also great. 
 Every act of suicide tacitly conveys the sanction of one more judgment 
 in its favor ; frequency of repetition diminishes the sensation of abhor- 
 rence, and makes succeeding sufferers resort to it with less reluctance." 
 " Besides which general reasons," says Dr. Paley, (" Moral and Political 
 Philosophy," book 4, c. 3), " each case will be aggravated by its own 
 proper and particular consequences ; by tho duties that are deserted ; by 
 the claims that are defrauded ; by the loss, affliction, or disgrace, which 
 our death, or the manner of it, causes our family, kindred, or friends ; by 
 the occasion we give to many to suspect the sincerity of our moral and 
 religious professions, and together with ours those of all others;" and 
 lastly by the scandal which we bring upon religion itself, by declaring 
 practically that it is not able to support man under the calamities of life. 
 Some men say that the New Testament contains no prohibition of suicide. 
 If this were true it would avail nothing, because there are many things
 
 CHAP. xxxi. CICERO'S OFFICES. 5> 
 
 How various were those sufferings of Ulysses, in his long 
 continued wanderings, when he became the slave of women 
 (if you consider Circe and Calypso as such) : and in all he 
 said he sought to be complaisant and agreeable to every 
 body, nay, put up with abuses from slaves and handmaidens 
 at home, that he might at length compass what he desired ; 
 but with the spirit with which he is represented, Ajax would 
 have preferred a thousand deaths to suffering such indignities. 
 
 In the contemplation of which each ought to consider what 
 is peculiar to himself, and to regulate those peculiarities, with- 
 out making any experiments how another man's become them ; 
 for that manner which is most peculiarly a man's own always 
 becomes him best. 
 
 Every man ought, therefore, to study his own genius, so 
 as to become an impartial judge of his own good and bad 
 qualities, otherwise the players will discover better sense 
 than we ; for they don't choose for themselves those parts 
 that are the most excellent, but those which are best adapted 
 to them. Those who rely on their voices choose the part of 
 Epigonas or Medus ; the best actors that of Menalippa or 
 Clytemnestra. Rupilius, who I remember, always selected 
 that of Antiopa ; Esopus seldom chose that of Ajax. Shall 
 a player, then, observe this upon the stage, and shall a wise 
 man not observe it in the conduct of life ? Let us, there- 
 fore, most earnestly apply to those parts for which we are 
 best fitted ; but shculd necessity degrade us into characters 
 
 which it does uot forbid, but which every one knows to be wicked. But 
 in reality it does forbid it. Every exhortation which it gives to be pa- 
 tient, every encouragement to trust in God, every consideration which it 
 urges as a support under affliction and distress, is a virtual prohibition 
 of suicide ; because if a man commits suicide he rejects every such ad- 
 vioe and encouragement, and disregards every such motive. 
 
 " To him who believes either in revealed or natural religion, there is a 
 certain folly in the commission of suicide ; for from what does he fly ? 
 from his present sufferings, while death, for aught that ho has reason to 
 expect, or at any rate for aught that he knows, may only be the portal 
 to sufferings more intense. Natural religion, I think, gives no counten- 
 ance to the supposition that suicide can bo approved by the Deity, be- 
 cause it proceeds upon the belief that, in another state of existence, he 
 will compensate good men for the sufferings of the present. At the 
 best, and under either religion, it is a desperate stake. He that commits 
 murder may repeat, and, wo hope, be forgiven ; but he that destroys 
 himself, while he incurs a load of guilt, cuts off by the act the power of 
 repentance." Dymond's Essays, Essay ii. chap. 16. 
 
 3*
 
 58 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 unsuitable to our genius, let us employ all our care, attention, 
 and industry, in endeavoring to perform them, if not with pro- 
 priety, with as little impropriety as possible : nor should we 
 strive so much to attain excellencies which have not been con- 
 ferred on us, as to 'avoid defects. 
 
 XXXII. To the two characters above described is added a 
 third, which either accident or occasion imposes on us; and 
 even a fourth, which we accommodate to ourselves by our own 
 judgment and choice. Now kingdoms, governments, honors, 
 dignities, riches, interest, and whatever arc the qualities con- 
 trary to them, happen through accident, and are directed by 
 occasions ; but what part we ourselves should wish to act, 
 originates from our own will. Some, therefore, apply to philos- 
 ophy, to the civil law, and some to eloquence ; and of the virtues 
 themselves some endeavor to shine in one, and some in another. 
 
 Men generally are ambitious of distinguishing themselves 
 in that kind of excellence in which their fathers or their an- 
 cestors were most famous : for instance, Quintus, the son of 
 Publius Mucius, in the civil law ; Africanus, the son of 
 Paulus, in the art of war. Some, however, increase, by 
 merits of their own, that glory which they have received from 
 their fathers; for the same Africanus crowned his military 
 glory with the practice of eloquence. In like manner, Timo- 
 theus, the son of Conon, who equaled his father in the duties 
 of the field, but added to them the glory of genius and learn- 
 ing. Sometimes, however, it happens that men, laying aside the 
 imitation of their ancestors, follow a purpose of their own ; and 
 J- : s is most commonly the case with such men -who, though de- 
 scended from obscure ancestors, purpose to themselves great 
 aims. 
 
 In our search, then, after what is graceful, all those particu- 
 lars ought to be embraced in our contemplation and study. In 
 the first place, we are to determine who and what manner of 
 men we are to be, and what mode of life we are to adopt a 
 consideration which is the most difficult of all ; for, in our early 
 youth, there is the greatest weakness of judgment, every one 
 chooses to himself that kind of life which he has most fancied. 
 He, therefore, is -trepanned into some fixed and settled course 
 of living before he is capable to judge what is the most 
 proper. 1 
 
 1 " I have often thought those happy that have been fixed, from the first
 
 CHAP. Trrrrr. CICERO'S OFFICES. 59 
 
 For the Hercules of Prodicus, as we learn from Xenophon, 
 in his early puberty (an age appointed by nature for every 
 man's choosing his scheme of life) is said to have gone into a 
 solitude, and there sitting down, to have deliberated within 
 himself much, and for a long time, whether of two paths that 
 he saw before him it was better to enter on, the one of pleasure, 
 the other of virtue. This might, indeed, happen to a Jove- 
 begotten Hercules ; but not so with us, who imitate those 
 whom we have an opinion of, and are thereby drawn into 
 their pursuits and purposes : for generally prepossessed by 
 the principles of our parents, we are drawn away to their 
 customs and habits. Others, swayed by the judgment of 
 the multitude, are passionately fond of those things which 
 seem best to the majority. A few, however, either through 
 some good fortune, or a certain excellency of nature, or 
 through the training of their parents, pursue the right path of 
 life. 
 
 XXXIII. The rarest class is composed of those who, en- 
 dowed with an exalted genius, or with excellent education and 
 learning, or possessing both, have had scope enough for deliber- 
 ating as to what course of life they would be most willing to 
 adopt. Every design, in such a deliberation, ought to be re- 
 ferred to the natural powers of the individual ; for since, as I 
 said before, we discover this propriety in every act which is per- 
 formed, by reference to the qualities with which a man is born, 
 so, in fixing the plan of our future life, we ought to be still 
 much more careful in that respect, that we may be consistent 
 throughout the duration of life with ourselves, and not deficient 
 in any one duty. 
 
 But because nature in this possesses the chief power, and 
 
 dawn of thought, in a determination to some state of life, by the choice of 
 one whose authority may preclude caprice, and whose influence may prej- 
 udice them in favor of his opinion. The general precept of consulting 
 the genius is of little use, unless we are told how the genius can bo 
 known. If it is to be discovered only by experiment, life will bo lost 
 before the resolution can be fixed ; if any other indications are to be 
 found, they may, perhaps, be very early discerned. At least, if to mis- 
 carry in an attempt bo a proof of having mistaken the direction of the 
 genius, men appear not less frequently deceived with regard to themselves 
 than to others; and therefore no one has much reason to complain that 
 his life was planned out by his friends, or to be confident that he should 
 have had either more honor or happiness, by being abandoned to the 
 chance of his own fancy." Dr. Johnson's " Rambler," No. 19.
 
 60 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 fortune the next, we ought to pay regard to both in fixing 
 our scheme of life ; but chiefly to nature, as she is much 
 more firm and constant, insomuch that the struggle some- 
 times between nature and fortune, seems to be between a 
 mortal and an immortal being. The man, therefore, who 
 adapts his whole system of living to his uudepraved nature, let 
 him maintain his constancy ; for that, above all things, be- 
 comes a man, provided he come not to learn that he has been 
 mistaken in his choice of a mode of life. Should that occur, as 
 it possibly may, a change must be made in all his habits and 
 purposes which, if circumstances shall be favorable, we shall 
 mere easily and readily effect ; but, should it happen otherwise, 
 it must be done slowly and gradually. Thus men of sense 
 think it more suitable that friendships which are disagreeable 
 or not approved should be gradually detached, rather than sud- 
 denly cut off. Still, upon altering our scheme of life, we ought 
 to take the utmost care to make it appear that we have done it 
 upon good grounds. 
 
 But if, as I said above, we arc to imitate our ancestors, 
 this should be first excepted that their bad qualities must not 
 be imitated. In the next place, if nature does not qualify 
 us to imitate them in some things, we are not to attempt it : 
 for instance, the son of the elder Africanus, who adopted the 
 younger son of Paulus, could not, from infirmity of health, 
 resemble his father so much as his father did his grand- 
 father. If, therefore, a man is unable to defend causes, to 
 entertain the people, by haranguing, or to wage war, yet still 
 he ought to do what is in his power ; he ought to practice jus- 
 tice, honor, generosity, modesty, and temperance, that what is 
 wanting may be the less required of him. Now, the best 
 inheritance a parent can leave a child more excellent than 
 any patrimony is the glory of his virtue and his deeds ; to 
 bring disgrace on which ought to be regarded as wicked and 
 monstrous. 
 
 XXXIV. And as the same moral duties are not suited to the 
 different periods of life, some belonging to the young, others 
 to the old, we must likewise say somewhat on this distinc- 
 tion. It is the duty of a young man to reverence his elders, 
 and among them to select the best and the worthiest, on 
 whose advice and authority to rely. For the inexperience 
 of youth ought to be instructed and conducted by the wisdom
 
 CHAP, xxxiv. CICERO'S OFFICES. 61 
 
 of the aged. Above all things, the young man ought to be 
 restrained from lawless desires, and exercised in endurance and 
 labor both of body and mind, that by persevering in them, he 
 may be efficient in the duties both of war and peace. Nay, 
 when they even unbend their minds and give themselves up to 
 mirth, they ought to avoid intemperance, and never lose sight of 
 morality ; and this will be the more easy if even upon such oc- 
 casions they desire that their elders should be associated with 
 them. 1 
 
 As to old men, their bodily labors seem to require diminution, 
 but the exercises of their mind ought even to be increased. 
 Their care should be to assist their friends, the youth, and 
 above all their country, to the utmost of their ability by their 
 advice and experience. Now there is nothing that old age ought 
 more carefully to guard against, than giving itself up to listless- 
 ness and indolence. As to luxury, though it is shameful in 
 every stage of life, in old age it is detestable ; but if to that is 
 added intemperance in lawless desires, the vil is doubled ; be- 
 cause old age itself thereby incurs disgrace ; and makes the 
 excesses of the young more shameless. 11 
 
 Neither is it foreign to my purpose to touch upon the duties 
 of magistrates, of private citizens, and of strangers. It is then 
 the peculiar duty of a magistrate to bear in mind that he rep- 
 resents the state, and that he ought, therefore, to maintain its 
 dignity and glory, to preserve its constitution, to act by its laws, 
 and to remember that these things are committed to his fidel- 
 
 1 So Dr. South describes joy as exhibited by Adam in the state of inno- 
 cence, in the most remarkable of his productions, the sermon entitled 
 " Man created in God's image." " It was (says ho) refreshing, but com- 
 posed, like the gayety of youth tempered with the gravity of age, or the 
 mirth of a festival managed with the silence of contemplation." The 
 course hero prescribed was adopted in the institutions of Lycurgus, and 
 recommended by Plato. 
 
 2 " It may very reasonably bo suspected that the old draw upon them- 
 selves the greatest parts of those insults which they so much lament, and 
 that age is rarely despised but when it is contemptible. If men imagine 
 that excessive debauchery can be made reverend by time, that knowl- 
 edge is the consequence of long life, however idly and thoughtlessly em- 
 ployed, that priority of birth will supply the want of steadiness or 
 honesty, can it raise much wonder that their hopes are disappointed, 
 and that they see their posterity rather willing to trust their own eyes 
 in then* progress into life, than enlist themselves under guides who havo 
 lost their way ?" Dr. Johnson.
 
 62 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK L 
 
 ity. 1 As to a private man and citizen, his duty is to live upon 
 a just and equal footing with his fellow-citizens, neither subor- 
 dinate and subservient nor domineering. In his sentiments of 
 the public to be always for peaceful and virtuous measures ; for 
 such we are accustomed to imagine and describe a virtuous 
 citizen. 
 
 Now the duty of a stranger and an alien is, to mind nothing 
 but his own business, not to intermeddle with another, and least 
 of all to be curious about the affairs of a foreign government. 
 Thus we shall generally succeed in the practice of the moral 
 duties, when we inquire after what is most becoming and best 
 fitted to persons, occasions, and ages ; and nothing is more be- 
 coming than in all our actions and in all our deliberations to 
 preserve consistency. 
 
 XXXV. But, because the graceful or becoming character we 
 treat of appears in all our words and actions, nay, in every 
 motion and disposition of our person, and consists of three par- 
 ticulars, beauty, regularity, and appointment suited to action 
 (ideas which indeed are difficult to be expressed, but it is suffi- 
 cient if they are understood) ; and as in these three heads is 
 comprehended our care to be approved by those among whom 
 and with whom we live, on them also a few observations must 
 be made. In the first place nature seems to have paid a great 
 regard to the form of our bodies, by exposing to the sight all 
 that part of our figure that has a beautiful appearance, while 
 she has covered and concealed those parts which were given 
 for the necessities of nature, and which would have been offen- 
 sive and disagreeable to the sight. 
 
 This careful contrivance of nature has been imitated by 
 the modesty of mankind ; for all men in their senses conceal 
 from the eye the parts which nature has hid ; and they take 
 
 1 Respecting tho ultimate possession of political power by the govern- 
 ed, and the consequently delegated power of rulers, we have the follow- 
 ing striking passage in "Hall's Liberty of tho Press:" "With tho 
 enemies of freedom it is a usual artifice to represent tho sovereignty of 
 tho people as a license to anarchy and disorder. But the tracing of civil 
 power to that source will not diminish our obligation to obey ; it only ex- 
 plains its reasons, and settles it on clear determinate principles. It turns 
 blind submission into rational obedience, tempers the passion for liberty 
 with the love of order, and places mankind in a happy medium, between 
 the extremes of anarchy on the one side, and oppression on the other. 
 It is the polar star that will conduct us safe over tho ocean of political 
 debate and speculation, the law of laws, the legislator of legislators."
 
 CHAP, xxrvx CICERO'S OFFICES. 63 
 
 care that they should discharge as privately as possible even 
 the necessities of nature. And those parts which serve those 
 necessities, and the necessities themselves, are not called by 
 their real names ; because that which is not shameful if 
 privately performed, it is still obscene to describe. There- 
 fore neither the public commission of those things, nor the 
 obscene expression of them, is free from immodesty. 
 
 Neither are we to regard the Cynics or the Stoics, who 
 are next to Cynics, who abuse and ridicule us for deeming 
 things that are not shameful in their own nature, to beccme 
 vicious through names and expressions. Now, we give 
 every thing that is disgraceful in its own nature its proper 
 term. Theft, fraud, adultery, are disgraceful in their own 
 nature, but not obscene in the expression. The act of be- 
 getting children is virtuous, but the expression obscene. 
 Thus, a great many arguments to the same purpose are 
 maintained by these philosophers in subversion of delicacy. 
 Let us, for our parts, follow nature, and avoid whatever is 
 offensive to the eyes or ears ; let us aim at the graceful or 
 becoming, whether we stand or walk, whether we sit or lie 
 down, in every motion of our features, our eyes, or our 
 hands. 
 
 In those matters two things are chiefly to be avoided ; 
 that there be nothing effeminate and foppish, nor any thing 
 coarse and clownish. Neither are we to admit, that those 
 considerations are proper for actors and orators, but not 
 binding upon us. The manners at least of the actors, 
 from the morality of our ancestors, are so decent that none 
 of them appear upon the stage without an under-covering ; 
 Ixiing afraid lest if by any accident certain parts of the body 
 should be exposed, they should make an indecent appearance. 
 According to our customs, sons grown up to manhood do not 
 bathe along with their fathers, nor sons-in-law with their 
 fathers-in-law. Modesty of this kind, therefore, is to be 
 cherished, especially as nature herself is our instructor and 
 guide. 
 
 XXXVI. Now as beauty is of two kinds, one that consists 
 in loveliness, and the other in dignity ; loveliness we should' 
 regard as the characteristic of women, dignity of men : 
 therefore, let a man remove from his person every ornament 
 that is unbecoming a man, and let him take the same care of
 
 64 CICERO'S OFFICES, B^DKX. 
 
 every similar fault with regard to his gesture or motion. For 
 very often the movements learned in the Palaestra are offens- 
 ive, and not a few impertinent gestures among the players 
 are productive of disgust, while in both whatever is unaffected 
 and simple is received with applause. Now, comeliness in the 
 person is preserved by the freshness of the complexion, and 
 that freshness by the exercises of the body. To this we are 
 to add, a neatness that is neither troublesome nor too much 
 studied, but which just avoids all clownish, ill-bred sloven- 
 ness. The same rules are to be observed with regard to 
 ornaments of dress, in which, as in all other matters, a mean 
 is preferable. 
 
 We must likewise avoid a drawling solemn pace in walk- 
 ing, so as to seem like bearers in a procession ; and likewise 
 in matters that require dispatch, quick, hurried motions ; 
 which, when they occur, occasion a shortness of breathing, 
 an alteration in the looks, and a convulsion in the features, 
 all which strongly indicate an inconstant character. But 
 still greater should be our care that the movements of our 
 miud never depart from nature ; in which we shall succeed 
 if we guard against falling into any flurry and disorder of 
 spirit, and keep our faculties intent on the preservation of 
 propriety. Now the motions of the mind are of two kinds, 
 the one of reflection and the other of appetite. Reflection 
 chiefly applies itself in the search of truth. Appetite prompts 
 us to action. We are therefore to take care to employ our 
 reflection upon the best subjects, and to render our appetite 
 obedient to our reason. 
 
 XXXVII. And since the influence of speech is very great 
 and that of two kinds one proper for disputing, the other 
 for discoursing the former should be employed in plead- 
 ings at trials, in assemblies of the people, and meetings of the 
 senate ; the latter in social circles, disquisitions, the meetings of 
 our friends, and should likewise attend upon entertainments. 
 Rhetoricians lay down rules for disputing, but none for dis- 
 coursing, though I am not sure but that likewise may be 
 done. Masters are to be found in all pursuits in which there 
 are learners, and all places are filled with crowds of rhetori- 
 cians ; but there are none who study this, and yet all the rules 
 that are laid down for words and sentiments (in debate) 
 are likewise applicable to conversation.
 
 CHAP, xxxvn. CICERO'S OFFICES. 65 
 
 But, as we have a voice as the orgau of speech, we ought 
 to aim at two properties in it : first that it be clear, and 
 secondly that it be agreeable ; both are unquestionably to be 
 sought from nature ; and yet practice may improve the one, 
 and imitating those who speak nervously and distinctly, the 
 other. There was, in the Catuli, nothing by which you 
 could conclude them possessed of any exquisite judgment in 
 language, though learned to be sure they were ; and so have 
 others been. 13ut the Catuli were thought to excel in the 
 Latin tongue ; their pronunciation was harmonious, their 
 words were neither mouthed nor minced ; so that their ex- 
 pression was distinct, without being unpleasant; while their 
 voice, without strain, was neither faint nor shrill. The 
 manner of Lucius Crassus was more flowing, and equally 
 elegant; though the opinion concerning the Catuli, as good 
 speakers, was not less. But Ca?sar, brother to the elder 
 Catulus, exceeded all in wit and humor ; insomuch that even 
 in the forensic style of speaking, he with his conversational 
 manner, surpassed the energetic eloquence of others. There- 
 fore, in all those matters, we must labor diligently if we 
 would discover what is the point of propriety in every instance. 
 
 Let our common discourse therefore (and this is the great 
 excellence of the followers of Socrates) be smooth and good- 
 humored, without the least arrogance. Let there be pleas- 
 antry in it. Nor let any one speaker exclude all others as 
 if he were entering on a province of his own, but consider 
 that in conversation, as in other things, alternate participa- 
 tion is but fair. 1 But more especially let him consider on 
 what subjects he should speak. If serious, let him use grav- 
 ity; if merry, good-humor. But a man ought to take the 
 
 1 " As the mutual shocks in society and the opposition of interest and 
 self-love, have constrained mankind to establish the laws of justice, in 
 order to preserve the advantages of mutual assistance and protection ; in 
 like manner, the eternal contrarieties in company of men's pride and self- 
 conceit, have introduced the rules of good manners or politeness, in order 
 to facilitate the intercourse of minds and an undisturbed commerce and 
 conversation. Among well-bred people, a mutual deference is effected, 
 contempt of others disguised, authority concealed, attention given to 
 each in his time, and an easy stream of conversation maintained, without 
 , vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness for victory, and with- 
 out any airs of superiority. These attentions and regards are immedi- 
 ately agreeablo to others, abstracted from any consideration of utility or 
 beneficial tendencies; they conciliate affection, promote esteem, a^d ex-
 
 66 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK r. 
 
 greatest care that his discourse betray no defect in his mo- 
 rals ; and this generally is the case when for the sake of de- 
 traction we eagerly speak of the absent in a malicious, ridic- 
 ulous, harsh, bitter, and contemptuous manner. 
 
 Now conversation generally turns upon private concerns, 
 or politics, or the pursuits of art and learning. We are, 
 therefore, to study, whenever our conversation begins to 
 ramble to other subjects, to recall it : and whatever subjects 
 may present themselves (for we are not at all pleased with the 
 same subjects and that similarly and at all times) we should 
 observe how far our conversation maintains its interest ; and 
 as there was a reason for beginning so there should be a limit 
 at which to conclude. 
 
 XXXVIII. But as we are very properly enjoined, in all 
 the course of our life, to avoid all fits of passion, that is, ex- 
 cessive emotions of the mind uncontrolled by reason ; in like 
 manner, our conversation ought to be free from all such emo- 
 tions ; so that neither resentment manifest itself, nor undue 
 desire, nor slovenness, nor indolence, nor any thing of that 
 kind ; and, above all things, we should endeavor to indicate 
 both esteem and love for those we converse with. Re- 
 proaches may sometimes be necessary, in which we may per- 
 haps be obliged to employ a higher strain of voice and a 
 harsher turn of language. Even in that case, we ought only 
 to seem to do these things in anger ; but as, in the cases of 
 cautery and amputations, so with this kind of correction we 
 should have recourse to it seldom and unwillingly ; and in- 
 deed, never but when no other remedy can be discovered ; 
 but still, let all passion be avoided ; for with that nothing 
 can be done with rectitude, nothing with discretion. 
 
 In general it is allowable to adopt a mild style of rebuke, 
 combining it with seriousness, so that severity may be indi- 
 cated but abusive language avoided. Nay, even what of 
 bitterness there is in the reproach should be shown to have 
 
 tremely enhance the merit of the person who regulates his behavior by 
 them. 
 
 " In conversation, the lively spirit of dialogue is agreeable even to 
 those who desire not to have any share in the discourse. Hence the re- 
 later of long stories, or the pompous declaimer is very little approved of 
 But most men desire likewise their time in the conversation, and regard 
 with a very evil eye that loquacity which deprives them of a right they 
 are naturally BO zealous of." Hume's "Principles of Morals," sec. viii.
 
 CHAP, xxxix. CICERO'S OFFICES 67 
 
 been adopted for the sake of the party reproved. Now, it is 
 advisable, even in those disputes which take place with our 
 bitterest enemies, if we hear any that is insulting to ourselves 
 to maintain our equanimity, and repress passion ; for what- 
 ever is done under such excitement can never be either con- 
 sistently performed, or approved of by those who are present. 1 
 It is likewise indecent for a man to be loud in his own praise 
 (and the more so if it be false), and so to imitate the swagger- 
 ing soldier (in the play) amidst the derision of the auditors. 
 
 XXXIX. Now, as I touch, at least wish to touch, upon 
 every matter of duty, I shall likewise treat of the kind of 
 house which I think suited to a man of high rank and office ; 
 the end of this being utility, to it the design of the building 
 must be adapted, but still regard must be paid to magnifi- 
 cence and elegance. We learn that it was to the honor of 
 Cneius Octavius, the first of that family who was raised to 
 the consulship, that he built upon the Palatine, a house of a 
 noble and majestic appearance, which, as it was visited as a 
 spectacle by the common people, was supposed to have voted 
 its proprietor, though but a new man, into the consulship. 
 Scaurus demolished this house, and took the ground into his 
 own palace. But though the one first brought a consulship 
 into his family, yet the other, though the son of a man of the 
 greatest rank and distinction, carried into this, his enlarged 
 palace, not only repulse but disgrace, nay ruin. 
 
 1 "Tho command of anger appears, upon many occasions, not less gener- 
 ous and noblo than that of fear. The proper expression of just indig- 
 nation composes many of the most splendid and admired passages both 
 of ancient and modern eloquence. Tho Philippics of Demosthenes, the 
 Catilinarians of Cicero derive their whole beauty from the noblo propri- 
 ety with which this passion is expressed. But this just indignation is 
 nothing but anger restrained and properly attempered to what the im- 
 partial spectator can enter into. The blustering and noisy passion 
 which goes beyond this is always odious and offensive, and interests us, 
 not for the angry man but the man with whom ho is angry. The noble- 
 ness of pardoning appears, upon many occasions, superior oven to the 
 most perfect propriety of resenting, when either proper acknowledg- 
 ments have been made by the offending party, or, even without any 
 such acknowledgments, when the public interest requires that the most 
 mortal enemies should unite for the discharge of some important duty. 
 The man who can cast away all animosity, and act with confidence and 
 cordiality toward the person who had most grievously offended him, 
 eems justly to merit our highest admiration." Smith's " Moral Senti- 
 ments," part vi. section iii
 
 68 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOR i. 
 
 For dignity should be adorned by a palace, but not be wholly 
 sought from it : the house ought to be ennobled by the 
 master, and not the master by the house. And, as in other 
 matters a man should have regard to others and not to his 
 own concerns alone, so in the house of a man of rank, who 
 is to entertain a great many guests and to admit a multitude 
 of all denominations, attention should be paid to spaciousness ; 
 but a great house often reflects discredit upon its master, if 
 there is solitude in it, especially if, under a former proprietor, 
 it has been accustomed to be well filled. It is a mortifying 
 thing when passengers exclaim, " Ah ! ancient dwelling ! by 
 how degenerate a master art thou occupied !" which may 
 well be said at the present time of a great many houses. 
 
 But you are to take care, especially if you build for yourself, 
 not to go beyond bounds in grandeur and costliness. Even 
 the example of an excess of this kind does much mischief. For 
 most people, particularly in this respect, studiously imitate 
 the example of their leaders. For instance, who, imitates 
 the virtue of the excellent Lucius Lucullus ? But how many 
 there are who have imitated the magnificence of his villas. 
 To which certainly a bound ought to be set, and it reduced to 
 moderation, and the same spirit of moderation ought to be 
 extended to all the practice and economy of life. But of this 
 enough. 
 
 Now in undertaking every action we are to regard three 
 things. First, that appetite be subservient to reason, than 
 which there is no condition better fitted for preserving the 
 moral duties. We are, secondly, to examine how important 
 the object in which we desire to accomplish, that our atten- 
 tion or labor may be neither more nor less than the occasion 
 requires. Thirdly, we are to take care that every thing 
 that comes under the head of magnificence and dignity should 
 be well regulated. Now, the best regulation is, to observe 
 that some graceful propriety which I have recommended, and 
 to go no further. But of those three heads, the most excellent 
 is, that of making our appetites subservient to our reason. 
 
 XL. I am now to speak concerning the order and the 
 timing of things. In this science is comprehended what the 
 Greek call tire^ta, not that which Ave Romans call mode- 
 ration, an expression that implies keeping within bounds ; 
 whereas that is cj)rai, in which the preservation of order is
 
 CHAP. XL. CICERO'S OFFICES. 69 
 
 involved. This duty, which we will denominate moderation, 
 is defined by the Stoics as those things which are either said 
 or done in their appropriate places of ranging. Therefore, 
 the signification of order and of arrangement seems to be 
 the same. For they define order to be the disposing of 
 things into fitting and convenient places. Now they tell 
 us that the appropriate place of an action is the oppor- 
 tunity of doing it. The proper opportunity for action 
 being called by the Greeks i5x/a, and by the Latins, 
 occasio, or occasion. Thus, as I have already observed, that 
 modestia which we have thus explained is the knowledge of 
 acting according to the fitness of a conjuncture. 
 
 But prudence, of which we have treated in the beginning 
 of this book, may admit of the same definition. Under this 
 head, however, I speak of moderation and temperance, and 
 the like virtues. Therefore, the considerations which belong 
 to prudence have been treated in their proper place. But at 
 present I am to treat of those virtues I have been so long 
 speaking of, which relate to morality, and the approbation oi 
 those with whom we live. 
 
 Such then should be the regularity of all our actions, that 
 in the economy of life, as in a connected discourse, all things 
 may agree and correspond. For it would be unbecoming 
 and highly blamable, should we, when upon a serious 
 subject, introduce the language of the jovial or the effemi- 
 nate. When Pericles had for his colleague in the praetot- 
 ship Sophocles the poet, and as they were discoursing upon 
 their joint official duty, a beautiful boy by chance passed by, 
 Sophocles exclaimed, " What a charming boy, Pericles !" but 
 Pericles very properly told him, " A magistrate ought to 
 keep not only his hands, but his eyes under restraint." Now 
 Sophocles, had he said the same thing at a trial of athletic 
 performers would not have been liable to this just reprimand, 
 such importance there is in the time and place. So, too, a 
 man, who is going to plead a cause, if on a journey or in a 
 walk he should muse or appear to himself more thoughtful 
 than ordinary, he is not blamed: but should he do this 
 at an entertainment, he would seem ill-bred for not dis- 
 tinguishing times. 
 
 But those actions that are in wide discrepancy with good- 
 breeding, such, for instance, as singing in the forum, or
 
 70 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 any such absurdity, are so easily discernible, that they re- 
 quire no great degree of reprehension or advice. But faults 
 that seem to be inconsiderable, and such as are discernible 
 only by a few, are to be more carefully avoided. As in 
 lutes or pipes, however little they be out of tune, it is per- 
 ceived by a practiced ear ; so in life we are to guard against 
 all discrepancy, and the rather as the harmony of morals is 
 greater and much more valuable than that of sounds. 
 
 XLI. Thus, as the ear is sensible to the smallest discord 
 in musical instruments, so we, if we desire to be accurate 
 and attentive observers of faults, may make great discoveries 
 from very trifling circumstances. The cast of the eye, the 
 bending or unbending of the brow, an air of dejection or 
 cheerfulness, laughter, the tone of words, silence, the raising 
 or falling of the voice, and the like circumstances, we may 
 easily form a judgment which of them are in their pro- 
 per state, and which of them are in discord with duty 
 and nature. Now in this case, it is advisable to judge 
 from others, of the condition and properties of every one of 
 those, so that we ourselves may avoid those things that are 
 unbecoming in others. For it happens, I know not how, that 
 we perceive what is defective more readily in others than we 
 do in ourselves. Therefore, when masters mimic the faults 
 of boys that they may amend them, those boys are most 
 easily corrected. 
 
 Neither is it improper, in order to fix our choice in matters 
 which involve a doubt, if we apply to men of learning and 
 also of experience, and learn what they think of the several 
 kinds of duty ; for the greatest part of such men are usually 
 led to that conclusion to which nature herself directs ; and in 
 these cases, we are to examine not only what a man says, 
 but what he thinks, and upon what ground he thinks it. 
 For as painters, statuaries, and even poets, want to have 
 their works canvassed by the public in order to correct any 
 thing that is generally condemned, and examine both by 
 themselves and with others where the defect lies ; thus wo 
 ought to make use of the judgment of others to do, and not 
 to do, to alter and correct, a great many things. 
 
 As to actions resulting from the customs or civil institu- 
 tions of a people, no precepts can be laid down ; for those 
 very institutions are precepts in themselves. Nor ought men
 
 CHAP. XLL CICERO'S OFFICES. 71 
 
 to bo under the mistake to imagine that if Socrates or 
 Aristippus acted or spoke in opposition to the manners and 
 civil constitutions of their country, they themselves have a 
 similar license. 1 For this was a right they acquired by their 
 
 1 There are two things in this passage which must excite surprise ; the 
 first, that Cicero should regard those actions as immoral in the general- 
 ity of society which he justifies in the case of two individuals on tho 
 sole ground of their intellectual pre-eminence. For this must be tho 
 sole ground of the distinction ; inasmuch as, if a moral superiority bo 
 admitted as a justifying consideration in the case of Socrates, it can 
 scarcely be denied to any other individual who might be led to the adop- 
 tion of a similar course. The second is, that the customs and institu- 
 tions of a country should be invested by Cicero with the powers of moral 
 obligation ; nor, considering the general tenor of Cicero's ethics, is this 
 the less surprising, from tho fact that in modern times the same principle 
 was carried by Hobbes to a far greater extent. "According to him," 
 says Sir James Mackintosh, " tho perfect state of a community is where 
 law prescribes tho religion and morality of tho people, and where the 
 will of an absolute sovereign is tho solo fountain of law." The insuf- 
 ficiency both of tho law of th'o land, and of that conventional influence 
 which in modern times has been designated tho law of honor as a codo 
 of morality is admirably shown by Paley in the following passage : 
 
 " Tho Law of Honor is a system of rules constructed by people of 
 fashion, and calculated to facilitate their intercourse with one another ; 
 and for no other purpose. Consequently, nothing is adverted to by tho 
 law of honor, but what tends to incommode this intercourse. Hence this 
 law only prescribes and regulates the duties betwixt equals; omitting such 
 as relate to tho Supremo Being, as well as those which wo owe to our 
 inferiors. For which reason, profancness, neglect of public worship or 
 private devotion, cruelty to servants, rigorous treatment of tenants or 
 other dependents, want of charity to the poor, injuries done to trades- 
 men by insolvency or delay of payment, with numberless examples of 
 the samo kind, are accounted no breaches of honor ; because a man is 
 not a less agreeable companion for theso vices, nor tho worse to deal 
 witli in thoso concerns which aro usually transacted between ono gentle- 
 man and another. Again, tho law of honor, being constituted by men 
 occupied in the pursuit of pleasure, and for l!io mutual conveniency of 
 such men, will bo found, as might bo expected from tho character and 
 design of the law-makers, to be, in most instances, favorable to tho 
 licentious indulgence of tho natural passions. Thus, it allows of forni- 
 cation, adultery, drunkenness, prodigality, duelling, and of rovengo iu 
 tho extreme-, and lays no stress upon the virtues opposite to theso. 
 
 " That part of mankind, who aro beneath tho law of honor, often mako 
 tho Law of tho Land their rules of life ; that is, they aro satisfied with 
 themselves, so long as they do or omit nothing, for tho doing or omitting 
 of which the law can punish them. Whereas every system of human 
 laws, considered as a rule of life, labors under tho two following de- 
 fects : 1 . Human laws omit many duties, as not objects of compulsion ;
 
 72 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK L 
 
 great and superhuman endowments. But as to the whole 
 system of the Cynics ; we are absolutely to reject it, because 
 it is inconsistent with moral susceptibility without which 
 nothing can be honest, nothing can be virtuous. 
 
 Now it is our duty to esteem and to honor, in the same 
 manner as if they were dignified with titles or vested with 
 command, those men whose lives have been conspicuous for 
 great and glorious actions, who feel rightly toward the state 
 and deserve well or have deserved well of their country. 
 We are likewise to have a great regard for old age, to pay a 
 deference to magistrates ; to distinguish between (what we 
 owe to) a fellow-citizen and a foreigner, and to consider whether 
 that foreigner comes in a public or a private capacity. In 
 short, not to dwell on particulars, we ought to regard, to 
 cultivate, and to promote the good will and the social welfare 
 of all mankind. 
 
 XLIL Now with regard to what arts and means of ac- 
 quiring wealth are to be regarded as worthy and what dis- 
 reputable, we have been taught as follows. In the first place, 
 those sources of emolument are condemned that incur the 
 public hatred ; such as those of tax-gatherers and usurers. 
 We are likewise to account as ungenteel and mean the gains 
 of all hired workmen, whose source of profit is not their art 
 but their labor ; for their very wages are the consideration of 
 their servitude. We are likewise to despise all who retail 
 from merchants goods for prompt sale ; for they never can suc- 
 ceed unless they lie most abominably. Now nothing is 
 more disgraceful than insincerity. All mechanical laborers 
 are by their profession mean. For a workshop can contain 
 nothing befitting a gentleman. Least of all are those trades 
 
 such as piety to God, bounty to the poor, forgiveness of injuries, educa- 
 tion of children, gratitude to benefactors. The law never speaks but to 
 command, nor commands but where it can compel ; consequently those 
 duties, which by their nature must be voluntary, are left out of the 
 statute-book, as lying beyond the reach of its operation and authority. 
 2. Human laws permit, or, which is the same thing, suffer to go un- 
 punished, many crimes, because they are incapable of being defined by 
 any previous description. Of which nature are luxury, prodigality, par- 
 tiality in voting at those elections in which the qualifications of the 
 candidate ought to determine the success, caprice in the disposition oi 
 men's fortunes at their death, disrespect to parents, and a multitude of 
 similar examples." " Moral and Political Philosophy," book i. caps. 2 & 2.
 
 CHAP. xuu. CICERO'S OFFICES. 73 
 
 to be approved that serve the purposes of sensuality, such 
 as (to speak after Terence) fishmongers, butchers, cooks, 
 pastry-cooks, and fishermen; to whom we shall add, if you 
 please, perfumers, dancers, and the whole tribe of gamesters. 1 
 
 But those professions that involve a higher degree of in- 
 telligence or a greater amount of utility, such as medicine, 
 architecture, the teaching the liberal arts, are honorable 
 in those to whose rank in life they are suited. As to 
 merchandizing, if on a small scale it is mean ; but if it is 
 extensive and rich, bring numerous commodities from all 
 parts of the world, and giving bread to numbers without 
 fraud, it is not so despicable. But if a merchant, satiated, 
 or rather satisfied with his profits, as he sometimes used 
 to leave the open sea and make the harbor, shall from 
 the harbor step into an estate and lands ; such a man seems 
 most justly deserving of praise. For of all gainful profes- 
 sions, nothing is better, nothing more pleasing, nothing 
 more delightful, nothing better becomes a well-bred man 
 than agriculture. But as I have handled that subject at 
 large in my Cato Major, you can draw from thence all that 
 falls under this head. 
 
 XLIII. I have I think sufficiently explained in what 
 manner the duties are derived from the constituent parts of 
 virtue. Now it often may happen that an emulation and 
 a contest may arise among things that are in themselves 
 virtuous; of two virtuous actions which is preferable. A 
 division that Panaetius has ovelooked. For as all virtue is 
 the result of four qualities, prudence, justice, magnanimity 
 
 * There is, perhaps, no passage in this work more short-sighted and 
 ridiculous than the above, and none which more clearly indicates the 
 practical fallaciousness of all systems of morals framed in ignorance of 
 those views of human nature which are derived from Christianity alone. 
 To stigmatize as morally base those occupations which are necessary to 
 the comfort of society, is to maintain the very opposite of his own fun- 
 damental principle, by affirming that immorality and not morality is 
 necessary to the happiness of mankind. Indeed, the attribution of any 
 moral character to mere industrial pursuits, is an absurdity which Cicero 
 would probably not have incurred had ho lived but a few years later, 
 and become acquainted as ho might, without leaving Rome, with those 
 fishermen and that tent-maker "of whom the world was not worthy," 
 and through them with that Being in whoso sight, amid all the irregu- 
 larities of time, " the rich and the poor meet together." 
 
 4
 
 74 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 and moderation; so in the choice of a duty, those qualities 
 must necessarily come in competition with one another. 
 
 I am therefore of opinion that the duties arising from the 
 social relations are more agreeable to nature than those that 
 are merely notional. This may be confirmed from the fol- 
 lowing argument. Supposing that this kind of life should 
 befall a wise man, that in an affluence of all things he might 
 be able with great leisure to contemplate and attend to every 
 object that is worthy his knowledge ; yet if his condition 
 be so solitary as to have no company with mankind, he would 
 prefer death to it. Of all virtues, tlie most leading is that 
 wisdom which the Greeks call aoqwa, for by that sagacity 
 which they term (pgovyan; we understand quite another thing, 
 as it implies the knowledge of what things are to be de- 
 sired, and what to be avoided. But that Avisdom which I 
 have stated to be the chief, is the knowledge of things divine 
 and human, which comprehends the fellowship of gods and 
 men, and their society within themselves. If that be, as 
 it certainly is, the highest of all objects, it follows of 
 course that the duty resulting from this fellowship is the 
 highest of all duties. For the knowledge and contem- 
 plation of nature is in a manner lame and unfinished, if it 
 is followed by no activity ; now activity is most perspic- 
 uous when it is exerted in protecting the rights of mankind. 
 
 It therefore has reference to the social interests of the 
 human race, and is for that reason preferable to knowledge ; 
 and this every virtuous man maintains and exhibits in prac- 
 tice. For who is so eager in pursuing and examining the 
 nature of things, that if, while he is handling and con- 
 templating the noblest objects of knowledge, the peril and 
 crisis of his country is made known to him, and that it is in 
 his power to assist and relieve her, would not instantly aban- 
 don and fling from him all those studies, even though he 
 thought he would be enabled to number the stars, or measure 
 the dimensions of the world ? And he would do the same 
 were the safety of a friend or a parent concerned or endan- 
 gered. From this consideration I infer, that the duties of 
 justice are preferable to the studies and duties of knowledge, 
 relating as they do to the interests of the human race, to which 
 no anterior consideration ought to exist in the mind of man. 
 
 XLIV. But some have employed their whole lives in the
 
 CHAP. XLIV. CICERO'S OFFICES. 75 
 
 pursuits of knowledge, and yet have not declined to contrib- 
 ute to the utility and advantage of men. For they have 
 even instructed many how they ought to be better citizens and 
 more useful to their country. Thus Lysis, the Pythagorean edu- 
 cated Epaminondas of Thebes, as did Plato Dion of Syracuse, 
 and so of many others ; and as to whatever services I have per- 
 formed, if I have performed any to the state, I came to it after 
 being furnished and adorned witfe knowledge by teachers and 
 learning. 
 
 Nor do those philosophers only instruct and educate those 
 who are desirous of learning while alive and present among 
 us ; but they continue to do the same after death, by the monu- 
 ments of their learning ; for they neglect no point that relates 
 to the constitution, the manners and the morals of their coun- 
 try ; so that it appears as if they had dedicated all their leisure 
 to our advantage. Thus while they are themselves devoted 
 to the studies of learning and wisdom, they make their under- 
 standing and their skill chiefly available to the service of man- 
 kind. It is therefore more serviceable to the public for a man to 
 discourse copiously, provided it is to the purpose, than for a 
 man to think ever so accurately without the power of expres- 
 sion ; the reason is, because thought terminates in itself alone, 
 but discourse affects those with whom we are connected in a 
 community. 
 
 Now as the swarms of bees do not assemble in order to 
 form the honey-comb, but form the honey-comb because they 
 are by nature gregarious; so, and in a far greater degree, 
 men being associated by nature, manifest their skill in thinking 
 and acting. Therefore, unless knowledge is connected with 
 that virtue which consists in doing service to mankind, that is, 
 in improving human society, it would seem to be but solitary 
 and barren. 
 
 In like manner greatness of soul, when utterly disunited 
 from the company and society of men, becomes a kind of un- 
 couth ferocity. Hence it follows that the company and the 
 community of men are preferable to mere speculative knowledge. 
 
 Neither is that maxim true which is affirmed by some, that 
 human communities and societies were instituted from the 
 necessity of our condition, because we can not without the 
 help of others supply what our nature requires ; and that if wo 
 could bo furnished, as by a kind of magic wand, with everything
 
 "76 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK i. 
 
 that relates to food and raiment, that then every man of excel- 
 ling genius, laying aside all other occupations, would apply him- 
 self to knowledge and learning. The fact is not so ; for he 
 would fly from solitude and look out for a companion in his pur- 
 suits ; and would desire sometimes to teach and sometimes to 
 learn, sometimes to listen and sometimes to speak. Every duty 
 therefore that operates for the good of human community and 
 society, is preferable to that duty which is limited to speculation 
 jind knowledge. 
 
 XLV. Here perhaps it should be inquired, whether the 
 duties of that society which is most suitable to nature are 
 preferable to moderation and decency ? By no means. For 
 some things are partly so disgraceful, and partly so criminal 
 in their nature, that a wise man would not commit them, 
 even to save his country. Posidonius has collected very many 
 such ; but they are so obscene and so shocking that it would 
 be scandalous even to name them. A wise man would not un- 
 dertake such things, even to serve his country, nor Avould his 
 country undertake them to serve herself. But it fortunately 
 happens, that there never can be a conjuncture, when the public 
 interest shall require from a wise man the performance of such 
 actions. 
 
 Hence it follows, that in the choice of our duties we are 
 to prefer that kind of duty that contributes to the good of 
 society. For well-directed action is always the result of 
 knowledge and prudence. And therefore it is of more con- 
 sequence to act properly, than to deliberate justly. Thus 
 much then may suffice on this subject ; for this topic has 
 now been so fully laid open, that it is easy for every man in 
 the study of his duties, to see which is preferable. Now 
 in society there are degrees of duties by \vhich every man 
 may understand what belongs to himself. The first is owing 
 to the immortal gods, the second to our country, the third 
 to our parents, and lastly to others through different gradations. 
 
 From these arguments thus briefly stated we perceive that 
 men are sometimes not only in doubt, whether a thing is vir- 
 tuous or disgraceful ; but likewise when two virtuous things are 
 proposed, which is more so. This head, as I said before, was 
 omitted by Pansetius. Let us now proceed to what remains of 
 our subject.
 
 CHAP, I. CICERO'S OFFICES. 7V 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 MARCUS, MY SON, 
 
 I THINK I have in the former Book sufficiently explained 
 in what manner our duties are derived from morality, and 
 every kind of virtue. It now remains that I treat of those 
 kinds of duties that relate to the improvement of life, and 
 to the acquirement of those means which men employ for 
 the attainment of wealth and interest. In this inquiry, as I 
 have already observed, I will treat of what is useful, and 
 what is not so. Of several utilities, I shall speak of that which 
 is more useful, or most so. Of all this I shall treat, after pre- 
 mising a few words concerning my own plan of life and choice 
 of pursuits. 
 
 Although my works have prompted a great many to the 
 exercise not only of reading but of writing, yet I sometimes 
 am apprehensive that the name of philosophy is offensive to 
 some worthy men, and that they are surprised at my having 
 employed so much of my pains and time in that study. For 
 my part, as long as the state was under the management of those 
 into whose hands she had committed herself, I applied to it all 
 my attention and thought. But when the government was 
 engrossed by one person, when there was an end of all public 
 deliberation and authority; when I in short had lost those 
 excellent patriots who were my associates in the protection of 
 my country, I neither abandoned myself to that anguish of spirit 
 which had I given way to it, must have consumed me, nor did 
 I indulge those pleasures that are disgraceful to a man of 
 learning. 
 
 Would that the constitution had remained in its original state ; 
 and that it had not fallen into the hands of men whose aim was 
 not to alter but to destroy it ! For then I would first, as I was wont
 
 78 CICERO'S OFFICES BOOK n. 
 
 to do when our government existed, have employed my labors in 
 action rather than in writing ; and in the next place, in my writ- 
 ings I should have recorded my own pleadings as I had frequent- 
 ly done, and not such subjects as the present But when the 
 constitution, to which all my care, thoughts, and labor used to 
 be devoted, ceased to exist, then those public and senatorial 
 studies were silenced. 
 
 But as my mind could not be inactive, and as my early life 
 had been employed in these studies, I thought that they might 
 most honorably be laid aside by betaking myself anew to 
 philosophy, having, when young, spent a great deal of my time 
 in its study, with a view to improvement. When I afterward 
 began to court public offices and devoted myself entirely to the 
 service of my country, I had so much room for philosophy as 
 the time that remained over from the business of my friends and 
 the public. But I spent it all in reading, having no leisure for 
 writing. 
 
 II. In the midst of the greatest calamities, therefore, I seem 
 to have realized the advantage that I have reduced into writing, 
 matters in which my countrymen were not sufficiently instructed, 
 and which were most worthy their attention. For in the name 
 of the gods, what is more desirable, what is more excellent, than 
 wisdom ? What is better for man ? what more worthy of him ? 
 They therefore who court her are termed philosophers; for 
 philosophy, if it is to be interpreted, implies nothing but the love 
 of wisdom. 
 
 Now the ancient philosophers defined wisdom to be the 
 knowledge of things divine and human, and of the causes by 
 which these things are regulated ; a study that if any man 
 despises, I now not what he can think deserving of es- 
 teem. 
 
 For if we seek the entertainment of the mind, or a respite 
 from cares, which is comparable to those pursuits that are 
 always searching out somewhat that relates to and secures the 
 welfare and happiness of life ? Or if we regard the principles 
 of self-consistency and virtue, either this is the art, or there is 
 absolutely no art by which we can attain them. And to say 
 that there is no art for the attainment of the highest objects, 
 when we see that none of the most inconsiderable are without it, 
 is the language of men who speak without consideration, and 
 who mistake in the most important matters. Now if there is any
 
 CHAP. IIL CICERO'S OFFICE& 79 
 
 school of virtue, where can it be found, if you abandon this 
 method of study ? But it is usual to treat these subjects more 
 particularly when we exhort to philosophy, which I have done 
 in another book. At this time my intention was only to 
 explain the reasons why, being divested of all offices of 
 state, I chose to apply myself to this study preferable to all 
 others. 
 
 Now an objection is brought against me, and indeed by some 
 men of learning and knowledge, who inquire whether I act con- 
 sistently with myself, when, though I affirm that nothing can be 
 certainly known, I treat upon different subjects, and when, as 
 now, I am investigating the principles of moral duty. I could 
 wish such persons were thoroughly acquainted with my way of 
 thinking. I am not one of those whose reason is always wander- 
 ing in the midst of uncertainty and never has any thing to pur- 
 sue. For if we abolish all the rules, not only of reasoning but 
 of living, what must become of reason, nay of life itself? For 
 my own part, while others mention some things to be certain, 
 and others uncertain, I say, on the other side, that some things 
 are probable, and others not so. 
 
 What, therefore, hinders me from following whatever 
 appears to me to be most probable, and from rejecting what 
 is otherwise ; and, while I avoid the arrogance of dogmatizing, 
 from escaping that recklessness which is most inconsistent with 
 wisdom ? Now all subjects are disputed by our sect, because 
 this very probability can not appear, unless there be a com- 
 parison of the arguments on both sides. But, if I mistake 
 not, I have with sufficient accuracy explained these points in 
 my Academics. As to you, my dear Cicero, though you are 
 now employe! in the study of the oldest and noblest philo- 
 sophy under Cratippus, who greatly resembles those who have 
 propoundel those noble principles, yet I was unwilling that 
 these my sentiments, which are so corresponding with your sys- 
 tem, should be known to you. But to proceed in what I 
 propose. 
 
 HI. Having laid down the five principles upon which wo 
 pursue our duty, two of which relate to propriety and virtue, two 
 to the enjoyments of life, such as wealth, interest, and power, 
 the fifth to the forming of a right judgment in any case, if there 
 should appear to be any clashing between the principles I have 
 mentioned, the part assigned to virtue is concluded, and with
 
 80 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK n. 
 
 that I desire you should be thoroughly acquainted. Now the 
 subject I am now to treat of is neither more nor less than what 
 we call expediency ; in which matter custom has so declined 
 and gradually deviated from the right path, that, separating 
 virtue from expediency, it has determined that some things may 
 be virtuous that are not expedient, and some expedient which 
 are not virtuous ; than which doctrine nothing more pernicious 
 can be introduced into human life. 
 
 It is indeed with strictness and honesty that philosophers, 
 and those of the highest reputation, distinguish in idea those 
 three principles which really are blended together. For they 
 give it as their opinion that whatever is just is expedient; 
 and in like manner whatever is virtuous is just ; from whence 
 it follows that whatever is virtuous is also expedient. Those 
 who do not perceive this distiaction often admire crafty and 
 cunning men, and mistake knavery for wisdom. The error of 
 such ought to be eradicated ; and every notion ought to be re- 
 duced to this hope, that men may attain the ends they propose, 
 by virtuous designs and just actions, and not by dishonesty and 
 wickedness. 
 
 The things then that pertain to the preservation of human 
 life are partly inanimate, such as gold, silver, the fruits of the 
 earth, and the like ; and partly animal, which have their 
 peculiar instincts and affections. Now of these some are 
 void of, and some are endowed with, reason. The animals 
 void of reason are horses, oxen, with other brute creatures, 
 and bees, who by their labors contribute somewhat to the 
 service and condition of mankind. As to the animals endowed 
 with reason, they are of two kinds, one the gods, the other 
 men. Piety and sanctity will render the gods propitious; 
 and next to the gods mankind are most useful to men. 
 (The same division holds as to things that are hurtful and 
 prejudicial. But as we are not to suppose the gods to be 
 injurious to mankind, excluding them, man appears to be 
 most hurtful to man). For even the very inanimate things 
 I have mentioned, are generally procured through man's 
 labor ; nor should we have had them but by his art and 
 industry, nor can we apply them but by his management. 
 For there could neither be the preservation of health, navi- 
 gation, nor the gathering and preserving the corn and other 
 fruits, without the industry of mankind. And certainly
 
 CHAP. v. CICERO'S OFFICES. 81 
 
 there could have been no exportation of things in which we 
 abound, and importation of those which we want, had not 
 mankind applied themselves to those employments. In like 
 manner, neither could stones be hewn for our use, nor iron, 
 nor brass, nor gold, nor silver, be dug from the earth, but by 
 the toil and art of man. 
 
 IV. As to buildings, by which either the violence of the 
 cold is repelled, or the inconveniences of the heat mitigated, 
 how could they have originally been given to the human 
 race, or afterward repaired when ruined by tempests, earth- 
 quakes, or time, had not community of life taught us to 
 seek the aid of man against such influences? Moreover, 
 from whence but from the labor of man could we have had 
 aqueducts, the cuts of rivers, the irrigation of the land, 
 dams opposed to streams, and artificial harbors ? From 
 those and a great many other instances, it is plain that we 
 could by no manner of means have, without the hand and 
 industry of man, reaped the benefits and advantages arising 
 from such things as are inanimate. In short, what advan- 
 tage and convenience could have been realized from the 
 brute creation, had not men assisted ? Men, undoubted- 
 ly, were the first who discovered what useful result we 
 might realize from every animal ; nor could we even at 
 this time either feed, tame, preserve, or derive from them 
 advantages suited to the occasion, without the help of man. 
 And it is by the same that such as are hurtful are destroyed, 
 and such as may bo useful are taken. Why should I enume- 
 rate the variety of arts without which life could by no means 
 be sustained ? For did not so many arts minister to us, what 
 could succor the sick, or constitute the pleasure of the 
 healthy, or supply food and clothing ? 
 
 Polished by those arts, the life of man is so different from 
 the mode of life and habits of brutes. Cities, too, neither 
 could have been built nor peopled but by the associa- 
 tion of men : hence were established laws and customs, the 
 equitable definition of rights, and the regulated order of life. 
 Then followed gentleness of disposition and love of morality ; 
 and the result was that life was more protected, and that by 
 giving and receiving, and by the exchange of resources and 
 articles of wealth, we wanted for nothing. 
 
 V. We are more prolix than is necessary on this head. 
 
 4*
 
 82 CICERO'S OFFICES BOOK n. 
 
 For to whom is not that self-evident for which Pansetius 
 employs a great many words, that no man, whether he be a 
 commander of an army, or a leader in the state, has ever been 
 able to perform great and salutary achievements without the 
 zealous co-operation of men ? As instances of this, he mentions 
 Themistocles, Pericles, Cyrus, Alexander, and Agesilaus, who, 
 he says, without the aid of men never could have achieved 
 such great exploits. Thus in a matter that is undoubted 
 he briugs evidences that are unnecessary. But as the assem- 
 blage or agreement of men among themselves is productive 
 of the greatest benefits, so is there no plague so direful that 
 it may not arise to man from man. We have a treatise 
 of Dicaearchus, 1 an eminent and eloquent Peripatetic, con- 
 cerning the destruction of mankind; and after collecting 
 together all the different causes, such as those of inundations, 
 pestilence, devastation, and those sudden attacks of swarms 
 of creatures, by which he tells us some tribes of men have been 
 destroyed ; he then calculates how many more men have been 
 destroyed by men, that is by wars and seditions, than by 
 every other species of calamity. 
 
 As this point therefore admits of no doubt, that man can 
 do the greatest good and the greatest injury to man, I 
 lay it down as the peculiar property of virtue, that it recon- 
 ciles the affections of mankind, and employs them for her 
 own purposes. So that all the application and management 
 of inanimate things, and of brutes for the use of mankind, 
 is effected by the industrial arts. But the quick and ready 
 zeal of mankind for advancing and enlarging our conditions, 
 is excited through the wisdom and virtue of the best of 
 mankind. 
 
 For virtue in general consists of three properties. First, 
 in discerning in every subject what is true and genuine ; 
 what is consistent in every one ; what will be the con- 
 sequence of such or such a thing ; how one thing arises from 
 another, and what is the cause of each. The next 
 property of virtue is to calm those violent disorders of the 
 mind which the Greek call nddtj, and to render obedient to 
 reason those appetites which they call oQ/xni. The third 
 property is to treat with moderation and prudence those with 
 
 1 Dicaearchus, born in Sicily, and a disciple of Aristotle.
 
 CUAF. vi. CICERO'S OFFICES. 83 
 
 whom we are joined in society, that by their means we may 
 have the complete and full enjoyment of all that nature 
 stands in need of; and likewise by them repel every thing 
 adverse that may befall us, and avenge ourselves of those who 
 have endeavored to injure us, by inflicting on them as much 
 punishment as equity and humanity permit 
 
 VI. I shall soon treat of the means to acquire this art of 
 winning and retaining the affections of mankind, but first a 
 few things must be premised. Who is insensible what great 
 influence fortune has in both ways, either upon our prosperity 
 or adversity ? ' When we sail with her favoring breeze, we 
 are carried to the most desirable landing-places : when she 
 opposes us, we are reduced to distress. Some, however, of 
 
 1 " All can not bo happy at onco ; for because the glory of ono state 
 depends upon the ruin of another, there is a revolution and vicissitude 
 of their greatness, which must obey the spring of that wheel not proved 
 by intelligences, but by the hand of God, whereby all estates rise to 
 their zenith and vertical points, according to their predestinated periods. 
 For the lives not only of men but of commonweals, and the whole world, 
 run not upon an helix that still enlargeth, but on a circle, where arising 
 to their meridian, they decline in obscurity, and fall under the horizon 
 again, 
 
 " These must not, therefore, bo named the effects of fortune, but in a 
 relative way, and as we term the works of nature. It was the ignorance 
 of man's reason that begat this very name, and by a careless term mis- 
 called the providence of God ; for there is no liberty for causes to 
 operate in a loose and straggling way, nor any effect whatsoever but 
 hath its warrant from some universal or superior cause. "Tis not a 
 ridiculous devotion to say a prayer before a game at tables ; for even in 
 sortileges and matters of greatest uncertainty, there is a settled and pro- 
 ordered course of effects. It is we that are blind, not fortune ; because 
 our eye is too dim to discover the mystery of her effects, wo foolishly 
 paint her blind, and hoodwink the providence of the Almighty. I can 
 not justify that contemptible proverb, that fools only are fortunate ; or 
 that insolent paradox, that a wise man is out of the reach of fortune ; 
 much less those opprobrious epithets of poets, whore, bawd, strumpet. 
 'Tis, I confess, the common fate of men of singular gifts of mind to be 
 destitute of those of fortune ; which doth not any way deject the spirit 
 of wiser judgments, who thoroughly understand the justice of this pro- 
 ceeding, and being enriched with higher donatives, cast a more careless 
 eye on these vulgar parts of felicity. It is a most unjust ambition to do- 
 sire to engross the mercies of the Almighty, nor to bo content with the 
 goods of mind without a possession of those of body or fortune ; and 13 
 an error worse than heresy to adoro these complemental and circunr- 
 stantial pieces of felicity, and undervalue those perfections and essential 
 points of happiness wherein we resemble our Maker." Sir Thomae 
 Browne's " Religio Medici," cap. 17, 18.
 
 84 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK u 
 
 the accidents of fortune herself are more unfrequent ; for 
 instance, in the first place storms, tempests, shipwrecks, 
 ruins, or burnings, which spring from inanimate things ; in 
 the next place, causes blows, bites, or attacks of brutes. 
 Those accidents I say happen more seldom. 
 
 But of the destruction of armies, Ave have just now seen 
 three different instances, 1 and often we see more ; the de- 
 struction of generals, as was lately the case of a great and 
 an eminent personage ; 2 together with unpopularity, whence 
 frequently arises the expulsion, the fall, or the flight of the 
 worthiest citizens ; and on the other hand, prosperous events, 
 honors, commands, and victories ; though all those are 
 influenced by chance, yet they could not be brought about on 
 either side without the concurring assistance and inclinations 
 of mankind. This being premised, I am now to point out 
 the manner in which we may invite and direct the incli- 
 nations of mankind, so as to serve our interests ; and should 
 what I say on this head appear too long, let it be compared 
 with the importance of the subject, and then, perhaps, it may 
 even seem too short. 
 
 Whatever, therefore, people perform for any man, either to 
 raise or to dignify him, is done either through kindness, when 
 they have a motive of affection for him ; or to do him honor 
 in admiration of his virtue, and when they think him worthy 
 of the most exalted fortune ; or when they place confidence 
 in him, and think that they are doing the best for their own 
 interests ; or when they are afraid of his power ; or when 
 they hope somewhat from him ; as when princes, or those who 
 court the people, propose certain largesses ; or, lastly, when they 
 are engaged by money and bribery ; a motive that of all other 
 is the vilest and most sordid, both with regard to those who 
 are influenced by it, and those who are compelled to resort to it. 
 
 For it is a bad state of things, when that is attempted by 
 money which ought to be effected by virtue ; but as this re- 
 source is sometimes necessary, I will show in what manner 
 it is to be employed, after I have treated of some things that 
 are more connected with virtue. Now, mankind submit to the 
 command and power of another for several reasons. For they 
 
 1 Meaning the defeat of Pompey at Pharsalia, of his sons at Mundj 
 in Spain, and of Scipio in Africa , all by Julius Caesar. 
 - Pompey the Great.
 
 CHAP. vii. CICERO'S OFFICES. 85 
 
 are induced by benevolence or by the greatness of his bene- 
 fits ; or by his transcendent worth, or by the hopes that their 
 submission will turn to their own account, or from the fear 
 of their being forced to submit, or from the hopes of reward, 
 or the power of promises, or, lastly (which is often the case 
 in our government), they are hired by a bribe. 
 
 VIL Now, of all things there is none more adapted for 
 supporting and retaining our influence than to be loved, nor 
 more prejudicial than to be -feared. Ennius says very truly, 
 " People hate the man they fear, and to each the destruction 
 of him whom he hates is expedient." It has been lately 
 shown, 1 if it was not well known before, that no power can 
 resist the hatred of the many. Nor indeed is the destruction 
 of that tyrant, who by arms forced his country to endure him, 
 and whom it obeys still more after bis death, the only prooi 
 how mighty to destroy is the hatred of mankind, but the 
 similar deaths of other tyrants ; few of whom have escaped a 
 similar fate. For fear is but a bad guardian to permanency, 
 whereas affection is faithful even to perpetuity. 
 
 But the truth is, cruelty must be employed by those who 
 keep others in subjection by force ; as by a master to his 
 slaves, if they can not otherwise be managed. But of all mad- 
 men, they are the maddest who iu a free state so conduct them- 
 selves as to be feared. However, under the power of a private 
 man the laws may be depressed and the spirit of liberty in- 
 timidated, yet they occasionally emerge, either by the silent 
 determinations of the people, or by their secret suffrages with 
 relation to posts of honor. For the inflictions of liberty, 
 when it has been suspended, are more severe than if it had 
 been retained. We ought therefore to follow this most ob- 
 vious principle, that dread should be removed and affection 
 reconciled, which has the greatest influence not only on our 
 security, but also on our interest and power ; and thus we shall 
 most easily attain to the object of our wishes, both in private 
 and political affairs. For it is a necessary consequence, that 
 men fear those very persons by whom they wish to be feared. 
 
 For what judgment can we form of the elder Dionysius? 1 
 
 1 Cicero hero alludes to the assassination of Caesar in the senate. 
 
 * This elder Dionysius was tyrant of Syracuse about the year of Rome 
 447. His son and successor, of the same name, was expelled by Dione, 
 the disciple of Plato.
 
 80 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK n. 
 
 With what pangs of dread was he tortured, when, being 
 fearful even of his barber's razor, he singed his beard with 
 buniing coals ? In what a state of mind may it not be sup- 
 posed Alexander the Pherean to have lived ? Who (as we 
 read), though he loved his wife Thebe excessively, yet when- 
 ever lie came into her bed-chamber from the banquet, ordered 
 a barbarian, nay, one who we are told was scarred with the 
 Thracian brands, to go before him with a drawn sword ; and 
 sent certain of his attendants to search the chests of the 
 ladies, and discover whether they had daggers concealed 
 among their clothes. Miserable man ! to think a barbarous 
 and branded slave could be more faithful to him than his 
 wife ! Yet was he not deceived, for he Avas murdered by her 
 on the suspicion of an illicit connection ; nor, indeed, can any 
 power be so great as that, under the pressure of fear, it can 
 be lasting. 
 
 Phalaris is another instance, whose cruelty was notorious 
 above all other tyrants ; who did not, like the Alexander I 
 have just mentioned, perish by secret treachery, nor by the 
 hands of a few conspirators, like our own late tyrant, but 
 was attacked by the collective body of the Agrigentines. 
 Nay, did not the Macedonians abandon Demetrius, and with 
 one consent betake themselves to Pyrrhus ? And did not tho 
 allies of the Lacedaemonians abandon them almost univers- 
 ally when they governed tyrannically, and show themselves 
 unconcerned spectators of the disaster at Leuctra ? 
 
 Vin. Upon such a subject I more willingly record foreign 
 than domestic examples ; as long, however, as the empire of 
 the Roman people was supported by beneficence, and not in- 
 justice, their wars were undertaken either to defend their 
 allies or to protect their empire, the issues of their wars were 
 either merciful or unavoidable ; and the senate was the 
 harbor and the refuge of kings, people, and nations. 
 
 Moreover, our magistrates and generals sought to derive 
 their highest glory from this single fact, that they had upon 
 the principles of equity and honor defended their provinces 
 and their allies. This therefore might more justly be desig- 
 nated the patronage than the empire of the world ; for some 
 time we have been gradually declining from this practice 
 and these principles; but after the victory of Sylla, we 
 entirely lost them : for when such cruelties were exer-
 
 ,;HAP. vm. CICERO'S OFFICES. 87 
 
 cised upon our fellow-citizens, wo ceased to think any thing 
 unjust toward our allies. In this case, therefore, a disgrace- 
 ful conquest crowned a glorious cause ;* for he had the pre- 
 sumption to declare, when the goods of worthy men, of men 
 of fortune, and, to say the least, of citizens, were selling at 
 public auction, that he was disposing of his own booty. He 
 was followed by a man who, with an impious cause and a 
 still more detestable victory, did not indeed sell the effects of 
 private citizens, but involved in one state of calamity whole 
 provinces and countries. Thus foreign nations being ha- 
 rassed and ruined, we saw Marseilles, 8 the type of our 
 perished constitution, carried in triumph, without whose aid 
 our generals who returned from Transalpine wars had never 
 triumphed. Were not this the most flagrant indignity the sun 
 ever beheld, I might recount a great many other atrocities 
 against our allies. Deservedly, therefore, were we punished ; 
 for had we not suffered the crimes of many to pass unpunished 
 never could so much licentiousness have been concentrated 
 in one, the inheritance of whose private estate descended in- 
 deed to but a few, but that of his ambition devolved upon 
 many profligates. 
 
 Nor, indeed, will there ever be wanting a source and motive 
 for civil war, while men of abandoned principles call to mind 
 that bloody sale, and hope for it again. For when the spear 3 
 under which it was made was set up for his kinsman the dic- 
 tator, by Publius Sylla, the same Sylla, thirty-six years after, 
 was present at a still more detestable sale ; while another who 
 in that dictatorship was only a clerk, in the latter one was 
 city-qua3stor. From all which we ought to learn, that while 
 such rewards are presented, there never can be an end of our 
 civil wars. Thus the walls of our city alone are standing, and 
 even these awaiting the crimes that must destroy them ; but 
 
 1 Sylla's pretense for taking up arms was to defend tho nobility against 
 the encroachments of the commons, headtd by Marius, whose party 
 Caesar revived. Guthrie. 
 
 2 This was a favorite state with the Roman republicans ; but having 
 too inconsiderately shut their gates against and provoked Caesar, he 
 treated it as is here described. Guthrie. 
 
 3 Cicero here alludes to the sales of the estates of the Roman citizens 
 made by Sylla ; and which always were, among the Romans, carried on 
 under a spear stuck into tho ground. Tho like sales were afterward 
 made by some of Caesar's party. Guthrio.
 
 88 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK u. 
 
 already we have utterly lost our constitution ; and to return 
 to my subject, we have incurred all those miseries, because AVC 
 chose rather to be feared than to endear ouselves and be 
 beloved. If this was the case with the people of Rome Avhcn 
 exercising their dominion unjustly, what consequence must 
 private persons expect ? Now, as it is plain that the force of 
 kindness is so strong, and that of fear so weak, it remains for 
 me to discant upon the means by Avhich we may most readily 
 attain to that endearment which AVC desire, consistently Avith 
 fidelity and honor. 
 
 But of this we do not all stand in the same need ; for it 
 depends on the different purpose of life which each individual 
 pursues, Avhether it be necessary for him to be beloved by the 
 many, or Avhether the affections of the few be sufficient. One 
 thing, ho\vever, may be considered as certain ; that it is chiefly 
 and indispensably necessaiy, that AVO should possess the faith- 
 ful affections of thoss friends Avho love our persons and admire 
 our qualities ; for this is the only particular in Avhich men of 
 the highest and middle stations of life agree, and is attainable 
 by both in much the same manner. All, perhaps, are not 
 equally desirous of honors and of the good-will of their fellow- 
 citizens ; but the man Avho is possessed of them is greatly as- 
 sisted by them in acquiring other advantages as Avell as those 
 of friendship. 
 
 IX. But I have in another book, Avhich is entitled Laelius, 
 treated of friendship. I am now to speak of fame, though I 
 have already published two books upon that subject :' let me, 
 however, touch upon it, as it greatly conduces to the right 
 management of the more important affairs. The highest and 
 the most perfect popularity lies in three requisites ; first, 
 Avhen the public loves us ; secondly, Avhen it regards us as 
 trustAvorthy ; thirdly, Avhen, Avith a certain degree of admi- 
 ration, it judges us to be Avorthy of preferment. Now, if I 
 am to speak plainly and briefly, almost the same means by 
 which those advantages are acquired from private persons 
 procure them from the public. But there is another passage 
 by which we may, as it Avere, glide into the affections of the 
 many. 
 
 And first, let me touch upon those three maxims by Avhich 
 (as I have already said) good-will may be acquired. This is 
 
 1 This treatise is now lost.
 
 CHAP. x. CICERO'S OFFICES. 89 
 
 chiefly acquired by benefits ; but next to that, good-will is 
 won by a beneficent disposition, though we may bo desti- 
 tute of means. Thirdly, the affections of the public are 
 wonderfully excited by the mere reputation of generosity, 
 beneficence, justice, honor, and of all those virtues that re- 
 gard politeness and affability of manners. For the very 
 honestum and the graceful, as it is called, because it charms 
 us by its own properties and touches the hearts of all by its 
 qualities and its beauties, is chiefly resplendent through the 
 medium of those virtues I have mentioned. We are there- 
 fore drawn, as it were, by nature herself to the love of those 
 in whom we think those virtues reside. Now these are the 
 strongest causes of affection, though some there may be which 
 are less material. 
 
 The acquisition of public confidence or trust may be effected 
 by two considerations : by being supposed to be possessed of 
 wisdom and of justice combined. For we have confidence in 
 those who we think understand more than ourselves, and who 
 we believe see further into the future, and, when business is 
 actually in hand and matters come to trial, know how to pursue 
 the wisest measures and act in the most expedient manner, as 
 the exigency may require ; all mankind agreeing that this is 
 real and useful wisdom. Such confidence, also, is placed in 
 honest and honorable men, that is, in good men, as to exclude 
 all suspicion of fraud or injury. We therefore think we act 
 safely and properly in intrusting them with our persons, our 
 fortunes, and our families. 
 
 But of the two virtues, honesty and wisdom, the former is 
 the most powerful in winning the confidence of mankind. 
 For honesty without wisdom has influence sufficient of itself; 
 but wisdom without honesty is of no effect in inspiring confi- 
 dence ; because, when we have no opinion of a man's probity, 
 the greater his craft and cunning the more hated and suspected 
 he becomes ; honesty, therefore, joined to understanding, will 
 have unbounded power in acquiring confidence ; honesty with- 
 out understanding can do a great deal ; but undersanding with- 
 out honesty can do nothing. 
 
 X. But lest any one should wonder why, as all philosophers 
 are agreed in one maxim, which I myself have often main- 
 tained, that the man who possesses one of the virtues is in 
 possession of them all, I here make a distinction which im-
 
 90 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK n. 
 
 plies that a man may bo just but not at the same time pru- 
 dent ; there is one kind of accuracy which in disputation 
 refines even upon truth, and another kind, when our whole 
 discourse is accommodated to the understanding of the public. 
 Therefore I here make use of the common terms of discourse, 
 by calling some men brave, some good, others prudent. For 
 when we treat of popular opinions, we should make use of 
 popular terms, and Panretius did the same. But to return to 
 our subject. 
 
 Of the three requisites of perfect popularity, the third I 
 mentioned was, " when the public with a certain degree of 
 admiration judges us to be worthy of preferment." Now 
 every thing that men observe to be great and above their 
 comprehension they commonly admire ; and with regard to 
 individuals, those in whom they can see any unexpected 
 excellences. They therefore behold with reverence and 
 extol with the greatest praise, those men in whom they 
 think they can perceive some distinguished or singular vir- 
 tues ; whereas they despise those whom they think to possess 
 no virtue, spirit, or manliness. Now, men do not despise all 
 those of whom they think ill. For they by no means con- 
 temn rogues, slanderers, cheats, and those who are prepared 
 to commit an injury, though they have a bad opinion of 
 them. Therefore, as I have already said, those are despised 
 who can neither serve themselves nor any one else, who have 
 no assiduity, no industry, and no concern about them ; but 
 those men are the objects of admiration who are thought to 
 surpass others in virtue, and to be free as well from every 
 disgrace, as especially from those vices which others can not 
 easily resist. For pleasures, those most charming mistressess, 
 turn aside the greater number of minds from virtue, and most 
 men, when the fires of affliction are applied to them, are un- 
 measurably terrified. Life and death, poverty and riches, 
 make the deepest impressions upon all men. But as to those 
 who, with a great and elevated mind, look down on these in- 
 differently ; men whom a lofty and noble object, when it is 
 presented to them, draws and absorbs to itself; in such 
 cases, who does not admire the splendor and the beauty of 
 virtue ? 
 
 XI. This sublimity of soul, therefore, produces the highest 
 admiration; and above all, justice, from which single virtue
 
 CHAP. xi. CICERO'S OFFICES. 91 
 
 men arc called good, appears to the multitude as something 
 marvelous. And with good reason ; for no man can be just 
 if he is afraid of death, pain, exile, or poverty, or prefers 
 their contraries to justice. Men especially admire him Avho 
 is incorruptible by money, and they consider every man in 
 whom that quality is seen as ore purified by the fire. 
 Justice, therefore, comprehends all the three means of acquir- 
 ing glory which have been laid down. The love of the pub- 
 lic, on account of its being a general benefit ; its confidence, 
 for the same reason ; and its admiration, because it neglects 
 and despises those objects to which most men are hurried on 
 inflamed with avidity. 
 
 In my opinion, however, every scheme and purpose of life 
 requires the assistance of men, especially that one should 
 have some with whom he can familiary unbosom himself, 
 which is hard for one to do, unless he maintain the appear- 
 ance of a good man. For this reason, were a man to livo 
 ever so lonely or ever so retired in the country, a reputation 
 for justice would be indispensable to him, and so much the 
 more, as those who do not possess it will be esteemed dis- 
 honest, and thus surrounded by no protection will be exposed 
 to numerous injuries. 
 
 And with those likewise who buy or sell, who hire or let 
 out, or who are engaged in the transaction of business, justice 
 is necessary to the carrying of their pursuits, for its influ- 
 ence is so great, that without some grains of it, even they 
 who live by malpractices and villainy could not subsist. 
 For among those who thieve in company, if any one of 
 them cheat or rob another he is turned out of the gang ; and 
 the captain of the band himself, unless he should distribute 
 the spoils impartially, would either be murdered or deserted 
 by his fellows. Indeed, robbers are even said to have their 
 laws, which they obey and observe. By this impartiality in 
 sharing the booty, Bardyllis, the Illyrian robber, mentioned 
 by Theopompus, obtained great wealth ; and Viriathus, the 
 Lusitanian, much greater ; to whom our armies and our gene- 
 rals yielded; but whom the praetor Caius Lzelius, surnamed 
 the wise, crushed and subdued, and so repressed his ferocity 
 that he left an easy victory to his successors. If, therefore, 
 the influence of justice is so forcible as to strengthen and 
 enlarge the power of robbers, how great must wo suppose
 
 92 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK n. 
 
 it to be amid the laws mid administration of a well -constituted 
 government ? 
 
 XII. It appears to me, that not only among the Medes, 
 as we are told by Herodotus, but by our own ancestors, men 
 of the best principles were constituted kings, for the benefit 
 of their just government. For when the helpless people 
 were oppressed by those who had greater power, they betook 
 themselves to some one man who was distinguished by his 
 virtue, who not only protected the weakest from oppression, 
 but by setting up an equitable system of government, united 
 highest and lowest in equal rights. The cause of the institu- 
 tion of laws was the same as that of kings ; for equality of 
 rights has ever been the object of desire ; nor otherwise can 
 there be any rights at all. 
 
 When mankind could enjoy it under one just and good man, 
 they were satisfied with that ; but when that was not the case, 
 laws were invented, which perpetually spoke to all men with 
 one and the same voice. It is therefore undeniable that the 
 men whose reputation among the people was the highest for 
 their justice, were commonly chosen to bear rule. But when 
 the same were likewise regarded as wise men, there was 
 nothing the people did not think themselves capable of attain- 
 ing under such authority. Justice, therefore, is by all manner 
 of means to be reverenced and practiced ; both for its own sake 
 (for otherwise it would not be justice), and for the enlargement 
 of our own dignity and popularity. But as there is a system 
 not only for the acquisition of money but also for its invest- 
 ment, so that it may supply ever-recurring expenses, not only 
 the needful but the liberal ; so popularity must be both acquired 
 and maintained by system. 
 
 It was finely said by Socrates that the shortest and most 
 direct road to popularity, is " for a man to be the same that 
 he wishes to be taken for." People are egregiously mistaken 
 if they think they ever can attain to permanent popularity by 
 hypocrisy, by mere outside appearances, and by disguising 
 not only their language but their looks. True popularity 
 takes deep root and spreads itself wide ; but the false falls 
 away like blossoms ; for nothing that is false can be lasting. 
 I could bring many instances of both kinds ; but for the sake 
 of liberty, I will confine myself to one ftunily. While there 
 is a memorial of Roman history remaining, the memory of
 
 CHAP. xm. CICERO'S OFFICES. P3 
 
 Tiberius Gracchus, the son of Publius, will bo held in honor; 
 but his sons even in life were not approved of by the good, and, 
 being dead, they are ranked among those who were deservedly 
 put to death. 
 
 XIII. Let the man therefore who aspires after true popularity, 
 perform the duties of justice. What these are has been laid 
 down in the former book. But although we may most easily 
 seem to be just what we are (though in this of itself there is 
 very great importance), yet some precepts require to be given 
 as to how we ma)' be such men as we desire to be considered. 
 For if any one from early youth has the elements of celebrity 
 and reputation, either derived from his father (which I 
 fancy, my dear Cicero has happened to you), or by some 
 other cause or accident ; the eyes of all mankind are turned 
 toward him, and they make it their business to inquire what 
 he does and how he lives ; and, as if he were set up in the 
 strongest point of light, no word or deed of his can be 
 private. 
 
 Now those whose early life, through their mean and ob- 
 scure rank, is passed unnoticed by the public, when they 
 come to be young men, ought to contemplate important pur- 
 poses, and pursue them by the most direct means, which they 
 will do with a firmer resolution, because not only is no envy 
 felt, but favor rather is shown toward that period of life. 
 The chief recommendation then of a young man to fame is 
 derived from military exploits. 1 Of this we have many ex- 
 
 1 " Perhaps it will afford to somo men now ideas, if we inquire what 
 the real nature of the military virtues is. They receive more of applause 
 than virtues of any other kind. How does this happen ? Wo must seek 
 a solution in the seeming paradox that their pretensions to the charac- 
 ters of virtues are few and small. They receive much applause because 
 they merit little. They could not subsist without it; and if men resolve 
 to practice war, and consequently to require the conduct which givea 
 success to war, they must decorate that conduct with glittering fictions, 
 and extol the military virtues, though they be neither good nor great. 
 Of every species of real excellence it is tha general characteristic that it 
 is not anxious for applause. The more elevated the virtue the less the 
 desire, and the less is the public voice a motive to action. What should 
 we say of that man's benevolence who would not relieve a neighbor in 
 distress, unless the donation would be praised in a newspaper ? What 
 should wo say of that man's piety, who prayed only when he was ' seen 
 of men?' But the military virtues live upon applause; it is their vital 
 element and their food, their great pervading motive and reward. Aro 
 there, then, among the respective virtues such discordances of char-
 
 94 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK it 
 
 amples among" our ancestors, for they were almost always 
 vraging wars. Your youth however has fallen upon the time 
 of a war, in which one party incurred too much guilt and the 
 other too little success. But when in that war Pompey gave 
 you the command of a squadron, you gained the praise of that 
 great man and of his army by your horsemanship, your darting 
 the javelin, and your tolerance of all military labor. But this 
 honor of yours ceased with the constitution of our country. 
 My discourse however has not been undertaken with reference 
 to you singly, but to the general subject. Let me therefore 
 proceed to what remainso 
 
 As in other matters the powers of the mind are far more im- 
 portant than those of the body, so the objects we pursue by 
 intelligence and reason are more important than those we effect 
 by bodily strength. The most early recommendation, therefore, 
 is modesty, obedience to parents, and affection for relations. 
 Young men are likewise most easily and best known, who at- 
 tach themselves to wise and illustrious men who benefit their 
 country by their counsels. Their frequenting such company 
 gives mankind a notion of their one day resembling those 
 whom they choose for imitation. 
 
 The frequenting of the house of Publius Marcus commended 
 the early life of Publius Rutilius to a reputation for integrity 
 and knowledge of the law. Lucius Crassus indeed, when very 
 young, was indebted to no extrinsic source, but by himself ac- 
 quired the highest honor from that noble and celebrated 
 prosecution he undertook ; at an age when even those who 
 exercise themselves are highly applauded (as we are told in the 
 case of Demosthenes), Crassus, I say, at that age showed that 
 he could already do that most successfully in the forum, which 
 at,that lime he would have gained praise hud he attempted ax 
 home. 
 
 XIV. But as there are two methods of speaking ; the one 
 proper for conversation, the other for debate, there can be 
 no doubt but the disputative style of speech is of the greatest 
 efficacy with regard to fame ; for that is what we properly 
 term eloquence. Yet it is difficult to describe how great 
 
 ncter, such total contrariety of nature and essence ? No, no. But 
 how then do you account for the fact, that while all other great virtues 
 are independent of public praise and stand aloof from it, the military 
 virtues can scarcely exist without it ?" Dymond's " Essay on Morals.*
 
 CHAP. xiv. CICERO'S OFFICES. 95 
 
 power, affability and politeness io conversation have to win the 
 affections of mankind. There are extant letters from Philip, 
 from Antipater, and from Antigonus, three of the wisest men 
 we meet with in history, to their sons Alexander, Cassander, 
 and Philip, recommending to them to draw the minds of the 
 people to kindly sentiments by a generous style of discourse, 
 and to engage their soldiers by a winning address. But the 
 speech which is pronounced in debate before a multitude often 
 carries away a whole assembly. For great is their admiration 
 of an eloquent and sensible speaker, that when they hear him, 
 they are convinced he has both greater abilities and more wis- 
 dom than the rest of mankind. But should this eloquence have 
 in it dignity combined with modesty, nothing can be more 
 admirable, especially should those properties meet in a young 
 man. 
 
 Various are the causes that require the practice of elo- 
 quence ; and many young men in our state have attained 
 distinction before the judges and in the senate ; but there is 
 the greatest admiration for judicial harangues, the nature of 
 which is twofold, for it consists of accusation and defense. 
 Of those, though the latter is preferable in point of honor ; yet 
 the other has often been approved. I have spoken a little 
 before of Crassus; Marcus Antonius when a youth did the 
 same. An accusation also displayed the eloquence of Publius 
 Sulpicius, when he brought to trial Caius Norbanus, a seditious 
 and worthless citizen. 
 
 But in truth, we ought not to do this frequently nor even- 
 except for the sake of our country, as in the cases I have 
 mentioned ; or for the purpose of revenge,' as the two Lu- 
 
 1 The direct approbation and inculcation of revenue on the part of 
 ancient moralists, constitutes the point at which the authorities on 
 Christian ethics most widely diverge from them. Paley lays down tho 
 following principles on this subject: "It is highly probable, from the 
 light of nature, that a passion, which seeks its gratification immediately 
 and expressly in giving pain, is disagreeable to the benevolent will and 
 counsels of tho Creator. Other passions and pleasures may, and often 
 do, produce pain to some one ; but then pain is not, as it is hero, the 
 object of the passion, and the direct cause of the pleasure. This proba- 
 bility is converted into certainty, if we give credit to tho authority whicb 
 dictated the several passages of the Christian scriptures that condemr 
 revenge, or, what is the same thing, which enjoins forgivenesa Tho 
 forgiveness of an enemy is not inconsistent with the proceedings against 
 him as u public offender ; and that the discipline established in reUgioua
 
 95 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK it 
 
 culli did ; or by way of patronage, as I did on behalf of the 
 Sicilians, or as Julius did in the case of Albucius on behalf 
 of the Sardians. The diligence of Lucius Fufras was dis- 
 played in the impeachment of Manius Aquillius. For once 
 therefore it may be done ; or at all events not often. But if a 
 man should be under a necessity of doing it oftener, let him 
 perform it as a duty to his country, for it is by no means 
 blameworthy to carry on repeated prosecutions against her 
 
 or civil societies, for the restraint or punishment of criminals, ought to 
 bo upholden. If the magistrate be not tied down with these prohibitions 
 from the execution of his office, neither is the prosecutor ; for the office 
 of the prosecutor is as necessary as that of the magistrate. Nor, by 
 parity of reason, are private persons withholden from the correction of 
 vice, when it is in their power to exercise it, provided they be assured 
 that it is the guilt which provokes them, and not the injury ; and that 
 their motives are pure from all mixture and every particle of that spirit 
 which delights and triumphs in the humiliation of an adversary." 
 Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, book iii. ch. viii. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne, in his " Christian Morals," has the following 
 striking reflections on revenge : " Too many there bo to whom a dead 
 enemy smells well, and who find musk and amber in revenge. Tho 
 ferity of such minds holds no rule in retaliations, requiring too often a 
 head for a tooth, and the supreme revenge for trespasses which a night's 
 rest should obliterate. But patient meekness takes injuries like pills, 
 not chewing but swallowing them down, laconically suffering, and 
 silently passing them over ; while angered pride makes a noise, liko 
 Homerican Mars, at every scratch of offenses. Since women do most 
 delight in revenge, it may seem but feminine manhood to bo vindictive. 
 If thou must needs have thy revenge of thine enemy, with a soft tongue 
 break his bones, heap coals of fire on his head, forgive him and enjoy 
 it. To forgive our enemies is a charming way of revenge, and a short 
 Caesarian conquest, overcoming without a blow; laying our enemies 
 at our feet, under sorrow, shame, and repentance ; leaving our foes our 
 friends, and solicitously inclined to grateful retaliations. Thus to return 
 upon our adversaries is a healing way of revenge ; and to do good for evil 
 a soft and melting ultion, a method taught from heaven to keep all 
 smooth on earth. Common forcible ways make not an end of evil, but 
 leave hatred and malice behind them. An enemy thus reconciled is little 
 to be trusted, as wanting the foundation of love and charity, and but for 
 a time restrained by disadvantage or inability. If thou hast not mercy 
 for others, yet be not cruel unto thyself. To ruminate upon evils, to 
 make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehen- 
 sions, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our 
 enemies, to lash ourselves with the scorpions of our foes, and to resolvo 
 to sleep no more. For injuries long dreamt on take away at last all rest, 
 and he sleeps but like Ilegulus who busieth his head about them." -> 
 Christian Morals, chaptei xii.
 
 CIIAP. XIT. CICERO'S OFFICES 9 7 
 
 enemies. But still let moderation be observed. For it seems 
 to bo the part of a cruel man, or rather scarcely of a man at all, 
 to endanger the lives of many. It is both dangerous to your 
 person, and disgraceful to your character, so to act as to get the 
 name of an accuser, as happened in the case of Marcus Brutus, 
 a man sprung from a most noble family, and son to the eminent 
 adept in civil law. 
 
 Moreover, this precept of duty also must be carefully ob- 
 served, that you never arraign an innocent man on trial for 
 his life, for this can by no means be done without heinous 
 guilt. For what can be so unnatural as to prostitute to the 
 prosecution and the ruin of the good, that eloquence which 
 nature has given us for the safety and preservation of man- 
 kind. Although, however, this is to be avoided, yet we are 
 not to consider it a religious duty never to defend a guilty 
 party, so that he be not abominable and impious. The people 
 desire this, custom tolerates it, and humanity suffers it. The 
 duty of a judge in all trials is to follow truth ; that of 
 a pleader, sometimes to maintain the plausible though it may 
 not be the truth, 1 which I should not, especially as I am now 
 
 1 Two of tho most eminent moralists of modern times havo thus re- 
 corded their respective judgments on this point of casuistry. Archdeacon 
 Paley says, " There are falsehoods which are not lies ; that is, which are 
 not criminal: as, where no one is deceived; which is tho case in para- 
 bles, fables, novels, jests, tales to create mirth, ludicrous embellishments 
 of a story, where the declared design of the speaker is not to inform, but 
 to divert; compliments in the subscription of a letter, a servant's deny- 
 ing his master, a prisoner's pleading not guilty, an advocate asserting 
 the justice, or his belief of tho justice, of his client's cause. In such in- 
 stances, no confidence is destroyed, because none was reposed; no 
 promise to speak tho truth is violated, because none was given, or un- 
 derstood to bo given." Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, book iii. 
 chapter xv. 
 
 In refutation of this view, Dymond suggests tho following considera- 
 tions : " This defense is not very credible, even if it were valid ; it de- 
 fends men from tho imputation of falsehood, because their falsehoods are 
 so habitual that no one gives them credit I 
 
 " But tho defense is not valid. Of this tho reader may satisfy himself 
 by considering why, if no ono over believes what advocates say, they 
 continue to speak. They would not, year after year, persist in uttering 
 untruths in our courts, without attaining an object, and knowing thai, 
 they would not attain it. If no one ever in fact believed them, they 
 would cease to asseverate. They do not love falsehood for its own sake, 
 and utter it gratuitously and for nothing. Tho custom itself, therefore, 
 disproves tho argument that is brought to defend it. Whenever that 
 
 5
 
 98 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK tt 
 
 treating of philosophy, venture to write, were it not likewise the 
 opinion of a man of the greatest weight among the Stoics, 
 Pansetius. But it is by defenses that glory and favor also are 
 acquired in the greatest degree ; and so much the greater, if at 
 any time it happens that we come to the help of one who seems 
 to be circumvented and oppressed by the influence of some 
 powerful man, as I myself have done both in other cases fre- 
 quently, and when a youth in defense of Sextus Roscius Amer- 
 inus, against the influence of Lucius Sylla, then in power, which 
 speech, as you know, is extant. 
 
 XV. But having explained the duties of young men, 
 which avail to the attainment of glory, we have next to 
 speak about beneficence and liberality, the nature of which is 
 twofold ; for a kindness is done to those who need it, by 
 giving either our labor or our money. The latter is easier, 
 
 defense becomes valid, whenever it is really true that 'no confidence ia 
 reposed' in advocates, they will cease to use falsehood, for it will have 
 lost its motive. But the real practice is to mingle falsehood and truth 
 together, and so to involve the one with the other that the jury can not 
 easily separate them. The jury know that some of the pleader's state- 
 ments are true, and these they believe. Now he makes other statements 
 with the same deliberate emphasis ; and how shall the jury know whether 
 these are false or true ? How shall they discover the point at which 
 they shall begin to ' repose no confidence ?' Knowing that a part is true, 
 they can not always know that another part is not true. That it is the 
 pleader's design to persuade them of the truth of all ho affirms, is mani- 
 fest. Suppose an advocate, when he rose should say, 'Gentlemen, I am 
 now going to speak the truth ;' and after narrating the facts of the case, 
 should say, ' Gentlemen, I am now going to address you with fictions.' 
 "Why should not an advocate do this ? Because then no confidence would 
 be reposed, which is the same thing as to say that he pursues his present 
 plan because some confidence is reposed, and this decides the question. 
 The decision should not be concealed that the advocate who employs 
 untruths in his pleadings, does really and most strictly lie. 
 
 " And even if no one ever did believe an advocate, his false declara* 
 tions would still bo lies, because ho always ' professes to speak the truth.' 
 This indeed is true upon the Archdeacon's own showing ; for he says, 
 1 "Whoever seriously addresses his discourse to another, tacitly promises 
 to speak the truth.' The case is very different from others which he 
 proposes as parallel ' parables, fables, jests.' In these, the speaker does 
 not profess to state facts. But the pleader does profess to state facts. 
 He intends and endeavors to mislead. His untruths, therefore, are lies 
 to him, whether they are believed or not ; just as, in vulgar life, a man 
 whose falsehoods are so notorious that no one gives him credit, is not 
 the less a liar than if he were believed." Dymond's Essay on the Prin- 
 ciples of Morals, Essay ii. chapter v-
 
 CHAP. IT. CICERO'S OFFICES. 99 
 
 especially to a wealthy person; but the former is the more 
 noble and splendid, and more worthy of a brave and illus- 
 trious man ; for although there exists in both a liberal incli- 
 nation to oblige, yet the one is a draft on our purse, the other 
 on our virtue, and bounty which is given out of our income 
 exhausts the very source of the munificence. Thus benignity 
 is done away by benignity, and the greater the number you 
 have exercised it upon, so much the less able are you to 
 exercise it upon many. But they who will be beneficent 
 and liberal of their labor, that is, of their virtue and in- 
 dustry, in the first place, will have by how much greater 
 the number of persons they shall have served, so much 
 the more coadjutors in their beneficence. And in the 
 next place, by the habit of beneficence they will be the 
 better prepared, and, as it were, better exercised to de- 
 serve well of many. Philip, in a certain letter, admirably 
 reproves his son Alexander, because he sought to gain the 
 goodwill of the Macedonians by largesses " Pest !" he 
 says, "what consideration led you into the hope that you 
 could imagine that they whom you have corrupted with 
 money would be faithful to you ? Are you aiming at this, 
 that the Macedonians should expect you will be, not their 
 king, but their agent and purveyor." He says well, "agent 
 and purveyor," because that is undignified in a king ; and 
 still better, because he designates a largess a corrupt bribe ; 
 for he who receives becomes the worse for it, and more ready 
 always to expect the same. He enjoined this on his son, but 
 we imy consider it a precept for all men. Wherefore, this 
 indeed is not doubtful, that such beneficence as consists of 
 labor and industry is both the more honorable, and ex- 
 tends more widely, and can serve a greater number. Some- 
 times, however, wo must make presents nor is this sort of 
 beneficence to be altogether repudiated ; and oftentimes we 
 ought to communicate from our fortune to suitable persons, 
 who are in need, but carefully and moderately. For many 
 persons have squandered their patrimonies by unadvised gene- 
 rosity. Now, what is more absurd than to bring it to pass 
 that you can no longer do that which you would willingly do ? 
 And moreover, rapine follows profuseness. For when, by 
 giving, they begin to be in want, they are forced to lay their 
 hands upon other men's property. Thus, when, for the sake
 
 100 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK u. 
 
 of procuring good-will, they mean to be beneficent, they ac- 
 quire not so much the affection of those to whom they give 
 as the hatred of those from whom they take. Wherefore, our 
 purse should neither be so closed up that our generosity 
 can not open it, nor so unfastened that it lies open to all a 
 bound should be set, and it should bear reference to our 
 means. We ought altogether to remember that saying which, 
 from being very often used by our countrymen, has come into 
 the usage of a proverb, that " bounty has no bottom." For 
 what bounds can there be, when both they who have been accus- 
 tomed to receive, and other persons, are desiring the same thing? 
 XVI. There are two kinds of men who give largely, of 
 whom one kind is prodigal, the other liberal. The prodigal 
 are those who with entertainments, and distributions of meat 
 to the populace, and gladiatorial exhibitions, and the appa- 
 ratus of the stage and the chase, lavish their money upon 
 those things of which they will leave behind either a tran- 
 sient memory, or none all. But the liberal are they who, 
 with their fortunes, either redeem those captured by robbers, 
 or take up the debts of their friends, or aid in the establish- 
 ing of their daughters, or assist them either in seeking or 
 increasing their fortunes. Therefore, I am astonished what 
 could come into the mind of Theophrastus, in that book 
 which he wrote about riches, in which he has said many 
 things well, but this most absurdly. For he is lavish in 
 praise of magnificence, and of the furnishing of popular 
 exhibitions, and he considers the means of supplying such 
 expenses to be the grand advantage of wealth. Now, to 
 me that enjoyment of liberality of which I have given a few 
 examples, seems much greater and surer. With how much 
 more weight and truth does Aristotle censure such of us as feel 
 no astonishment at that profusion of wealth which is wasted 
 in courting the people ; " if," says he, " they who are besieged 
 by an enemy should be compelled to purchase a pint of water 
 at a mina, 1 this, on first hearing, would seem to us incredible, 
 and all would be astonished, but when we reflect upon it, we 
 excuse it for its necessity ; while in these pieces of immense 
 extravagance and unbounded expense, we do not feel greatly 
 astonished." And he censures us, especially, " because we are 
 neither relieving necessity, nor is our dignity increased, and 
 
 1 About three pounds sterling.
 
 CHAP, rra CICERO'S OFFICES. 101 
 
 the very delight of the multitude is for a brief and little 
 space, and only felt by the most giddy, even in whom, how- 
 ever, at the same time with the satiety, the memory of the 
 pleasure likewise dies." He sums up well, too, that " these 
 things are agreeable to boys and silly women, and slaves, 
 and freemen very like slaves ; but that by a man of sense, 
 and one who ponders with sound judgment on such exhibi- 
 tions, they can in no way be approved." Though I know 
 that in our state it is established by ancient usage, and even 
 now in the good times, that the splendor of aedileships 1 is 
 expected even from the most excellent men. Therefore, both 
 Publius Crassus, wealthy as well in name as in fortune, dis- 
 charged the office of ffidile with the most magnificent enter- 
 tainment ; and, a little while after, Lucius Crassus, with 
 Quintus Mucius, the most moderate of all men, served a most 
 magnificent aedileship ; and next, Caius Claudius, son of 
 Appius ; many subsequently the Luculli, Hortensius, Silanus ; 
 but Publius Lentulus, in my consulship, surpassed all his 
 predecessors. Scaurus imitated him ; but the shows of my 
 friend Pompey, in his second consulship, were the most mag- 
 nificent of all concerning all of whom, you see what is my 
 opinion. 
 
 XVII. Nevertheless, the suspicion of avarice should be 
 avoided. The omitting of the aedileship caused the rejection 
 of Mamercus, a very wealthy man, from the consulship. 
 Wherefore it must bo done if it be required by the people, 
 and good men, if not desiring, at least approve it, but in 
 proportion to our means, as I myself did it ; and again, if 
 some object of greater magnitude and utility is acquired by 
 popular largess, as lately the dinners in the streets, under 
 pretext of a vow of a tenth, 3 brought great honor to 
 Orestes. Nor was ever any fault found with Marcus Seius, 
 because in the scarcity ho gave corn to the people at an as 
 the bushel. For he delivered himself from a great and in- 
 veterate dislike by an expense neither disgraceful, since he 
 was aedile at the time, nor excessive. But it lately brought 
 the greatest honor to our friend Milo, that with gladiators, 
 
 1 Tho -#5dilea, among other duties, had the care of the public shows, 
 to which they were expected to contribute largely out of their private 
 fortunes. 
 
 a To ono of the goda.
 
 102 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK n. 
 
 hired for the sake of the republic, which was held together by 
 my safety, he repressed all the attempts and madness of Publius 
 Clodius. The justification, therefore, of profuse bounty is that 
 it is either necessary or useful. Moreover, in these very cases 
 the rule of mediocrity is the best. Lucius Philippus, indeed, 
 the son of Quintus, a man in the highest degree illustrious for 
 his great genius, used to boast that without any expense he 
 had attained all the highest honors that could be obtained. 
 Cotta said the same, and Curio. I myself, too, might in some 
 degree boast on this subject ; for considering the amplitude of 
 the honors which I attained with all the votes in my own 1 
 year, too a thing that happened to none of those whom I 
 have just named the expense of my sedileship was certainly 
 trifling. 
 
 These expenses also are more justifiable on walls, docks, 
 ports, aqueducts, and all things which pertain to the service 
 of the state, though what is given as it were into our hands 
 is more agreeable at present, yet these things are more 
 acceptable to posterity. Theaters, porticos, new temples, I 
 censure with more reserve for Pompey's sake, but the most 
 learned men disapprove of them, as also this very Panaetius, 
 whom in these books I have closely followed, though not trans- 
 lated; and Demetrius Phalereus, who censures Pericles, the 
 greatest man of Greece, because he lavished so much money 
 on that glorious vestibule ; 2 but all this subject I have carefully 
 discussed in these books which I have written upon Govern- 
 ment. The whole plan, then, of such largesses is vicious in its 
 nature, but necessitated by particular occasions, and even then 
 ought to be accommodated to our means, and regulated by 
 moderation. 
 
 XVIII. But in that second kind of munificence which 
 proceeds from liberality, we ought in different cases to be 
 affected in different manners. The case is different of him 
 who is oppressed with misfortune, and of him who seeks to 
 better his fortune without being in any adversity. Our 
 
 1 To he Quaestor, ^Edile, Praetor, and Consul, the respective ages were 
 31, 38, 41, and 44 years. The man who was elected to an office at the 
 earliest age at which he was entitled to offer himself a candidate for it 
 was said to get it in his own year. Cicero got each of them in his own 
 year. 
 
 3 Of the Acropolia
 
 CHAP. mil. CICERO'S OFFICES. 103 
 
 benignity will require lo be more prompt toward the distressed, 
 unless perhaps they merit their distress ; yet from those who 
 desire to be assisted, uot that they may be relieved from afflic- 
 tion, but that they may ascend to a higher degree, we ought 
 by no means to be altogether restricted, but to apply judgment 
 and discretion in selecting proper persons. For Eunius observes 
 well 
 
 " Benefactions ill bestowed, I deem malefactions." 
 
 But in that which is bestowed upon a worthy and grateful 
 man there is profit, as well from himself as also from others ; 
 for liberality, when free from rashness, is most agreeable, 
 and many applaud it the more earnestly on this account, 
 because the bounty of every very exalted man is the common 
 refuge of all. We should do our endeavor, then, that we 
 may servo as many as possible with those benefits, the recol- 
 lection of which may be handed down to their children and 
 posterity, that it may not be HI their power to be ungrateful ; 
 for all men detest one forgetful of a benefit, and they consider 
 that an injury is done even to themselves by discouraging 
 liberality, and that he who does so is the common enemy of 
 the poor. And besides, that benignity is useful to the state 
 by which captives are redeemed from slavery, and the poor 
 are enriched. That it was indeed the common custom that 
 this should bo dono by our order, 1 we see copiously described 
 in the speech of Crassus. This kind of bounty, therefore, 
 I prefer far before the munificent exhibition of shows. That 
 is the part of dignified and great men this of flatterers of 
 the populace, tickling, as it were, with pleasures the levity 
 of the multitude. It will, moreover, be expedient that a 
 man, as he should be munificent in giving, so that he should 
 not be harsh in exacting ; and in every contract, in selling, 
 buying, hiring, letting, to be iust and good-natured to the 
 vicinage and surrounding occupiers ; conceding to many much 
 that is his own right, but shunning disputes as far as he 
 can conveniently, and I know not but even a little more than 
 he can conveniently. For, to abate at times a little from our 
 rights, is not only generous, but sometimes profitable also. 
 But of our property, which it is truly disgraceful to allow to 
 
 1 The eenatorial.
 
 104 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK n. 
 
 get dilapidated, care must be taken, but in such a way that 
 the suspicion of shabbiness and avarice be avoided. For to 
 be able to practice liberality, not stripping ourselves of our 
 patrimony, is indeed the greatest enjoyment of wealth. 
 Hospitality also has been justly recommended by Theo- 
 phrastus. For, as it appears to me, indeed, it is very 
 decorous that the houses of illustrious men should be open 
 for illustrious guests. And that also brings credit to the 
 state, that foreigners in our city should not fail of ex- 
 periencing this species of liberality. It is, moreover, exceed- 
 ingly useful to those who wish to be very powerful in an 
 honorable way, to get the command over wealth and interest 
 among foreign nations through their guests. Theophrastus, 
 indeed, writes that Cymon at Athens practiced hospitality 
 even toward his brethren of the Lacian tribe ; for that he 
 so directed and commanded his stewards, that all things 
 should be supplied to any of them that should turn aside into 
 his villa. 
 
 XIX. Now, those benefits which are bestowed out of our 
 labor, not our money, are conferred as well upon the entire 
 commonwealth, as upon individual citizens. For to give 
 legal opinions, to assist with counsel, and to serve as many 
 as we can with this kind of knowledge, tends very much to 
 increase both our means and our interest. This, therefore, 
 as well as many things about our ancestors, was noble, that 
 the knowledge and interpretation of our most excellently 
 constituted civil law was always in the highest repute ; 
 which, indeed, before this confusion of the present times, the 
 nobles retained in their own possession. Now, like honors 
 like all the degrees of rank, so the splendor of this 
 science is extinguished ; and this is the more unmeet on this 
 account, because it has happened at the very time when he 1 
 was in existence who far surpassed in this science all who 
 went before, to whom also he was equal in dignity. This 
 labor, then, is acceptable to many, and suited to bind men 
 to us by benefits. But the talent of speaking being very 
 closely connected with this art, is more dignified, more agree- 
 able, and capable of higher ornament. For what is more 
 excellent than eloquence, in the admiration of the hearers, or 
 
 1 Serviua Sulpicius Rufus
 
 CHAP. xx. CICERO'S OFFICES. 105 
 
 in the expectation of those in need of its assistance, or in the 
 gratitude of those who have been defended ? To this, then, the 
 first rank of civil dignity was given by our ancestors. Of an 
 eloquent man, then, and one willingly laboring, and, what is ac- 
 cording to the customs of our forefathers, defending the causes 
 of miny, both ungrudgingly and gratuitously, the benefits and 
 patronage are very extensive. 
 
 The subject would admonish me that at this opportunity I 
 should likewise deplore the discontinuance, not to call it the 
 extinction, of eloquence, did I not apprehend lest I should 
 appear to be making some complaint upon my own account. 
 However, we see what orators are extinct, in how few there 
 is promise, in how much fewer ability, in how many pre- 
 sumption. But though all, or even many, can not be skill- 
 ful in the law, or eloquent, yet it is in a man's power, by his 
 exertions, to be of service to many, by asking benefits for 
 them, commending them to judges and magistrates, watch- 
 ing the interests of others, entreating in their behalf those 
 very advocates who either are consulted or defend causes. 
 They who act thus, gain a great deal of influence, and their 
 industry diffuses itself most extensively. Furthermore, they 
 need not be admonished of this (for it is obvious), that they 
 take care to offend none while they are wishing to serve 
 others. For oftentime they offend either those whom it is their 
 duty or whom it is their interest not to offend. If unwittingly 
 they do it, it is a fault of negligence ; if knowingly, of rashness. 
 It is necessary, too, that you make an apology, in whatever 
 way you can, to those whom you unwillingly offend how 
 that which you did was of necessity, and that you could not do 
 otherwise ; and it will be necessary to make compensation to 
 them for what injury you have inflicted by other efforts and 
 good offices. 
 
 XX. But since, in rendering services to men, it is usuai 
 to look either to their character or their fortune, it is easy, 
 indeed, to say, and so people commonly say, that in bestow- 
 ing benefits they only attend to a man's character, not to his 
 fortune. It is a fine speech ; but pray is there any one who 
 in rendering a service would not prefer the thanks of a rich 
 and powerful man before the cause of a poor, though most 
 worthy man ? For in general our good-will is more inclined 
 toward him from whom it appears that remuneration would
 
 106 CICERO'S OFFICES. 3OOK n. 
 
 be easier and quicker. But we ought to consider more at- 
 tentively what the nature of things is : for of course that 
 poor man, if he be a good man, though he can not requite a 
 kindness, can at least have a sense of it. Now it was well 
 said, whoever said it, " that he who hath the loan of money, 
 hath not repaid; and he who hath repaid, hath not the 
 loan. But both he who hath requited kindness hath a 
 sense of it, and he who hath a sense of it 1 hath requited." 
 But they who consider themselves wealthy, honored, pros- 
 perous, do not wish even to be bound by a benefit. More- 
 over, they consider that they have conferred a favor when 
 they themselves have received one, however great ; and they 
 also suspect that something is either sought or expected from 
 them : but they think it like death to them that they should 
 need patronage, and be called clients. But, on the other 
 hand, that poor man, because in whatever is done for him 
 he thinks it is himself and not his fortune that is regarded, 
 is anxious that he may be seen to be grateful, not only by 
 him who has merited it from him, but also by those from 
 whom he expects the like (for he needs it from many). Nor 
 indeed does he magnify with words any favor of his own 
 doing, if by chance he confers one, but rather undervalues it. 
 And this is to be considered, that if you defend a man of power 
 and fortune, the gratitude is confined to himself alone, or per- 
 haps to his children ; but if you defend a poor but worthy 
 and modest man, all poor men who are not worthless 
 (which is a vast multitude among the people) see a pro- 
 tection offered to themselves : wherefore, I think it better 
 that a favor should be bestowed upon worthy persons than 
 upon persons of fortune. We should by all means endeavor to 
 satisfy every description of people. But if the matter shall 
 come to competition, undoubtedly Themistocles is to be re- 
 ceived as an authority, who, when he was consulted whether a 
 man should marry his daughter to a worthy poor man, or to a 
 rich man of less approved character, said, " I certainly would 
 rather she married a man without money, than money without 
 
 " A grateful mind, 
 
 By owing, owes not, but still pays at once 
 Indebted and diacharg'd." Milton.
 
 CHAP. xxi. CICERO'S OFFICES. 107 
 
 But our morals are corrupted and depraved by the admira- 
 tion of other men's wealth. Though what concern is its 
 amount to any of us ? Perhaps it is of use to him who owns 
 it ; not always even that : but admit that it is of use to himself, 
 to be sure he is able to spend more, but how is he an honester 
 man ? But if he shall be a good man besides, let his riches 
 not prevent him from getting our assistance only let them not 
 help him to get it, and let the entire consideration be not how 
 wealthy, but how worthy each individual is. But the last pre- 
 cept about benefits and bestowing our labor is, do nothing 
 hostile to equity nothing in defense of injustice. For the found- 
 ation of lasting commendation and fame is justice without 
 which nothing can be laudable. 
 
 XXI. But since I have finished speaking about that kind 
 of benefits which have regard to a single citizen, we have 
 next to discourse about those which relate to all the citizens 
 together, and which relate to the public good. But of those 
 very ones, some are of that kind which relate to all the 
 citizens collectively ; some are such that they reach to all 
 individually, which are likewise the more agreeable. The 
 effort is by all means to be made, if possible, to consult for 
 both, and notwithstanding, to consult also for them individ- 
 ually ; but in such a manner that this may either serve, or 
 at least should not oppose, the public interest. The grant of 
 corn proposed by Caius Gracchus was large, and therefore 
 would have exhausted the treasury ; that of Marcus Octavius 
 was moderate, both able to be borne by the state, and neces- 
 sary for the commons ; therefore it was salutary both for the 
 citizens and for the nation. But it is in the first place to be 
 considered by him who shall have the administration of the 
 government, that each may retain his own, and that no dimi- 
 nution of the property of individuals be made by public 
 authority. For Philip acted destructively, in his tribuneship, 
 when he proposed the agrarian law, which, however, he readily 
 suffered to be thrown out, and in that respect showed him- 
 self to be exceeding moderate; but when in courting popu- 
 larity he drove at many things, he uttered this besides im- 
 properly, " that there were not in the state two thousand 
 persons who possessed property." A dangerous speech, and 
 aiming at a leveling of property than which mischief, what 
 can be greater ? For commonwealths and states were estab-
 
 108 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK n. 
 
 lished principally for this cause, that men should hold what 
 was their own. For although mankind were congregated 
 together by the guidance of nature, yet it was with the hope 
 of preserving their own property that they sought the pro- 
 tection of cities. 
 
 Care should also be taken, lest, as often was the case among 
 our ancestors, on account of the poverty of the treasury and 
 the continuity of wars, it may be necessary to impose taxation, 
 and it will be needful to provide long before that this should 
 not happen. But if any necessity for such a burden should bo- 
 fall any state (for I would rather speak thus than speak omi- 
 nously of our own ;' nor am I discoursing about our own state 
 only, but about all states in general), care should be taken that 
 all may understand that they must submit to the necessity if 
 they wish to be safe. 
 
 And also all who govern a nation are bound to provide 
 that there be abundance of those things which are neces- 
 saries of which, what kind of a provision it is usual and 
 proper to make, it is not necessary to canvass. For all that 
 is obvious ; and the topic only requires to be touched on. 
 But the principal matter in every administration of public 
 business and employments is, that even the least suspicion of 
 avarice be repelled. " Would to heaven," said Caius Pontius, 
 the Samnite, " that fortune had reserved me for those times, 
 and I had been born then, whenever the Romans may have 
 begun to accept bribes I would not have suffered them to 
 reign much longer." He surely would have had to wait many 
 generations. For it is of late that this evil has invaded this 
 state ; therefore I am well* pleased that Pontius was in ex- 
 istence rather at that time, since so much power resided in 
 him. It is not yet a hundred and ten years since a law 
 about bribery was passed by Lucius Piso, \vhen previously 
 there had been no such law. But afterward there were so 
 many laws, and each successive one more severe, so many 
 persons arraigned, so many condemned, such an Italian war 
 excited through fear of condemnations, such a rifling and 
 robbing of our allies, those laws and judgments were sus- 
 
 1 Plutarch relates that ^Emihus Paullus, on the conquest of Persiua, 
 king of Macedonia, brought home such an immense treasure, that the 
 Roman people were entirely relieved from taxes until the consulship of 
 llirtius and Pansa, which was the year after Cicero wrote this work.
 
 CHAP, xxn. CICERO'S OFFICES. 109 
 
 pendcd, that we are strong through the weakness of others., not 
 through our own valor. 
 
 XXII. Panaetius applauds Africanus because he was self- 
 denying. Why not applaud him ? But in him there were 
 other and greater characteristics ; the praise of self-restraint 
 was not the praise of the man only, but also of those times. 
 Paullus having possessed himself of the whole treasure of 
 the Macedonians, which was most immense, brought so much 
 wealth into the treasury, that the spoils of one commander 
 put an end to taxes ; but to his own house he brought nothing 
 except the eternal memory of his name. Africanus, imitating 
 his father, was nothing the richer for having overthrown 
 Carthage. What ! Lucius Memmius, who was his colleague in 
 the censorship, was he the wealthier for having utterly de- 
 stroyed the wealthiest of cities? He preferred ornamenting 
 Italy rather than his own house although by the adorn- 
 ment of Italy, his own house itself seems to me more 
 adorned. No vice, then, is more foul (that my discourse 
 may return to the point from whence it digressed) than 
 avarice, especially in great men and such as administer the re- 
 public. For to make a gain of the republic is not only base, 
 but wicked also, and abominable. Therefore, that which the 
 Pythian Apollo delivered by his oracle, " that Sparta would 
 perish by nothing but its avarice," he seems to have predicted 
 not about the Lacedaemonians alone, but about all opulent na- 
 tions. Moreover, they who preside over the state can by no 
 way more readily conciliate the good-will of the multitude than 
 by abstinence and self-restraint. 
 
 But they who wish to be popular, and upon that account 
 either attempt the agrarian aftair, that the owners may be 
 driven out of their possessions, or think that borrowed 
 money should be released to the debtors, sap the foundations 
 of the constitution ; namely, that concord, in the first place, 
 which can not exist when money is exacted from some, and 
 forgiven to others ; and equity, in the next place, which is 
 entirely subverted, if each bo not permitted to possess his 
 own. For, as I said before, this is the peculiar concern of a 
 state and city, that every person's custody of his own 
 property be free and undisturbed. And in this destructive 
 course to the state they do not obtain even that popu- 
 larity which they expect; for he whose property is taken is
 
 110 CICERO'S OFFICES BOOK 11, 
 
 hostile ; he also to whom it is given disguises his willingness 
 to accept it, and especially in lent moneys he conceals his joy 
 that he may not appear to have been insolvent ; but he, on 
 the other hand, who receives the injury, both remembers and 
 proclaims his indignation ; nor if there are more in number 
 to whom it is dishonestly given than those from whom it has 
 been unjustly taken, are they even for that cause more success- 
 ful. For these matters are not determined by number, but by 
 weight. Now, what justice is it that lands which have been 
 pre-occupied for many years, or even ages, he who was pos- 
 sessed of none should get, but he who was in possession 
 should lose ? 
 
 XXIII. And on account of this kind of injustice, the 
 Lacedemonians expelled their Ephorus Lysander, and put 
 to death their king Agis a thing which never before had 
 happened among them. And from that time such great 
 dissensions ensued, that tyrants arose, and the nobles were 
 exiled, and a constitution admirably established fell to pieces. 
 Nor did it fall alone, but also overthrew the rest of Greece 
 by the contagion of evil principles, which having sprung 
 from the Lacedaemonians, flowed far. and wide. What ! 
 was it not the agrarian contentions that destroyed our own 
 Gracchi, sons of that most illustrious man Tiberius Grac- 
 chus, and grandsons of Africanus? But, on the contrary, 
 Aratus, the Sicyonian, is justly commended, who, when his 
 native city had been held for fifty years by tyrants, having 
 set out from Argos to Sicyon, by a secret entrance got 
 possession of the city, and when on a sudden he had over- 
 thrown the tyrant Nicocles, he restored six hundred exiles, 
 who had been the wealthiest men of that state, and restored 
 freedom to the state by his coming. But when he perceived 
 a great difficulty about the goods and possessions, because he 
 considered it most unjust both that they whom he had 
 restored, of whose property others had been in possession, 
 should be in want, and he did not think it very fair that 
 possessions of fifty years should be disturbed, because that 
 after so long an interval many of those properties were got 
 possession of without injustice, by inheritance, many by 
 purchase, many by marriage portions ; he judged neither 
 that the properties ought to be taken from the latter, ner 
 that these to whom they had belonged should be without satis-
 
 CHAP. xxiv. CICERO'S OFFICES. Ill 
 
 faction. When, then, he had concluded that there was need 
 of money to arrange that matter, he said that he would go to 
 Alexandria, and ordered the matter to be undisturbed until 
 his return. He quickly carne to his friend Ptolemy, who was 
 then reigning, the second after the building of Alexandria, 
 and when he had explained to him that he was desirous to 
 liberate his country, and informed him of the case, this most 
 eminent man readily received consent from the opulent king 
 that he should be assisted with a large sum of money. When 
 he had brought this to Sicyon, he took to himself for his 
 council fifteen noblemen, with whom he took cognizance of 
 the cases, both of those who held other persons' possessions, 
 and of those who had lost their own ; and by valuing the 
 possessions, he so managed as to persuade some to prefer 
 receiving the money, and yielding up the possessions ; others 
 to think it more convenient that there should be paid down 
 to them what was the price, rather than they should resume 
 possession of their own. Thus it was brought about that all 
 departed without a complaint, and concord was established. 
 Admirable man, and worthy to have been born in our nation ! 
 Thus it is right to act with citizens, not (as we have now 
 seen twice) 1 to fix up a spear in the forum, and subject the 
 goods of the citizens to the voice of the auctioneer. But 
 that Greek thought, as became a wise and superior man, that 
 it was necessary to consult for all. And this is the highest 
 reason and wisdom of a good citizen, not to make divisions 
 in the interests of the citizens, but to govern all by the same 
 equity. Should any dwell free of expense in another man's 
 house ? Why so ? Is it that when I shall have bought, 
 built, repaired, expended, you, without my will, should 
 enjoy what is mine ? What else is this but to take from 
 some what is theirs ; to give to some what is another man's ? 
 But what is the meaning of an abolition of debts, unless that 
 you should buy an estate with my money that you should 
 have the estate, and I should not have my money ? 
 
 XXIV. Wherefore, it ought to bo provided that there 
 be not such an amount of debt as may injure the state a 
 thing which may be guarded against in many ways -, not 
 that if there shall be such debt the rich should lose their 
 
 1 Under Sylla, and under Caesar.
 
 112 CICERO'S OFFICER. BOOK n. 
 
 rights, and the debtors gain what is another's for nothing 
 holds the state more firmly together than public credit, 
 which can not at all exist unless the payment of money lent 
 shall be compulsory. It never was more violently agitated 
 than in my consulship, that debts should not be paid ; the 
 matter was tried in arms and camps, by every rank and 
 description of men, whom I resisted in such a manner, that 
 this mischief of such magnitude was removed from the state. 
 Never was debt either greater, or better and more easily 
 paid. For the hope of defrauding being frustrated, the 
 necessity of paying followed. But on the other hand, this 
 man, now our victor, 1 but who was vanquished then, has 
 accomplished the things which he had in view, when it was 
 now a matter of no importance to himself. So great was 
 the desire in him of doing wrong, that the mere wrong- 
 doing delighted him, although there was not a motive for it. 
 From this kind of liberality, then, to give to some, to take 
 from others, they will keep aloof who would preserve the 
 commonwealth, and will take particular care that each may 
 hold his own in equity of right and judgments ; and neither 
 that advantage be taken of the poorer class, on account of 
 their humbleness, nor that envy be prejudicial to the rich, 
 cither in keeping or recovering their own. They will besides 
 increase the power of the state in whatever way they can, 
 either abroad or at home, in authority, territories, tributes. 
 These are the duties of great men. These were practiced 
 among our ancestors ; they who persevere in those kinds of 
 duties, will, along with the highest advantage to the republic, 
 themselves obtain both great popularity and glory. 
 
 Now, in these precepts about things profitable, Antipater 
 the Tyrian, a Stoic, who lately died at Athens, considers that 
 two things are passed over by Pansetius the care of health 
 and of property which matters I fancy were passed over by 
 that very eminent philosopher because they were obvious ; 
 they certainly are useful. Now, health is supported by under- 
 standing one's own constitution, and by observing what things 
 are accustomed to do one good or injury ; 2 and by temperance 
 
 1 Caesar, who was suspected of a share in Catiline's conspiracy, after- 
 ward, in the first year of his dictatorship, when he was himself no longer 
 in debt, passed a law, abolishing the fourth part of all debts. 
 
 2 Lord Bacon might be supposed to have had this passage before him
 
 OHAP. zxv. CICERO'S OFFICES 113 
 
 in all food and manner of living, for the sake of preserving 
 the body ; and by forbearance in pleasures ; and lastly, by 
 the skill of those to whose profession these things belong. 
 Wealth ought to be acquired by those means in which there 
 is no disgrace, but preserved by diligence and frugality, and 
 increased, too, by the same means. These matters Xenophon, 
 the Socratic philosopher, has discussed very completely in 
 that book which is entitled (Economics, which I, when I was 
 about that age at which you are now, translated from the 
 Greek into Latin. 
 
 XXV. But a comparison of profitable things, since 
 this was the fourth head, but passed over by Panaetius, is 
 often necessary. For it is usual to compare the good estate 
 of the body with external advantages, and external with 
 those of the body, and those of the body among themselves, 
 and external with external. The good estate of the body is 
 compared with external advantages in Ihis manner, that you 
 had rather be healthy than wealthy. External with those 
 of the body in this manner, to be wealthy rather than of the 
 greatest physical strength. Those of the body among them- 
 selves, thus, that good health should be preferred to pleasure, 
 and strength to speed. But the comparison of external 
 objects is thus, that glory should be preferred to wealth, a 
 city income to a country one. Of which kind of comparison 
 is that reply of Cato the elder, of whom, when inquiry was 
 made, what was the best policy in the management of one's 
 property, he answered, " Good grazing." " What was next ?" 
 " Tolerable grazing." " What third ?" " Bad grazing." 
 "What fourth?" "Tilling." And when he who had 
 interrogated him inquired, " What do you think of lending 
 at usury?" Then Cato answered, "What do you think of 
 killing a man?" 1 From which, and many other things, it 
 
 when ho wrote the first paragraph of his thirtieth Essay on " Regimen of 
 Health." " Thero is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic ; a 
 man's own observation, what he finds good of, and what ho finds hurt of, 
 is the best physic to preserve health ; but it is a safer conclusion to say 
 4 This agreeth not well with me, therefore I will not continue it,' than this, 
 ' I find no offense of this, therefore I may use it,' for strength of nature in 
 youth passes over many excesses which are owing a man till his ago. 
 ' Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things 
 still ; for age will not be defied." Bacon's Essays, Thirtieth Essay. 
 1 "Many have made witty invectives against usurv. They say that
 
 114 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK n. 
 
 ought to be understood that it is usual to make comparisons 
 of profitable things ; and that this was rightly added as a 
 fourth head of investigating our duties. But about this 
 entire head, about gaining money, about letting it out, also 
 about spending it, the matter is discussed to more advantage 
 by certain most estimable persons 1 sitting at the middle 
 Janus, than by any philosophers in any school. Yet these 
 things ought to be understood ; for they relate to utility, 
 about which we have discoursed in this book. We will next 
 pass to what remains. 
 
 it is a pity the devil should have God's part, which is the tithe ; that tho 
 usurer is the greatest Sabbath breaker, because his plow goeth every 
 Sunday ; that the usurer is the drone that Virgil speaketh of: 
 
 'Ignavum fucos pecus a prsesepibus arcent:' 
 
 that the usurer breaketh tho first law that was made for mankind after 
 the fall which was, ' in sudore vultus tui comedes panem tuum' not ' in 
 gudore vultus alieni :' that usurers should have orange-tawny bonnets, 
 because they do judaise ; that it is against nature for money to beget 
 money, and the like. I say this only, that usury is a ' concessum propter 
 duritiem cordis:' for since there must be borrowing and lending, and men 
 are so hard of heart as they will not lend freely, usury must be permitted. 
 Some others have made suspicious and cunning propositions of banks, 
 discovery of men's estates, and other inventions ; but few have spoken 
 of usury usefully." Bacon's Essay, Essay 41. 
 
 1 He is speaking ironically of the usurers, numbers of whom frequented 
 the middle Janus in tho forum. 
 
 END OF SECOND BOOK.
 
 CHAP. I, CICERO'S OFFICEa 115 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 I. PUBLIUS SCIPIO, my son Marcus, he who first was 
 surnamed Africanus, was accustomed, as Cato, who was 
 nearly of the same age as he, has written, to say " that he 
 was never less at leisure than when at leisure, nor less alone 
 than when he was alone." A truly noble saying, and worthy 
 of a great and wise man, which declares that both in his 
 leisure he was accustomed to reflect on business, and in 
 solitude to converse with himself; so that he never was idle, 
 and sometimes was not in need of the conversation of an- 
 other. Thus, leisure and solitude, two things which cause 
 languor to others, sharpened him. I could wish it were in 
 my power to say the same. But if I can not quite attain to 
 any intimation of so great an excellence of disposition, I 
 come very near it, in will at least. For, being debarred by 
 impious arms and force from public affairs and forensic 
 business, I remain in retirement ; and on that account 
 having left the city, wandering about the fields, I am often 
 alone. But neither is this leisure to be compared with the 
 leisure of Africanus, nor this solitude with that. For lie, 
 reposing from the most honorable employments of the state, 
 sometimes took leisure to himself, and sometimes betook 
 himself from the concourse and haunts of men into his soli- 
 tude as into a haven : but my retirement is occasioned by 
 the want of business, not by the desire of repose. For, the 
 senate being extinct, and courts of justice abolished, what is 
 there that I could do worthy of myself, either in the senate- 
 house or in the forum ? Thus, I who formerly lived in the 
 greatest celebrity, and before the eyes of the citizens, now 
 shunning the sight of wicked men, with whom all places 
 abound, conceal myself as far as it is possible, and often 
 am alone. But since we have been taught by learned men, 
 that out of evils it is fit not only to choose the least, but also 
 from those very evils to gather whatever is good in them, I
 
 116 CICERO'S OFFICES BOOK, in 
 
 therefore am both enjoying rest not such, indeed, as ho 
 ought who formerly procured rest for the state, and I am 
 not allowing that solitude which necessity, not inclination, 
 brings me, to be spent in idleness. Although, in my judg- 
 ment, Africanus obtained greater praise. For there are ex- 
 tant no monuments of his genius committed to writing 
 no work of his leisure no employment of his solitude. 
 From which it ought to be understood that he was never 
 either idle or solitary, because of the activity of his mind, 
 and the investigation of those things which he pursued iu. 
 thought. But I who have not so much strength that I can 
 be drawn away from solitude by silent thought, turn all my 
 study and care to this labor of composition. And thus I 
 have written more in a short time, since the overthrow of 
 the republic, than in the many years while it stood. 
 
 IE. But as all philosophy, my Cicero, is fruitful and pro- 
 fitable, and no part of it uncultivated and desert so no part 
 in it is more fruitful and profitable than that about duties, 
 from which the rules of living consistently and virtuously 
 are derived. Wherefore, although I trust you constantly 
 hear and learn these matters from my friend Cratippus, the 
 prince of the philosophers within our memory, yet I think 
 it is beneficial that your cars should ring on all sides 
 with such discourse, and that they, if it were possible, should 
 hear nothing else. Which, as it ought to be done by all 
 who design to enter upon a virtuous life, so I know not. 
 but it ought by no one more than you ; for you stand under 
 no small expectation of emulating my industry under a 
 great one of emulating my honors under no small one, per- 
 haps, of my fame. Besides, you have incurred a heavy responsi- 
 bility both from Athens and Cratippus ; and since you have 
 gone to these as to a mart for good qualities, it would be most 
 scandalous to return empty, disgracing the reputation both 
 of the city and of the master. Wherefore, try and ac- 
 complish as much as you can, labor with your mind and 
 with your industry (if it be labor to learn rather than a 
 pleasure), and do not permit that, when all things have been 
 supplied by me, you should seem to have been wanting to 
 yourself. But let this suffice ; for we have often written 
 much to you for the purpose of encouraging you. Now let 
 us return to the remaining part of our propose'^ division.
 
 CHAP. m. CICERO'S OFFICES. 117 
 
 Panaetius, then, who without controversy has discoursed 
 most accurately about duties, and whom I, making some cor- 
 rection, have principally followed, having proposed three 
 heads under which men were accustomed to deliberate and 
 consult about duty one, when they were in doubt whether 
 that about which they were considering AVES virtuous or base ; 
 another, whether useful or unprofitable ; a third, when that 
 which had the appearance of virtue Avas in opposition to that 
 which seemed useful, how this ought to be determined; ho 
 unfolded the two first heads in three books, but on the third 
 head he said that he would afterward write, but did not 
 perform what he had promised. At which I am the more 
 surprised on this account, that it is recorded by his disciple 
 Posidonius, that Panaetius lived thirty years after he had 
 published those books. And I am surprised that this matter 
 should bo only briefly touched on by Posidonius in some 
 commentaries, especially when he writes that there is no 
 subject in all philosophy so necessary. But by no means do 
 I agree with those who deny that this subject was casually 
 omitted by Panaetius, but that it was designedly abandoned, 
 and that it ought not to have been written at all, because 
 utility could never be in opposition to virtue. On which 
 point is one thing that may admit a doubt ; whether this head 
 which is third in the division of Panaetius, ought to have 
 been taken up, or whether it ought to have been altogether 
 omitted. The other thing can not be doubted, that it was 
 undertaken by Panaetius, but left unfinished. For he who 
 has completed two parts out of a three fold division, must 
 have a third remaining. Besides, in the end of the third 
 book he promises that he will afterward write about this 
 third part. To this is also added a sufficient witness, Posi- 
 donius, who in a certain letter writes that Publius Rutilius 
 Rufus, who had been a disciple of Panastius, had been ac- 
 customed to say, that as no painter could be found who could 
 finish that part of the Coan Venus which Apelles had left 
 unfinished (for the beauty of the countenance left no hope of 
 making the rest of the body correspond), so no one could go 
 through with those things which Panaetius had omitted, on 
 account of the excellence of those parts which he had com- 
 pleted. 
 
 III. Wherefore, thero can not be a doubt about the opinion
 
 118 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK. m. 
 
 of Panaetius ; but whether it was right in him, or otherwise, 
 to join this third part to the investigation of duty, about 
 this, perhaps, there may be a question. For whether virtue 
 be the only good, as is the opinion of the Stoics, or whether 
 that which is virtuous be, as it appears to your Peripatetics, 
 so much the greatest good, that all things placed on the other 
 side have scarcely the smallest weight ; it is not to be doubted 
 but that utility never can compare with virtue. Therefore 
 we have learned that Socrates used to execrate those who 
 had first separated in theory those things cohering in nature. 
 To whom, indeed, the Stoics have so far assented, that they 
 considered that whatever is virtuous is useful, and that noth- 
 ing can be useful which is not virtuous. But if Panoetius 
 was one who would say that virtue was to be cultivated only 
 on this account, because it was a means of procuring profit, 
 as they do who measure the desirableness of objects either 
 by pleasure or by the absence of pain, it would be allowable 
 for him to say that our interest sometimes is opposed to 
 virtue. But as he was one who judged that alone to be good 
 which is virtuous, but that of such things as oppose this 
 with some appearance of utility, neither the accession can 
 make life better, nor the loss make it worse, it appears that 
 he ought not to have introduced a deliberation of this kind, 
 in which what seems profitable could be compared with that 
 which is virtuous. For what is called the summum bonum 
 by the Stoics, to live agreeably to nature, has, I conceive, 
 this meaning always to conform to virtue ; and as to all 
 other things which may be according to nature, to take 
 them if they should not be repugnant to virtue. And since 
 this is so, some think that this comparison is improperly in- 
 troduced, and that no principle should be laid down upon 
 this head. And, indeed, that perfection of conduct which is 
 properly and truly called so, exists in the wise alone, and 
 can never be separated from virtue. But in those persons 
 in whom there is not perfect wisdom, that perfection can 
 indeed by no means exist; but the likeness of it can. For 
 the Stoics call all those duties about which we are discours- 
 ing in these books, mean duties (media ojficia). These are 
 common, and extend wid?ly, which many attain by the good- 
 ness of natural disposition, and by progressive improvement. 
 But that duty which the same philosophers call right (rec-
 
 CHAP. iv. CICERO'S OFFICES 119 
 
 turn), is perfect and absolute, and, as the same philosophers 
 say, has all the parts perfect, and can not fall to the lot of any 
 but the wise man. But when any thing is performed in 
 which mean duties appear, it seems to be abundantly perfect, 
 because the vulgar do not at all understand how far it falls 
 short of the perfect ; but as far as they understand, they 
 think there is nothing wanting. Which same thing comes 
 to pass in poems, in pictures, and in many other matters, 
 lhat those things which should not be commended, the un- 
 skillful art, delighted with and commend ; on this account, I 
 suppose, that there is in these things some merit which 
 catches the unskillful, who indeed are unable to judge what 
 deficiency there may be in each. Therefore, when they are 
 apprised of it by the initiated, they readily abandon their 
 opinion. 
 
 IV. These duties, then, of which we are discoursing in 
 these books, they 1 say are virtuous in some secondary degree 
 'not peculiar to the wise alone, but common to every de- 
 scription of men. By these, therefore, all are moved in 
 whom there is a natural disposition toward virtue. Nor, 
 indeed, when the two Decii or the two Scipios are commem- 
 orated as brave men, or when Fabricius and Aristides are 
 called just, is either an example of fortitude looked for from 
 the former, or of justice from the latter, as from wise men. 
 For neither of these was wise in such a sense as we wish the 
 term wise man to be understood. Nor were these who were 
 esteemed and named wise, Marcus Cato and Caius Lajlius, 
 wise men ; nor were even those famous seven, 1 but from the 
 frequent ]>erformancc of mean duties they bore some simili- 
 tude and appearance of wise men. Wherefore, it is neither 
 right to compare that which is truly virtuous with what is 
 repugnant to utility, nor should that which we commonly 
 call virtuous, which is cultivated by those who wish to be 
 esteemed good men, ever be compared with profits. And 
 that virtue which falls within our comprehension is as much 
 to be maintained and preserved by us, as that which ia 
 properly called, and which truly is virtue, is by the wise. 
 For otherwise, whatever advancement is made toward vir- 
 tue, it can not be maintained. But these remarks are made 
 
 1 The Stoics. 
 
 2 The seven wise men of Greece-
 
 120 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK in. 
 
 regarding those who are considered good men, on account 
 of their observance of duties ; but those who measure all 
 things by profit and advantage, and who do not consider 
 that those things are outweighed by virtue, are accustomed, 
 in deliberating, to compare virtue with that which they 
 think profitable; good men are not so accustomed. There- 
 fore, I think that Panaetius, when he said that men were 
 accustomed to deliberate on this comparison, meant this 
 very thing which he expressed only that it was their cus- 
 tom, not that it was also their duty. For not only to think 
 more of what seems profitable than what is virtuous, but 
 even to compare them one with the other, and to hesitate 
 between them, is most shameful. What is it, then, that is 
 accustomed at times to raise a doubt, and seems necessary 
 to be considered ? I believe, whenever a doubt arises, 
 it is what the character of that action may be about 
 which one is considering. For oftentimes it happens, that 
 what is accustomed to be generally considered disreputable, 
 may be found not to be disreputable. For the sake of ex- 
 ample, let a case be supposed which has a wide applica- 
 tion. What can be greater wickedness than to slay not 
 only a man, but even an intimate friend ? Has he then in- 
 volved himself in guilt, who slays a tyrant, however inti- 
 mate ? He does not appear so to the Roman people at least, 
 who of all great exploits deem that the most honorable. 1 
 
 1 " Tyrannicide, or tlio assassination of usurpers and oppressive princes, 
 was highly extolled in ancient times, because it both freed mankind from 
 many of these monsters, and seemed to keep the others in awe whom the 
 sword and poniard could not reach. But history and experience having 
 since convinced us that this practice increases the jealousy and cruelty 
 of princes, a TIMOLEON and a BRUTUS, though treated with indulgence 
 on account of the prejudices of their times, are now considered as very 
 improper models for imitation." Hume's "Dissertation on the Passions." 
 
 " The arguments in favor of tyrannicide are built upon a very obvious 
 principle. ' Justice ought universally to be administered. Crimes of an 
 inferior description are restrained, or pretended to be restrained, by the 
 ordinary operations of jurisprudence. But criminals, by whom the wel- 
 fare of the whole is attacked, and who overturn the liberties of mankind, 
 are out of the reach of this restraint. If justice be partially administered 
 in subordinate cases, and the rich man bo able to oppress the poor with 
 impunity, it must be admitted that a few examples of this sort are insuf- 
 acient to authorize the last appeal of human beings; but no man will 
 deny that the case of the usurper and the despot is of the most atrocious 
 nature. In this instance, all the provisions of civil policy being super-
 
 CHAP. rr. CICERO'S OFFICES. 121 
 
 Has expediency, then, overcome virtue ? Nay, rather, expe- 
 diency has followed virtue. Therefore, that we may be 
 able to decide without any mistake, if ever that which we 
 call expediency (utile) shall appear to be at variance with 
 that which we understand to be virtuous (honestum), a 
 certain rule ought to be established, which if we will fol- 
 low in comparing such cases, we shall never fail in our 
 duty. But this rule "will be one conformable to the reason- 
 ing and discipline of the Stoics chiefly, which, indeed, we 
 are following in these books, because, though both by the 
 ancient Academicians and by your Peripatetics, who form- 
 erly were the same sect, things which are virtuous 
 are preferred to those which seem expedient; nevertheless, 
 those subjects are more nobly treated of by those 1 to whom 
 whatever is virtuous seems also expedient, and nothing ex- 
 
 seded, and justice poisoned at the source, every man is left to execute for 
 himself the decrees of immutable equity.' It may, however, be doubted, 
 whether the destruction of a tyrant be, in any respect, a case of excep- 
 tion from the rules proper to be observed upon ordinary occasions. The 
 tyrant has, indeed, no particular security annexed to his person, and 
 may be killed with as little scruple as any other man, when the object is 
 that of repelling personal assault. In all other cases, the extirpation of 
 Ihe offender by self-appointed authority, does not appear to be the ap- 
 propriate mode of counteracting injustice. For, first, either the nation, 
 whose tyrant you would destroy, is ripe for the assertion and mainten- 
 ance of its liberty, or it is not. If it be, the tyrant ought to bo deposed 
 with every appearance of publicity. Nothing can bo more improper, 
 than for an affair, interesting to the general weal, to bo conducted as if 
 it were an act of darkness and shame. It is an ill lesson we read to 
 mankind, when a proceeding, built upon the broad basis of general jus- 
 tice, is permitted to shrink from public scrutiny. The pistol and the 
 dagger may as easily bo made tho auxiliaries of vice as of virtue. To 
 proscribe all violence, and neglect no means of information and impar- 
 tiality, is the most effectual security wo can have for an issue conformable 
 to reason and truth. If, on the other hand, the nation be not ripe for a 
 state of freedom, the man who assumes to himself the right of interposing 
 violence, may indeed show the fervor of his conception, and gain a cer- 
 tain notoriety ; but ho will not fail to bo tho author of new calamities to 
 his country. The consequences of tyrannicide are well known. If the 
 attempt prove abortive, it renders tho tyrant ten times more bloody, 
 ferocious, and cruel than before. If it succeed, and tho tyranny be res- 
 tored, it produces tho same effect upon his successors. In tho climate 
 of despotism some solitary virtues may spring up; but in tho midst of 
 plots and conspiracies, there is neither truth, nor confidence, nor love, 
 nor humanity." Godwin's "Political Justice," book iv. chap. iv. 
 1 The Stoics. 
 
 ft
 
 122 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK m. 
 
 pedient which is not virtuous, than by those according to 
 whom that may be virtuous which is not expedient, and that 
 expedient which is not virtuous. But to xis, our Academic 
 sect gives this great license, that we, whatever may seem 
 most probable, by our privilege are at liberty to maintain. 
 But I return to my rule. 
 
 V. To take away wrongfully, then, from another, and for 
 one man to advance his own interests by the disadvantage 
 of another man, is more contrary to nature than death, thsn 
 poverty, than pain, than any other evils which can befall 
 either our bodies or external circumstances. For, in tho 
 first place, it destroys human intercourse and society; for 
 if we will be so disposed that each for his own gain shall 
 <L 'Spoil or offer violence to another, the inevitable conse- 
 quence is, that the society of the human race, which 
 is most consistent with nature, will be broken asunder. 
 As, supposing each member of the body was so disposed as 
 to think it could be well if it should draw to itself the 
 health of the adjacent member, it is inevitable that the 
 whole body would be debilitated and would perish ; so 
 if each of us should seize for himself the interests of 
 another, and wrest whatever he could from each for the sake 
 of his own emolument, the necessary consequence is, that 
 human society and community would be overturned. It is 
 indeed allowed, nature not opposing, that each should rather 
 acquire for himself than for another, whatever pertains to 
 the enjoyment of life ; but nature does not allow this, that 
 by the spoliation of others we should increase our own 
 means, resources, and opulence. Nor indeed is this forbid- 
 den by nature alone that is, by the law of nations but 
 it is also in the same manner enacted by the municipal laws 
 of countries, by which government is supported in individual 
 states, that it should not be lawful to injure another man for 
 the sake of one's own advantage. 1 For this the laws look to, 
 this they require, that the union of the citizens should be 
 unimpaired ; those who are for severing it they coerce by 
 death, by banishment, by imprisonment, by fine. But what 
 declares this much more is our natural reason, which is a 
 law divine and human, which he who is willing to obey 
 
 1 " La plus sublime vertu est negative ; elle nous instruit de ne jamais 
 faire du mal a personne." Rousseau.
 
 CHAP. v. CICERO'S OFFICES. 123 
 
 (and all will obey it who arc willing to live according to 
 nature) never will suffer himself to covet what is another 
 person's, and to assume to himself that which he shall have 
 wrongfully taken from another. 1 For loftiness and greatness 
 of mind, and likewise community of feeling, justice and liber- 
 ality, are much more in accordance with nature, than pleas- 
 ure, than life, than riches which things, even to contemn 
 and count as nothing in comparison with the common good, 
 is the part of a great and lofty soul. Therefore, to take away 
 wrongfully from another for the sake of one's own advan- 
 tage, is more contrary to nature than death, than pain, than 
 other considerations of the same kind. And likewise, to 
 undergo the greatest labors and inquietudes for the sake, if 
 it were possible, of preserving or assisting all nations 
 imitating that Hercules whom the report of men, mindful of 
 his benefits, has placed in the council of the gods 2 is more 
 in accordance with nature than to live in solitude, not only 
 without any inquietudes, but even amid the greatest pleas- 
 ures, abounding in all manner of wealth, though you should 
 also excel in beauty and strength. Wherefore, every man of 
 the best and most noble disposition much prefers that life 
 to this. From whence it is evinced that man, obeying 
 nature, can not injure men. In the next place, he who 
 injures another that he may himself attain some advantage, 
 either thinks that ho is doing nothing contrary to nature, or 
 
 1 "The word natural is commonly taken in so many senses, and is of 
 BO loose a signification, that it seems vain to dispute whether justice be 
 natural or not. If self-love, if benevolence, bo natural to man if reason 
 and forethought be also natural then may the same epithet bo applied 
 to justice, order, fidelity, property, society. Men's inclination, their ne- 
 cessities, lead tltem to combine ; their understanding and experience tell 
 them that this combination is impossible, where each governs himself by 
 no rule, and pays no regard to the possessions of others : and from theso 
 passions and reflections conjoined, as soon as we observe like passions 
 and reflections in others, the sentiment of justice, throughout all ages, 
 has infallibly and certainly had place in some degree or other, in every 
 individual of the human species. In so sagacious an animal, what nec- 
 essarily arises from the exertion of his intellectual faculties, may justly 
 be esteemed natural." Hume's "Principles of Morals." Appendix lit 
 
 2 Horace adopts the same illustration in the following passage 
 
 " Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori : 
 Coelo Musa beat. Sic Jovis interest 
 Optatis epulis impiger Hercules." 
 
 Lib. iv. Carm. 8, ver. 28-30.
 
 124 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK IIL 
 
 thinks that death, poverty, pain, the loss cf children, of 
 kindred, and of friends, are more to be avoided than doing 
 injury to another. If he thinks that nothing is done contrary to 
 nature by injuring men, what use is there in disputing with him 
 who would altogether take away from man what is human ? 
 But if he thinks that indeed is to be shunned, but that those 
 things, death, poverty, pain, are much worse, he errs in this, that 
 he thinks any defect, either of body or fortune, more grievous 
 than the defects of the mind. 
 
 VI. One thing, therefore, ought to be aimed at by all men ; 
 that the interest of each individually, and of all collectively, 
 should be the same ; for if each should grasp at his individual 
 interest, all human society will be dissolved. And also, if 
 nature enjoins this, that a man should desire to consult the in- 
 terest of a man, whoever he is, for the very reason that he is 
 man, it necessarily follows that, as the nature, so the interest, 
 of all mankind, is a common one. If that be so, we are all 
 included under one and the same law of nature ; and if this 
 too be true, we are certainly prohibited by the law of nature 
 from injuring another. But the first is tfue ; therefore, the 
 last is true. For that which some say, that they would take 
 nothing wrongfully, for the sake of their own advantage, 
 from a parent or brother, but that the case is different with 
 other citizens, is indeed absurd. These establish the principle 
 that they have nothing in the way of right, no society with 
 their fellow-citizens, for the sake of the common interest 
 an opinion which tears asunder the whole social compact. 
 They, again, who say that a regard ought to be had to fellow- 
 citizens, but deny that it ought to foreigners, break up the com- 
 mon society of the human race, which, being withdrawn, bene- 
 ficence, liberality, goodness, justice, are utterly abolished. But 
 they who tear up these things should be judged impious, even 
 toward the immortal gods ; for they overturn the society es- 
 tablished by them among men, the closest bond of which so- 
 ciety is, the consideration that it is more contrary to nature 
 that man, for the sake of his own gain, should wrongfully take 
 from man, than that he should endure all such disadvantages, 
 either external or in the person, or even in the mind itself, as 
 are not the effects of injustice. For that one virtue, justice, is 
 the mistress and queen of all virtues. 1 
 
 1 There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice ; most of tlio
 
 CHAP. vi. CICERO'S OFFICES. 125 
 
 Some person will perhaps say should not the wise man, 
 then, if himself famished with hunger, wrest food from 
 another, some good-for-nothing fellow ? By no means ; for 
 my life is not more useful to me than such a disposition 
 of mind that I would do violence to no man for the sake 
 of my own advantage. What ! If a worthy man could 
 despoil Phalaris, a cruel and outrageous tyrant, of his gar- 
 ments, that he might not himself perish with cold, should he 
 not do it ? These points are very easy to decide. For if 
 you will wrongfully take away any thing from a good-for- 
 nothing man for the sake of your own interest, you will act 
 unsociably and contrary to the law of nature. But if you 
 be one who can bring much advantage to the state, and to 
 human society if you remain in life, it may not deserve to 
 be reprehended should you wrongfully take any thing upon 
 that account from another. But if that be not the case, 
 it is rather the duty of each to bear his own misfortune, than 
 wrongfully to take from the comforts of another. Disease, 
 then, or poverty, or any thing of this sort, is not more con- 
 trary to nature than is the wrongful taking or coveting Avhat 
 is another's. But the desertion of the common interest is 
 
 other virtues are the virtues of created beings, or accommodated to our 
 nature, as wo are men. Justice is that which is practiced by God himself, 
 and to bo practiced in its perfection by none but him. Omniscience and 
 omnipotence are requisite for the full exertion of it : the one to discover 
 every degree of uprightness or iniquity in thoughts, words, and actions ; 
 the other to measure out and impart suitable rewards and punishments. 
 "As to bo perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature, to bo so 
 to the utmost of our abilities is the glory of a man. Such a one who has 
 the public administration in his hands, acts like tho representative of his 
 Maker, in recompensing the virtuous and punishing the offender. By tho 
 extirpating of a criminal ho averts the judgments of Heaven when ready 
 to fall upon an impious people ; or, as my friend Cato expresses it much 
 better in a sentiment conformable to hia character: 
 
 " '"When by just vengeance impious mortals perish, 
 
 The gods behold their punishment with pleasure, 
 
 And lay th' uplifted thunderbolt aside.' 
 
 "When a nation loses its regard to justice; when they do not look upon 
 it as something venerable, holy, and inviolable ; when any of them daro 
 presume to lessen affront, or verify those who havo tho distribution of it 
 in their hands ; when a judge is capable of being influenced by any thing 
 but law, or a cause may bo recommended by any thing that is foreign to 
 its own merits, wo may venture to pronounce that such a nation is has- 
 tening to its ruin." Guardian, No. 99.
 
 126 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK m. 
 
 contrary to nature, for it is unjust. Therefore, tho very law 
 of nature which preserves and governs the interest of men, 
 decrees undoubtedly that things necessary for living should 
 be transferred from an inert and useless fellow to a wise, 
 good, and brave man, who, if he should perish, would largely 
 take away from the common good ; provided he do this 1 in 
 such a manner, that he do not, through thinking well of 
 himself, and loving himself, make this an excuse for com- 
 mitting injustice. Thus will he always discharge his duty, 
 advancing the interests of mankind, and that human so- 
 ciety of which I so often make mention. 3 Now, as to what 
 
 1 That is, provided ho transfer to himself tho necessaries of life from 
 a worthless person. 
 
 2 "In a loose and general view," says Godwin, '-I and my neighbor 
 are both of us men ; and of consequence entitled to equal attention. 
 But, in reality, it is probable that one of us is a being of more worth 
 and importance than tho other. A man is of more worth than a beast, 
 because, being possessed of higher faculties, he is capable of a more re- 
 fined and genuine happiness. In the same manner the illustrious Arch- 
 bishop of Cambray was of more worth than his valet, and there are few 
 of us that would hesitate to pronounce, if his palace were in flames, and 
 the life of only one of them could be preserved, which of the two ought 
 to be preferred. But there is another ground of preference, besides the 
 private consideration of one of them being further removed from the stato 
 of a mere animal "We are not connected with one or two percipient 
 beings, but with a society, a nation, and in some sense with the whole 
 family of mankind. Of consequence that life ought to be preferred which 
 will be most conducive to the general good. In saving the life of Fenelon, 
 suppose at that moment he conceived the project of his immortal Tele- 
 machus, I should have been promoting the benefit of thousands who have 
 been cured by tho perusal of that work of some error, vice, and conse- 
 quent unhappincss. Nay, my benefit would extend further than this ; for 
 every individual thus cured, has become a better member of society, and 
 has contributed in his turn to tho happiness, information, and improve- 
 ment of others. Suppose I had been myself the valet, I ought to have 
 chosen to die rather than Fenelon should have died ; the life of Fenelon 
 was really preferable to that of the valet. But understanding is the fac- 
 ulty that perceives tho truth of this and similar propositions, and justice 
 is the principle that regulates my conduct accordingly. It would havo 
 been just in tho valet to have preferred the archbishop to himself; to havo 
 done otherwise would havo been a breach of justice. Suppose the valet 
 had been my brother, my father, or my benefactor, this would not alter 
 the truth of the proposition. The life of Fenelon would still be more 
 valuable than that of the valet; and justice, pure and unadulterated 
 justice, would still have preferred that which was most valuable. Justice 
 would have taught me to save the life of Fenelon at the expense of the 
 other." Political Justice, boofc ii. chap. 2.
 
 CHAP. fii. CICERO'S OFFICES. 12"} 
 
 relates to Phalaris, the decisioii is very easy ; for we have no 
 society with tyrants, but rather the widest separation from 
 them ; nor is it contrary to nature to despoil, if you can, him 
 whom it is a virtue to slay and this pestilential and impious 
 class ought to be entirely exterminated from the community 
 of mankind. For as certain limbs are amputated, both if they 
 themselves have begun to be destitute of blood, and, as it were, 
 of life, and if they injure the other parts of the body, so the 
 brutality and ferocity of a beast in the figure of a man, ought 
 to be cut off from the common body, as it were, of humanity. 
 
 Of this sort are all those questions in which our duty is sought 
 out of the circumstances of the case. 
 
 VIL In this manner, then, I think Pansetius would have 
 pursued these subjects, had not some accident or occupation 
 inteiTupted his design ; for which same deliberations there 
 are in his former books rules sufficiently numerous, by which 
 it can be perceived what ought to be avoided on account of 
 its baseness, and what therefore need not be avoided because 
 it is not at all base. But since I am putting, as it were, the 
 top upon a work incomplete, yet nearly finished, as it is the 
 custom of geometers not to demonstrate every thing, but to 
 require that some postulates be granted to them, that they 
 may more readily explain what they intend, so I ask of you 
 my Cicero, that you grant me, if you can, that nothing 
 except what is virtuous is worthy to be sought for its own 
 sake. But if this be not allowed you by Cratippus, 1 still you 
 will at least grant that what is virtuous is most worthy to be 
 sought for its own sake. Whichever of the two you please is 
 sufficient for me, and sometimes the one, sometimes the other, 
 seems the more probable; nor does any thing else seem probable.- 2 
 
 And in the first place, Panaetius is to be defended in this, 
 that he did not say that the really expedient could ever be 
 opposed to the virtuous (for it was not permitted to him 3 to 
 
 1 Cratippus, as a Peripatetic, held that virtue was not the only good, 
 but that other things, such as health, etc., were good, and therefore to 
 be sought for their own sakes, though in a less degree than virtue ; or, 
 in other words, the Peripatetics admitted natural aa well as moral good 
 the Stoics did not. 
 
 " That is to say, ho does not admit the probability of the correctness 
 of such ae Epicurus, or Hieronymus, etc., who held that pleasure, the 
 absence of pain, etc , were worth seeking on their own account 
 
 3 Because he was a Stoic.
 
 128 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK in. 
 
 say so), but only those things which seemed expedient But 
 he often bears testimony that nothing is expedient which is not 
 likewise virtuous nothing virtuous which is not likewise ex- 
 pedient ; and he denies that any greater mischief has ever at- 
 tacked the race of men than the opinion of those persons who 
 would separate these things. It was not, therefore, in order 
 that we should prefer the expedient to the virtuous, but in order 
 that we should decide between them without error, if ever they 
 should come in collision, that he introduced that opposition 
 which seemed to have, not which has, existence. This part, 
 therefore, thus abandoned, I will complete with no help, but, as 
 it is said with my own forces. For there has not, since the 
 time of Panaetius, been any thing delivered upon this subject, of 
 all the works which have come tp my hands, that meets my ap- 
 probation. 
 
 VIII. When, therefore, any appearance of expediency is 
 presented to you, you are necessarily affected by it ; but if, 
 when you direct your attention to it, you see moral turpitude 
 attached to that which offers the appearance of expediency, 
 then you are under an obligation not to abandon expediency, 
 but to understand that there can not be real expediency 
 where there is moral turpitude ; because, since nothing is 
 so contrary to nature as moral turpitude (for nature desires 
 the upright, the suitable and the consistent, and rejects the 
 reverse), and nothing is so agreeable to nature as expe- 
 diency, surely expediency and turpitude can not co-exist in 
 the same subject. And again, since we are born for 
 virtue, and this either is the only thing to be desired, as 
 it appeared to Zeno, or is at least to be considered weightier 
 in its entire importance than all other things, as is the 
 opinion of Aristotle, it is the necessary consequence, that 
 whatever is virtuous either is the only, or it is the highest 
 good ; but whatever is good is certainly useful therefore, 
 whatever is virtuous is useful. 1 Wherefore, it is an error 
 
 1 The following parallel passage will not only show how nearly tho 
 ethics of Cicero approach to those of a Christian philosopher, but will also 
 suggest the reason why they are not entirely coincident. " It is suffi- 
 ciently evident," says Dymond, upon the principles which have hitherto 
 been advanced, " that considerations of utility are only so far obligatory, 
 as they are in accordance with the moral law. Pursuing, however, tho 
 method which has been adopted in the two last chapters, it may be ob- 
 served that this subserviency to the Divine will, appears to bo required
 
 CHAP. ix. CICERO'S OFFICES. 1>9 
 
 of bad men, which, when it grasps at something which seems 
 useful, separates it immediately from virtue. Hence spring 
 stilettos, hence poisons, hence forgery of wills, hence thefts, 
 embezzlements, hence robberies and extortions from allies 
 and fellow-citizens, hence the intolerable oppressions of ex- 
 cessive opulence hence, in fine, even in free states, the lust 
 of sway, than which nothing darker or fouler can be con- 
 ceived. For men view the profits of transactions with false 
 judgment, but they do not see the punishment I do not 
 say of the laws, which they often break through, but of 
 moral turpitude itself, which is more severe. Wherefore, 
 this class of skeptics should be put out of our consider- 
 ation (as being altogether wicked and impious), who 
 hesitate whether they should follow that which they see is 
 virtuous, or knowingly contaminate themselves with wicked- 
 ness. For the guilty deed exists in the very hesitation, even 
 though they shall not have carried it out. Therefore, such 
 matters should not be at all deliberated about, in which the 
 very deliberation is criminal ; and also from every delibera- 
 tion the hope and idea of secrecy and concealment ought to 
 be removed. For we ought to be sufficiently convinced, if 
 we have made any proficiency in philosophy, that even though 
 we could conceal any transaction from all gods and men, yet 
 that nothing avaricious should be done, nothing unjust, 
 nothing licentious, nothing incontinent. 
 
 IX. To this purpose Plato introduces that celebrated 
 
 by tho written revelation. The habitual preference of futurity to tho 
 present time which Scripture exhibits, indicates that our interests hero 
 should be held in subordination to our interests hereafter ; and as these 
 higher interests are to be consulted by the means which revelation pro- 
 scribes, it is manifest that those moans are to bo pursued, whatever wo 
 may suppose to be their effects upon the present welfare of ourselves or 
 of other men. ' If in this life only wo have hope in God, then are we of 
 all men most miserable.' And why did they thus sacrifice expediency? 
 Because tho communicated will of God required that course of life by 
 which human interests were apparently sacrificed. It will be perceived 
 that these considerations result from tho truth (too little regarded in 
 talking of 'expediency' and 'general benevolence'), that utility as res- 
 oects mankind can not be properly consulted without taking into account 
 our interests in futurity. 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow wo die,' 
 is a maxim of which all would approve if we had no concerns with 
 another life. That which might bo very expedient if death were anni- 
 hilation, may be very inexpedient now." Essay on Morality, Essay I. 
 chap, iil S|t
 
 130 CICERO'S OFFICES. OCK in. 
 
 Gyges, who, when the earth had opened, in consequence of 
 certain heavy showers, descended into that chasm, and, as 
 tradition goes, beheld a brazen horse, in whose side was a 
 door, on opening which he beheld the body of a dead man 
 of extraordinary size, and a gold ring upon his finger, which 
 when he had drawn off, he himself put it on, and then betook 
 himself to the assemby of the shepherds (for he was the 
 king's shepherd). There, when he turned the stone of this 
 ring to the palm of his hand, he was visible to no person, but 
 himself saw every thing; and when he had turned the ring 
 into its proper place, he again became visible. Having em- 
 ployed, then, this convenience of the ring, he committed 
 adultery with the queen, and, with her assistance, slew the 
 king, his master, and got rid of those whom he considered likely 
 to oppose him. Nor could any one discover him in these 
 crimes. So with the assistance of the ring he suddenly 
 sprang up to be king of Lydia. Now, if a wise man had 
 this ring itself, he would think that he was no more at liberty 
 to commit crime than if he had it not. For virtue, not 
 secrecy, is sought by good men. And here some philosophers, 
 and they indeed by no means unworthy men, but not very 
 acute, say that the story told by Plato is false and fabulous, 
 just as if he indeed maintained either that it had happened 
 or could have happened. The import of this ring and of this 
 example is this if nobody were to know, nobody even to 
 suspect that you were doing any thing for the sake of riches, 
 power, domination, lust if it would be for ever unknown to 
 gods and men, would you do it ? They deny that the case 
 is possible. But though indeed it be possible, I only inquire 
 what they would do if that were possible which they deny 
 to be so. They argue very stupidly, for they simply deny 
 that it is possible, and they persist in that answer. They do 
 not perceive what is the force of that expression, " if it were 
 possible." For when we ask what they would do if they 
 possibly could conceal, we are not asking whether they really 
 could conceal ; but we are putting them, as it were, to the 
 torture, that if they answer that they would do, if impunity 
 were offered, what it was their interest to do, they must 
 confess that they are wicked ; if they deny that they would 
 do so, they must admit that all base actions are to be whunned 
 on their own account. But now let us return to our subject
 
 CHAP. X. CICERO'S OFFICES. 131 
 
 X. Many cases frequently occur, which disturb our minds 
 by the appearance of expediency. Not when this is the 
 subject of deliberation, whether virtue should be deserted 
 on account of the magnitude of the profit (for on this, indeed, 
 it is dishonest to deliberate), but this, whether or no that 
 which seems profitable can be done without baseness. When 
 Brutus deposed his colleague, Collatinus, from his command, 
 he might seem to be acting with injustice; for Collatinus 
 had been the associate and assistant in the councils of Brutus 
 in expelling the kings. But when the rulers had taken 
 this counsel, that the kindred of Superbus, and the name of 
 the Tarquinii, and the memory of royalty were to be rooted 
 out; that which was useful, namely, to consult for his 
 country, was so virtuous that it ought to have pleased even 
 Collatinus himself. Therefore the expediency of the measure 
 prevailed with Brutus on account of its rectitude, without 
 which expediency could not have even existed. But it was 
 otherwise in that king who founded the city ; for the appear- 
 ance of expediency influenced his mind, since, when it seemed 
 to him more profitable to reign alone than with another, he slew 
 his brother. lie disregarded both affection and humanity, 
 that he might obtain that which seemed useful, but was not. 
 And yet he set up the excuse about the wall a pretense of virtue 
 neither probable nor very suitable : therefore, with all due respect 
 to Quirinus or Romulus, 1 1 would say that he committed a crime. 
 
 Yet our own interests should not be neglected by us, nor 
 given up to others when we ourselves want them ; but each 
 should serve his own interest, as far as it can bo done witli- 
 out injustice to another : Chrysippus has judiciously made 
 this remark like many others : " He, who runs a race, 
 ought to make exertions, and struggle as much as he can 
 to be victor ; but he ought by no means to trip up or push 
 with his hand the person with whom ho is contesting. 
 Thus in life it is not unjust that each should seek for himself 
 what may pertain to his advantage it is not just that he 
 should take from another." 
 
 But our duties are principally confused in cases of friend- 
 ship ; for both not to bestow on them what you justly may, and 
 to bestow what is not just, are contrary to duty. But the 
 rule regarding this entire subject is short and easy. For 
 
 1 Romulus, when deified, was called Quirinun.
 
 132 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK ni, 
 
 those things which seem useful honors, riches, pleasures, 
 and other things of the same kind should never be preferred 
 to friendship. But, on the other hand, for the sake of a 
 friend a good man will neither act against the state, nor 
 against his oath and good faith not even if he shall be 
 judge in the case of his friend for he lays aside the 
 character of a friend when he puts on that of a judge. So 
 much he will concede to friendship that he had rather the 
 cause of his friend were just, and that he would accommo- 
 date him as to the time of pleading his cause as far as the 
 laws permit. But when he must pronounce sentence on his 
 oath, he will remember that he has called the divinity as 
 witness that is, as I conceive, his own conscience, than 
 which the deity himself has given nothing more divine to 
 man. Therefore we have received from our ancestors a 
 noble custom, if we would retain it, of entreating the judge 
 for what he can do with safe conscience. This entreaty has 
 reference to those things which, as I mentioned a little while 
 ago, could be granted with propriety by a judge to his friend. 
 For if all things were to be done which friends would wish, 
 such intimacies can not be considered friendships, but rather 
 conspiracies. But I am speaking of common friendships; 
 for there could be no such thing as that among wise and 
 perfect men. They tell us that Damon and Phintias, the 
 Pythagoreans, felt such affection for each other, that when 
 Dionysius, the tyrant, had appointed a day for the exe- 
 cution of one of them, and he who had been condemned 
 to death had entreated a few days for himself, for the purpose 
 of commending his family to the care of his friends, the 
 other became security to have him forthcoming, so that if he 
 had not returned, it would have been necessary for himself 
 to die in his place. When he returned upon the day, tho 
 tyrant having admired their faith, entreated that they would 
 admit him as a third to their friendship. 
 
 When, therefore, that which seems useful in friendship is 
 compared with that which is virtuous, let the appearance of 
 expediency be disregarded, let virtue prevail. Moreover, when 
 in friendship, things which are not virtuous shall be required of us, 
 religion and good faith should be preferred to friendship. Thus 
 that distinction of duty which we are seeking will be preserved. 
 
 XI. But it ia in state affairs that men most frequently
 
 CHAP. XL CICERO'S OFFICES. 133 
 
 commit crimes under the pretext of expediency as did ou* 
 countrymen in the domolition of Corinth : the Athenians still 
 more harshly, since they decreed that the thumbs of the ^Egv 
 netans, who were skillful in naval matters, should be cut off. 
 This seemed expedient ; for ^Egina, on account of its proxi- 
 mity, was too formidable to the Piraeus. But nothing which is 
 cruel can be expedient ; for cruelty is most revolting to the 
 nature of mankind, which we ought to follow. Those, too, 
 do wrong who prohibit foreigners to inhabit their cities, and 
 banish them, as Pennus did among our ancestors, and Papius 
 did lately. For it is proper not to permit him to be as a citizen 
 who is not a citizen a law which the wisest of consuls, 
 Crassus and Scsevola, introduced : but to prohibit foreigners 
 from dwelling in a city is certainly inhuman. Those are 
 noble actions in which the appearance of public expediency 
 is treated with contempt in comparison with virtue. Our state 
 is full of examples, as well frequently on other occasions as 
 especially in the second Punic war, when she, having suffered 
 the disaster at Cannae, exhibited greater spirit than ever she did 
 in her prosperity no indication of fear, no mention of peace, 
 So great is the power of virtue, that it throws the sem- 
 blance of expediency into the shade. When the Athenians 
 could by no means withstand the attack of the Persians, and 
 determined that, having abandoned their city, and deposited 
 their wives and children at Troezene, they should embark in 
 their vessels, and with their fleet protect the liberties of 
 Greece, they stoned one Cyrsilus, who was persuading them to 
 remain in the city, and to receive Xerxes : though he seemed 
 to pursue expediency ; but it was unreal, as being opposed 
 to virtue. Themistocles, after the victory in that war which 
 took place with the Persians, said in the assembly, that he 
 had a plan salutary for the state, but that it was necessary 
 that it should not be publicly known. He demanded that 
 the people should appoint somebody with whom he might 
 communicate. Aristides was appointed. To him he disclosed 
 that the fleet of the Lacedaemonians, which was in dock 
 at Gytheum, could secretly be burned; of which act the 
 necessary consequence would be, that the power of the 
 Lacedaemonians would be broken ; which, when Aristidea 
 had heard, he came into the assembly amid great expecta- 
 tions cf the people, and said that the t>lan which Themistocle*
 
 534 CICERO'S OFFICE. BOOK in. 
 
 proposed was very expedient, but by no means honorable. 
 Therefore, the Athenians were of opinion that what was not 
 upright was not even expedient, and on the authority of 
 Aristides, rejected that entire matter which they had not 
 even heard. They acted better than we who have pirates 
 free from tribute, and allies paying taxes. 
 
 XII. Let it be inferred, then, that what is base never i^ 
 expedient, not even when you obtain what you think to be 
 useful. For this very thinking what is base to be expedient, 
 is mischievous. But, as I said before, cases often occur, when 
 profit seems to be opposed to rectitude, so that it is ne- 
 cessary to consider whether it is plainly opposed, or can be 
 reconciled with rectitude. Of that sort are these questions. 
 If, for example, an honest man has brought from Alexandria 
 to Rhodes a great quantity of grain during the scarcity and 
 famine of the Rhodians, and the very high prices of provi- 
 sions; if this same man should know that many merchants 
 had sailed from Alexandria, and should have seen their ves- 
 sels on the way laden with corn, and bound for Rhodes, 
 should he tell that to the Rhodians, or keeping silence, should 
 he sell his own corn at as high a price as possible ? We are 
 supposing a wise and honest man ; we are inquiring about the 
 deliberation and consultation of one who would not conceal the 
 matter from the Rhodians if he thought it dishonorable, but 
 is in doubt whether it be dishonorable. In cases of this 
 sort, one view was habitually taken by Diogenes, the Baby- 
 lonian, a great and approved Stoic; and a different ^iew by 
 Antipater, his pupil, a very acute man. It seems right to 
 Antipater, that every thing should be disclosed, so that the 
 buyer should not be ignorant of any thing at all that the seller 
 knew. To Diogenes it appears that the seller ought, just as 
 far as is established by the municipal law to declare the 
 faults, to act in other respects without fraud ; but since ho 
 is selling, to wish to sell at as good a price as possible. I have 
 brought my corn I have set it up for sale I am selling 
 it, not at a higher rate than others, perhaps, he will even 
 say for less, since the supply is increased ; to whom is there 
 injustice done ? The argument of Antipater proceeds on the 
 other side. "What do you say ? When you ought to consult 
 for the good of mankind, and to benefit human society, and 
 were born under this law, and have these principles from
 
 CHAP, zm CICERO'S OFFICES. 13* 
 
 nature, which you ought to obey and comply with, that your 
 interest should be the common interest, c'ind reciprocally, the 
 common interest yours will you conceal from men what ad- 
 vantage and plenty is near them? Diogenes will answer 
 perhaps, in this manner. It is one thing to conceal from 
 them, another thing to bo silent on the subject : " I do not 
 conceal from you now, if I do not tell you what is the nature 
 of the gods, or what is the supreme good ; things, the know- 
 ledge of which would be more beneficial to you than the low 
 price of wheat. But is there any necessity for me to tell you 
 whatever is beneficial to you to know ?" " Yes, indeed," the 
 other will say, " it is necessary, that is, if you remember that 
 there is a social tie established between men by nature," 
 " I remember that," he will answer, " but is that social tie 
 such that each has nothing of his own ? for if it be so, we 
 should not even sell any thing, but make a present of it." 
 
 XIII. You sec, throughout all this disputation, it is not 
 said, although this act be base, yet since it is profitable 
 I will do it ; but on the one side it is said it is profitable 
 in so much as it is not a base act ; and on the other side, be- 
 cause it is base, on this account it should not be done. An 
 honest man would dispose of a house on account of some 
 faults which he himself knows, but others are ignorant of; it 
 is unwholesome, though considered healthy; it is not known 
 that snakes make their appearance in all the bed chambers; 
 it is built of bad materials, ready to fall ; but nobody knows 
 this except the master. I ask, if the seller should not tell 
 these things to the buyer, and should sell the house for a 
 great deal more than lie thought he could sell it for, whether 
 he would have acted unjustly or dishonestly ? lie surely 
 would, says Antipater. For if suffering a purchaser to come 
 to loss, and to incur the greatest damage by mistake, be not 
 that which is forbidden at Athens with public execrations, 
 namely, a not pointing out the road to one going astray, 
 what else is ? It is even more than not showing the way ; 
 for it is knowingly leading another astray. Diogenes argues 
 on the other side. Has he forced you to purchase who 
 did not even request you to do so ? lie advertised for 
 sale a house that did not please him ; you have purchased 
 one that pleased you. But if they who advertised "a -ood 
 and well built country house," are not thought to have prac- 
 ticed fraud, even though it bo neither good nor well built*
 
 136 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK m. 
 
 much less Lave they who have not praised their house. For 
 \vhere there is judgment in the buyer, what fraud can there 
 be in the seller ? But if it be not necessary to make good 
 all that is said, do you think, it necessary to make good that 
 which is not said ? For what is more foolish than that the seller 
 should relate the defects of that which he sells ? Or, what 
 so absurd as that, by the command of the owner, the auctioneer 
 should thus proclaim: "I am selling an unhealthy house." 
 In some doubtful cases, then, virtue is thus defended on the 
 one side ; on the other side, it is said on the part of expediency, 
 that it not only is virtuous to do that which seems profitable, 
 but even disgraceful not to do it. This is that dissension 
 which seems often to exist between the profitable and the 
 virtuous. Which matters we must decide. For we have 
 not proposed them that we might make a question of them, 
 but that we might explain them. That corn merchant, then, 
 seems to me to be bound not to practice concealment on 
 the Rhodians, nor this house-seller on the purchasers. For 
 it is not practicing concealment if you should be silent about 
 any thing ; but when for the sake of your own emolument 
 you wish those, whose interest it is to know that which you 
 know, to remain in ignorance. Now, as to this sort of con- 
 cealment, who does not see what kind of thing it is, and what 
 kind of a man will practice it ? Certainly not an open, not 
 a single-minded, not an ingenuous, not a just, not a good 
 man ; but rather a wily, close, artful, deceitful, knavish, crafty, 
 double-dealing, evasive fellow. 1 Is it not inexpedient to 
 
 1 On referring to tho conclusion of the last chapter, it will be seen that 
 neither does Diogenes prove, nor does Antipater admit, that by the corn- 
 merchant's silence any rule of morality is infringed. On what ground and 
 for what reason was it incumbent on him to disclose the fact which acci- 
 dentally came to his knowledge, that other cargoes of com were at sea f 
 none is assigned, but that buyers and sellers are bound by the same social 
 ties. But these do not, as Antipater observes, bind us to communicate to 
 every body all wo know. In withholding this information, which was 
 wholly extrinsic to his bargain, no confidence was violated. Had ho dis- 
 closed it, the price of the commodity in which he dealt would have been 
 materially reduced. However noble-minded or liberal it might be in him 
 to put the buyer in possession of all the intelligence on the subject within 
 his power, no rules of justice were violated by his withholding it. And 
 these are, as Adam Smith observes (Theory of Moral Sentiments, iv. 7), 
 " the only rules which are precise and accurate ; those of other virtues 
 are vague and indeterminate. The first may be compared to the rules 
 of grammar; tho others to tho rules which the critics lay down for the
 
 CHAP, in CICERO'S OFFICES 137 
 
 pose ourselves to the imputations of so many vices, and even 
 more ? 
 
 XIV. But if they are to be blamed who have .kept silent, 
 what ought to be thought of those who have practiced false- 
 hood in word ? Caius Canius, a Roman knight, not without 
 wit, and tolerably learned, when he had betaken himself to 
 Syracuse, for the sake, as he was himself accustomed to say, 
 of enjoyment, not of business, gave out that he wished to 
 purchase some pleasure-grounds, whither he could invite his 
 friends, and where he could amuse himself without intruders. 
 When this had got abroad, one Pythius, who practiced dis- 
 counting at Syracuse, told him that he had pleasure-grounds, 
 not indeed for sale, but that Canius was at liberty to use 
 them as his own if he desired, and at the same time he in- 
 vited the gentleman to dinner at the pleasure-grounds on the 
 following day. When he had promised to go, then Pythius, 
 who, as a discounter, was well liked among all ranks, called 
 some fishermen to him, and requested of them that upon the 
 following day they should fish in front of his grounds, and 
 told them what he wished them to do. In due time, Canius 
 came to dinner the entertainment was sumptuously pro- 
 vided by Pythius a crowd of fishing-boats before their eyes. 
 Each fisherman for himself brought what he had caught ; the 
 fish were laid before the feet of Pythius. Then Canius says, 
 " What is this, pray, Pythius so much fish so many boats ?" 
 And he answers, " What 's the wonder ? Whatever fish there 
 are at Syracuse are taken at this place ; here is their watering- 
 place ; these men could not do without this villa." Canius, 
 
 attainment of the sublime, which present us rather with a general idea 
 of the perfection we ought to aim at, than afford us any certain and in- 
 fallible directions for acquiring it." Puffendort, considering this very 
 question, after deciding that no rule of justice was infringed by tho corn- 
 merchant, absolves him also from any offense against the laws of benev- 
 olence and humanity. In this opinion his ingenious commentator, Bar- 
 beyrac, fully agrees, and cites the opinion of a strict casuist, La Placetto, 
 to the same effect. Had the merchant, on his arrival, found the market 
 forestalled by tho importation of corn from some other quarter, or had ho 
 on tho voyage lost ship or cargo, he could not have expected from tho 
 Rhodiaus the reimbursement of his loss. "Why then should he not avail 
 himself of a favorable state of the market ? All concur, therefore, in de^ 
 ciding that he was not bound in conscience to a disclosure, " provided 
 merchants do not impose on us, we may easily dispense them," says 
 PuffendorC " from all acts of puro liberality."
 
 138 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK in. 
 
 inflamed with desire, presses Pythius to sell. He is unwill- 
 ing at first ; but, to be brief, he obtains his wish. The 
 man, eager and wealthy, purchases the place at as much 
 as Pythius demands, and purchases it furnished. He draws 
 the articles and completes the transaction. Canius on the 
 following day invites his friends. He comes early himself; 
 he sees not a boat ; he asks of his next neighbor, was it any 
 holiday with the fishermen, that lie saw none of them. " None 
 that I know," said he : " but none used to fish here, and there- 
 fore I was amazed at what happened yesterday." Canius got 
 angry ; yet what could he do ? for my colleague and friend 
 Aquillius had not yet brought out the forms about criminal 
 devices ; in which very forms, when it was inqu'.red of him, 
 " What is a criminal device ?" he answered, " When one 
 thing is pretended, and another thing done." Very clearly, 
 indeed, was this laid down ; as by a man skilled in definition. 
 Therefore, both Pythius, and all those who do one thing, while 
 feigning another, are perfidious, base, knavish. No act of 
 theirs, then, can be useful, when it is stained with so many vices. 
 XV. But if the Aquillian definition is true, pretense 
 and dissimulation ought to be banished from the whole of 
 life ; so that neither to buy better, nor to sell, will a good 
 man feign or disguise any thing. And this criminal device 
 was punished both by the statute laws (as in the case of 
 guardianship by the twelve tables, in that of the defrauding 
 of minors, by the Plaetorian law), and by judicial decisions 
 without legal enactment, in which is added " according to 
 good faith" (EX FIDE BONA). Moreover, in other judgments, 
 the following phrases are very excellent : in the arbitration of 
 a cause matrimonial, the phrase, " MELIUS ^EQUIUS ;" in a case 
 of trust, the phrase, " UT INTER BONOS BENE AGIER." ' What 
 then ? Can there be any room for fraud either in that 
 
 1 The Pnctor had an equitable jurisdiction. It is to his decrees tho 
 text refers ; and as the principal subjects that came before him were bona 
 fide contracts, not binding in strict law, but in which he decided accord- 
 ing to conscience, and used in these decrees a set form of words, " ex 
 fide bona agatur," the decisions on this and all other cases in equity cam& 
 to be called judicia bonce fidei. Two other set forms are mentioned ir 
 the text ; one used in the case of divorce (as well as in all other cases of 
 arbitration), where arbitrators, decreeing the restoration of the wife's 
 property, employed the form QUANTUM ^EQUIUS MELIUS. The other 
 formula was usual in cases of trust ; it ran thus : INTEH BONOS BEXB 
 
 AGIER ET SINE FRA UDATIONE
 
 CHAP. XT. CICERO'S OFFICES. 139 
 
 transaction which is decreed to be adjusted " better and 
 fairer ?" Or can any thing be done deceitfully or knavishly, 
 when it is pronounced " that among honest men there must 
 be fair dealing ?" But criminal device, as Aquillius says, 
 is comprised in pretense ; therefore all deceit should b* 
 excluded from contracts. The seller should not brin/i 
 a person to bid over the value, nor the buyer one to 
 bid under him. Each of the two, if he should come 
 to name a price, should not name a pi ice more than once. 
 Quintus Scaevola, indeed, the son of Publius, when he re- 
 quired that a price of a property of which he was about to 
 become a purchaser should be named to him once for all, 
 and the seller had done so, said that he valued it at more, 
 and gave in addition a hundred sestertia. There is no 
 person who can deny that this was the act of an honest 
 man ; they deny that it was of a prudent man ; just as it 
 would be if a man should sell a thing for less than he could 
 get. This, then, is the mischief That persons think some 
 men honest, others prudent; through which mistake En- 
 nius remarks, " that the wise man is wise in vain, who 
 can not bo of use to himself." That indeed is true, if it be 
 only agreed on between me and Ennius what " to be of use'* 
 means. I see, indeed, Ilccaton of Rhodes, the scholar of 
 Panaetius, saying, in those books about duties which he 
 wrote to Quintus Tubcro, "that it was the duty of a wise 
 man, that doing nothing contrary to manners, laws, and 
 institutions, he should have regard to improving his prop- 
 erty ; for wo do not wish to be rich for ourselves alone, 
 but for our children, kindred, friends, and especially for our 
 country ; for the means and affluence of each individually 
 constitute the riches of the state." To this philosopher the 
 conduct of Scaevola, about which I spoke :i little while ago, 
 can by no means be pleasing ; for to him who disavows 
 that he would do for the sake of his own giiin only just so 
 much as is not illegal, neither great pains nor thanks arc 
 due. But if pretense and dissimulation are criminal de- 
 vices, there are few affairs in which that criminal device 
 may not be employed ; or if a good man is he who serves 
 whom ho can, injures nobody certainly we do not easily 
 find such a good man ; to do wrong, then, is never profitable, 
 because it is always base ; and to be a good man is always 
 profitable, because it is always virtuous
 
 140 CICERO'S OFFICES. COOK in. 
 
 XVI. And with respect to the law of landed estates, it is 
 ordained among us by the civil law, that by selling them, 
 the faults should be declared which were known to the 
 seller. For though by the twelve tables it was sufficient to 
 be answerable for those defects which were expressly men- 
 tioned, which he who denied suffered a penalty of double the 
 value, yet a penalty for silence also was established by the 
 lawyers. For they determined that, if the seller knew what- 
 ever defect there was in an estate, he ought to make it good, 
 unless it was expressly mentioned. Thus, when the augurs 
 were about to officiate on the augurs' hill, 1 and had com- 
 manded Titus Claudius Centumalus, who had a house on the 
 Caelian Mount, to take down those parts of it, the height of 
 which obstructed their auspices, Claudius set up the house 
 for sale, and he sold it ; Publius Calpurnius Lanarius pur- 
 chased it. That same notice was given to him by the 
 augurs ; therefore, when Calpurnius had pulled it down, and 
 had discovered that Claudius had advertised the house after 
 he had been commanded by the augurs to pull it down, ho 
 brought him before an arbitrator, to decide " what he ought 
 to give or do for him in good faith." Marcus Cato pro- 
 nounced the sentence ; the father of this our Cato (for as 
 other men are to be named from their father, so he who 
 begot that luminary ought to be named from his son). This 
 judge, then, decreed as follows : " Since in selling he had 
 known that matter, and had not mentioned it, that he 
 ought to make good the loss to the purchaser." There- 
 fore he established this principle, that it concerned good 
 faith that a defect which the seller was aware of should bo 
 made known to the purchaser ; but if he decided with justice, 
 then that corn-merchant did not with justice keep silent, 
 nor that seller of the unhealthy house. 2 However, all mental 
 
 1 The Capitoline. 
 
 2 A commentator on this passage very justly observes, that " the anal- 
 ogy is by no means perfect between the cases. Claudius withheld from 
 the buyer information respecting that very house, by which its utility and 
 its value were materially reduced. In fact the house which he sold was 
 not the identical house, as he well knew, which in a short period would 
 be standing on that spot ; it must be replaced by a house less lofty, and 
 which would cost to the buyer no small sum to unroof, reduce, and alter. 
 This information related, therefore, to the house itself which he sold and 
 warranted. Not so with regard to the corn sold at Rhodes ; the quality 
 of the corn was not there in question; the intelligence which tho mer-
 
 CHAP. XVIL CICERO'S OFFICES. 141 
 
 reservations of this kind can not be comprehended in the civil 
 law ; but those which can are carefully checked. Marcus 
 Marius Gratidianus, our kinsman, sold to Caius Sergius 
 Grata that house which he had himself purchased from the 
 same man a few years before. This house was subject to a 
 service ; * but Marius had not mentioned this in the con- 
 ditions of conveyance. The matter was brought to trial. 
 Crassus was counsel for Grata; Antonius defended Gratidi- 
 anus : Crassus relied on the law whatever defect a seller 
 who knows it had not disclosed, it is fit that he should 
 make good : Antonius relied on the equity that since 
 that defect could not have been unknown to Sergius, who 
 had formerly sold the house, there was no necessity that it 
 should be disclosed ; neither could he be deceived, who was 
 aware under what liability that which he had bought was placed. 
 To what purpose these accounts ? That you may understand 
 this, that cunning men were not approved by our ancestors. 
 
 XVII. But the laws abolish frauds in one way, philoso- 
 phers in another : the laws, as far as they can lay hold of them 
 by their arm ; " philosophers, as far as they can check them 
 by reason and wisdom. Reason, then, requires that nothing 
 be done insidiously, nothing dissemblingly, nothing falsely. 
 Is it not then an ensnaring to lay a net, even though you 
 should not beat up the game, nor hunt them to it ? For the 
 wild creatures often fall into it of themselves, no one pur- 
 suing them. So is it fit you should set up your house for 
 sale, put up a bill like a net, sell the house because of its 
 defects, and that somebody should rush into it unwittingly ? 
 
 chant withheld did not relate to that corn, but was completely extrinsic. 
 Though he might be bound to satisfy the buyer's inquiry by giving a true 
 account of that corn, lie was not bound to furnish, unasked, an account 
 of all other corn. Had he stated his corn to be merchantable, and of a 
 given weight, and the buyer had found the corn on delivery to bo of less 
 weight and full of weevils, then the comparison would have been more 
 just with a house, which, as the proprietor knew, must be reduced in 
 height, and which he sold, concealing that important circumstance." 
 
 1 A property was said in law, "servire alicui," when some third per- 
 son had a right of way, or some other such right over it. 
 
 8 The duty of the laws is to punish fraud in such overt cases as it can 
 lay hold of. The duty of philosophy is to expose by argument the turpi- 
 tude of fraud, even in those cases which, from their subtilty, or from tho 
 corruptness of morals, escape the hand of tho law, since "reticentise juro 
 civili omnes comprehend! nou possunt "
 
 M2 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK ia 
 
 Though I see that this, on account of the corruption of man- 
 ners, is neither esteemed base in morals, nor forbidden either 
 by statutable enactments or by civil law ; yet it is forbidden 
 by the law of nature. For there is the social tie between man 
 and man which is of the widest extent, which, though I have 
 often mentioned it, yet needs to be mentioned oftener. 
 There is a closer tie between those who are of the same nation ; 
 a closer still between those who are of the same state. Our 
 ancestors, therefore, were of opinion that the law of nations 
 was one thing, the municipal law a different thing. What- 
 ever is civil law, the same is not, for that reason, necessarily 
 the .law of nations ; but whatever is the law of nations, the 
 same ought to be civil law. But we possess no solid and 
 express image of true right and its sister justice : we use 
 merely their shade and faint resemblances. Would that we 
 followed even these, for they are taken from the best pat- 
 terns of nature and truth! For how admirable are those 
 words, " that I be not ensnared and defrauded on account of 
 you and your honesty." What golden words those "that 
 among honest men there bo fair dealing, and without fraud." 
 But who are honest men, and what is fair dealing, is the great 
 question. Quintus Scaevola, indeed, the high priest, used to 
 say that there was the greatest weight in all those decisions 
 in which was added the form " of good faith ;" and he 
 thought the jurisdiction of good faith extended very widely, 
 and that it was concerned in wardships, societies, trusts, 
 commissions, buyings, sellings, hirings, lettings, in which 
 the intercourse of life is comprised ; that in these it is the 
 part of a great judge to determine (especially since there 
 were contrary decisions in most cases) what each ought to 
 be accountable for to each. Wherefore craftiness ought to 
 be put away, and that knavery which would fain seem, 
 indeed, to be prudence, but which is far from it, and differs 
 most widely. 1 For prudence consists in the distinguishing of 
 
 1 Addison carries out this distinction far more elaborately. " At the 
 same time," he says, " that I think discretion the most useful talent a man 
 can be master of, I look upon cunning to be the accomplishment of little, 
 mean, ungenerous minds. Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, 
 and pursues the most proper and laudable methods of attaining them. Cun- 
 ning has only private, selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make 
 them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a 
 well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon. Cunning is a kind of short-
 
 CHAP. xvn. CICERO'S OFFICES. 143 
 
 good and evil knavery, if all things that arc vicious are 
 evil, prefers evil to good. 
 
 Nor is it, indeed, in landed property alone that the civil 
 law deduced from nature punishes knavery and fraud, but 
 also in the sale of slaves, all fraud of the seller is prevented. 
 For he who ought to be aware of the health, the running 
 away, the thefts of slaves, is accountable by the edict of 
 the ^Ediles ; but the case of heirs is different. 1 From 
 which it will be understood, since nature is the fountain of 
 right, that it is according to nature that no one should act 
 in such a manner, that be should prey on the ignorance of 
 another. 2 Nor can there be found in life any greater curse 
 
 sightedness that discovers the minutest objects which aro near at hand, 
 but is not able to discern things at a distance. Discretion, the more it is 
 discovered, gives a greater authority to tho person who possesses it. 
 Cunning, when it is once detected, loses its force, and makes a man in- 
 capable of bringing about even those events which ho might have done 
 had he passed only for a plain man. Discretion is tho perfection of reason, 
 and a guide to us in all the duties of life ; cunning is a kind of in- 
 stinct that only looks out after our immediate interest; and welfare. Dis- 
 cretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding ; 
 cunning is often to bo met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who 
 are but tho fewest removes from them. In short, cunning is only tho 
 mimic of discretion, and may pass upon mean men in Iho same manner 
 as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom." Spec- 
 tator, No. 225. 
 
 1 Because an heir, having only just comointo possession of tho proper- 
 ty, consisting of slaves, might fairly bo considered ignorant of their evil 
 qualities. 
 
 2 We havo hero a singular proof of tho facility with which men, oven 
 when analyzing tho nicest moral obligations, may bo insensible to tho 
 grossest violations of moral fitness involved in tho social institutions amid 
 which they havo been educated. In connection witli this nice casuistry 
 touching tho sale of a slave, it is curious to peruse tho following descrip- 
 tion of the state of things which existed at tho very time when Cicero 
 penned his treatise : 
 
 " The custom of exposing old, useless, or sick slaves in on island of 
 the Tyber, there to starve, seems to havo been pretty common in Home; 
 and whoever recovered, after having been so exposed, had his liberty 
 given him by an edict of tho Emperor Claudius; in which it was likewiso 
 forbidden to kill any slave merely for old ago or sickness. But suppos- 
 ing that this edict was strictly obeyed, would it better tho domestic 
 treatment of slaves, or render their lives much more comfortable ? Wo 
 may imagine what others would practice, when it was tho professed 
 maxim of tho elder Cato to sell his superannuated slaves for any price, 
 rather than maintain what he esteemed a useless burden. 
 
 " Tho ergastula, or dungeons where slaves in chains wero forced to
 
 144 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK m. 
 
 than the pretense of wisdom in knavery ; from which those in- 
 numerable cases proceed, where the useful seems to be opposed 
 to the virtuous. For how few will be found who, when prom- 
 ised perfect secrecy and impunity, can abstain from injustice ? 
 
 XVni. Let us test the principle, if you please, in those ex- 
 amples in which, indeed, the mass of mankind do not think per- 
 haps that there is any crime. For it is not necessary in this 
 place to treat of assassins, poisoners, will-forgers, robbers, 
 embezzlers, who are to be kept down, not by means of words 
 and the disputation of philosophers, but by chains and a 
 dungeon. But let us consider these acts, which they who 
 are esteemed honest men commit. Some persons brought 
 from Greece to Rome a forged will of Lucius Minucius 
 Basilus, a rich man. That they might the more easily obtain 
 their object, they put down as legatees along with themselves, 
 Marcus Crassus and Quintus Hortensius, the most powerful 
 men of that day ; who, though they suspected that it was a 
 forgery, but were conscious of no crime in themselves, did 
 
 work, were very common all over Italy. Columella advises that they be 
 always built under ground, and recommends it as the duty of a careful 
 overseer to call over every day the names of tho slaves, like the muster- 
 ing of a regiment or ship's company, in order to know presently when 
 any of them had deserted ; a proof of tho frequency of these ergastula 
 and of the great number of slaves usually confined in them. 
 
 " A chained slave for a porter was usual in Rome, as appears from Ovid 
 and other authors. Had not these people shaken off all sense of com- 
 passion toward that unhappy part of their species, would they have 
 presented their friends, at the first entrance, with such an image of tho 
 severity of the master and misery of the slave ? Nothing so common in 
 all trials, even of civil causes, as to call for tho evidence of slaves ; which 
 was always extorted by the most exquisite torment. Demosthenes says 
 that where it was possible to produce, for tho same fact, either freemen 
 or slaves, as witnesses, the judges always preferred the torturing of slaves 
 as a more certain evidence. 
 
 " Seneca draws a picture of that disorderly luxury which changes day 
 into night, and night into day, and inverts every stated hour of every 
 office in life. Among other circumstances, such as displacing tho meals 
 and times of bathing, he mentions, that regularly, about tho third hour 
 of the night, the neighbors of one who indulges this false refinement, 
 hear the noise of whips and lashes ; and, upon inquiry, find that he is 
 then taking an account of the conduct of his servants, and giving them 
 due correction and discipline. 
 
 " This is not remarked as an instance of cruelty, but only of disorder, 
 which even in actions tho most usual and methodical changes the fixed 
 hours that an established custom had assigned for them." Hume's Es- 
 Bays, Part ii. Essay 11.
 
 CHAP. xix. CICERO'S OFFICES. 145 
 
 not reject the paltry gift of other men's villainy. What 
 then ? Was this enough, that they should not be thought to 
 have been culpable ? To me, indeed, it seems otherwise ; 
 though I loved one of them when living, and do not hate the 
 other, now that he is dead. But when Basilus had willed 
 that Marcus Satrius, his sister's son, should bear his name, 
 and had made him his heir (I am speaking of him who was 
 patron of the Picene and Sabine districts; oh! foul stigma 
 upon those times I 1 ) was it fair that those noble citizens 
 should have the property, and that nothing but the name 
 should come down to Satrius ? For if he who does not keep off 
 an injury, nor repel it if he can from another, acts unjustly, as 
 I asserted in the first book, what is to be thought of him who 
 not only does not repel, but even assists in the injury? To 
 me, indeed, even true legacies do not seem honorable, if 
 they are acquired by deceitful fawning not by the reality, 
 but by the semblance of kind offices. But in such matters 
 the profitable is sometimes accustomed to be thought one 
 thing, and the honest another thing. Falsely ; for the rule 
 about profit is the same as that which obtains respecting 
 honesty. To him who will not thoroughly perceive this, 
 no fraud, no villainy will be wanting ; for, considering thus, 
 " that, indeed, is honest, but this is expedient," he will dare 
 erroneously to separate things united by nature which is 
 the fountain of all frauds, malpractices, and crimes. 
 
 XIX. If a good man, then, should have this power, that 
 by snapping his fingers his name could creep by stealth into 
 the wills of the wealthy, ho would not use this power, not 
 even if he had it for certain that no one at all would ever 
 suspect it. But should you give this power to Marcus 
 Crassus, that by the snapping of his fingers ho could be in- 
 scribed heir, when he really was not heir; believe me, he 
 would have danced in the forum. But the just man, and ho 
 whom we deem a good man, would take nothing from any 
 man in order to transfer it wrongfully to himself. Let him 
 who is surprised at this confess that he is ignorant of what 
 
 1 Marcus Satrius, having taken his uncle's name, Lucius Minucius 
 Basilus, was chosen as patron by those districts ho was a partisan of 
 Caesar in the- civil war. In the eyes of Cicero it was, of course, a foul 
 stain upon the times that a friend of Caesar should be chosen as patron, 
 especially since, as ho insinuates in the 2d Phillippic, it was through 
 fear, not love, ho was selected for that honor.
 
 146 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK in. 
 
 constitutes a good man. But if any one would be willing to 
 develop the idea involved in his own mind, 1 he would at 
 once convince himself that a good man is he who serves 
 whom he can, and injures none except when provoked by 
 injury. What then ? Does he hurt none, who, as if by 
 some enchantment, accomplishes the exclusion of the true 
 heirs, and the substitution of himself in their place ? Should 
 he not do, then, somebody will say, what is useful, what is 
 expedient ? Yes, but he should understand that nothing is 
 either expedient or useful which is unjust. He who has 
 not learned this, can not be a good man. 
 
 When a boy, I learned from my father that Fimbria, the 
 consular," was judge in the case of Marcus Lutatius Pinthia, 
 r.oman knight, a truly honest man, when he had given 
 security, 3 {which he was to forfeit*) " unless he was a 
 good man ;" and that Fimbria thereupon told him that he 
 never would decide that matter, lest he should either de- 
 prive a worthy man of his character, if he decided against 
 him, or should be seen to have established that any one 
 was a good man, when this matter was comprised in in- 
 numerable duties and praiseworthy actions. To this good 
 man, then, whom even Fimbria, not Socrates alone had 
 
 1 The commentator, from whom I have already quoted, gives tlio fol- 
 lowing explanation of this passage. From the Platonic school Cicero 
 seems to have imbibed a persuasion, not merely that ideas are innate, but 
 that they were acquired during a pre-existent state of the mind or soul. 
 " Habet primuca (se animus hominis) memoriam et earn inflnitam, rerum 
 innumerabiiium quam quidem Plato recordationem esse vult superioris 
 vitae. Ex quo effici vult Socrates, ut discere nihil aliud sit quam recor- 
 darL Nee vero fieri ullo modo posse ut a pueris tot rerum atque tanta- 
 rum vnsitas, et quasi consignatas in animis, notiones, quas ivvoiaf vocant, 
 haberemus, nisi animus, antequam in corpus intrasset, in rerum cognitiono 
 viquisset." TulL Q. I. 24. He states also, Tull. Q. IV. c. 24., " Notionem 
 quam habemus omnes do fortitudine, tactam et involutam." In the 
 present passage he appears to speak in the same tone, of developing tho 
 notion we have, though indistinctly, in our minds of perfection of moral 
 character. 
 
 2 So called to distinguish him from Caius Fimbria, who having by his 
 intrigues occasioned the death of Lucius Flaccus, the proconsul of Asia 
 (eighty-five years B.C.), was subsequently conquered by Sylla, and termin- 
 ated his career by suicide. 
 
 3 The "sponsio" was a sum deposited in court, or promised with tho 
 usual formula ni veram causam haberet. If the party who thus gave 
 security was defeated, the money was forfeited to the treasury-
 
 CHAP. xx. CICERO'S OFFICES. 147 
 
 known, any thing which is not morally right can by no 
 means seem to be expedient. Such a man, then, not only 
 will not venture to do, but not even to think, what he would 
 not venture openly to proclaim. Is it not disgraceful that 
 philosophers should hesitate about this, which not even 
 rustics doubt from whom is derived this proverb, which has 
 now become trite through antiquity ; for when they commend 
 the integrity and worthiness of any person, they say " he is 
 one with whom you might play odd and even in the dark." 1 
 What meaning has this proverb but this, that nothing is ex- 
 pedient which is not morally right, even though you could 
 obtain it without any body proving you guilty. Do you not 
 see that, according to that proverb, no excuse can be offered 
 either to the aforesaid Gyges, nor to this man whom I havo 
 just now supposed able to sweep to himself the inheritances 
 of all by a snap of the fingers ? For as, how much soever 
 that which is base may be concealed, yet it can by no means 
 become morally right (honestum), so it can not be made out 
 that whatever is morally wrong can be expedient, since 
 nature is adverse and repugnant. 
 
 XX. But when the prizes are very great, there is a tempta- 
 tion to do wrong. When Caius Marius was far from the hope 
 of the consulship, and was now in the seventh year of his 
 torpor, after obtaining the praetorship, and did not seem likely 
 ever to stand for the consulship, he accused Quintus Metellus, 
 a very eminent man and citizen, whose lieutenant he was, be- 
 fore the Roman people of a charge that he was protracting the 
 war, when he had been sent to Rome by him his own com- 
 mander ; stating that if they would make himself consul, that 
 he would in a short time deliver Jugurtha, either alive or dead, 
 into the power of the Roman people. Upon this ho was indeed 
 made consul, but he deviated from good faith and justice, since, 
 by a false charge, he brought obloquy upon a most excellent 
 and respectable citizen, whose lieutenant he was, and by whom 
 he had been sent. Even my relative Gratidianus did not 
 discharge the duty of a good man at the time when he was 
 
 1 This play, retained among modern Italians under tlio name of La 
 Mora, is thus played : A and B are the players ; A suddenly raises, wo 
 will suppose, three fingers, and B two; A at a guess, cries, six; B, five. 
 B, having named the number, wins. Parties, to play it in tho dark, must 
 huvo reliance on each other's word ; hence tho provorb.
 
 148 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK m 
 
 praetor, and the tribunes of the people had called in the 
 college of the praetors, in order that the matter of the coinage 
 might be settled by a joint resolution. For at that period 
 the coinage was in a state of uncertainty, so that no man 
 could know how much he was worth. They drew up in 
 common an edict, with a fine and conviction annexed, and 
 agreed that they should all go up together to the rostra, in 
 the afternoon. And while the rest of them, indeed, went off 
 each a different way, Marius, from the judgment seats, went 
 straight to the rostra, and singly published that which had 
 been arranged in common. And this proceeding, if you 
 inquire into the result, brought him great honor. In every 
 street statues of him were erected, and at these incense and 
 tapers were burned. What need of many words ? No man ever 
 became a greater favorite with the multitude. These are the 
 things which sometimes perplex our deliberations, when that 
 in which equity is violated seems not a very great crime, but 
 that which is procured by it appears a very great advan- 
 tage. Thus to Marius it seemed not a very base act to snatch 
 away the popular favor from his colleagues and the tribunes 
 of the people, but it appeared a very expedient thing by 
 means of that act to become consul, which at that time he 
 had proposed to himself. But there is for all, the one rule 
 which I wish to be thoroughly known to you ; either let not 
 that which seems expedient be base, or if it be base let it not 
 seem expedient. What then ? Can we judge either the 
 former Marius or the latter, 1 a good man? Unfold and 
 examine your understanding, that you may see what in it is 
 the idea, form, and notion of a good man. Does it then fall 
 under the notion of a good man to lie for the sake of his 
 own advantage, to make false charges, to overreach, to 
 deceive ? Nothing, indeed, less so. Is there, then, any thing 
 of such value, or any advantage so desirable, that for it you 
 would forfeit the splendor and name of a good man ? What 
 is there which that expediency, as it is called, can bring, so 
 valuable as that which it takes away, if it deprive you of the 
 name of a. good man, if it rob you of your integrity and 
 justice ? Now, what difference does it make, whether from 
 a man one transform himself into a beast, or under the form 
 of a man, bear the savage nature of a beast ? 
 
 1 Namely, Marcus Marius Gralidianus.
 
 CHAP. xxi. CICERO'S OFFICES. 149 
 
 XXI. What ? Are not they who disregard all things up- 
 right and virtuous, provided they can attain power, doing 
 the same as he l who was willing to have even for his father- 
 in-law, that man* by whose audacity he might himself be- 
 come as powerful ? It seemed expedient to him to become as 
 powerful as possible by the unpopularity of the other. He 
 did not see how unjust that was toward his country, and 
 how base and how useless. But the father-in-law himself 
 always had in his mouth the Greek verses from the Phoe- 
 nissae, 3 which I will translate as well as I can inelegantly, 
 perhaps, yet so that the meaning can be understood : " For 
 if justice ought ever to be violated, it is to be violated for the 
 sake of ruling ; in other cases cherish the love of country." 
 
 Eteocles, or rather Euripides, deserved death for making 
 an exception of that one crime, which is the most accursed 
 of all. Why, then, do we repress petty villainies, or fraud- 
 ulent inheritances, trades, and sales ? Here is a man for 
 you, who aspired to be king of the Roman people, and 
 master of all nations, and accomplished it if any one says 
 this desire is an honest one, he is a madman/ For he ap- 
 
 1 Pompey. 
 
 8 Caesar, whoso daughter Julia was sought and obtained in marriage 
 by Pompey, who being, from his great power, suspected of ambitious 
 designs by the people, with whom Caesar was a favorite, wished by the 
 alliance to bring a share of the suspicion under which himself labored 
 upon hia rival, and thus to diminish his popularity. 
 3 EJirep ytip aiiKelv XP^> TVpawttof irepi 
 KuXTiiarov dtiinetv r" dA/ia 6' evaepeiv xpeuv. 
 
 * " "Wo may, indeed, agree, by a sacrifice of truth, to call that purple 
 which we see to be yellow, as wo may agree by a still more profligate 
 sacrifice of every noble feeling, to offer to tyranny the homage of our 
 adulation ; to say to the murderer of Thrasea Paetus, ' Thou hast done 
 well;' to the parricide who murdered Agrippina, 'Thou hast done more 
 than well.' As every new victim falls, we may lift our voice in still 
 louder flattery. Wo may fall at the proud feet, wo may beg, as a boon, 
 the honor of kissing that bloody hand which has been lifted against the 
 helpless ; we may do more ; we may bring the altar, and the sacrifice, 
 and implore the god not to ascend too soon to heaven. This we may do, 
 for this we have the sad remembrance that beings of a human form and 
 soul have done. But this is all wo can do. Wo can constrain our 
 tongues to be false, our features to bend themselves to the semblance of 
 that passionate adoration which we wish to express ; our knees to fall 
 prostrate ; but our heart we can not constrain. There virtue must still 
 have a voice which is not to be drowned by hymns and acclamations ; 
 there the crimes which wo laud as virtues, are crimes still; and ho
 
 150 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK m. 
 
 proves of the murder of our laws and liberty ; the foul and 
 abominable oppression of these he thinks glorious. But by 
 what reproof, or rather by what reproach, should I attempt 
 to tear away from so great an error the man who admits 
 that to usurp kingly power in that state which was free, and 
 which ought to be so, is not a virtuous act, but is expedient 
 for him who can accomplish it ? For, immortal gods ! can the 
 most foul and horrible parricide of his country be expedient 
 for any man, though he who shall hove brought upon himself 
 that guilt be named by the oppressed citizens a parent ? 
 
 Expediency, then, should be guided by virtue, and in- 
 deed so that these two may seem to differ from each other in 
 name, but to signify the same in reality. In vulgar opinion 
 I know not what advantage can be greater than that of sov- 
 ereign sway, but, on the contrary, when I begin to recall my 
 reason to the truth, I find nothing more disadvantageous to 
 him who shall have attained it unjustly. Can torments, cares, 
 daily and nightly fears, a life full of snares and perils, be ex- 
 pedient for any man ?' " The enemies and traitors to sove- 
 reignty are many, its friends few," says Accius. But to 
 what sovereignty ? That which was justly obtained, having 
 been transmitted by descent from Tantalus and Pelops ? Now, 
 
 whom wo have made a god is the most contemptible of mankind ; if, in- 
 deed, we do not feel, perhaps, that we are ourselves still more contempt^ 
 ible." Brown's "Moral Philosophy," Lecture Ixxviii. 
 
 1 " Do we think that God has reserved all punishment for another 
 world, and that wickedness has no feelings but those of triumph in the 
 years of earthly sway which consummate its atrocities ? There are hours 
 in which the tyrant is not seen, the very remembrance of which, in the 
 hours in which he is seen, darkens to his gloomy gaze that pomp which 
 is splendor to every eye but his ; and that even on earth, avenge with 
 awful retribution, the wrongs of the virtuous. The victim of his jealous 
 dread, who, with a frame wasted by disease and almost about to release 
 his spir't to a liberty that is immortal, is slumbering and dreaming of 
 heaven on the straw that scarcely covers the damp earth of his dungeon 
 if he could know at that very hour what thoughts are present to the 
 conscience of him who doomed him to this sepulcher, and who is lyiEtj* 
 sleepless on his bed of state, though for a moment the knowledge of the 
 vengeance might bo gratifying, would almost shrink the very moment 
 after from the contemplation of honor so hopeless, and wish that the 
 vengeance were less severe. ' Think not,' says Cicero, ' that guilt requires 
 the burning torches of the Furies to agitate and torment it. Their own 
 frauds, their crimes, their remembrances of the past, their terrors of tho 
 future, those are the domestic Furies that are ever present to the mind 
 of tho impious.' " Dr. Brown's "Moral Philosophy," Lecture Ixiv-
 
 CHAP. rni. CICERO'S OFFICES. 151 
 
 how many more do you think are enemies to that king, who 
 with the military force of the Roman people crushed that 
 very Roman people, and compelled a state that was not only 
 free, but also the ruler of the nations, to be slaves to him? 
 What stains, what stings of conscience do you conceive that 
 man to have upon his soul ? Moreover, could his life be a 
 beneficial one to himself, when the condition of that life was 
 this, that he who deprived him of it would be held in the high- 
 est esteem and glory I But if these things be not useful, which 
 seem so in the highest degree, because they are full of disgrace 
 and turpitude, we ought to be quite convinced that there is 
 nothing expedient which is not virtuous. 
 
 XXII. But this indeed was decided, as well on other oc- 
 casions frequently, as by Caius Fabricius, in his second con- 
 sulship, and by our senate in the war with Pyrrhus. For 
 when king Pyrrhus had made aggressive war upon the 
 Roman people, and when the contest was maintained for 
 empire with a generous and potent monarch, a deserter from 
 him came into the camp of Fabricius, and promised him, if he 
 would propose a reward for him, that as he had come secretly, 
 so ho would return secretly into the camp of Pyrrhus, and 
 dispatch him with poison. Fabricius took care that this 
 man should be sent back in custody to Pyrrhus, and this 
 conduct of his was applauded by the senate. And yet if 
 we pursue the appearance and notion of advantage, one 
 deserter would have rid us of that great war, and of thav 
 formidable adversary ; but it would have been a great dis- 
 grace and scandal, that he, with whom the contest was for 
 glory, had been conquered, not by valor, but by villainy. 
 Whether was it then more expedient, for Fabricius, 
 who was such a person in our state as Aristides was at 
 Athens, or for our senate, which never separated expedi- 
 ency from dignity, to fight against an enemy with arms 
 or with poison 2 If empire is to be sought for the sake 
 of glory, away with guilt in which there can not be glory ; 
 but if power itself is to be sought by any means what- 
 ever, it can not be expedient when allied to infamy. That 
 proposition, therefore, of Lucius Philippus, the son of Quintus, 
 was not expedient that those states, which, by a decree of 
 the senate, Lucius Sylla, on receiving a sum of money, had 
 made free, should again be subject to tribute, and that we
 
 152 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK m. 
 
 should not return the money which they had given for their 
 freedom. To this the senate agreed. Disgrace to the em- 
 pire ! For the faith of pirates is better than was the senate's. 
 But our revenues have been increased by it therefore it 
 was expedient. How long will people venture to say that 
 any thing is expedient which is not virtuous ? Now, can 
 odium and infamy be useful to any empire which ought to 
 be supported by glory and the good-will of its allies? I 
 often disagreed in opinion even with my friend Cato. For 
 he seemed to me too rigidly to defend the treasury and 
 tributes ; to deny all concessions to the farmers of the revenue ; 
 and many to our allies, when we ought to have been munificent 
 toward the latter, and to have treated the former as we were 
 accustomed to do our colonists, and so much the more, because 
 such a harmony between the orders 1 conduced to the safety of 
 the republic. Curio was also in error when he admitted 
 that the cause of the Transpadani was just, but always 
 added, " let expediency prevail." He should rather have said 
 that it was not just, because not expedient, for the republic, than 
 to say it was not expedient, when he confessed that it was just. 
 XXHL The 6th book of Hecaton, " De Officiis," is full 
 of such questions whether it be the part of a good man, 
 in an exceedingly great scarcity of provisions, not to feed his 
 slaves ; he argues on either side, but still in the end he 
 guides our duty rather by utility than humanity. He 
 inquires, if goods must needs be thrown into the sea in a 
 storm, Avhether ought one to throw overboard a valuable horse 
 or a worthless slave. Here pecuniary interest Avould incline us 
 one way, humanity another. If a fool should snatch a plank 
 from a wreck, shall a wise man wrest it from him if he is 
 able ? He says no, because it is an injustice. What Avill the 
 master of the ship do ? Will he seize the plank as his own ? 
 By no means no more than he Avould be willing to toss into 
 the sea one sailing in his ship, because it is his own. For 
 until they are come to the place to which the vessel was 
 chartered, the vessel is not the property of the master, but 
 
 1 The equestrian order, who were the farmers of the revenue, and the 
 senators, who exacted too rigidly the full amount of the contracts, not- 
 withstanding any event that might render the taxes less valuable to the 
 farmers. This disgusted the knights with the senate, and threw them 
 into the arms of Caesar, who procured for them a remission of part of 
 their liabilities.
 
 CHAP. XXHL CICERO'S OFFICES. 153 
 
 of the passengers. What, if there be only one plank, two 
 shipwrecked men, and both wise ? Should neither seize it, or 
 one yield to the other? One, indeed, should yield to the 
 other, namely, to him whose life was of more consequence 
 either for his own sake or that of the commonwealth. But 
 if these considerations be equal in both cases? There will 
 be no dispute ; but one, conquered, as it were, by lot, or by 
 playing at odd or even, should yield to the other. What, 
 if a father should rob temples, or carry a subterraneous 
 passage into the treasury ; should his son inform of it to the 
 magistrates ? To do that indeed would be impiety. Nay, he 
 ought even to defend his father if he were accused of it. 1 Ls 
 
 1 Tho most noted opponent of this crude and indefensible dogma, which 
 would set up a claim on the score of personal relationship paramount to 
 all the claims of justice, has been answered, as wo have already seen, by 
 two ethical philosophers of no mean reputation, Jonathan Edwards, in 
 his " Essay on the Nature of True Virtue," and "William Godwin, in his 
 " Inquiry concerning Political Justice." It is tho latter who has carried 
 these principles to the greatest extent. Indeed, he appears so far to 
 equalize the relative obligations of mankind as to make gratitude an 
 injustice, and to destroy all peculiarity of claims arising from the closest 
 relationship. Perhaps, however, it is safe to affirm that ho has not erred 
 so widely on tho one side, as Cicero in tho above sentence has erred on 
 the other. The following passage contains tho strongest statement of 
 Godwin's views on this point : 
 
 " What magic is there in tho pronoun ' my' that should justify us in 
 overturning the decisions of impartial truth ? My brother, or my father, 
 may be a fool, or a profligate, malicious, lying, or dishonest. If they bo, 
 of what consequence is it that they are mine ? 'But through my father 
 I am indebted for existence, ho supported me in the helplessness of in- 
 fancy.' When ho first subjected himself to tho necessity of these cares, 
 ho was probably influenced by no particular motives of benevolence to 
 his future offspring. Every voluntary benefit, however, entitles the be- 
 stower to some kindness and retribution. Why ? because a voluntary 
 benefit is an evidence of benevolent intention, that is, in a certain degree 
 of virtue. It is tho disposition of the mind, not tho external action sepa- 
 rately taken, that entitles to respect. But tho merit of this disposition 
 is equal, whether tho benefit be bestowed upon mo or upon another. I 
 and another man can not both be right in preferring our respective bene- 
 factors, for my benefactor can not bo at tho same time both better and 
 worse than his neighbor. My benefactor ought to bo esteemed, not bo- 
 cause ho bestowed a benefit upon me, but because he bestowed it upon 
 a human being. His desert will bo in exact proportion to the degree in 
 which that human being was worthy of the distinction preferred. 
 
 " Thus every view of the subject brings us back to the consideration 
 of my neighbor's moral worth, and his importance to the general weal 
 as tho only standard to detennino the treatment to which bo is entitled. 
 
 7*
 
 154 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK lit 
 
 not our country then paramount to all duties ? Yes, indeed, but 
 it is advantageous to our country itself to have its citizens affection- 
 ate toward their parents, What, if a father should endeavor to 
 usurp tyrannic power, or to betray his country ? Shall the son 
 be silent ? Nay, but he should implore his father not to do it. 
 If he prevail not, he should reproach he should even threaten. 
 If at last the matter should tend to the ruin of his country, he 
 should prefer the safety of his country to that of his father. 
 
 He also asks, if a wise man should receive base money 
 unawares for good, shall he, when he shall have come to know 
 it, pay it instead of good, if he owes money to any person ? 
 Diogenes affirms this ; Antipater denies it and with him I 
 rather agree. Ought he who knowingly sells wine that will not 
 keep, to acquaint the buyer ? Diogenes thinks it unnecessary ; 
 Antipater thinks it the characteristic of an honest man. These 
 are, as it were, the controverted laws of the Stoics. In selling s\ 
 slave, are his faults to be told not those which, unless you tell, 
 the slave would be returned by the civil law ; but these, that 
 he is a liar, a gambler, a pilferer, a drunkard ? These things 
 to the one seem necessary to be told ;' to the other not. K 
 any person selling gold should suppose he was selling brass, 
 should an honest man acquaint him that it was gold, or 
 should he buy for a denarius what. was worth a thousand de- 
 Gratitude, therefore, if by gratitude we understand a sentiment of prefer- 
 ence which I entertain toward another, upon the ground of my having 
 been the subject of his benefits, is no part either of justice or virtue. 
 
 " It may be objected, ' that my relation, my companion, or my bene* 
 factor, will of course in many instances obtain an uncommon portion of 
 my regard : for not being universally capable of discriminating the com' 
 parative worth of different men, I shall inevitably judge most favorably 
 of him of whose virtues I have received the most unquestionable proofs ; 
 and thus shall be compelled to prefer the man of moral worth whom J 
 know, to another who may possess, unknown to me, an essential superi- 
 ority.' 
 
 " This compulsion, however, is founded in the imperfection of humpn 
 nature. It may serve as an apology for my error, but can never chango 
 error into truth. It will always remain contrary to the strict and uni- 
 versal decisions of justice. The difficulty of conceiving this, is owing 
 merely to our confounding the disposition from which an action is chosen 
 with the action itself. The disposition, that would prefer virtue to vice, 
 and a greater degree of virtue to a less, is undoubtedly a subject of ap- 
 probation ; the erroneous exercise of this disposition, by which a wrong 
 object is selected, if unavoidable, is to be deplored, but can by no color- 
 ing, and under no denomination, be converted iato right." Godwin's 
 " Political Justice," voL i. book ii. chap. ii.
 
 CHAP. XXIT. CICERO'S OFFICES. 155 
 
 narii ? It is plain now, both what is my view, and what is the 
 controversy between those philosophers whom I have mentioned. 
 XXIV. Are compacts and promises always to be kept, 1 
 which are made neither by means of force, nor with crimin- 
 al intent (as the praetors are accustomed to say) ? If any 
 one should give some person a cure for the dropsy, and 
 should covenant with him that he should never afterward 
 use that cure if by that cure he became well, and in some 
 years afterward fell into the same disease, and could not 
 obtain from him with whom he had covenanted, leave to 
 use it again what ought to be done ? Since he is an in- 
 human fellow, who would not give him leave, and no in- 
 jury would be done to that person by using it, he ought to 
 consult for his life and health. What 1 If a wise man, being 
 required, by one who would make him his heir, when ho 
 would be left by him a large fortune in his will, that be- 
 fore he entered upon the inheritance he should dance openly 
 by daylight in the forum should promise him that he 
 would do it, because otherwise ho would not have made 
 him his heir; should he do what he promised, or not? I 
 
 1 Promises are not binding if performance is unlawful. Sometimes 
 men promise to commit a wicked act, even to assassination j but a man 
 is not required to commit murder because ho has promised to commit it. 
 Thus, in the Christian scriptures, the son who has said, "I will not work" 
 in the vineyard, and "afterward repented and went," is spoken of with 
 approbation, his promise was not binding, because fulfillment would have 
 been wrong. Cranmer, whoso religious firmness was overcome in tho 
 prospect of the stake, recanted ; that is, ho promised to abandon tho 
 Protestant faith. Neither was his promise binding ; to have regarded it 
 would have been a crime. The offense both of Cranmer and of tho son 
 in the parable, consisted not in violating their promises but in making 
 them. Respecting the often discussed question, whether extorted prom- 
 ises are binding, there has been, I suspect, a general want of advertence 
 to one important point what is an extorted promise ? If by an extort- 
 ed promise is meant a promise that is made involuntarily, without tho 
 concurrence of tho will ; if it is tho effect of any ungovernable impulse, 
 and made without tho consciousness of tho party, then it is not a promise. 
 This may happen. Fear or agitation may bo so great that a person really 
 does not know what he says or does, and in such a case a man's promi- 
 ses do not bind him any more than the promises of a man in a fit of in- 
 sanity. But if by an " extorted" promise it is only meant that very 
 powerful inducements were held out to making it, inducements, how- 
 ever, which did not take away tho power of choice then these promises 
 are hi strictness voluntary, and like all other voluntary engagements 
 they ought to be fulfilled. Dymond's " Principles of Morality," chap. 6.
 
 156 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK m. 
 
 would wish that ho had not promised, and I think that 
 this would have heen the part suitable to his dignity. Since 
 he has promised, if he considers it disgraceful to dance in 
 the forum, he will with greater propriety break his word, 
 provided he should not take any thing out of the inheritance, 
 than if he did so ; unless, perhaps, he will contribute that 
 money to some great occasion of the state so that it would 
 not be disgraceful even to dance, since he was about to con- 
 sult for the interests of his country. 1 
 
 XXV. But even those promises ought not to be kept, which 
 are hurtful to those very persons to whom you have made them. 
 
 To revert to fictitious tales, Sol promised to Phaeton, 
 his son, to do whatever he would desire. He desired to bo 
 taken up in his father's chariot. He was taken up. But 
 before he was well settled, he was burned with the stroke of 
 lightning. How much better would it have been in this 
 case, that the promise of the father had not been kept ? Why 
 should I mention the promise which Theseus exacted from 
 Neptune, to whom when Neptune gave three wishes he 
 wished for the death of his son Hippolytus, when he was 
 suspected by his father concerning his step-mother; by ob- 
 taining which promise, Theseus was involved in the greatest 
 affliction ? Why, that Agamemnon, when he had vowed to 
 Diana the loveliest thing that should be born that year in his 
 kingdom, sacrificed Iphigenia, than whom, indeed, nothing 
 lovelier was born that year ? Better that the promise should not 
 be performed, than that a horrible crime should be committed. 
 Therefore, promises arc sometimes not to be performed, and 
 deposits arc not always to be restored. If any man in sound 
 mind should have intrusted a sword to you, and having gone 
 mad, should ask it back, to restore would be a crime ; not to 
 restore, a duty. What, if he who may have deposited money 
 with you, should levy war against his country, ought you to re- 
 
 1 Tho following is Cockman's note upon this passage : " Dancing was 
 esteemed but a scandalous practice, and unbecoming a sober and prudent 
 person among the Romans ; wherefore our author tells us in his oration 
 for Murena (chap. 6), nobody almost dances, unless he be drunk or mad, 
 and calls it omnium vitiorum extremum, a vice that no one would bo 
 guilty of till he had utterly abandoned all virtue; and umbram luxurice, 
 that which follows riot and debauchery, as the shadow follows the body. 
 The meaning, therefore, of this place is, that Crassus would not stick a; 
 the basest actions if he could but fill his coffers by them."
 
 CHAP. XXVL CICERO'S OFFICES. 157 
 
 store the deposit ? I think not. For you would be acting against 
 your country, which ought to be most dear to you. So, many 
 things which are right by nature become wrong by occasions. 
 To perform promises, to stand to agreements, to restore deposits, 
 the expediency being altered, become contrary to virtue. 
 
 Now, indeed, of those things which seem to be profitable, 
 contrary to justice, but with the semblance of prudence, I 
 think enough has been said. But since in the first book we 
 derived duties from the four sources of virtue, we shall be 
 engaged with those same, while we show that those things 
 which seem to be useful are not so as long as they are hostile 
 to virtue. And indeed of prudence, which craft is apt to 
 imitate, and likewise of justice, which is always expedient, 
 we have already treated. Two parts of virtue remain, of 
 which the one is discerned in the greatness and pre-eminence 
 of an elevated mind; the other in the habit and regulation 
 of continence and temperance. 
 
 XXVI. It seemed to Ulysses to be expedient (to act], as 
 the tragic poets, indeed, have represented for in Homer, the 
 best authority, there is no such suspicion of Ulysses but the 
 tragedians accused him of wishing to escape from military 
 service by the affectation of insanity. A dishonorable de- 
 vice. But it was advantageous, some persons, perhaps, will 
 say, to reign and live at ease in Ithaca, with his parents, 
 with his wife, with his son. They may ask, do you think 
 any glory arising from daily toils and perils to be compared 
 with this tranquillity ? I think, indeed, this tranquillity is to 
 be despised and rejected, because I think tranquillity which 
 was not honorable, was not even advantageous. For what 
 reproach do you think Ulysses would have heard if he had per- 
 severed in that dissembling, when though ho performed the 
 greatest achievements in the war, he yet heard this from Ajax ? 
 
 " Of the oath, of which he was the originator, as you all 
 know, he alone disregarded the obligation. Madness he 
 feigned ; persisted in not joining the army ; and had not the 
 clear-sighted wisdom of Palamedes seen through the knavish 
 audacity of the fellow, he would have forever evaded the 
 obligation of his sacred oath." 
 
 It was really better for him to buffet, not only with the 
 foe, but also with the waves, as he did, than to desert Greece, 
 when combining to wage war against the barbarians. But let
 
 158 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK IIL 
 
 ns leave both fables and foreign scenes let us come to real 
 history, and that our own. Marcus Atilius Regulus, when 
 in his second consulship taken in Africa by stratagem by 
 Xanthippus, the Lacedaemonian general but when Hamilcar, 
 the father of Hannibal, was the commander-in-chief was 
 sent to the senate, bound by an oath, that unless some noble 
 captives were restored to the Carthaginians, he should 
 himself return to Carthage. When he arrived at Rome, he 
 saw the semblance of advantage, but, as the event declares, 
 judged it a fallacious appearance, which was this to remain 
 in his country, to stay at home with his wife and his chil- 
 dren ; and, regarding the calamity which he had experienced 
 as incident to the fortune of war, to retain the rank of con- 
 sular dignity. Who can deny these things to be profitable ? 
 Whom do you think ? Greatness of mind and fortitude deny 
 it. 
 
 XXVII. Can you require more creditable authorities ? 
 For it is characteristic of these virtues to fear nothing, to 
 despise all human concerns, to think nothing that can happen 
 to a man intolerable. What, then, did he do ? He came 
 into the senate he disclosed his commission he refused to 
 declare his own sentiments he said that as long as he was 
 bound by an oath to the enemy he was not a senator. And 
 this, too (oh, foolish man ! some person will exclaim, an 
 enemy to his own interests !) he denied to be expedient, 
 namely, that the captives should be restored, for that they 
 were young men and good generals, that he himself was 
 already worn out with years. When his authority had pre- 
 vailed, the captives were retained, and he returned to 
 Carthage ; nor did the love of his country or of his family 
 withhold him. Nor was he then ignorant that he was return- 
 ing to a most cruel enemy, and to exquisite tortures. But 
 he considered that his oath ought to be observed. Therefore, 
 at the very time when ho was undergoing death by want of 
 sleep, he was in a better condition than if he had remained 
 at home an aged captive, and a perjured consular. But ho 
 acted foolishly, since he not only did not advise the sending 
 back the captives, but even spoke against the measure. How 
 foolishly ? What, even if it was advantageous to his country ? 
 Can that now which is inexpedient for our country be 
 expedient for any citizen ?
 
 CHAP. YTTT. CICERO'S OFFICES. 159 
 
 XXVIII. Men pervert those things which are the founda- 
 tions of nature, when they separate expediency from virtue. 
 For we all desire our own interest we are carried along to 
 it; nor can we by any means do otherwise. For who is 
 there that shuns his own advantage ? or rather, Avho is there 
 that does not most eagerly pursue it ? But because we never 
 can find real advantage except in good report, honor, virtue ; 
 therefore we esteem these things first and chief; we consider 
 the name of utility not so much noble as necessary. What 
 is there, then, somebody will say, in an oath ? Are we 
 afraid of angry Jove ? But it is a common principle with 
 all philosophers, indeed not of those only who say that tho 
 deity has no labor himself, and imposes none on others but 
 of those also who are of opinion that the deity is always 
 acting and planning something, that the deity never is angry, 
 nor injurious. But what greater harm could angry Jupiter 
 do to Regulus, than Regulus did to himself? It was, then, 
 no force of religion which prevented so great an advantage. 
 Was it that he might act basely ? In tho first place, choose 
 the least among evils. Would, then, this trifling turpitude 
 bring as much evil as that great torture ? In the next 
 place, that saying in Accius " Hast thou broken faith ? I 
 neither have plighted nor do plight faith with any of the 
 faithless" though it is spoken by an impious king, yet is 
 well spoken. They add, also, that just as we say that somo 
 acts seem useful which are not; so they say that some 
 acts seem virtuous which are not so ; as for instance, this very 
 act seems virtuous, to return to torture for the sake of observ- 
 ing an oath, but it is really not virtuous, because whatever 
 is extorted by the violence of enemies, ought not to be 
 fulfilled. They add also that whatever is very advantageous 
 becomes virtuous, even though it did not seem so before. 
 These things are usually urged against Regulus. But let us 
 consider the first objection. 
 
 XXIX. We need not dread Jupiter, lest in his wrath he 
 might do us harm, who neither is accustomed to be wroth, 
 nor to do harm. This reasoning, indeed, applies not more 
 against Regulus than against every oath ; but in an oath it 
 ought to be considered, not what is tho fear, but what is the 
 force. For an oath is a religious affirmation ; but what you 
 solemnly promise, as if tho deity were witness, to that you
 
 160 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK in 
 
 ought to adhere. 1 For it pertains now not to the anger of the 
 gods, which exists not, but to justice and fidelity. For well 
 has Ennius said 
 
 "0 holy Faith, winged, and tho very oath of Jove." 
 
 He, then, who violates an oath, violates Faith, which our 
 ancestors, as is recorded in Cato's speech, wished to be in the 
 Capitol, next to Jupiter Greatest and Best. But they argue 
 that even angry Jupiter could not have done more harm to 
 Regulus than Regulus did to himself. Certainly not, \i 
 nothing but pain be an evil. But philosophers of the highest 
 authority assert, not only that it is not the greatest evil, but 
 that it is not an evil at all. I pray you not to despise a 
 witness of theirs, of no slight weight I know not, indeed, 
 but that he is the weightiest namely, Regulus. For, whom 
 do we require more creditable than the chief of the Roman 
 people who, for the sake of adhering to duty, underwent 
 voluntary torture ? But as to what they say, choose the least 
 of evils that is baseness rather than calamity can there be 
 any evil greater than baseness? And if this implies some- 
 thing of disgust in the deformity of person, how much worse 
 should appear the depravity and foulness of a debased mind ? 
 They, 2 therefore, who treat of these subjects more boldly, 
 
 1 " An oath is that whereby we call God to witness the truth of what 
 we say ; with a curse upon ourselves, either implied or expressed, should 
 it prove false." Milton on Christian Doctrine. 
 
 While the sacredness of oaths is still held as a principle of morals, the 
 lawfulness of their administration is doubted by many, and their efficacy 
 perhaps by the majority of modern society. The increased security for 
 the veracity of him who takes them, which they are supposed to afford, 
 is in the case of an honest man unnecessary, and of a dishonest man 
 valueless. The argument of Godwin with relation to oaths of duty and 
 office, appears to admit of a universal application ; the same arguments 
 that prove the injustice of tests, may be applied universally to all oatha 
 of duty and office. " If I entered upon the office without an oath, what 
 would be my duty ? Can the oath that is imposed upon me make any 
 alteration in my duty ? if not, does not the very act of imposing it, by 
 implication, assert a falsehood ? "Will this falsehood have no injurious 
 effect upon a majority of the persons concerned ? What is the true cri- 
 terion that I shall faithfully discharge the office that is conferred upon 
 me ? Surely my past life, not any protestations I may be compelled to 
 make. If my life have been unimpeachable, this compulsion is an un- 
 merited insult; if it have been otherwise, it is something worse.' 1 God- 
 win's " Political Justice," book vi. chap. v. 
 
 2 Cicero hero obviously refers to the Stoics who regarded pleasure and
 
 CHAP. xxix. CICERO'S OFFICES. 161 
 
 venture to say that that which, is base is the only evil ; hut 
 they 1 who treat of them more timidly, yet do not hesitate to 
 call it the greatest evil. Now, that saying indeed " I neither 
 have plighted, nor do plight faith with any of the faithless" 
 was well imagined by the poet, on this account, because 
 when Atreus was being delineated, it was necessary to sus- 
 tain the character. But if they take this to themselves, 
 that there is no faith Avhich is plighted to the faithless, 
 let them see to it lest it be sought as a subterfuge for 
 perjury. 
 
 There are also rights of war, and the faith of an oath is 
 often to be kept with an enemy. For that, which is so sworn 
 that the mind conceives it ought to be done, that should 
 be observed. What is otherwise, if you perform it not, 
 
 pain as indifferent. This theory is thus refuted by tfcat most ingenious 
 metaphysician and moralist, Dr. Thomas Browne. " Between mero 
 pleasure and mere virtue there is a competition, in short, of the less with 
 the greater ; but though virtue be the greater, and the greater in every 
 case in which it can be opposed to mere pleasure, pleasure is still good 
 in itself, and would bo covetablo by the virtuous in every case in which 
 the greater good of virtue is not inconsistent with it. It is, indeed, be- 
 cause pleasure and pain are not in themselves absolutely indifferent that 
 man is virtuous in resisting the solicitations of the one and the threats 
 of the other. And there is thus a self-confutation in the principles of 
 stoicism, which it is truly astonishing that the founder of the system, or 
 some one of tho ancient and modern commentators on it, should not have 
 discovered. Wo may praise, indeed, tho magnanimity of him who dares 
 to suffer every external evil which men can suffer rather than give his 
 conscience ono guilty remembrance ; but it is because there is evil to bo 
 endured that wo may praiso him for his magnanimity in bearing the evil, 
 and if there bo no ill to bo endured, there is no magnanimity that can bo 
 called forth to endure it. Tho bed of roses differs from the burning bull; 
 not merely as a square differs from a circle, or as flint differs from clay, 
 but as that which is physically evil ; and if they do not so differ as good 
 and evil, there could be as little merit in consenting when virtue required 
 the sacriflco to suffer all tho bodily pain which tho instrument of torturo 
 could inflict, rather than to rest in guilty indolence on that luxurious 
 couch of flowers, as there could be in tho mero preference for any physi- 
 cal purpose of a circular to an angular form, or of tho softness of clay to 
 tho hardness of flint. Moral excellence is, indeed, in every case, prefer- 
 able to mero physical enjoyment : and there is no enjoyment worthy of 
 the choice of man when virtue forbids tho desire. But virtue is tho 
 superior only, not tho solo power; she has imperial sway, but her sway 
 is imperial only because there are forms of inferior good over which it is 
 her glory to preside." Moral Philosophy, Lect. xcix. 
 1 The Peripatetics.
 
 162 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK in. 
 
 involves no perjury. Thus, if you should not pay a price 
 for your life, agreed on with robbers, it is no fraud if you 
 should not perform it, though bound by an oath. 1 For a 
 pirate is not comprehended in the number of lawful enemies, 
 but is the common foe of all men. With such a man, neither 
 
 1 " Grotius," says an anonymous commentator (de Jure Belli et Pacis, 
 
 II, 13, 15), "citing this passage, admits that a person extorting a 
 promise by force, can have no right to demand its performance ; but 
 thinks that an oath accompanying it makes it binding in conscience." 
 Hobbes, de Civ. ii. 16, maintains that a promise, because extorted by fear, 
 is not the less obligatory in cases where the promiser receives from it 
 some benefit. On this it is remarked by Puffendorf, that merely abstain- 
 ing from injury can not bo reckoned among benefits ; that a highway- 
 man, for instance, who does not murder you, can not be called your bene- 
 factor. Hobbes's doctrine is, therefore, thus qualified by Puffendorf, pro- 
 vided that the promiser can legitimately exact the performance of that 
 promise. To this Barbeyrac, the learned and acute commentator on both 
 Grotius and Puffendorf, fully accedes, and pronounces that every act of 
 violence, every sort of menace, by which the promises, against his will, is 
 induced to make an engagement into which he otherwise would not have 
 entered, deprives him of the liberty necessary to form a valid engagement, 
 and, consequently, annuls all such promises and convocations. He adds, 
 that the performance of an engagement made under such circumstances 
 is injurious to society, as it leads to the encouragement of robbers. Adam 
 Smith has treated this question much at length, Theory of Mor. Sent. vii. 
 4. "With some exceptions, and guardedly, he leans to the opposite opin- 
 ion. Some regard, ho thinks, should be paid to promises of this kind, 
 but how much it is not possible to determine by any general rule. If 
 the sum promised was very great, such for example as would ruin by its 
 payment the family of the payer, or sufficient to effect the most useful 
 purposes, it would appear comical, at least extremely improper, to throw 
 it into such worthless hands, but in general it may be said that exact 
 propriety requires the observance of such promises where not inconsist- 
 ent with other duties, when violated it is always with some degree of dis- 
 honor to the person who made them. It is observable that Paley ap- 
 pears to have changed his opinion on tho subject of such promises. In 
 the first edition of his valuable work on Moral and Political Philosophy, 
 
 III. part 1, 5, ho states their obligation to depend on tho question wheth- 
 er mankind are benefited or not by their observance, concluding that 
 lives are saved by it, ho treats such promises as in general binding. But 
 in subsequent editions he observes, that they may be made the instru- 
 ment of almost unlimited extortion, and therefore in tho question be- 
 tween the importance of these opposite consequences resides the doubt 
 concerning the obligation of such promises. The noble-minded Mon- 
 taigne remarks on this subject : " Ce quo la crainte m'a fait une fois 
 vouloir, je suis tenu do la vouloir encore sans crainte ; et quand elle 
 n'aura force que ma langue sans la volonte, encoro, suis jo tenu de faire 
 la maille bonne de ma parole."
 
 CHAP, xxx CICERO'S OFFICES. 163 
 
 should faith nor an oath be in common. For to swear what is 
 false is not always perjury ; but not to do that which you 
 swear according to the sentiment of your mind, "ex animi 
 tui sententia," as it it expressed in words in our law form, is per- 
 jury. For Euripides says well " With my tongue have I sworn ; 
 I bear an unsworn conscience." 
 
 But Regulus was under obligation not to disturb by 
 perjury the conditions and covenants of war and of the 
 enemy ; for the affair was transacted with a just and lawful 
 foe, in regard to whom both the entire Fecial law and many 
 other laws are binding in common. Had not this been so, the 
 senate would never have delivered up eminent men bound to the 
 enemy. 
 
 XXX. But Titus Veturius and Spurms Postumius, when 
 they were consuls the second time, were given up to the 
 Samnites because they had made a peace with them, after 
 having fought with ill success at Caudium, when our legions 
 were sent under the yoke ; for they had made it without the 
 command of the people and senate. And at the same time, 
 Titus Numicius, and Quintus Mtelius, who were then tri- 
 bunes of the people, because the peace was made by their 
 authority, were given up, that the peace with the Samnites 
 might be rejected. And of this surrender, Postumius 
 himself, who was given up, was the advocate and author. 
 Which same thing Caius Mancinus did, many years after- 
 ward, who advocated that bill which Lucius Furius and 
 Sextus Atilius, by a decree of the senate, brought in, that 
 he himself should be delivered up to the Numantines, with 
 whom he had made a league without the authority of the 
 senate ; which bill being passed by the people, ho was given 
 up to the enemy. He acted more worthily than Quintus 
 Pompeius, through whose petitioning against such a measure, 
 when he was in similar circumstances, the law was not passed. 
 With this man, that which seemed his interest had more 
 weight than virtue had ; in the former instances, the false 
 semblance of expediency was overcome by the authority of 
 virtue. But, say they, that which was extorted by force 
 ought not to be ratified ; as if, indeed, force could be used 
 to a man of fortitude. Why, then, you say, did Regulus go 
 to the senate, if he was about to dissuade them concerning 
 the captives? You are reprehending that which was the
 
 104 CICERO'S OFFICES, BOOK in. 
 
 noblest thing in that transaction ; for lie did not rely upon 
 his own judgment, but he undertook the cause that there 
 might be a decision of the senate ; by whom, had not he him- 
 self been the adviser of the measure, the prisoners, indeed, 
 would have been restored to the Carthaginians. Thus 
 Regulus would have remained in safety in his country ; 
 which, because he thought inexpedient for his country, 
 therefore he believed it virtuous in himself, both to think 
 and to suffer these things. Now, as to what they say, that 
 whatever is very useful becomes virtuous, I say, Nay, it is so 
 really, and does not merely become so ; for nothing is expedient 
 which is not likewise virtuous ; and it is not because it is ex- 
 pedient that it is virtuous, but because it is virtuous it is expe- 
 dient. Wherefore out of many admirable examples, one could 
 not easily mention one either more laudable or more excellent 
 than this. 
 
 XXXI. But out of all this laudable conduct of Regulus, 
 this alone is worthy of admiration, that he was of opinion 
 that the prisoners ought to be retained. For that he re- 
 turned seems wonderful to us now, though at that time he 
 could not do otherwise. Therefore, that was not the merit 
 of the man, but of the times. For our ancestors were of 
 opinion that there was no tie closer than an oath to bind 
 our faith. This the laws of the twelve tables indicate 
 this the leges sacratae 1 indicate, this the leagues indicate, 
 by which our faith is pledged even with enemies. The 
 opinions and animadversions of the Censors indicate it, who 
 passed sentence on no subject more strictly than on such as 
 concerned oaths. Marcus Pomponius, tribune of the people, 
 fixed a day for Lucius Manlius, the son of Aulus, when ho 
 had been Dictator, to stand his trial, because he had taken 
 to himself a few days in addition for holding the dictator- 
 ship. He accused him also because he had banished from 
 intercourse with men, his son Titus, who was afterward 
 called Torquatus, and had commanded him to reside in the 
 country. When the young man, the son, had heard this, 
 that trouble was brought upon his father, he is said to have 
 hastened to Rome, and to have come with the first dawn to 
 
 1 The laws concerning liberty and the tribunitial power, so called, be- 
 cause he who violated them was to bo held devoted (sacer) to the re- 
 sentment of the deity.
 
 CHAP. XIXIL CICERO'S OFFICES. 165 
 
 the house of Pomponius, who, when it was announced to 
 him, supposing that the son, being enraged, was about to 
 bring to him some accusation against his father, arose from 
 his bed, and, the bystanders having been dismissed, ordered 
 the youth to come to him. But he, when he entered, hastily 
 drew his sword, and swore that he would intantly slay him 
 unless he gave his oath that he would suffer his father to be 
 discharged. Pomponius, forced by fear, swore this ; he subse- 
 quently brought the matter before the people, and informed them 
 why it was necessary for him to abandon the prosecution, and 
 then suffered Manlius to be discharged. So much force had aii 
 oath in those times. And this is that Titus Manlius who ac- 
 quired the surname of Torquatus, at the Anio, for taking the 
 collar from the Gaul, whom he, having been challenged by him, 
 had slain ; in whose third consulship the Latins were routed 
 and put to flight at the Veseris. A most eminently great man, 
 but though very indulgent to his father, was again cruelly severe 
 to his son. 
 
 XXXII. But as Regulus is to be commended for observ- 
 ing his oath, so these ten are to be condemned whom Hanni- 
 bal, after the battle of Canna?, sent to the senate under an 
 oath that they would return to that camp which the Cartha- 
 ginians had got possession of, unless they succeeded about 
 redeeming the prisoners ; if it bo true that they did not re- 
 turn about whom, all historians do not relate the story in 
 the same manner. For Polybius, an eminently good author, 
 writes, that out of ten very noble persons who were then sent, 
 nine returned, the request not having been granted by the 
 senate ; that one of the ten, who, a short time after he had 
 gone out of the camp, had returned, as if he had forgotten 
 something, remained at Rome. For, by his return into the 
 camp, he construed it that he was freed from his oath 
 not rightly, for fraud does but fasten, not absolve perjury. 
 It was, then, silly cunning, perversely imitating prudence. 
 The senate, therefore, decreed, that this double-dealing and 
 artful fellow should be brought fettered to Hannibal. But 
 the greatest act of the senate was this. Hannibal had eight 
 thousand men prisoners ; not those whom he had taken in 
 battle, or who had fled from the peril of death, but who had 
 been left in the camp by the Consuls, Paullus and Varro. 
 The senate decreed that these should not be redeemed, though
 
 1C6 CICEEO'S OFFICES. BOOK HL 
 
 it might have been done at a small expense, that it might be 
 impressed upon our soldiers that they were either to con- 
 quer or die which circumstance, indeed, having become 
 known, the same author writes that the courage of Hannibal 
 fell, because the Roman senate and people possessed so lofty 
 a spirit in their depressed condition. Thus those things which 
 seem expedient, are overpowered by a comparison with virtue. 
 
 But Acilius, who wrote his history in Greek, says that 
 there were more than one who returned into the camp with 
 the same fraudulent design, that they might be freed from their 
 oath, and that they were branded by the censors with every 
 ignominy. 
 
 Let this now be the end of this subject. For it is plain 
 that those acts which are done with a timid, humble, abject, 
 and broken spirit (such as would have been the conduct of 
 Regulus, if, respecting the prisoners, he had either advised what 
 seemed to be needful for himself, not what he considered 
 beneficial to the commonwealth, or had desired to remain at 
 home), are inexpedient, because they are scandalous, foul, and 
 base. 
 
 XXXIII. The fourth part remains, which is compre- 
 hended in propriety, moderation, modesty, continence, temper- 
 ance. Can any thing, then, be expedient, which is contrary 
 to this train of such virtues ? However, the Cyrenaeans, fol- 
 lowers of Aristippus, and the Annicerians, misnamed philo- 
 sophers, have made all good consist in pleasure, and have 
 thought virtue to be commended on this account, because it is 
 productive of pleasure ; but, as they are antiquated, Epicurus 
 llourisb.es, the advocate and author of nearly the same opinion. 
 Against these we must fight with man and horse, as it is said, 
 if it is our intention to defend and retain virtue. For if not 
 only expediency, but all the happiness of life, be contained in 
 a strong bodily constitution, and in the certain hope of that 
 constitution, as it is written by Methrodorus ; certainly this ex- 
 pediency, and that the greatest (as they think), will stand in 
 opposition to virtue. For, in the first place, where will room 
 be given for prudence ? Is it that it may seek on all sides 
 after sweets? How miserable the servitude of virtue, when 
 the slave of pleasure ? Moreover, what would be the office of 
 Prudence ? Is it to select pleasures ingeniously ? Admit that 
 nothing could be more delightful than this ; what can bo
 
 CHAP, xxxni. CICERO'S OFFICES. 167 
 
 imagined more base? Now, what room can Fortitude, 
 which is the contemning of pain and labor, have in his 
 system, who calls pain the greatest of evils ? For though 
 Epicurus may speak, as he does in many places, with suffi- 
 cient fortitude regarding pain ; nevertheless, we are not to 
 regard what he may say, but what it is consistent in him to 
 say, as he would confine good to pleasure, evil to pain ; so if 
 I would listen to him on the subject of continence and tem- 
 perance, he says, indeed, many things in many places ; but 
 there is an impedient in the stream, 1 as they say. For how 
 can he commend temperance who places the chief good in 
 pleasure ? For temperance is hostile to irregular passions ; 
 but irregular passions are the companions of pleasure. And 
 yet, in these three classes of virtue, they make a shift, in 
 what ever manner they can, not without cleverness. They 
 introduce prudence as the science which supplies pleasures 
 and repels pain. Fortitude, too, they explain* in some man- 
 ner, when they teach that it is the means of disregarding 
 death, and enduring pain. Even temperance they introduce 
 not very easily, indeed but yet in whatever way they 
 can. For they say that the height of pleasure is limited 
 to the absence of pain." Justice staggers, or rather falls 
 to the ground, and all those virtues which are discerned in 
 society, and the association of mankind. For neither kind- 
 ness, nor liberality, nor courtesy can exist, any more than 
 friendship, if they are not sought for there own sakes, but 
 are referred to pleasure and interest. Let us, therefore, sum 
 up the subject in a few words. For as we have taught that 
 there is no expediency which can bo contrary to virtue : so 
 we say that all bodily pleasure is opposed to virtue. On 
 which account I think Callipho and Dinomachus the more 
 deserving of censure, for they thought they would put an 
 end to the controversy if they should couple pleasure with 
 virtue ; as if they should couple a human being with a brute. 
 Virtue does not admit that combination it spurns, it repeb 
 it. Nor can, indeed, the ultimate principle of good and evil, 
 which ought to be simple, be compounded of, and tempered 
 with these most dissimilar ingredients. But about this (for 
 
 1 Meaning that the system of Epicurus presents impediments to the 
 flowing of the virtues, like obstructions in a water-course. 
 
 2 That is, that the greatest pleasure consists in the absence of pain.
 
 168 CICERO'S OFFICES. BOOK ra- 
 
 it is an important subject), I have said more in another 
 place. Now to my original proposition. How, then, if ever 
 that which seems expedient is opposed to virtue, the matter 
 is to be decided, has been sufficiently treated of above. But 
 if pleasure be said to have even the semblance of expedi- 
 ence, there can be no union of it with virtue. For though 
 we may concede something to pleasure, perhaps it has some- 
 thing of a relish, but certainly it has in it nothing of utility. 
 You have a present from your father, my son Marcus ; 
 in my opinion, indeed, an important one but it will be just 
 as you will receive it. However, these three books will de- 
 serve to be received by you as guests among the commenta- 
 ries of Cratippus. But as, if I myself had gone to Athens 
 (which would indeed have been the case had not my country, 
 with loud voice, called me back from the middle of my jour- 
 ney), you would sometimes have listened to me also : so, since 
 my voice has reached you in these volumes, you will bestow 
 upon them as much time as you can ; and you can bestow 
 as much as you wish. But when I shall understand that 
 you take delight in this department of science, then will I 
 converse with you both when present, which will be in a 
 short time, as I expect and while you will be far away, 
 I will talk with you, though absent. Farewell, then, my 
 Cicero, and be assured that you are indeed very dear to 
 me, but that you will be much more dear if you shall take 
 delight in such memorials and precepts.
 
 ON FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 I. QUINTCS Mucnrs, the augur, 1 used to relate many 
 things of Caius Laelius, his father-in-law, from memory, and 
 in a pleasant manner, and did not scruple in every discourse 
 to call him a wise man. Moreover I myself, after assuming 
 the manly toga, 2 was introduced by my father to Scsevola, in 
 such a way that, as far as I could and it was permitted me, 
 I never quitted the old man's side. Accordingly, many 
 sagacious discussions of his, and many short and apt sayings, 
 I committed to memory, and desired to become better in- 
 formed by his wisdom. When he died, I betook myself to 
 Scaevola tho pontiff, who is the only man in our country that 
 I venture (o pronounce the most distinguished for talent and 
 for integrity. But of him elsewhere. I now return to the 
 augur. Among many other circumstances, I remember that 
 once being seated at home in his arm-chair (as was his 
 custom), when I was in his company, and a very few of his 
 intimate friends, he fell by chance upon that subject of dis- 
 course which at the time was in the mouth of nearly every 
 one : for you of course remember, Atticus, and the more so 
 because you were very intimate with Publius Sulpicius 
 (when he, as tribune of the people, 3 was estranged by a 
 
 1 Augur is ofien put for any one who predicted future events. Auspex 
 denoted a person who observed and interpreted omens. Augurium and 
 auspicium are commonly used interchangeably, but they are sometimes 
 distinguished. Atispicium was properly the foretelling of fututo events 
 from the inspection of birds ; Augurium from any omen or prodigies 
 whatever. Fifteen augurs constituted tho college. 
 
 a The toga praetexta, a robo bordered with purple, was worn by young 
 people, male and female, and by the superior magistrates. The toga pura, 
 or white gown, was worn by men after the age of about seventeen, and 
 by women after marriage. 
 
 3 Tribuni plebis, magistrates created for the maintenance of popular 
 rights, in tho year u.c. 2G1. Their number was originally two, which 
 was raised to five, and afterward to ten. Their office was annual 
 
 8
 
 170 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. L 
 
 deadly hatred from Quintus Pompey, who was then consul, 
 with whom up to that time he had lived on terms of the 
 closest union and affection), how great was the surprise and 
 even regret of the people. Accordingly, when Scaevola had 
 incidentally mentioned that very subject, he laid before us 
 the discourse of Laelius on Friendship, which had been ad- 
 dressed by the latter to himself and to the other son-in-law of 
 Laelius, Caius Fannius, the son of Marcus, a few days after 
 ! lhe death of Africanus. The opinions of that disquisition I 
 committed to memory, and in this book I have set them forth 
 according to my own judgment. For I have introduced the 
 individuals as if actually speaking, lest " said I " and " said 
 he " should be too frequently interposed ; and that the 
 dialogue might seem to be held by persons face to face. For 
 when you were frequently urging me to write something on 
 the subject of friendship, it seemed to me a matter worthy 
 as well of the consideration of all as of our intimacy. I have 
 therefore willingly done so, that I might confer a benefit 
 on many in consequence of your request. But as in the Cato 
 Major, which was addressed to you on the subject of old age, 
 I have introduced Cato when an old man conversing, because 
 there seemed no person better adapted to speak of that period 
 of life than he, who had been an old man for so long a time, 
 and in that old age had been pre-eminently prosperous ; so 
 when I had heard from our ancestors that the attachment of 
 Caius Lajlius and Publius Scipio was especially worthy of 
 record, the character of Laalius seemed to me a suitable one 
 to deliver these very observations on friendship which 
 Sca3vola remembered to have been spoken by him. Now 
 this description of discourses, resting on the authority of men 
 of old, and of those of high rank, seems, I know not on what 
 principle, to carry with it the greater weight. 1 Accordingly, 
 
 1 " Wo continue to think and feel as our ancestors have thought and 
 felt ; so true in innumerable cases is the observation that ' men make up 
 their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their 
 estates, because they are born heirs to them.' It has been justly said 
 that it is difficult to regard that as an evil which has been long done, 
 and that there are many great and excellent things which we never think 
 of doing, merely because no one has done them before us. ' The preju- 
 dice for antiquity is itself very ancient,' says La Motte; and it is amus- 
 ing, at the distance of so many hundred years, to find the same com- 
 plaint of undue partiality to the writera of other ages brought forward
 
 CHAP. II. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 171 
 
 while I am reading my own writing, I am sometimes so much 
 affected as to suppose that it is Cato, and not myself that is 
 speaking. But as then I, an old man, wrote to you, who arc 
 an old man, on the subject of old age ; so in this hook I 
 myself, a most sincere friend, have written to a friend on the 
 subject of friendship. On that occasion Cato was the speaker, 
 than whom there was no one at that time older or wiser. On 
 this, Laelius, not only a wise man (for so he has been con- 
 sidered), and one pre-eminent in reputation for friendship, 
 speaks on that subject. I would wish you to withdraw your 
 thoughts a little while from me, and fancy that Lselius him- 
 self is speaking. Caius Fannius and Quintus Mucius come 
 to their father-in-law after the death of Africanus. With 
 these the discourse begins. Laelius replies; and the whole 
 of his dissertation regards friendship, which in reading you 
 will discover for yourself. 
 
 II. FANNIUS. Such is the case, dear Lajlius, nor was there 
 ever a better or more distinguished man than Africanus. 
 But you ought to consider that the eyes of all are now turned 
 upon you, Lrclius : you alone they both denominate and 
 believe to be wise. This character was lately bestowed on 
 M. Cato : we know that Lucius Atilius, among our fathers, 
 was entitled a Aviso man ; but each on a different and pev 
 culiar account : Atilius, because he was considered versed in 
 the civil law ; Cato, because he had experience in a variety 
 of subjects ; both in the senate and in the forum many in- 
 stances are recorded either of his shrewd forethought, or 
 persevering action, or pointed reply : wherefore he already 
 had, as it were, the surname of wise in his old age. While of 
 you it is remarked that you are wise in a different sense, 
 not only by nature and character, but further, by application 
 and learning; and not as the vulgar, but as the learned 
 designate a wise man, such as was none in all Greece. For 
 as to those who are called the seven wise men, persons who 
 inquire into such things with great nicety do not consider 
 them in the class of wise men. We learn that at Athens 
 there was one peculiarly so, and that he was even pronounced 
 
 against their cotemporaries by those authors whom we are now dis- 
 posed to consider as too highly estimated by our own cotemporaries on 
 that very account." Dr. Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of th 
 Mind, lecture xliv
 
 172 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CIIAP. IL 
 
 by the oraclo of Apollo the wisest of men. 1 This is the kind 
 of wisdom they conceive to be in you, that you consider 
 every thing connected with you to rest upon yourself, and 
 consider the events of life as subordinate to virtue :" therefore 
 they inquire of me (I believe of you also, Scaevola) in what 
 manner you bear the death of Africanus. And the rather 
 so, because on the last nones, when we had come into the 
 gardens of Decius Brutus the augur, for the purpose of dis- 
 cussion, as our practice is, you were not present ; although 
 you were accustomed most punctually to observe that day and 
 that engagement. 
 
 SCAEVOLA. It is true, many are inquiring, Caius Laelius, as 
 has been asserted by Fannius. But for my part I answer 
 them according to what I have remarked, that you bear with 
 patience the grief which you have suffered, by the death of 
 one who was at once a very distinguished man, and a very 
 dear friend ; yet that you could not forbear being distressed, 
 nor would that have been consistent with your feelings as 
 a man. And with regard to your not having attended last 
 nones at our assembly, ill health was the cause, and not 
 affliction. 
 
 L^ELTOS. You certainly said what was right, Scaevola, and 
 agreeable to truth : for neither ought I to have absented my- 
 self through any inconvenience of mine from that duty which 
 I have always fulfilled when I was well ; nor by any chance 
 do I conceive it can happen to a man of firmness of character, 
 that any interruption should take place in his duty. And as 
 j!br you, Fannius, who say there is attributed to me so much 
 merit, as I am neither conscious of nor lay claim to, you 
 act therein like a friend : but, as it seems to me, you do not 
 form a right estimate of Cato ; for either there never has 
 been a wise man, which I rather think, or if there ever was 
 one, he was the man. For (to omit other cases^ consider how 
 
 1 Socrates. See Plato's defense of Socrates. 
 
 2 "If thou must needs rule, bo Zeno's king and enjoy that empire which 
 every man gives himself. He who is thus his own monarch contentedly 
 sways the scepter of himself, not envying the glory of crowned heads and 
 Elohims of the earth. Could the world unite in the practice of that de- 
 spised train of virtues which the divine ethics of our Saviour have so in- 
 culcated unto us, the furious face of things must disappear; Eden would 
 be yet to be found, and the angels might look down, not with pity but 
 joy upon us." Sir Thomas Browne's Christian Morals, chap. xix.
 
 CHAP. IIL CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 173 
 
 lie endured the loss of his son ! I remember the instance of 
 Paullus, and witnessed that of Gallus : but theirs was in 
 the case of children ; but Cato's is that of a mature and 
 respected man. Wherefore pause before you prefer to Cato, 
 even him whom Apollo, as you say, pronounced the wisest of 
 men : for the deeds of the one are praised, but only the say- 
 ings of the other. Concerning myself, however (for I would 
 now address you both), entertain the following sentiments. 
 
 III. Should I say that I am not distressed by the loss of 
 Scipio, philosophers may determine with what propriety I 
 shoul J do to ; but assuredly I should be guilty of falsehood. 
 For I am distressed at being bereaved of such a friend, as no 
 one, I consider, will ever be to me again, and, as I can con- 
 fidently assert, no one ever was : but I am not destitute of a 
 remedy. I comfort myself, and especially with this consola- 
 tion, that I am free from that error by which most men, on 
 the decease of friends, are wont to be tormented : for I feel 
 that no evil has happened to Scipio ; it has befallen myself, 
 if indeed it has happened to any. Now to be above measure 
 distressed at one's own troubles, is characteristic of the man 
 who loves not his friend, but himself. In truth, as far as he 
 is concerned, who can deny that his end was glorious ? for 
 unless he had chosen to wish for immortality, of which he 
 had not the slightest thought, what did he fail to obtain 
 which it was lawful for a man to wish for ? A man who, as 
 soon as he grew up, by his transcendent merit far surpassed 
 those sanguine hopes of his countrymen which they had con- 
 ceived regarding him when a mere boy, who never stood for 
 the consulship, yet was made consul twice ; on the first occasion 
 before his time ; on the second, at the proper age as regarded 
 himself, though for the commonwealth almost too late ; who, 
 by overthrowing two cities, 1 most hostile to our empire, put 
 an end, not only to all present, but all future wars. What shall 
 I say of his most engaging manners; of his dutiful conduct to 
 his mother ; his generosity to his sisters ; his kindness to his 
 friends ; his uprightness toward all ? These are known to 
 you : and how dear he was to the state, was displayed by its 
 mourning at his death. How, therefore, could tho accession 
 
 1 Carthage was destroyed by Scipio, tho second Africanus, B.C. 147 ; 
 and Numantia, a town of Spain, B.C. 133. From tho latter exploit he 
 obtained the surname of Numantinus.
 
 1 74 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP, in 
 
 of a few years have benefited such a man ? For although 
 old age is not burdensome (as I recollect Cato asserted, in con- 
 versation with myself and Scipio the year before he died), 
 yet it takes away that freshness which Scipio even yet pos- 
 sessed. Wherefore his life was such that nothing could be 
 added to it, either in respect of good fortune or of glory : 
 moreover, the very suddenness of his death took away the 
 consciousness of it. On which kind of death it is difficult 
 (o pronounce : what men conjecture, you yourselves know. 1 
 However, this we may assert with truth, that of the many 
 most glorious and joyous days which P. Scipio witnessed ia 
 the course of his life, that day was the most glorious when, 
 on the breaking up of the senate, he was escorted home in the 
 evening by the conscript fathers, by the allies of the Roman 
 people, and the Latins, the day before he died ; so that from so 
 high a position of dignity he may seem to have passed to 
 the gods above rather than to those below. Nor do I agree 
 with those who have lately begun to assert this opinion, 
 that the soul also dies simultaneously with the body, and that 
 all things are annihilated by death." 
 
 1 " Certainly the stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by 
 their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better, saith he, 
 ' qui finem vitas extremum inter munera ponat natures. ' It is as natural 
 to die as to be born, and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful 
 as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is 
 wounded in hot blood, who for the time scarce feels the hurt ; and there- 
 fore a mind fixed and bent upon something that is good doth avert the 
 dolors of death ; but above all believe it the sweetest canticle is, ' nunc 
 dimittis,' when a man hath obtained worth, ends, and expectations. 
 Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame and extin- 
 guisheth envy; ' extinctus amahitur idem.' " Lord Bacon, Essay ii. 
 
 2 Ever since the time of Cicero the subject of the immortality of the 
 soul has been incessantly discussed ; by some as a conclusion of natural 
 religion, by others as a doctrine of revelation. The following summary 
 of the argument is given by Dugald Stewart in the second part of his 
 Outlines of Moral Philosophy, cap. ii. sec. 1. The reasons he here states 
 without any illustration for believing the doctrine of a future state, are 
 the following: 
 
 " 1. The natural desire of immortality, and the anticipations of futurity 
 inspired by hope. 
 
 " 2. The natural apprehensions of the mind when under the influence 
 of remorse. 
 
 "3. The exact accommodation of the condition of the lower animals tc 
 \heir instincts and to their sensitive powers, contrasted with the unsuit- 
 cbleness of the present state of things to the intellectual faculties of man ;
 
 CHAP. jv. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 175 
 
 IV. The authority of the ancients has more weight with me, 
 Cither that of our own ancestors, who paid such sacred honors 
 to the dead which surely they would not have done if they 
 thought these honors did in no way affect them ; or that of 
 those who once lived in this country, and enlightened, by their 
 institutions and instructions, Magna Graecia (which now 
 indeed is entirely destroyed, but then was flourishing); or 
 of him who was pronounced by the oracle of Apollo to be the 
 wisest of men, who did not say first one thing and then 
 {mother, as is generally done, but always the same ; namely, 
 
 to his capacities of enjoyment, and to tho conceptions of happiness and 
 of perfection which he is able to form. 
 
 " 4. The foundation, which is laid in. the principles of our constitution 
 for a progressive and an unlimited improvement 
 
 " 5. Tho information wo are rendered capable of acquiring concerning 
 the more remote parts of the universe; tho unlimited range which is 
 opened to tho human imagination through the immensity of apace and 
 of time, and tho ideas, however imperfect, which philosophy affords us 
 of the existence and attributes of an overruling mind acquisitions for 
 v/hichan obvious final cause may bo traced on the sup ositionof a future 
 state, but which if that supposition be rejected, could have no other effect 
 than to make tho business of life appear unworthy of our regard. 
 
 " 6. The tendency of tho infirmities of age, and of the pains of diseaso 
 to strengthen and confirm our moral habits, and tho difficulty of account- 
 ing upon tho hypothesis of annihilation for thoso sufferings which com- 
 monly put a period to tho existence of man. 
 
 " 7. Tho discordance between our moral judgments and feelings and 
 tho course of human affairs. 
 
 " 8. Tho analogy of tho material world, in some parts of which the 
 most complete and tho most systematical order may be traced ; and of 
 which our views always become tho more satisfactory tho wider our 
 knowledge extends. It is the supposition of a future state alone that 
 can furnish a key to tho present disorders of tho "moral world ; and with- 
 out it many of tho most striking phenomena of human life must remain 
 forever inexplicable. 
 
 " 9. The inconsistency of supposing that tho moral laws which regulato 
 tho course of human affairs have no reference to any thing beyond tho 
 limits of tho present sceno ; when all the bodies which compose the vis- 
 ible universe appear to bo related to each other, as parts of one great 
 physical system. 
 
 " Of the different considerations now mentioned, there is not one per- 
 haps which, taken singly, would be sufficient to establish tho truth they 
 are brought to prove, but taken in conjunction, their force appears irre- 
 sistible. They not only all terminate in tho same conclusion, but they 
 mutually reflect light on each other ; and they hare that sort of con- 
 sistency and connection among themselves which could hardly be sup- 
 posed to take place among a series of lalso propositions. '
 
 176 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. iv. 
 
 that the souls of men are divine, and that when they have de- 
 parted from the body, a return to heaven is opened to them, 
 and the speediest to the most virtuous and just. 1 Which samo 
 opinion was also held by Scipio ; for he indeed, a very few days 
 before his death, as if he had a presentiment of it, when Philus 
 and Maniiius were present, and many others, and you also, 
 
 I So striking is the resemblance between the religious tenets of Cicero 
 and those of modern philosophy, corrected by a divine revelation, that 
 it is difficult to suppose that they should have originated in his own re- 
 flections, unaided by any light derived through the medium of tradition 
 or report. The idea contained in this passage we find reproduced, with 
 little modification, in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, by a 
 moralist and ethical philosopher, neither of whom was at all likely to 
 derive his opinions on such a subject from the writings of Cicero. By 
 giving the former passage entire, I may perhaps lead the reader to bc- 
 lievo that Sir Thomas Browne has added nothing to the conceptions of 
 Cicero touching the immortality of the soul but superstition and folly. 
 " I believe," he says, " that the whole frame of a beast doth perish, and 
 is left in the same state after death as before it was materialed into life ; 
 that the souls of men know neither contrary or corruption ; that they 
 subsist beyond the body, and outlivo death by the privilege of their 
 proper natures, and without a miracle ; that the souls of the faithful, as 
 they leave earth, take possession of heaven ; that those apparitions and 
 ghosts of departed persons are not the wandering souls of men, but the 
 unquiet walks of devils, prompting and suggesting us unto mischief, 
 blood and villainy instilling, and stealing into our hearts ; that the bless- 
 ed spirits are not at rest in their graves, but wander solicitous of the af- 
 fairs of the world ; that these phantasms appear often, and do frequent 
 cemeteries, charnel-houses, and churches; it ia because these are tho 
 dormitories of tho dead where tho devil, like an insolent champion, be- 
 holds with pride the spoils and trophies of his victory in Adam." Rc- 
 ligio Medici, chap. xxxviL 
 
 II "Wo have," says Dr. Thomas Brown, "therefore to conceive the mind 
 at death matured by experience, and nobler than it was when tho Deity 
 permitted it to exist; and tho Deity himself; with all those gracious feel- 
 ings of love to man which the adaption of human nature to its human 
 scene displays, and in these very circumstances, if wo affirm without any 
 other proof tho annihilation of the mind, wo are to find a reason for this 
 annihilation. If even we in such a moment, abstracting from all selfish 
 considerations, would feel it a sort of crime to destroy, with no other 
 view than that of tho mere destruction what was more worthy of lovo 
 than in years of earlier being, are we to believe that ho who loves what 
 is noble in man more than our frail heart can love it, will regard the im- 
 provements only as a signal of destruction ? Is it not more consonant 
 to the goodness of him who has rendered improvement progressive here, 
 that in separating the mind from its bodily frame, ho separates it to ad- 
 mit it into scenes in which the progress begun on earth may be con- 
 tinued with increasing facility." Lecture xcvL
 
 CHAP. iv. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 1T7 
 
 Scaevola, had gone with me, for three days descanted on the 
 subject of government : of which discussion the last was 
 almost entirely on the immortality of souls, which he said he 
 had learned in sleep through a visiop from Africanus. If 
 this be the fact, that the spirit of the best man most easily 
 flies away in death, as from the prison-house and chains of the 
 body; whose passage to the gods can we conceive to have 
 been readier than that of Scipio ? Wherefore, to be afflicted 
 at this his departure, I fear, would be the part rather of an 
 envious person than of a friend. But if, on the other hand, 
 this be rather the truth, that the death of the soul and of the 
 body is one and the same, and that no consciousness remains ; 
 as there is no advantage in death, so certainly there is no 
 evil. For when consciousness is lost, it becomes the samo 
 as if he had never been born at all ; yet, both we -ourselves 
 are glad, and this state, as long as it shall exist, will rejoice 
 that he was born. Wherefore (as I said above) with him 
 indeed all ended well : with myself, less happily ; for it had 
 been more equitable that, as I entered upon life first, I should 
 likewise first depart from it. But yet I so enjoy the recollec- 
 tion of our friendship, that I seem to have lived happily be- 
 cause I lived with Scipio ; with whom I had a common anxiety 
 on public and private affairs, and with whom my life both at 
 home and abroad was associated, and there existed that, wherein 
 consists the entire strength of friendship, an entire agreement 
 of inclinations, pursuits, and sentiments. 1 That character for 
 wisdom, therefore, which Fannius a little while ago mentioned, 
 does not so delight me, especially since it is undeserved, as the 
 hope that the recollection of our friendship will last forever. 
 And it is the more gratifying to me, because scarcely in the 
 history of the world are three or four pairs of friends men- 
 tioned by name ; 3 and I indulge in the hope that the friendship 
 of Scipio and Laelius will be known to posterity in this class. 
 FANNIUS. Indeed, Laelius, that must be so. But since you 
 
 1 "The consideration of moral worth will always enter deeply into the 
 motives which actuate wise and good men in their choice of friends ; but 
 it is far from constituting the only one ; a certain congeniality of mind 
 and manners, aided by the operation of adventitious circumstances, con- 
 tributes a principal share toward the formation of such unions." Robert 
 Hall's Funeral Sermon for Dr. Ryland. 
 
 2 Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, Nisus and Eurvalus, aro 
 the most famous pairs of friends recorded in ancient history. 
 
 8*
 
 178 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. T. 
 
 have made mention of friendship, and as we have leisure, you 
 will do what is very agreeable to me (I hope also to Scsevola), 
 if, as your custom is concerning other matters when your 
 opinion of them is asked, so you would descant on friendship, 
 [telling us] what is your opinion, of what nature you consider 
 it to be, and what direction you would lay down. SC^EVOLA. 
 To me it will be exceedingly agreeable ; and in fact, when I 
 was endeavoring to prevail with you, Fannius anticipated me 
 wherefore you will confer a very great favor on both of us. 
 
 V. LJELIUS. I indeed should not object, if I could feel 
 confidence in myself; for not only is the subject a splendid 
 one, but we, as Fannius said, have nothing to do. But who 
 am I ? or what ability is there in me for this ? This is the 
 practice of scholars, and of Grecian scholars, that a subject 
 be given them on which they are to dispute, however 
 suddenly. It is a great undertaking, and requires no little 
 practice. Wherefore, as to what may be said on the subject 
 of friendship, I recommend you to seek it from those who pro- 
 fess such things. 1 I can only urge you to prefer friendship 
 to all human possessions ; for there is nothing so suited to 
 our nature, so well adapted to prosperity or adversity. Bun 
 first of all, I am of opinion, that except among the virtuous, 
 friendship can not exist : I do not analyze this principle too 
 closely, as they do who inquire with too great nicety into those 
 things, perhaps with truth on their side, but with little gen- 
 eral advantage ; for they maintain that there is no good 
 man but the wise man. Be it so ; yet they define wisdom to 
 be such as no mortal has ever attained to : whereas we ought to 
 contemplate those things which exist in practice and in 
 common life, and not the subjects of fictions or of our own 
 wishes. I would never pretend to say that Caius Fabricius, 
 Marius Curius, and Titus Coruncanius, whom our ancestors 
 esteemed wise, were wise according to the standard of these 
 moralists. Wherefore let them keep to themselves the name 
 of wisdom, both invidious and unintelligible ; and let them 
 allow that these were good men nay, they will not even do 
 that ; they will declare that this can not be granted except to 
 a wise man. Let us therefore proceed with all our dull genius, 
 as they say. Those who so conduct themselves, and so live 
 
 1 The Greek sophists, like the modern Italians, professed to improvise 
 on any given subject. See Plato's Gorgia^ Protagoras, etc-
 
 CHAP. V. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 179 
 
 that their honor, their integrity, their justice, and liberality 
 are approved ; so that there is not in them any covetousness, 
 or licentiousness, or boldness ; and that they are of great 
 consistency, as those men whom I have mentioned above ; 
 let us consider these worthy of the appellation of good men, 
 as they have been accounted such, because they follow (as far 
 as men are able) nature, which is the best guide of a good 
 life. 1 For I seem to myself to have this view, that we are 
 
 1 " A person when he speaks of Nature, should know distinctly what 
 he means. The word carries with it a sort of intermediate authority ; 
 and he who uses it amiss, may connect that authority with rules and 
 actions which are little entitled to it. There are few senses in which 
 the word is used that do not refer, however obscurely, to God ; and it ia 
 for that reason that the notion of authority is connected with the word. 
 1 The very name of Nature implies that it must owe its birth to somo 
 prior agent, or, to speak properly, signifies in itself nothing.' Milton, 
 Christ. Doct. p. 14. Yet, unmeaning as the term is, it is one of which 
 many persons are very fond, whether it bo that their notions are really 
 indistinct, or that some purposes are answered by referring to the obscu- 
 rity of Nature rather than to God. ' Nature has decorated the earth 
 with beauty and magnificence,' 'Nature has furnished us with joints and 
 limbs," are phrases sufficiently unmeaning, and yet I know not that they 
 are likely to do any other harm than to give currency to the common 
 fiction. But when it is said that ' Nature teaches us to adhere to truth,' 
 'Nature condemns us for dishonesty or deceit, ' 'Men are taught by 
 Nature that they are responsible beings,' there is considerable danger 
 that wo have both fallacious and injurious notions of the authority which 
 thus teaches or condemns us upon this subject, it were well to take tho 
 advice of Boyle : 'Nature,' ho says, 'is sometimes indeed commonly 
 taken for a kind of semi-deity. In this sense it is best not to use it at 
 all. 1 (See Inquiry into the vulgarly received notions of Nature). It is 
 dangerous to induce confusion into our ideas respecting our relationship 
 with God. 
 
 " A law of nature is a very imposing phrase; and it might bo suppos- 
 ed, from tho language of somo persons, that nature was an independent 
 legislatress, who had sat and framed laws for tho government of man- 
 kind. Nature is nothing ; yet it would seem that men do sometimes 
 practically imagine that a 'law of nature' possesses proper and independ- 
 ent authority; and it may bo suspected that with some, tho notion ia 
 so palpable and strong that they set up tho authority of ' tho law of 
 nature' without reference to the will of God, or perhaps in opposition to 
 it. Even if notions like these float in the mind only with vapory indis- 
 tinctness, a correspondent indistinctness of moral notions is likely to en- 
 sue. Every man should make to himself tho rule never to employ tho 
 word nature when he speaks of ultimate moral authority. A law possesses 
 no authority; the authority rests only in the legislator, and as nature 
 makes no laws, a law of nature involves no obligation but that which is 
 imposed by tho Divine will." Dymond's Essays, Essay I. chapter ii.
 
 180 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. vi. 
 
 so formed by nature, that there should be a certain social 
 tie among all ; stronger, however, as each approaches nearer 
 to us. Accordingly, citizens are preferable to foreigners, 
 and relations to strangers ; for with the latter, nature her- 
 self has created a friendly feeling, though this has not suf- 
 ficient strength. For in this respect friendship is superior 
 to relationship, because from relationship benevolence can be 
 withdrawn, and from friendship it can not : for with the with- 
 drawal of benevolence the very name of friendship is done 
 away, while that of relationship remains. Now how great the 
 power of friendship is, may be best gathered from this consid- 
 eration, that out of the boundless society of the human race, 
 which nature herself has joined together, friendship is a matter 
 so contracted, and brought into so narrow a compass, that the 
 whole of affection is confined to two, or at any rate to very 
 few. 
 
 VI. Now friendship is nothing else than a complete union 
 of feeling on all subjects, divine and human, accompanied by 
 kindly feeling and attachment ; than which, indeed, I am not 
 aware whether, with the exception of wisdom, any thing 
 better has been bestowed on man by the immortal gods. 
 Some men prefer riches, others good health, others influence, 
 others again honors, many prefer even pleasures : the last, 
 indeed, is the characteristic of beasts ; while the former are 
 fleeting and uncertain, depending not so much on our own 
 purpose, as on the fickleness of fortune. Whereas those who 
 place the supreme good in virtue, therein do admirably ; but 
 this very virtue itself both begets and constitutes friendship ; 
 nor without this virtue can friendship exist at all. Now let 
 us define this virtue according to the usage of life, and of 
 our common language ; and let us not measure it, as certain 
 learned persons do, by pomp of language ; and let us include 
 among the good those who lire so accounted the Paulli, the 
 Catos, the Galli, the Scipios, and the Phili ; with these men 
 ordinary life is content : and let us pass over those who 
 are nowhere found to exist. Among men of this kind, 
 therefore, friendship finds facilities so great that I can 
 scarcely describe them. In the first place to whom can 
 life be " worth living," as Ennius says, who does not repose 
 on the mutual kind feeling of some friend ? What can be 
 more delightful than to have one to whom you can e peak on
 
 CHAP. TII. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 181 
 
 all subjects just as to yourself? Where would be the great 
 enjoyment in prosperity, if you had not one to rejoice in it 
 equally with yourself? And adversity would indeed be 
 difficult to endure, without some one who would bear it even 
 with greater regret than yourself. In short, all other objects 
 that are sought after, are severally suited to some one single 
 purpose : riches, that you may spend them ; power, that you 
 may be courted ; honors, that you may be extolled ; 
 pleasures, that you may enjoy them ; good health that you 
 may be exempt from harm, and perform the functions of the 
 body. Whereas friendship comprises the greatest number of 
 objects possible : wherever you turn yourself, it is at hand ; 
 shut out of no place, never out of season, never irksome ; 
 and therefore we do not use fire and water, as they say, on 
 more occasions than we do friendship. And I am not now 
 speaking of common-place or ordinary friendship (though 
 even that brings delight and benefit), but of real and true 
 friendship, such as belonged to those of whom very few are 
 recordei ; for prosperity friendship renders more brilliant; 
 and adversity more suppoj-table, by dividing and communi- 
 cntiug it." ' 
 
 VII. And while friendship embraces very many and great 
 advantages, she undoubtedly surpasses all in this, that she 
 shines with a brilliant hope over the future, and never suffers 
 the spirit to bo weakened or to sink. Besides, he who looks 
 on a true friend, looks as it were upon a kind of imago of 
 himself: wherefore friends, though absent, are still present; 
 
 1 " The sympathies of virtuous minds when not warmed by tho breath 
 of friendship, are too faint and cold to satisfy tho social cravings of our 
 nature, their compassion is too much dissipated by the multiplicity of its 
 objects and the varieties of distress to suffer it to flow long in one channel, 
 while the sentiments of congratulation are still more slight and superfi- 
 cial. A transient tear of pity, or a smile of complacency equally transient, 
 is all we can usually bestow on the scenes of happiness or of misery 
 which wo meet with in the paths of life. But man naturally seeks for a 
 closer union, a more permanent conjunction of interests, a more intense 
 reciprocation of feeling; he finds tho want of one or more with whom ho 
 can trust the secrets of his heart, and relieve himself by imparting tho 
 interior joys and sorrows with which every human breast is fraught. IIo 
 seeks, in short, another self, a kindred spirit whoso interest in his welfare 
 bears some proportion to his own, with whom ho may lessen his cares 
 by sympathy, and multiply his pleasures by participation." Hall's Fu- 
 neral Sermon for Dr. Ryland.
 
 182 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. vir. 
 
 though in poverty, they are rich ; though weak, yet in the 
 enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to 
 assert, though dead they are alive ; so entirely does the 
 honor, the memory, the regret of friends attend them ; from 
 which circumstance, the death of the one seems to be happy, 
 and the life of the other praiseworthy; nay, should yob 
 remove from nature the cement of kind feelings, neither a 
 house nor a city will be able to stand ; even the cultivation 
 of the land will not continue. If it be not clearly perceived 
 how great is the power of friendship and concord, it can be dis- 
 tinctly inferred from quarrels and dissensions ; for what house 
 is there so established, or what state so firmly settled, that may 
 not utterly be overthrown by hatred and dissension ? from 
 which it may be determined how much advantage there is in 
 friendship. They relate, indeed, that a certain learned man 
 of Agrigentum l promulgated in Greek verses the doctrine, 
 that all things which cohere throughout the whole world, and 
 all things that arc the subjects of motion, arc brought 
 together by friendship, and are dispelled by discord ; 4and 
 this principle all men understand, and illustrate by their 
 conduct. Therefore, if at any time any act of a friend has 
 been exhibited, either in undergoing or in sharing dangers, 
 who is there that does not extol such an act with the highest 
 praise ? What shouts of applause were lately heard through 
 the Avhole theater, on the occasion of a new play by my 
 guest and friend, Marcus Pacuvius, when the king, being 
 ignorant which of them was Orestes, Pylades said he was 
 Orestes, that he might be put to death instead of him ; but 
 Orestes, as was the fact, solemnly maintained that he was the 
 man ? They stood up and applauded in an imaginary case ; 
 what must we suppose they would have done in a real one. 
 Nature herself excellently asserted her rightful power, when 
 men pronounced that to be rightly done in another, which 
 they could not do themselves. Thus far I seem to have been 
 able to lay down what arc my sentiments concerning friend- 
 ship. If any thing remains (and I fancy there is much), ask 
 of those, if you please, who practice such discussions. 
 
 FANNIUS. But we Avould rather hear it from you ; although 
 
 1 Empedoclea, a philosopher, poet, and historian of Agrigentum in 
 Sicily, who flourished, B.C. 444. Ho wrote a poem on the doctrines of 
 Pythagoras.
 
 CHAP. Tin. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 183 
 
 / have often ssked sucli questions, arid heard their opinions, 
 and that not without satisfaction, yet -what we desire is the 
 somewhat different thread of your discourse. SC^EVOLA. You 
 would say so still more, Fannius, if you had been present 
 lately in the gardens of Scipio, when the subject of Govern- 
 ment was discussed. What an able pleader was he then on 
 the side of justice against the subtle argument of Philus ! 
 FANNIUS. Nay, it was an easy task for the most just of men 
 to uphold the cause of justice. SC^EVOLA. What shall we 
 say then of friendship ? Would it not be easy for him to 
 eulogize it, who, for maintaining it with the utmost fidelity, 
 steadiness and integrity, has gained the highest glory ? 
 
 VIII. L^ELIUS. Why, this is using force against one: for 
 what matters it by what kind of request you compel me ? 
 You certainly do compel me. For to oppose the wishes of 
 one's sons-in-law, especially in a good matter, is not only 
 hard, but it is not even just. After very often, then, reflect- 
 ing on the subject of friendship, this question seems to me 
 especially worthy of consideration, whether fiiendship has 
 become an object of desire, on account of weakness or want, 
 so that by giving and receiving favors, each may receive 
 from another, and mutually repay, what he is himself in- 
 capable of acquiring. Or whether this is only a property of 
 friendship ; while there is another cause, higher and nobler 
 and more directly derived from nature herself? For love 
 (from which friendship takes its name) is the main motive for 
 the union of kind feelings : for advantages truly are often 
 derived from those who are courted under a pretense of 
 friendship, and have attention paid them for a temporary 
 purpose. In fiiendship there is nothing false, and nothing 
 pretended; and whatever belongs to it is sincere and spon- 
 taneous. Wherefore friendship seems to me to have sprung 
 rather from nature than from a sense of want, and more from 
 an attachment of the mind with a certain feeling of affection, 
 than from a calculation how much advantage it would afford. 
 And of what nature indeed it is, may be observed in the 
 case of certain beasts ; for they love their offspring up to a 
 certain time, and are loved by them in such a way that their 
 emotions are easily discovered. And this is much more evi- 
 dent in man. In the first place, from that affection wLich 
 subsists between children and parents, which can not bo do-
 
 184 CICERO OX FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. ix. 
 
 stroyed without detestable wickedness : next, where a similar 
 feeling of love has existed, if we have met with any one with 
 whose character and disposition we sympathize, because we 
 appear to discover in him a certain effulgence as it were of 
 integrity and virtue. For nothing is more amiable than virtue, 
 nothing which more strongly allures us to love it, seeing that 
 because of their virtue and integrity we can in a certain 
 degree love those whom we have never seen. Who can 
 mention the name of Caius Fabricius, and Marius Curius, 
 otherwise than with love and affection, though he never saw 
 them 1 Who can forbear hating Tarquinius Superbus, Spurius 
 Cassius, and Spurius Maelius ? Against two generals we had 
 a struggle for empire in Italy, I mean Pyrrhus and Hannibal ; 
 toward the former, on account of his honorable conduct, 
 we bear not a very hostile disposition ; while this state will 
 always detest the latter for his cruelty. 
 
 IX. Now if such be the influence of integrity, that we 
 love it even in those whom we have never seen, and, what is 
 much more, even in an enemy, what wonder if men's feelings 
 are affected when they seem to discover the goodness and 
 virtue of those with whom they may become connected by 
 intercourse ? although love is confirmed by the reception of 
 kindness, and by the discovery of an earnest sympathy, and 
 by close familiarity ; which things being added to the first 
 emotion of the mind and the affections, there is kindled a largo 
 amount of kindly feeling. And if any imagine that this 
 proceeds from a sense of weakness, so that there shall be 
 secured a friend, by whom a man may obtain that which he 
 wants, they leave to friendship a mean indeed, and, if I may 
 so speak, any thing but respectable origin, when they make 
 her to be born of indigence and want; were this the case, 
 then in proportion as a man judged that there were the least 
 resources in himself, precisely in that degree would he be best 
 qualified for friendship : whereas the fact is far otherwise. 
 For just as a man has most confidence in himself, and as he 
 is most completely fortified by worth and wisdom, so that he 
 needs no one's assistance, and feels that all his resources 
 reside in himself; in the same proportion he is most highly 
 distinguished for seeking out and forming friendships. For 
 what did Africanus want of me ? nothing whatever ; nor 
 indeed did I need auarht from him : but I loved him from
 
 CHAP. x. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 185 
 
 admiration of his excellence; he in turn perhaps was at- 
 tached to me from some high opinion which he entertained 
 of my character, and association fostered our affection. But 
 although many and great advantages ensued, yet it was 
 not from any hope of these that the cause of our attachment 
 sprang : for as we are beneficent and liberal, not to exact 
 favor in return (for we are not usurers in kind actions), but 
 by nature are inclined to liberality, thus I think that friend- 
 ship is to be desired, not attracted by the hope of reward, but 
 because the whole of its profit consists in love only. From 
 such opinions, they who, after the fashion of beasts, refer 
 every thing to pleasure, widely differ : and no great wonder, 
 since they can not look up to any thing lofty, magnificent, 
 or divine who cast all their thoughts on an object so mean 
 and contemptible. Therefore let us exclude such persons 
 altogether from our discourse ; and let us ourselves hold this 
 opinion, that the sentiment of loving, and the attachment of 
 kind feelings, are produced by nature, when the evidence of 
 virtue has been established ; and they who have eagerly sought 
 the latter, draw nigh and attach themselves to it, that they 
 may enjoy the friendship and character of the individual they 
 have begun to love, and that they may be commensurate am 1 
 equal in affection, and more inclined to confer a favor than 
 to claim any return. And let this honorable struggle be 
 maintained between them : so not only will the greatest 
 advantages be derived from friendship, but its origin from 
 nature rather than from a sense of weakness, will be at once 
 more impressive and more true. For if it were expediency 
 that cemented friendships, the same when changed would 
 dissolve them ; but because nature can never change, there- 
 fore true friendships are eternal. Thus you see the origin 
 of friendship, unless you wish to make some reply to these 
 views. FANNIUS. Nay, go on, Laelius, for I answer for 
 Scajvola here (who is my junior) on my own authority. 
 SC^EVOLA. You do right ; wherefore let us attend. 
 
 X. L^ELIUS. Listen, then, my excellent friends, to the dis- 
 cussion which was very frequently held by me and Scipio 
 on the subject of friendship ; although ho indeed used to say 
 that nothing was more difficult than that friendship should 
 continue <o the end of life; for it often happened, either that 
 tho same course was not expedient to both parties, or that
 
 186 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP, xt, 
 
 they held different views of politics : he also remarked that 
 the characters of men often changed ; in some cases by 
 adversity, in others by old age becoming oppressive ; and he 
 derived an authority for such notions from a comparison with 
 early life, because the strongest attachment of boys are con- 
 stantly laid aside with the praetexta ; even if they should main- 
 tain it to manhood, yet sometimes it is broken off by rivalry, 
 for a dowried wife, or some other advantage, which they 
 can not both attain. And even if men should be carried on 
 still further in their friendship, yet that feeling is often 
 undermined, should they fall into rivalry for preferments; 
 for there is no greater enemy to friendship than covet- 
 ousness of money, in most men, and even in the best, an 
 emulous desire of high offices and glory; in consequence of 
 which the most bitter enmities have often arisen between the 
 dearest friends. For great dissensions, and those in most 
 instances, justifiable, arise, when some request is made of 
 friends which is improper ; as, for instance, that they should 
 become either the ministers of their lust or their supporters 
 in the perpetration of wrong ; and they who refuse to do so, 
 it matters not however virtuously, yet are accused of dis- 
 carding the claims of friendship by those persons whom they 
 are unwilling to oblige ; but they who dare to ask any thing 
 of a friend, by their very request seem to imply that they 
 would do any thing for the sake of that friend ; by the com- 
 plaining of such persons, not only are long-established 
 intimacies put an end to, but endless animosities are engen- 
 dered. All these many causes, like so many fatalities, are 
 ever threatening friendship, so that he said, to escape them 
 all, seemed to him a proof not merely of wisdom, but even of 
 good fortune. 
 
 XI. Wherefore let us first consider if you please, how 
 far love ought to proceed in friendship. If Coriolanus had 
 friends, were they bound to carry arms against their country 
 with Coriolanus ? Were their friends bound to support 
 Viscellinus or Spurius Maelius when they aimed at the 
 sovereignty? Nay, in the case of Tiberius Gracchus, when 
 disturbing the commonwealth, we saw him totally abandoned 
 by Quintus Tubero, and other friends of his own standing. 
 But in the case of Caius Blossius, of Cumse, the friend of 
 our family, Scaivola, when he had come to me (then attend-
 
 CHAP. xr. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 187 
 
 ing upon the consuls Lsenas and Rupilius in their council) to 
 sue for pardon, he brought forward his plea, that he es- 
 teemed Tiberius Gracchus so highly that he thought it his 
 duty to do whatever he wished. So I said, " What, even if he 
 wished you to set fire to the capitol ?" " He never would 
 have thought of that," he replied. "But what if he had?" 
 " Then I would have complied." You see what an abominable 
 speech : and, by Hercules, he did so, and even worse than he 
 said ; for he did not follow the mad schemes of Tiberius 
 Gracchus, but in fact headed them, and did not act as the 
 accomplice of his violence, but even as the captain. There- 
 fore in consequence of such rashness, being terrified by a 
 new prosecution, he fled precipitately into Asia, joined the 
 enemy, and atoned to the commowealth by a punishment 
 just and severe. It is no excuse therefore for a fault, that 
 you committed it for a friend's sake ; for since the belief in 
 another's excellence was that which conciliated friendship, it 
 is hard for friendship to continue when you have apostatized 
 from virtue. Now if we shall lay it down as right, either to 
 concede to friends whatever they wish, or to obtain from 
 them whatever wo wish, we must have indeed consummate 
 wisdom, if such a course leads to no vice. But wo are speak- 
 ing of those friends who arc before our eyes, whom we see 
 around us, or else whom we know by report, and with whom 
 cvery-day life is familiar : from that class we must take our 
 instances, and above all, from those who make the nearest 
 approaches to wisdom. We sec that Papus ./Emilius was the 
 intimate friend of Caius Luscinus (so we have learned from 
 our fathers) ; that they were twice consuls together, and col- 
 leagues in the censorship ; and that at the same time Marcus 
 Curius and Titus Coruncanius were most intimate with 
 them and with each other, is a matter of history, and there- 
 fore we can not even suspect that any one of these ever 
 asked his friend any thing that was contrary to their honor, 
 their oath, and the interest of the state : for what reason is 
 there for making such a remark about men like them? I 
 am convinced, hal any of them made the request, he would 
 not have obtained it, for they were men of the purest prin- 
 ciple; besides, it would be equally as wrong to agree to 
 and such request when made, as to make it. And yet Caius 
 Carbo and Caius Cato both took the Dart of Tiberius Grac-
 
 188 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. xn. 
 
 chus, as did his brother Cains, at that time by no means an 
 agitator, but now one of the most violent. 
 
 XII. Let this law therefore be established in friendship, 
 viz., that we should neither ask things that are improper, nor 
 grant them when asked ; for it is a disgraceful apology, and 
 by no means to be admitted, as well in the case of other 
 offenses, as when any one avows he has acted against the stato 
 for the sake of a friend. 1 For we are placed, O Fannius and 
 Scsevola, in such a position that we ought to see from a 
 distance the future calamities of the commonwealth ; for the 
 practice of our ancestors has already in some respect swerved 
 from its career and course. Tiberius Gracchus has endeavored 
 to obtain the sovereignty, or rather he reigned for a few 
 months. Had the Roman people ever heard or witnessed 
 any thing similar? Even after his death, his friends and 
 relations maintained his cause ; and what malice they exer- 
 cised against Publius Scipio, I can not relate without tears ; 
 for, owing to the recent punishment of Tiberius Gracchus, 
 we withstood Carbo by whatever means we could. And con- 
 cerning the tribuneship of Caius Gracchus, what we have to 
 expect I have no disposition to anticipate ; still the movement 
 is creeping on, and when once it has begun, it rushes with 
 increasing precipitation to destruction : for already you have 
 seen with regard to the ballot, what great mischief has been 
 
 1 " The knowledge concerning good respecting society, doth handle it 
 also, not simply alone, but comparatively ; whereunto belongeth the 
 weighing of duties between person and person, case and case, particular 
 and public ; as wo see in the proceeding of Lucius Brutus against his 
 own sons, which was so much extolled ; yet what was said ? 
 
 ' Infelix utcunque ferent ca facta minores." 
 
 So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides. Again, wo 
 Bee when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper certain whose opin- 
 ions they meant to feel whether they were fit to be made their associates, 
 and cast forth the question touching the killing of a tyrant being a usurp- 
 er, they were divided in opinion ; some holding that servitude was tho 
 extreme of evils, and others that tyranny was better than civil war ; and 
 a number of the like cases there are of comparative duty, among which, 
 that of all others is the most frequent, where the question is of a great 
 deal of good to ensue of a small injustice which Jason of Thessalia de- 
 termined against truth. ' Aliqua sunt injuste facienda ut multa justo 
 fieri possint.' But the reply is good : ' Auctorem prassentis justitise habes 
 sponsorem futuraj non habes.' Men must pursue things which are just 
 at present, and leave the future to a divine Providence." Bacon's Adv. 
 of Learning, book II.
 
 CHAP. XIIL CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 189 
 
 caused first, by the Gabinian law, 1 and two years after by 
 tho Cassian : for already I fancy I see the people separated 
 from the senate, and the most important measures carried at 
 the caprice of the mob ; far more people will learn how 
 such things may be done, than how they may be resisted. 
 Wherefore do I say this? Because without allies no one 
 attempts any thing of the kind ; therefore this should be 
 pressed on all good men, that if inadvertently they should 
 have fallen unawares into friendships of that character, they 
 must think themselves bound in such a manner that they 
 must not desert their friends when doing wrong in any import- 
 ant matter : at the same time, punishment should be enacted 
 against the wicked ; and not less severe for those who have 
 followed another, than for those who have been themselves 
 the leaders of the wickedness. Who was more illustrious 
 in Greece than Themistocles ? who more powerful ? And 
 when he, as general in the Persian war, had freed Greece 
 from slavery, and through unpopularity had been driven into 
 exile, he could not endure the injustice of his ungrateful 
 country, which he ought to have borne ; he acted the samo 
 part as Coriolanus had done among us twenty years before. 
 No one was found to support these men against their coun- 
 try; accordingly, they both committed suicide. Wherefore 
 such a combination with wicked men not only must not be 
 sheltered under the excuse of friendship, but should rather 
 be visited with every kind of punishments : so that no one 
 may think it permitted to him to follow a friend, even 
 when waging war against his country. And as matters 
 have begun to proceed, I know not whether that will not 
 some day occur. To me, however, it is no less a cause of 
 anxiety in what state the republic shall be after my death, 
 than in what state it is at this day. 
 
 XIII. Let this, therefore, be established as a primary law 
 concerning friendship, that we expect from our friends only 
 what is honorable, and for our friends' sake do what is 
 honorable ; that we should not wait till we arc asked ; that 
 ;eal be ever ready, and reluctance Air from us ; but that wo 
 
 1 Lex Gabinia de Comiliis, by Aulus Gabinius, the tribune, A.U.C. G14. 
 It required that, in the public assemblies for electing magistrates, tho 
 votes should be given by tablets, and not vivd voce. Cassius was tribune 
 of tho people, and competitor with Cicero for the consulship.
 
 190 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. XIIL 
 
 take pleasure in freely giving our advice ; that in our 
 friendship, the influence of our friends, when they give good 
 advice, should have great weight ; and that this be em- 
 ployed to admonish not only candidly, but even severely, if 
 the case shall require, and that we give heed to it when so 
 employed ; for, as to certain persons, whom I understand to 
 have been esteemed wise men in Greece, I am of opinion 
 that some strange notions were entertained by them ; but 
 there is nothing which they do not follow up with too great 
 subtlety : among the rest, that excessive friendships should 
 be avoided, lest it should be necessary for one to feel 
 anxiety for many ; that every one has enough, and more 
 than enough, of his own affairs ; that to be needlessly impli- 
 cated in those of other people is vexatious ; that it was most 
 convenient to hold the reins of friendship as loose as pos- 
 sible, so as either to tighten or slacken them when you 
 please ; for they argue, that the main point toward a happy 
 life is freedom from care, which the mind can not enjoy if 
 one man be, as it were, in travail for others. Nay, they 
 tell us that some are accustomed to declare, still more 
 unfeelingly (a topic which I have briefly touched upon just 
 above), that friendships should be cultivated for the purpose 
 of protection and assistance, and not for kind feeling or 
 affection ; and therefore the less a man possesses of in- 
 dependence, and of strength, in the same degree he most 
 earnestly desires friendships; that thence it arises that 
 women seek the support of friendship more than men, and 
 the poor more than the rich, and persons in distress, 1 rather 
 than those who are considered prosperous. Admirable phi- 
 losophy ! for they seem to take away the sun from the world 
 who withdraw friendship from life ; for we receive nothing 
 better from the immortal gods, nothing more delightful : for 
 what is this freedom from care ? in appearances, indeed, 
 nattering ; but, in many cases in reality to be disdained. 
 Nor is it reasonable to refuse to undertake any honorable 
 matter or action lest you should be anxious, or to lay it aside 
 when undertaken ; for if we fly from care, we must fly 
 from virtue also ; for it is impossible that she can, without 
 some degree of distress, feel contempt and detestation for 
 
 1 Calamitosi, the ruined ; from :alami(as, a hail-storm, which breaks 
 the calamus or stalk of plants.
 
 CHAP. xir. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 19 1 
 
 qualities opposed to herself; just as kind-heartedness for 
 malice, temperance for profligacy, and bravery for cowardice. 
 Accordingly you see that upright men are most distressed 
 by unjust actions ; the brave with the cowardly ; the virtu- 
 ous with the profligate : and, therefore, this is the character- 
 istic of a well-regulated mind, both to be well pleased with 
 what is excellent, and to be distressed with what is contrary. 
 Wherefore, if trouble of mind befall a wise man (and as- 
 suredly it will, unless AVC suppose that all humanity is 
 extirpated from his mind), what reason is there why we 
 should altogether remove friendship from life, lest because of 
 it we should take upon ourselves some troubles ? for what 
 difference is there (setting the emotions of the mind aside), I 
 do not say between a man and a beast, but between a man and 
 a stone, or log, or any thing of that kind ? For they do not 
 deserve to be listened to, who would have virtue to be callous, 
 and made of iron, as it were ; which indeed is, as in other mat- 
 ters, so in friendship also, tender and susceptible ; so that 
 friends are loosened, as it were, by happy events, and drawn 
 together by distresses. 
 
 XIV. Wherefore the anxiety which has often to be felt for 
 a friend, is not of such force that it should remove friendship 
 from the world, any more than that the virtues, because they 
 bring with them certain cares and troubles, should therefore 
 be discarded. For when it produces friendship (as I said 
 above), should any indication of virtue shine forth, to which 
 a congenial mind may attach and unite itself when this 
 happens, affection must necessarily arise. For what is so 
 unmeaning as to take delight in many vain things, such as 
 preferments, glory, magnificent buildings, clothing and 
 adornment of the body; and not to take an extreme delight 
 in a soul endued with virtue, in such a soul as can either 
 love, or (so to speak) love in return ? for there is nothing 
 more delightful than the repayment of kindness, and the 
 interchange of devotedness and good offices. Now if we add 
 this, which may with propriety be added, that there is 
 nothing which so allures and draws any object to itself as 
 congeniality does friendship ; it will of course be admitted 
 as true that the good must love the good, and unite them to 
 themselves, just as if connected by relationship and nature ; 
 for nothing is more apt to seek and seize on its like than
 
 102 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. xnr. 
 
 nature. Wherefore this certainly is clear, Fannius and 
 Scaavola, (in my opinion), that among the good a liking for 
 the good is, as it were, inevitable ; and this indeed is ap- 
 pointed by nature herself as the very fountain of friendship. 1 
 But the same kind disposition belongs also to the multitude ; 
 for virtue is not inhuman, or cruel, or haughty, since she is 
 accustomed to protect even whole nations, and to adopt the 
 best measures for their welfare, which assuredly she would 
 not do did she shrink from the affection of the vulgar. And 
 to myself, indeed, those who form friendships with a view 
 to advantage, seem to do away with its most endearing 
 bond ; for it is not so much the advantage obtained through 
 a friend, as the mere love of that friend, which delights ; and 
 (hen only what has proceeded from a friend becomes de- 
 lightful, if it has proceeded from zealous affection : and that 
 friendship should be cultivated from a sense of necessity, is 
 so far from being the case, that those who, being endowed 
 with power and wealth, and especially with virtue (in 
 which is the strongest support of friendship), have least 
 need of another, are most liberal and generous. Yet I am 
 not sure whether it is requisite that friends should never 
 stand in any need ; for wherein would any devotedness of 
 mine to him have been exerted, if Scipio had never stood 
 in need of my advice or assistance at home or abroad ? 
 
 1 " Of all attachments to an individual, that which is founded alto- 
 gether upon esteem and approbation of his good conduct and behavior, 
 confirmed by much experience and long acquaintance, is by far the most 
 respectable. Such friendship arising, not from a constrained sympathy, 
 not from a sympathy which has been assumed and rendered habitual for 
 the sake of convenience and accommodation, but from a natural sympa- 
 thy, from an involuntary feeling that the persons to whom we attach 
 ourselves are the natural and proper objects of esteem and approbation, 
 can exist only among men of virtue. Men of virtue only can feel that 
 entire confidence in the conduct and behavior of one another which can 
 at all times assure them that they can never either offend or be offended 
 by one another : vice is always capricious; virtue only is regular and 
 orderly. The attachment which is founded upon the love of virtue, as it 
 is certainly of all attachments the most virtuous, so it is likewise tho 
 happiest, as well as the most permanent and serene. Such friendships 
 need not be confined to a single person, but may safely embrace all tho 
 wise and virtuous with whom wo have been long and intimately ac- 
 quainted, and upon whoso wisdom and virtue we can upon that account 
 entirely depend." Smith's Moral Sentiments, Part VI.
 
 CHAP. xv. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 193 
 
 Wherefore friendship has not followed upon advantage, but 
 advantage on friendship. 
 
 XV. Persons, therefore, who are wallowing in indulgence, 
 will not need to be listened to if ever they shall descant 
 upon friendship, which they have known neither by ex- 
 perience nor by theory. For who is there, by the faith of 
 gods and men, who would desire, on the conditon of his 
 loving no one, and himself being loved by none, to roll in 
 affluence, and live in a superfluity of all things ? For this is 
 the life of tyrants, in which undoubtedly there can be no 
 confidence, no affection, no steady dependence on attach- 
 ment; all is perpetually mistrust and disquietude there is 
 no room for friendship. For who can love either him 
 whom he fears, or him by whom he thinks he himself is 
 feared ? Yet are they courted, solely in hypocrisy, for a 
 time ; because, if perchance (as it frequently happens) they 
 have been brought low, then it is perceived how desti- 
 tute they were of friends. And this, they say, Tarquin 1 
 expressed ; that when going into exile, he found out whom 
 he had as faithful friends, and whom unfaithful ones, since 
 then he could no longer show gratitude to either party; 
 although I wonder that, with such haughtiness and hn- 
 patienco of temper, he could find one at all. And as the 
 character of the individual whom I have mentioned could 
 not obtain true friends, so the riches of many men of rank 
 exclude all faithful friendship; for not only is fortune blind 
 herself, but she commonly renders blind those whom she 
 embraces. Accordingly such persons are commonly puffed 
 up with pride and insolence, nor can any thing bo found 
 more intolerable than a fortunate fool. And thus, indeed, 
 one may observe, that those who before WCTJ of agreeable 
 character, by military command, by preferment, by pros- 
 perity, are changed, and old friendships are despised by 
 them, and new ones cherished. For what can be more 
 foolish than, when men are possessed of great influence by 
 their wealth, power, and resources, to procure other things 
 which are procured by money horses, slaves, rich apparel, 
 
 1 Tarquinius, surnamod Suporbus, the seventh and last king of Rome. 
 After reigning twenty-five years, ho was banished, about B.C. 509, in 
 consequence of the rape of Lucretia. The republican form of government 
 was established at Rome after the expulsion of Tarquin. 
 
 9
 
 194 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. xvi. 
 
 costly vases and not to procure friends, the most valuable 
 and fairest furniture of life, if I may so speak ; for while 
 they are procuring those things, they know not for whom 
 they are procuring them, nor for whose sake they are laboring. 1 
 For every one of these things belongs to him who is most 
 powerful, whereas the possession of his friendships is preserved 
 to every one steadfast and secure ; so that if those things are 
 preserved which are, rs it were, the gifts of fortune, yet a life un- 
 adorned and abandoned by friends can not possibly be happy. 
 But on this head enough 
 
 XVI. But it is required to lay down what limits there are 
 in friendship, and, as it were, what bounds of loving, con- 
 cerning which I see three opinions held, of none of which I 
 approve : the first, that we should be affected toward a 
 friend in the same manner as toward ourselves ; the second, 
 that our good-will toward our friends should exactly and 
 equally answer to their good-will toward us ; the third, that 
 at whatever value a man sets himself, at the same he should 
 be estimated by his friends. To none of these three opinions 
 do I entirely assent. For the first one is not true, that as a 
 man feels toward himself so he should be disposed toward 
 his friend. For how many things, which for our own sake 
 we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our 
 friends 1 To ask favors of unworthy persons, to supplicate 
 them, to inveigh bitterly against any one, and to accuse him 
 with great vehemence, which in our own cases can not be done 
 creditably, in the case of our friends are most honorably 
 done ; and there are many cases in which good men subtract 
 many things from their own interests, or allow them to bo 
 subtracted, that their friends, rather than themselves, may 
 enjoy them. The second opinion is that which limits friend- 
 ship to an equality of kind actions and kind wishes : this is 
 indeed to reduce friendship to figures too minutely and penu- 
 riously, so that there may be a balance of received and paid. 
 True friendship seems to be far too rich and affluent for that, 
 and not to observe, narrowly, lest it should pay more than it 
 receives : nor need it be feared lest any thing should be lost 
 
 * In this, as in many other passages, Uicero has written the sentiment 
 and almost the language of the Scriptures : "He heapeth up riches, and 
 knoweth not who shall gather them."
 
 CHAP. XVIL CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 195 
 
 or fall to the ground, or lest more than what is fair should 
 be accumulated on the side of friendship. But the third 
 limitation is most detestable, that at whatever value a man 
 sets on himself, at that value he should be estimated by his 
 friends; for often, in certain persons, either their spirit is 
 too humble, or their hope of improving their condition too 
 desponding; it is not, therefore, the part of a friend to be 
 toward him what he is to himself; but rather to use every 
 effort, and to contrive to cheer the prostrate spirit of his 
 friend, and to encourage better hopes and thoughts. There- 
 fore I must lay down some other limit of true friendship, as 
 soon as I shall have stated what Scipio was accustomed 
 above all things to reprehend. He used to declare that no 
 speech could be found more hostile to friendship, than his 
 who had said that a man ought so to love as if one day he 
 would come to hate. 1 Nor, indeed, could he be induced to 
 believe that this, as was supposed, was said by Bias, 2 who 
 was considered one of the seven wise men ; but that it was 
 the opinion of some wicked or ambitious man, or one who 
 sought to bring every thing under his own power. For in 
 what manner can any one be a friend to him to whom he 
 thinks he may possibly become an enemy I Moreover, it will 
 follow that he desires and wishes his friend to do wrong as 
 often as possible, that ho may afford him, as it were, so many 
 handles for reproach. And, again, at the right conduct and 
 advantage of his friends he will necessarily be tormented, 
 grieved, and jealous. Wherefore this precept, to whomso- 
 ever it belongs, is powerful only for the destruction of friend- 
 ship. This, rather, should have been the precept, that we 
 should employ such carefulness in forming our friendships, 
 that we should not any time begin to love the man whom wo 
 could ever possibly hate. Moreover, if we have been but 
 unfortunate in our selection, Scipio was of opinion that this 
 should be submitted to, rather than that a time of alienation 
 should ever be contemplated. 
 
 XVII. I think, therefore, we must adopt these limitations, 
 that when the character of friends is correct, then there 
 
 1 Si aliquando esset oranw. This sentiment is taken from the Ajar of 
 Sophocles. 
 
 2 Bias, one of the seven wise men of Greece ; born at Priene. H 
 flourished about B.C. 570.
 
 196 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP, xvit 
 
 should bo a community between them of all things, of pur- 
 pose and of will, without any exception ; so that, even if by 
 any chance it has happened that the less honorable wishes 
 of our friends have to be forwarded, in which either their 
 life is concerned, or their reputation, then you may decline a 
 little from the straight path, 1 provided only extreme infamy 
 do not follow ; for there is a point to which indulgence may 
 be granted to friendship : yet reputation must not be disre- 
 garded ; nor ought we to esteem the good-will of our fellow- 
 countrymen as an engine of small value in the administration 
 of the state, although to seek it by fawning and flattering is 
 mean indeed ; yet virtue, on which affection is consequent, 
 should by no means be rejected. But frequently (for I 
 return to Scipio, the whole of whose discourse was concern- 
 ing friendship) he used to complain, that in all other things 
 men were comparatively careful ; so that every man could 
 tell how many goats or how many sheep he possessed, yet 
 how many friends he had he could not tell ; and in procuring 
 the former, men employed carefulness, while in selecting 
 their friends they were negligent, nor had they, as it were, 
 any signs or marks by which they determined who were 
 suited for friendship. The steadfast, then, and the steady, 
 and the consistent are to be selected, of which class of 
 persons there is a great scarcity; and, in truth, it is difficult 
 for any one to judge, unless after he is experienced. Now 
 the trial must be made in actual friendship ; thus friendship 
 outstrips judgment, and removes the power of making ex- 
 periments. It is the part, therefore, of a prudent man, to 
 check the impetus of his kindly feeling as he would his 
 chariot, that we may have our friendships, like our horses, 
 
 1 " Something indeed, not unlike the doctrine of the casuists, seems to 
 have been attempted by several philosophers. There is something of thia 
 kind in the third book of Cicero's Offices, where he endeavors, like a 
 casuist, to give rules for our conduct in many nice cases in which it is 
 difficult to determine whereabouts the point of propriety may lie. It 
 appears too from many passages in the same book, that several other 
 philosophers had attempted something of the same kind before hinx. 
 Neither he nor they, however, appeared to have aimed at giving a com- 
 plete system of this sort, but only meant to show how situations may 
 occur in which it is doubtful whether the highest propriety of conduct 
 consists in observing or in receding from what in ordinary cases are tha 
 rulea of duty." Smith's " Moral Philosophy," Part vii.
 
 CHAP. XVIIL CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 197 
 
 fully proved, when the character of our friends lias been in 
 some measure tested. Of some, it is often discovered in 
 small sums of money how void of worth they are. Some, 
 whom a small sum could not influence, are discovered in the 
 case of a large one. But, even if some shall be found who 
 think it sordid to prefer money to friendship, where should 
 we find those who do not place above friendship high digni- 
 ties, magistracies, military command, civil authorities, and 
 influence ? so that, when on the one side these objects have 
 been proposed, and the claim of friendship on the other, 
 they would not far prefer the former. For nature is too weak 
 to despise the possession of power ; for, even if they have 
 attained it by the slighting of friendship, they think the act 
 will be thrown into the shade, because friendship was not 
 overlooked without strong grounds. Therefore real friend- 
 ships are found with most difficulty among those who are in- 
 vested with high offices, or in business of the state. For 
 where can you find the man who would prefer his friend's 
 advancement to his own ? And why ? For to pass over 
 these matters, how grievous, how impracticable to most men 
 does participation in afflictions appear ! to which it is not 
 easy to find the man who will descend. Although Ennius 1 
 truly says, " A sure friend is discerned in an unsure matter." 
 Yet these two charges of inconstancy and of weakness con- 
 demn most men : either in their prosperity they despise a 
 friend, or in his troubles they desert him. 
 
 XVIII. He who, therefore, shall have shown himself in both 
 cases as regards friendship, worthy, consistent, and steadfast ; 
 such a one we ought to esteem of a class of persons ex- 
 tremely rare, nay, almost godlike. Now, the foundation of 
 that steadfastness and constancy, which we seek in friendship, 
 is sincerity. For nothing is steadfast which is insincere. 
 Besides, it is right that one should be chosen who is frank, and 
 good-natured, and congenial in his sentiments ; one, in fact, who 
 is influenced by the same motives ; all which qualities have a 
 tendency to create sincerity. For it is impossible for a wily anr.1 
 
 1 Ennius, a Latin poet, born at Rudii, in Calabria, Flo wrote, in heroic 
 verse, eighteen books of the Annals of the Roman Republic, which are 
 frequently quoted by Cicero. Ho was the intimate friend of Cato and 
 Scipio ; the former of whom he accompanied when qacstor of Sardinia, 
 His death took place about 170 years before the Christian era
 
 198 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP, xix 
 
 tortuous disposition to be sincere. Nor in truth can the man 
 who has no sympathy from nature, and who is not moved by the 
 same considerations, be either attached or steady. To the same 
 requisites must be added, that he shall neither take delight in 
 bringing forward charges, nor believe them when they arise ; 
 all which causes belong to that consistent principle, of which 
 now for some time I have been treating. Thus the remark 
 is true, which I made at first, that friendship can only exist 
 among the good : for it is the part of a good man (whom at 
 the same time we may call a wise man) to observe these two 
 rules in friendship : first, that there shall be nothing pre- 
 tended or simulated (for even to hate openly better becomes 
 the ingenuous man, than by his looks to conceal his sen- 
 timents) ; in the next place, that not only does he repel 
 charges when brought (against his friends) by any one, but 
 is not himself suspicious, ever fancying that some infidelity 
 has been committed by his friend. To all this there should 
 be added a certain suavity of conversation and manners, 
 affording as it does no inconsiderable zest to friendship. 
 Now solemnity and gravity on all occasions, certainly, carry 
 with them dignity; but friendship ought to be easier and 
 more free and more pleasant, and tending more to every kind 
 of politeness and good nature. 
 
 XIX. But there arises on this subject a soir.owhat difficult 
 question; whether ever new friends, if deseving friendship, 
 are to be preferred to old ones, just as we are wont to prefer 
 young colte to old horses ? a perplexity unworthy of a man ; 
 for there ought to be no satiety of friendship as of other 
 things : every thing which is oldest (as those wines which 
 bear age well) ought to be sweetest ; and that is true which 
 is sometimes said, " many bushels of salt must be eaten 
 together," before the duty of friendship can be fulfilled. But 
 new friendships, if they afford a hope that, as in the case of 
 plants which never disappoint, fruits shall appear, such are 
 not to be rejected ; yet the old one must be preserved in its 
 proper place, for the power of age and custom is exceedingly 
 great ; besides, in the very case of the horse, which I just 
 mentioned, if there is no impediment, there is no one who 
 does not more pleasurably use that to which he is accustomed 
 than one unbroken and strange to him ; and habits asserts its 
 power, and habit prevails, not only in the case of this, which
 
 CHAP. xx. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 199 
 
 is animate, but also in the cases of those things which are 
 inanimate, since we take delight in the very mountainous or 
 woody scenery among which we have long dwelt. But it is 
 of the greatest importance in friendship that the superior 
 should be on an equality with the inferior. For there often 
 are instances of superiority, as was the case with Scipio, one, 
 so to speak, of our own herd. He never ranked himself 
 above Philus, or Rupilius, or Mummius, or other friends of 
 an inferior grade. But his brother, Quintus Maximus, a 
 distinguished man, though by no means equal to himself, 
 simply because he was the elder, he treated as his superior, 
 and he wished all his friends should receive additional dignity 
 through him. And this conduct should be adopted and 
 imitated by all, so that if they have attained to any excellence 
 in worth, genius, or fortune, they should communicate them 
 with their friends, and share them with their connections ; so 
 that if men have been born of humble parentage, or if they 
 have kinsmen less powerful than themselves, either in mind 
 or in fortune, they should increase the consequence of such 
 persons, and be to them a source of credit and of dignity ; as 
 io works of fiction, they who for some time, through igno- 
 rance of their origin and descent, have been in a state of 
 servitude, when they have been discovered and found out to 
 be the sons of gods or kings, yet retain their affection for the 
 shepherds, whom for many years they looked upon as their 
 parents. And this assuredly is much rather to be observed in 
 the case of parents that are real and undoubted. For the fruit 
 of talent, and worth, and every excellence, is gathered most 
 fully when it is bestowed on every one most nearly connected 
 with us. 
 
 XX. As therefore those who are superior in the con- 
 nection of friendship and of union, ought to put themselves 
 on a level with their inferiors ; so ought the inferiors not to 
 grieve that they are surpassed by their friends either in 
 genius, or fortune, or rank : whereas most of them are always 
 either complaining of something, or even breaking out into 
 reproaches ; and so much the more if they think they have 
 any thing which they can say was done by them in an 
 obliging and friendly manner with some exertion on their 
 part. A disgusting set of people assuredly they are who are 
 ever reproaching you with their services ; which the man on
 
 200 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. xx. 
 
 whom they are conferred ought indeed to remember, but he 
 who conferred them ought not to call them to mind. Where- 
 fore, as those who are superior ought in the exercise of 
 friendship to condescend ; so, in a measure, they ought to 
 raise up their inferiors. For there are some persons who 
 render friendships with them annoying, while they fancy 
 they are slighted : this does not commonly happen except to 
 those who think themselves liable to be slighted ; and from 
 this belief they require to be relieved, not only by your pro- 
 fessions but by your actions. Now, first of all, so much 
 advantage is to be bestowed on each as you yourself can pro- 
 duce ; and in the next place, as much as he whom you love 
 and assist can bear ; for you could not, however eminent you 
 might be, bring all your friends to the very highest honor ; 
 just as Scipio had power to make Publius Rutulius consul, 
 but could not do the same for his brother Lucius : indeed, 
 even if you have the power to confer what you please on 
 another, yet you must consider what he can bear. On the 
 whole, those connections only can be considered as friend- 
 ships, when both the dispositions and age have been es- 
 tablished and matured. Nor, when persons have been in 
 early life attached to hunting or tennis, are they bound to 
 make intimates of those Avhom at that time they loved, as 
 being endowed with the same taste : for on that principle, 
 our nurses and the tutors of our childhood, by right of 
 priority, will claim the greatest part of our affection ; who, 
 indeed, should not be neglected, but possess our regard in 
 some other manner : otherwise friendships could not continue 
 steadfast. For dissimilar habits and dissimilar pursuits 
 ensue; the dissimilarity of which severs friendships: it is 
 for no other cause that the good can not be friends of the 
 worthless, or the worthless of the good ; but that there is 
 between them the greatest difference that can subsist of char- 
 acters and pursuits. For in friendships this precept may 
 be properly laid down, not to let ill-regulated affection (as 
 often is the case) thwart and impede the great usefulness of 
 friends : nor in truth (to revert to fiction) could Neoptolemus 1 
 1 Neoptolemus, a surname of Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles. He was so 
 called because he came to the Trojan war in the last year of the siege 
 of Troy. According to the fetes, Troy could not be taken without hia 
 assistance. His mother, Deidamia, was the daughter of Lycomedea, 
 king of the island of Scyros.
 
 CHAP. XXL CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 201 
 
 have taken Troy if he had been inclined to listen to Lycornedes, 
 with whom he had been brought up, when with many tears ho 
 sought to prevent his journey : and often important occasions 
 arise, so that you must bid farewell to your friends ; and he who 
 would hinder them, because he can not easily bear the regret 
 for their loss, such an one is both Aveak and effeminate by 
 nature, and on that ground unjust in his friendship. And in 
 every case it is necessary to consider, both what you would ask 
 of a friend, and what favor you would permit to be obtained 
 from yourself. 
 
 XXI. There is a kind of calamity also, sometimes inevi- 
 table, in the discarding of friendships. For at length our 
 discourse descends, from the intimacies of the wise, to ordinary 
 friendships. The faults of friends often break out as well on 
 the friends themselves as on strangers ; and yet the disgrace 
 of such persons must redound to their friends : such friend- 
 ships therefore must be dissolved by the intermission of 
 intercourse, and (as I have heard Cato say) should be 
 ripped rather than rent ; unless some intolerable sense of 
 wrong has been kindled, so that it is neither right, nor cred- 
 itable, nor possible that an estrangement and separation 
 should not take place immediately. But if any change of 
 character or pursuits (as commonly happens) shall have taken 
 place, or quarrel arisen with respect to political parties (for 
 I speak now, as I observed a little before, not of the friend- 
 ships of the wise but of such as are ordinary), we should 
 have to be cautious, lest not only friendships be found to be 
 laid aside, but even animosity to have been incurred ; for 
 nothing can be more disgraceful than to be at war with him 
 with whom you have lived on terms of friendship. From 
 his friendship with Quintus Pompey, 1 Scipio had withdrawn 
 himself on my account 3 (as you know) ; moreover, on account 
 of the dissension which existed in the republic, he was 
 estranged from my colleague Metellus ; 3 on both occasions ho 
 
 1 Quintus Pompeius a consul, who carried on war against tho Numan- 
 tines, and made an ignominious treaty. He is tho first of that noble 
 family of whom mention is made. 
 
 2 Meo nomine, on my account; desiderium expresses a "feeling of 
 want," or " regret for the loss of any one." 
 
 3 Jfetettus, a Roman general, who defeated tho Achajans, and invaded 
 Macedonia. 
 
 ft*
 
 202 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. XXIL 
 
 acted with dignity and decision, and with an offended but 
 not bitter feeling. Wherefore, in the first place, pains must 
 be taken that there be no alienation of friends ; but if aught 
 of the kind shall have occurred, that that friendship should 
 seem rather to have died away than to have been violently 
 destroyed. In truth we must take care lest friendship turn 
 into bitter hostilities ; from which quarrels, hard language, 
 and insults are produced, and yet if they shall be bearable, 
 they must be borne ; and thus much honor should be paid 
 to an old friendship, that he shall be in fault who inflicts tho 
 injury, and not he who suffers it. On the whole, against all 
 such faults and inconveniences there is one precaution and 
 one provision, that we should not begin to love too hastily, 
 nor love unworthy persons. Now they arc worthy of friend- 
 ship in whom there exists a reason why they should be loved ; 
 a rare class (for in truth all that is excellent is rare) ; nor is 
 aught more difficult than to find any thing which in every 
 respect is perfect of its kind : but most men recognize noth- 
 ing as good in human affairs but what is profitable ; and 
 with their friends, as with cattle, they love those most espe- 
 cially from whom they hope they will receive most ad- 
 .vantage ; and thus they are destitute of that most beautiful 
 and most natural friendship, which is desirable for itself and 
 of itself; nor do they exemplify to themselves what ana how 
 powerful this quality of friendship is. For every one loves 
 himself, not that he may exact from himself some reward of 
 his affection, but that, for his own sake, every one is dear to 
 himself. And unless this same principle be transferred to friend- 
 ship, a true friend will never be found ; for such an one is, as 
 it were, a second self. Now, if this is apparent in beasts, birds, 
 fishes, creatures of the field, tame and wild, that first they love 
 themselves (for the principle is alike born with every living 
 thing) ; in the next place, that they seek out and desire some 
 creatures of the same species to which they may unite them- 
 selves, and do this with desire, and with a kind of resemblance 
 to human love ; how much more naturally does this take place 
 in man by nature, who not only loves himself, but seeks for 
 another whose soul he may so mingle with his own, as almost 
 to create one person out of two ? 
 
 XXII. Yet most men, perversely, not to say shamelessly, 
 desire to have a friend, such as they themselves are unable
 
 CHAP. xxir. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 203 
 
 to be ; and allowances which they themselves make not for 
 their friends, they require from them. Now, the fair thing 
 is, first that a man himself should be good, and then that he 
 should seek another like to himself. Among such persons, 
 there may be established that solidity of friendship which I 
 have long been treating on; when men are united by 
 benevolent feeling, they will first of all master those 
 passions to which others are slaves ; next, they will take 
 pleasure in equity and justice, and the one will undertake 
 every thing for the other ; nor will the one ever ask of the 
 other any thing but what is honorable and right : nor will 
 they only mutually regard and love each other, but even have 
 a feeling of respect ; for he removes the greatest ornament 
 of friendship, who takes away from it respect. Accordingly, 
 there is a pernicious error in those Avho think that a free in- 
 dulgence in all lusts and sins is extended in friendship. 
 Friendship was given us by nature as the handmaid of 
 virtues, and not as the companion of our vices : that since, 
 alone and unaided, virtue could not arrive at the highest 
 attainments, she might be able to do so when united and 
 associated with another ;' and if such a society between any 
 persons either exists or has existed, or is likely to do so, 
 their companionship is to be esteemed, in respect of the chief 
 good in life, most excellent and most happy. This, I say, is 
 that association in which all things exist which men deem 
 worthy the pursuit reputation, high esteem, peace of mind, 
 and cheerfulness ; so that where these blessings are present, 
 life is happy, and without these can not be so. And whereas 
 
 1 " But it is not merely as a source of pleasure, or as a relief from pain, 
 that virtuous friendship is to be coveted, it is as much recommended by 
 its utility. He who has made the acquisition of a judicious and sympa- 
 thizing friend, may bo said to have doubled his mental resources : by as- 
 sociating an equal, perhaps a supremo mind with his own, ho has pro- 
 vided the means of strengthening his reason, of perfecting his counsels, 
 of discerning and correcting his errors. He can have recourse at all 
 times to the judgment and assistance of one who, with the same power 
 of discernment with himself, comes to the decision of a question with a 
 mind neither harassed with the perplexities, nor heated with the passions 
 which so frequently obscure the perception of our true interests. Next 
 to the immediate guidance of God by his Spirit, the counsel and encour- 
 agement of virtuous and enlightened fiiends afford the most powerful 
 aid in the encounter of temptation and in the career of duty. " Hall's 
 Funeral Sermon for Dr. Ryland.
 
 204 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. xxni. 
 
 this is the best and highest of objects, if we would gain it, 
 attention must be paid to virtue ; without which we can 
 neither obtain friendship nor any thing Avorthy of pursuit: 
 indeed, should this be disregarded, they who think they pos- 
 sess friends, too late find that they are mistaken, when some 
 grievous misfortune compels them to m:.ke the trial. Where- 
 fore (for I must say it again and again) when you have formed 
 your judgment, then it behooves you to give your affections ; 
 and not when you have given your affections, then to form 
 the judgment ; but while in many cases we suffer for our care- 
 lessness, so especially in choosing and cultivating friends ; for 
 we adopt a preposterous plan, and set about doing what has 
 been already done, which we are forbidden by the old proverb 
 to do. For, being entangled on every side, either by daily in- 
 tercourse or else by kind offices, suddenly, in the middle of our 
 course, on some offense arising, we break off our friendships 
 altogether. 9 
 
 XXIII. Wherefore so much the more is this great negli- 
 gence to be blamed in a matter of the highest necessity. For 
 friendship is the only point in human affairs, concerning the 
 benefit of which, all with one voice agree ; although by 
 many virtue herself is despised, and is said to be a mere 
 bragging and ostentation. Many persons despise riches ; for, 
 being content with a little, moderate food and a moderate 
 style of living delights them ; as to high offices, in truth, 
 with the ambitious desire of which some men are inflamed, 
 how many men so completely disregard them that they think 
 nothing is more vain and more trifling : and likewise there 
 are those who reckon as nothing other things which to 
 some men seem worthy of admiration :' concerning friend- 
 
 1 Among these may bo mentioned Lord Bacon, not only as one of thoso 
 to whom Cicero here is especially referring, but as one who himself held 
 the highest office to which the ambition of a subject could aspire. In 
 his eleventh essay, entitled, " Of great place," he makes the following 
 observations : " Men in great place are thrice servants ; servants of the 
 sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business, so as they 
 have no freedom neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their 
 times. It is a strange desire to seek power and lose liberty, or to seek 
 power over others and to lose power over a man's self. The rising unto 
 place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains, and it is 
 sometimes base and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing 
 is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall or at least an eclipse, 
 which is a melancholy thing ; ' cum non sis qui fueris non ^sse cur veiia
 
 CHAP, XHIL CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 205 
 
 ship, all to a man have the same opinion. Those who have 
 devoted themselves to political affairs, and those who find 
 pleasure in knowledge and learning, and those who transact 
 their own affairs at their leisure, and lastly, those who have 
 given themselves wholly up to pleasure, feel that with- 
 out friendship life is nothing, at least if they are inclined 
 in any degree to live respectably ; for somehow or other, 
 friendship entwines itself with the life of all men, nor does 
 it suffer any mode of spending our life to be independent of 
 itself. Moreover, if there is any one of such ferocity and 
 brutality of nature that he shuns and hates the intercourse 
 of mankind, such as we have heard that one Timon 1 was at 
 Athens ; yet even he can not possibly help looking out for 
 some one on whom he may disgorge the venom of his ill- 
 nature. And this would be most clearly decided if something 
 of this kind could happen that some god should remove us 
 from the crowded society of men, and place us somewhere 
 in solitude, and there supplying us with abundance 
 and plenty of all things which nature requires, yet 
 should take from us altogether the opportunity of seeing a 
 human being ; who would then be so insensible that he 
 could endure such a life, and from whom would not solitude 
 take away the enjoyment of all pleasure ? Accordingly, 
 there is truth in that which I have heard our old men relate 
 to have been commonly said by Archytas of Tarcntum, 3 and 
 
 vivcro." Nay, retire men can not when they would, neither will they 
 when it were reason, but are impatient of privateness, even in ago and 
 sickness which require the shadow ; like old townsmen that will be still 
 sitting at their street door, though thereby they ofifer ago to scorn. Cer- 
 tainly, great persons had need to borrow other men's opinions to think 
 themselves happy, for if they judge by their own feeling they can not 
 find it, but if they think with themselves what other men think of them, 
 and that other men would fain bo as they are, then they are happy as it 
 were by report, when perhaps they find the contrary within ; for they 
 are the first that find their own griefs, though they bo the last that find 
 their own faults. Certainly, men in great fortunes are strangers to them- 
 selves, and while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no timo 
 to tend their own health, either of body or mind. ' Illi mora gravis in- 
 cubat qui notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi.' " Bacon's Essays, 
 Essay xi. 
 
 1 Timon, an Athenian, called the Misanthropy from his hatred of so- 
 ciety. Ho forms the subject of one of Shakespeare's playa, and of one 
 of Lucian's dialogues. 
 
 * Archytas of Tarentum, a Pythagorean philosopher, an ablo astrono-
 
 206 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. xxir. 
 
 I think heard by them from others their elders, that if any ono 
 could have ascended to the sky, and surveyed the structure of 
 universe, and the beauty of the stars, that such admiration 
 would be insipid to him ; and yet it would be most deligtful if 
 he had some one to whom he might describe it. 1 Thus nature 
 
 mer and geometrician. He perished by shipwreck, about B.C. 394. See 
 Horace, Book I. Ode 28. 
 
 1 Dugald Stewart classes this feeling among the natural and universal 
 principles of our constitution. " Abstracting," he says, " from those af- 
 fections which interest us in the happiness of others, and from all the 
 advantages which we ourselves derive from the social union wo are led 
 by a natural and instinctive desire to associate with our own species. 
 This principle is easily discernible in the minds of children, and it is com- 
 mon to man with many of the brutes. After experiencing, indeed, tho 
 pleasures of social life, tho influence of habit, and a knowledge of the 
 comforts inseparable from society, contribute greatly to strengthen the 
 instinctive desire, and hence some authors have been induced to display 
 their ingenuity by disputing its existence. Whatever opinion we form 
 on this speculative question, the desire of society is equally entitled to be 
 ranked among tho natural and universal principles of our constitution. 
 How very powerfully this principle of action operates, appears from the 
 effects of solitude upon the mind. "We feel ourselves in an unnatural state, 
 and by making companions of the lower animals, or by attaching our- 
 selves to inanimate objects, strive to fill up the void of which wo are 
 conscious." Stewart's Outlines of Moral Philosophy, part ii. chap. 1. 
 
 But while admitting the natural yearning of the human mind for com- 
 panionship, some modern philosophers, especially those of a graver and 
 more reflective character, have insisted on the importance of retirement 
 and frequent solitude. Thus, Dr. Johnson, tho great moralist of the last 
 generation, observes : " The love of retirement has in all ages adhered 
 closely to those minds which have been most enlarged by knowledge, or 
 elevated by genius. Those who enjoyed every thing generally supposed 
 to confer happiness, have been forced to seek it in tho shades of privacy. 
 Though they possessed both power and riches, and were therefore sur- 
 rounded by men who considered it as their chief interest to remove from 
 them every thing that might offend their ease, or interrupt their pleasure, 
 they have soon felt the languor of satiety, and found themselves unable 
 to pursue the race of life without frequent respirations of intermediate 
 solitude. To produce this disposition, nothing appears requisite but 
 quick sensibility and active imagination ; for though not devoted to virtues 
 or science, the man whose faculties enable him to make ready compar- 
 isons of the present with the past will find such a constant recurrence 
 of the same pleasure and troubles, the same expectations and disap- 
 pointments, that he will gladly snatch an hour of retreat to let his 
 thoughts expatiate at large, and seek for that variety in his own ideas 
 which the objects of sense can not afford him. These are some of tho 
 motives which have had power to sequester kings and heroes from the 
 crowds that soothed them with flatteries, or inspirited them with ac- 
 clamationa But their efficacy seems confined to tho higher mind, and
 
 CHAP. XXIT. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 207 
 
 loves nothing solitary, and always reaches out to something, as 
 a support, which ever in the sincerest friend is most delightful. 
 XXIV. But while nature declares by so many indications 
 what she likes, seeks after, and requires ; yet we turn, 1 
 know not how, a deaf ear, nor do we listen to those admon- 
 itions which we receive from her. For the intercourse of 
 friendship is various and manifold, and many occasions are 
 presented of suspicion and offense, which it is the part of 
 a wise man sometimes to wink at, sometimes to make light of, 
 or at others to endure. This one ground of offense must bo 
 mitigated in order that truth and sincerity in friendship may 
 be preserved; for friends require to be advised and to bo 
 reproved : and such treatment ought to be taken in a friendly 
 spirit, when it is kindly meant. But somehow or other it is 
 very true, what my dear friend Terence says in his Andria :' 
 " Complaisance begets friends, but truth ill-will." Truth is 
 grievous, if indeed ill-will arises from it, which is the bane 
 of friendship. But complaisance is much more grievous, 
 because it allows a friend to be precipitated into ruin, by 
 
 to operate little upon tho common classes of mankind, to whoso concep- 
 tions the present assemblage of things is adequate, and who seldom 
 range beyond those entertainments and vexation, which solicit theif 
 attention by pressing on their senses." Rambler, No. 7. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne, also, has a quaint but beautiful passage to tho 
 same effect: "Unthinking heads who have not learned to be alone, aro 
 in a prison to themselves, if they be not also with others ; whereas, on 
 the contrary, they whose thoughts aro in a fair and hurry within, aro 
 sometimes fain to retire into company to bo out of the crowd of them- 
 selves. He who must needs have company, must needs have sometimes 
 bad company. Be able to bo alone ; lose not tho advantage of solitude 
 and the society of thyself; nor bo only content but delight to be alono 
 and single with Omnipresency. He who is thus prepared, the day is not 
 uneasy, nor tho night black unto him. Darkness may bound his eyes, 
 not his imagination. In his bed ho may lie, like Pompey and his sons, 
 in all quarters of tho earth ; may speculate tho universe, and enjoy tho 
 whole world in the hermitage of himself. Thus, tho old ascetic Chris- 
 tians found a paradise in a desert, and with little converse on earth, held 
 a conversation in heaven ; thus they astronomized in caves, and though 
 they beheld not tho stars, had tho glory of heaven before them." 
 Christian Morals, part iii. sec. 9. 
 
 1 Andria, a play of Terence, who was a native of Carthage, and sold 
 as a slave to Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator. He was on terms of 
 intimacy with Scipio, the elder Africanus, and Laelius. He is said to 
 have translated 108 of tho comedies of tho poet Menander, six only of 
 which aro extant. lie died about r.c. 1 50.
 
 208 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. xxir. 
 
 yielding to his faults. 1 But the greatest of all faults is 
 chargeable on him who disregards truth, and tLas by com- 
 plaisance is led into dishonesty. Accordingly, in managing 
 this whole matter, carefulness and diligence must be employed : 
 first, that our advice may be free from bitterness, and next, 
 that reproof may be unattended by insult : in our complai- 
 sance, however (since I gladly adopt the saying of Terence), 
 let there bo a kindness of manner, let flattery, however, the 
 handmaid of vices, be far removed, since it is not only 
 unworthy of a friend, but even of a free man : for you live 
 after one fashion with a tyrant, after another with a friend. 
 Now where a man's ears arc shut against the truth, so that 
 he can not hear the truth from a friend, the welfare of such a 
 one is to be despaired of: for the following remark of Cat* 
 is shrewd, as many of his are, " that bitter enemies deserve 
 better at the hands of some, than those friends who seem 
 agreeable : that the former often speak the truth, the latter 
 never." And it is an absurd thing, that those who receive 
 advice, do not experience that annoyance which they ought to 
 
 1 " The duty which leads us to seek tho moral reformation of our friend 
 wherever we perceive an imperfection that requires to be removed, is, as 
 I have said, the highest duty of friendship, because it is a duty that has 
 for its object the highest good which it is in our power to confer ; and 
 he who refrains from the necessary endeavor, because he fears to give 
 pain to one whom he loves, is guilty of the same weakness which in a 
 case of bodily accident or disease would withhold the salutary potion 
 because it is nauseous, or the surgical operation which is to preserve life, 
 and to preserve it with comfort, because the use of the instrument which 
 is to be attended with relief and happiness implies a little momentary ad- 
 dition of suffering. To abstain from every moral effort of this sort in tho 
 mere fear of offending, is, from tho selfishness of the motive, a still 
 greater breach of duty, and almost, too, a still greater weakness. Ho 
 whom we truly offend by such gentle admonitions as friendship dictates, 
 admonitions of which the chief authority is sought in the very excel- 
 lence of him whom wo wish to make still more excellent, is not worthy 
 of the friendship which wo have wasted on him ; and if wo thus lose his 
 friendship we are delivered from one who could not be sincere in his past 
 professions of regard, and whose treachery therefore wo might afterward 
 have had reason to lament. If he be worthy of us ho will not love us 
 less, but love us more; he will feel that wo have done that which it was 
 our duty to do, and wo shall have tho double gratification of witnessing 
 tho amendment which we desired, and of knowing that wo have con- 
 tributed to an effect which was almost like the removal of a vice from 
 ourselves, or a virtue added to our own moral character." Dr. Brown's 
 " Moral Philosophy," lecture Ixxxix.
 
 CHAP. xzv. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 205) 
 
 feel, but feel that from which they ought to be free ; for they are 
 not distressed because they have done wrong ; but take it amiss 
 that they are rebuked : whereas, on the contrary, they ought to 
 be sorry for their misconduct, and to be glad at its correction. 
 XXV. As, therefore, both to give and to receive advice is 
 ihe characteristic of true friendship, and that the one should 
 perform his part with freedom but not harshly, and the 
 other should receive it patiently and not with recrimination ; 
 BO it should be considered that there is no greater bane to 
 friendship than adulation, fawning, and flattery. 1 For this 
 vice should be branded under as many names as possible, 
 being that of worthless and designing men, who say every 
 thing with a view of pleasing, and nothing with regard to 
 truth. Now while hypocrisy in all things is blamable (for 
 it does away with all judgment of truth, and adulterates 
 truth itself), so especially is it repugnant to friendship, for it 
 destroys all truth, without which the name of friendship can 
 avail nothing. For since the power of friendship consists in 
 this, that one soul is as it were made of many, how could 
 that take place if there should not be in any one a soul, one 
 and the same always, but fickle, changeable, and manifold ? 
 For what can be so pliant, so inconsistent, as the soul of that 
 man, who veers not only to the feelings and wishes, but even 
 to the look and very nod of another. " Does any one say, 
 ' No ?' so do I ; says any, ' Yes ?' so do I : in a word, I have 
 
 1 " Ho that is too desirous to bo loved," says Dr. Johnson, "will soon 
 learn to flatter ; and when he has exhausted all the variations of honest 
 praise, and can delight no longer with the civility of truth, he will invent 
 new topics of panegyric, and break out into raptures at virtues and 
 beauties conferred by himself. It is scarcely credible to what degree 
 discernment may bo dazzled by the mist of pride, and wisdom infatuated 
 by the intoxication of flattery ; or how low the genius may descend by 
 successive gradations of servility, and how swiftly it may fall down tho 
 precipice of falsehood. No man can indeed observe without indignation 
 on what names, both of ancient and modern times, the utmost exube- 
 rance of praise has been lavished, and by what hands it has been be- 
 stowed. It has never yet been found that tho tyrant, the plunderer, the 
 oppressor, tho most hateful of the hateful, tho most profligate of the 
 profligate, have been denied any celebrations which they were willing to 
 purchase, or that wickedness and folly havo not found correspondent 
 flatterers through all their subordinations, except when they have been 
 associated with avarice or poverty, and have wanted either inclination 
 or ability to hire a panegyrist." Rambler, No. 104.
 
 210 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP, xxv 
 
 charged myself to assent to every thing," ' as the same 
 Terence says ; but he speaks in the character of Gnatho," 
 and to select a friend of this character is an act of down- 
 right folly. And there are many like Gnatho, though his 
 superiors in rank, fortune, and character ; the flattery of 
 such people is offensive indeed, since respectability is associ- 
 ated with duplicity. Now, a fawning friend may be distin- 
 guished from a true one, and discerned by the employment 
 of diligence, just as every thing which is falsely colored and 
 counterfeit, from what is genuine and true. The assembly 
 of the people, which consists of the most ignorant persons, 
 yet can decide what difference there is between the seeker 
 after popular applause, the flatterer and the worthless citizen, 
 and one who is consistent, dignified, and worthy. With what 
 flatteries did Curius Papirius lately insinuate himself into 
 the ears of the assembly, when he sought to pass an act to 
 re-elect the tribunes of the people ? I opposed it. But 
 I say nothing of myself; I speak with greater pleasure con- 
 cerning Scipio. O immortal gods ! what dignity was his ! 
 what majesty in his speech ! so that you might readily pro- 
 nounce him the leader of the Roman people, and not their 
 associate : but you were present, and the speech is still 
 extant : accordingly, this act, meant to please the people, was 
 rejected by the votes of the people. But, to return to 
 myself, you remember when Quintus Maximus, brother of 
 Scipio, and Lucius Mancius were consuls, how popular the 
 sacerdotal act of Caius Licinius Crassus seem to be ; for 
 
 1 Shakespeare has exhibited a precisely similar character in the follow- 
 ing dialogue between Hamlet and Osrick : 
 
 " Ham. Your bonnet to its right use ; 't is for the head. Os. I thank 
 your lordship, 'tis very hot. Ham. No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the 
 wind is northerly. Os, It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed. Ham, 
 But yet, methinks, it is very sultry hot ; or my complexion Os. Ex- 
 cedingly, my lord, it is very sultry, as it were I can not tell how." 
 Hamlet, V., Scene 2. 
 Bo Juvenal too : 
 
 " Natio comoeda est. Rides? Major cachinno 
 Concutitur. Flet, si lachrymas conspexit amici 
 Nee dolet ; igniculum brumae si tempore poscas 
 Accipit endromidem : si dixeris, aestuo, sudat." 
 
 Sat. III. Ver. 100-103. 
 
 2 Gnatho, a parasite in tho Eunuch of Terence
 
 CHAP.XXVL CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 211 
 
 the election 1 of the college was thereby transferred to the 
 presentation of the people. And he first commenced tho 
 practice of turning toward the forum, and addressing the 
 people.* And yet regard for the immortal gods, under my 
 advocacy, gained an easy triumph over his plausible 3 address. 
 Now this occurred in my pratorship, five years before I was 
 consul ; so that that cause was supported rather by its own 
 importance than by supreme influence. 
 
 XXVI. Now, if upon the stage, that is, before the as- 
 sembly, where every advantage is given to fictions and 
 imitations, yet the truth prevails (if only it be set forth and 
 illustrated), what ought to bo the case in friendship, which 
 is measured according to simple truth ? for in it (as the say- 
 ing is) ye sec an open heart and show your own also ; you 
 can have nothing faithful, nothing certain ; and you can not 
 love or be loved, since you are uncertain how far it is sin- 
 cerely done. And yet that flattery, however pernicious it 
 be, can hurt no one but the man who receives it and is 
 most delighted with himself. Hence it happens that he 
 opens his ears widest to flatteries who is a flatterer of him- 
 self, and takes the highest delight in himself: no doubt 
 virtue loves herself, for she is best acquainted with herself, 
 and is conscious how amiable she is : but I am not speaking 
 of virtue, but of a conceit of virtue ; for not so many desire 
 to be endowed with virtue itself, as to seem to be so. Flat- 
 tery delights such men : when conversation formed to their 
 wishes is addressed to such persons, they think those deceit- 
 ful addresses to be the evidence of their merits. This, 
 therefore, is not friendship at all, when one party is unwilling 
 to hear the truth, and the other prepared to speak falsely. 
 Nor would the flattery of parasites in comedies seem to us 
 facetious, unless there were swaggering soldiers also. " Docs 
 then Thais pay me many thanks ? It was enough to answer 
 4 yes, many ;' but he says ' infinite.' " The flatterer always 
 exaggerates that which he, for whose pleasure he speaks, 
 wishes to be great. Although the flattering falsehood may 
 
 1 Cooptatio, tho election of new members into tho priesthood. The 
 different ordera of priests were self-elected, so that the proposed law of 
 Cassius was an infringement of vested rights and privileges. 
 
 * Agere cum populo, to tamper with, or to curry favor with tho people. 
 
 1 Vendibilis, plausible, popular.
 
 212 CICEEO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHA 
 
 have influence with those who themselves allure and invite 
 it ; yet more steady and consistent persons require to bo 
 warned that they take care lest they are entrapped by such 
 crafty flattery ; for every one, except the man who is extremely 
 obtuse, observes the person who openly employs adulation 
 But lest the crafty and insidious man should insinuate him- 
 self, you mut be studiously on your guard ; for he is not very 
 easily recognized, seeing that he often flatters by opposing ; 
 and pretending that he quarrels, is fawning all the time, and 
 at last surrenders himself, and allows himself to be beaten : so 
 that he who has been deluded may fancy that he has seen 
 further than the other ; for what can be more disgraceful than 
 to be deluded ? And lest this happen, we must be more 
 cautious, as it is said in the Epiclerus, " To-day, above all the 
 foolish old fellows of the comedy, you will have deceived me 
 and played upon me in a most amusing manner." For this 
 is the most foolish character of all in the plays, that of un- 
 thinking and credulous old men. But I know not how it 
 is that my address, passing from the friendship of perfect 
 men, that is of the wise (for I speak of that wisdom which 
 seems within the reach of man), has digressed into frivo- 
 lous friendships. Wherefore, let me return to that from 
 which I set out, and bring these remarks at length to a con- 
 clusion. 
 
 XXVII. It is virtue, virtue I say, Caius Fannius, and you, 
 Quintus Mucius that both wins friendship and preserves it ; 
 for in it is found the power of adapting one's self to circum- 
 stances, and also steadfastness and consistency ;' and when 
 
 1 The necessity of virtue, then, in every bosoin of which we resolvo to 
 share the feelings, would be sufficiently evident, though we were to con- 
 eider those feelings only ; but all the participation is not to be on our 
 part. We are to place confidence, as well as to receive it ; wo are not 
 to be comforters only, but sometimes too the comforted ; and our own 
 conduct may require the defense which we are sufficiently ready to afford 
 to the conduct of our friend. Even with respect to the pleasure of tho 
 friendship itself, if it be a pleasure on which we set a high value, it is not 
 a slight consideration whether it be fixed on one whose regard is likely 
 to bo as stable as ours, or on one who may in a few months, or perhaps 
 even in a few weeks, withhold from us the very pleasure of that intimacy 
 which before had been profusely lavished on us. In every one of thesa 
 respects I need not point out to you the manifest superiority of virtue 
 over vice. Virtue only is stable, because virtue only is consistent and tho 
 caprice which, under a momentary impulse, begins iu eager xntimar.
 
 CHAP. xxvi.. CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. 213 
 
 she has exalted herself and displayed her own effulgence, and 
 hath beheld the same and recognized it in another, she moves 
 toward it, and in her turn receives that which is in the other ; 
 from which is kindled love or friendship, for both derive 
 their name from loving ; for to love is nothing else than to be 
 attached to the person whom you love, without any sense 
 of want, without any advantage being sought ; and yet advan- 
 tage springs up of itself from friendship, even though you may 
 not have pursued it. It was with kind feelings of this de- 
 scription that I, when young, was attached to those old men, 
 Lucius Paullus, Marcus Cato, Caius Gallus, Publius Nasica 
 and Tiberius Gracchus, 1 the father-in-law of our friend 
 Scipio. This is even more strikingly obvious between per- 
 
 with one, as it began it from an impulse as momentary with another, 
 will soon find a third, with whom it may again begin it with the samo 
 exclusion, for the moment, of every previous attachment. Nothing can 
 be juster than the observation of Rousseau on these hasty starts of kind- 
 ness, that, ' he who treats us at first sight like a friend of twenty years' 
 standing, will very probably at the end of twenty years treat us as a 
 stranger if wo have any important service to request of him.' 
 
 "If without virtue we have little to hope in stability, have wo even, 
 while the semblance of friendship lasts, much more to hope as to thoso 
 services of kindness which we may need from our friends ? The secrets 
 which it may bo of no importance to divulge, all may keep with equal 
 fidelity ; because nothing is to be gained by circulating what no man 
 would take sufficient interest in hearing, to remember after it was heard; 
 but if the secret be of a kind which, if made known, would gain the favor 
 of somo one whoso favor it would bo more profitable to gain than retain 
 ours, can wo expect fidelity from a mind that thinks only of what is to 
 be gained by vice, in the great social market of moral feelings, not of 
 what it is right to do ? Can wo expect consolation in our affliction from 
 one who regards our adversity only as a sign that there is nothing more 
 to be hoped from our intimacy ; or trust our virtues to tho defense of 
 him who defends or assails, as interest prompts, and who may see his 
 interest in representing us as guilty of tho very crimes with which 
 slander has loaded us ? In such cases wo have no title to complain of 
 the treacheries of friendship; for it was not friendship in which wo 
 trusted : the treachery is as much tho fault of the deceived as of the de- 
 ceiver; wo have ourselves violated some of tho most important duties 
 of friendship; tho duties which relate to its commencement. 1 ' Moral 
 Philosophy, Lect. Ixxxix. 
 
 1 T. Gracchus, who with his brother, C. Gracchus, excited great tu- 
 mults about the Agrarian law. He was slain for his seditious conduct 
 by P. Nasica. His name has passed into a by-word for a factious dema 
 gogue. It is thus applied by Juvenal : 
 
 " Quis tulerit Gracchos do seditione querentes f"
 
 214 CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP. CHAP. XXVIL 
 
 sons of the same ago, as between me and Scipio, Lucius 
 Furius, Publius Rupilius, and Spurius Mummius: and now 
 in turn, in my old age I repose in the attachment of younger 
 men, as in yours and that of Quintus Tubero ; nay, I even 
 take delight in the familiarity of some that are very young, 
 of Publius Rutilius and Aulius Virginius. And since the 
 course of our life and nature is so directed that a new period 
 is ever arising, it is especially to be wished that with those 
 comrades with whom you set out, as it were, from the start- 
 ing, with the same you may, as they say, arrive at the goal. 
 But, since human affairs are frail and fleeting, some persons 
 must ever be sought for whom we may love, and by whom 
 we may be loved ; for when affection and kind feeling are 
 done away with, all cheerfulness likewise is banished from 
 existence. To me, indeed, though he was suddenly snatched 
 away, Scipio still lives, and will always live ; for I love the 
 virtue of that man, and that worth is not yet extinguished : 
 and not before my eyes only is it presented, who ever had it 
 in possession, but even with posterity it will be illustrious 
 and renowned ; for never shall any undertake any high 
 achievements with spirit and hope, without feeling that the 
 memory and the character of that man should be placed 
 before him. Assuredly, of all things that either fortune or 
 nature has bestowed on me, I have none which I can compare 
 with the friendship of Scipio. 1 In it I had concurrence in 
 politics, and in it advice for my private affairs. In it also, 
 
 1 This confession is not confined to Cicero or his age. Lord Clarendon 
 was often heard to say, " that next to the immediate blessing and provi- 
 dence of God Almighty, which had preserved him throughout the whole 
 course of this life from many dangers and disadvantages, in which many 
 other young men were lost, ho owed all the little he knew, and the little 
 good that was in him, to the friendship and conversation he still had 
 been used to, of the most excellent men in their several kinds that lived 
 in that age, by whose learning and information and instruction he form- 
 ed his studies and mended his understanding, and by whose example he 
 formed his manners, subdued that pride, and suppressed that heat and 
 passion he was naturally inclined to be transported with : and always 
 charged his children to follow his example in that point, protesting, that 
 in the whole course of his life he never knew one man, of what condition 
 soever, arrive to any degree of reputation in the world, who made choice 
 or delighted in the company or conversation of those who, in their quali- 
 ties and their parts were not much superior to himself." Clarendon's 
 Memoirs of his own Life.
 
 CHAP. XXVL CICERO ON FRIENDSHIP, 215 
 
 I possessed a repose replete with pleasure. Never in the 
 slightest degree did I offend him, at least so far as I was 
 aware ; never did I myself hear a word from him that I was 
 unwilling to hear : we had one house between us, the same 
 food, and that common to both ; and not only service abroad, 
 but even our traveling and visits to the country were in com- 
 mon. For what need I say of our constant pursuits of knowl- 
 edge and learning, in which, retired from the eyes of the 
 world, we spent all our leisure time ? Now, if the recollection 
 and memory of these things had died along with him, I could 
 in no wise have borne the loss of that most intimate and affec- 
 tionate friend ; but these things have not perished, yea, they 
 are rather cherished and improved by reflection and memory ; * 
 and even if I were altogether bereft of them, yet would age 
 itself bring me much comfort, for I can not now very long suf- 
 fer these regrets. Now all afflictions, if brief, ought to bo 
 tolerable, howsoever great they may be. Such are the remarks 
 I had to make on friendship. But as for you, I exhort you to 
 lay the foundations of virtue, without which friendship can not 
 exist, in such a manner that, with this one exception, you may 
 consider that nothing in the world is more excellent than 
 friendship. 
 
 1 "The pleasures resulting from the mutual attachment of kindred 
 spirits are by no means confined to the moments of personal intercourse ; 
 they diffuse their odors, though more faintly, through the seasons of 
 absence, refreshing and exhilarating the mind by the remembrance of the 
 past and the anticipation of the future. It is a treasure possessed when 
 it is not employed a reserve of strength, ready to be called into action 
 when most needed a fountain of sweets, to which we may continually 
 repair, whose waters are inexhaustible." Robert Hall's Funeral Sermon 
 for Dr. Ryland.
 
 ON OLD AGE. 
 
 " O Tixus, 1 if I shall have assisted you at all, or alleviated 
 the anxiety which now. fevers, and, fixed in your heart, distracts 
 you, shall I have any reward f ' 
 
 I. For I may address you, Atticus, in the same lines in 
 which he addresses Flaminius, 
 
 "That man, not of great property, but rich in integrity." 
 And yet I am very sure that not, as Flaminius, 
 
 " Are you, Titus, so racked by anxiety night and day :" 
 
 for I know the regularity and even temperament of your 
 mind ; and I am well aware that you have derived not only 
 your surname from Athens, but also refinement and wisdom ; 
 and yet I suspect that you are sometimes too deeply affected 
 by the same causes by which I myself am ; the consolation of 
 which is of a higher kind, and requires to be put off" to 
 another occasion. 2 But at present I have thought it good to 
 
 1 Titus Pomponius Atticus, to whom this treatise is addressed, was a 
 celebrated Roman knight. Cicero wrote to him a number of letters which 
 still survive. He was surnamed Atticus from his perfect knowledge of 
 the Greek language and literature. A minute account of his life has 
 been written by Cornelius Nepos, one of his intimate friends. 
 
 2 " This alludes to the disordered state of the commonwealth occasion- 
 ed by Julius Cesar's usurpation, and the commotion consequent on his 
 death ; the present treatise having been written soon after he was assas- 
 sinated in the senate. No man had more at stake in these public con- 
 vulsions than Cicero ; and nothing sets the power of his mind in a more 
 striking point of view than his being able, at such an alarming crisis, 
 sufficiently to compose his thoughts to meditations of this kind. For 
 not only this treatise, but his Essay on Friendship, his dialogues on the 
 Nature oftJie Gods, together with those concerning Divination, as also 
 Ais book of Offices, and some other of the most considerable of his philo- 
 sophical writings, were drawn up within the same turbulent and dis- 
 tracted period." Melmoth.
 
 CHAP. ii. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 217 
 
 write to you something on Old Age ; for of this burden which 
 I have in common with you of old age, either now weighing 
 upon, or at any rate approaching us, I wish both you and 
 myself to be relieved, although I am very sure that you 
 indeed bear it, and will bear it, with temper and wisdom (as 
 you do all things). But to my mind, when I was about to 
 write an essay on old age, you occurred as worthy of a gift, 
 which each of us might enjoy in common. For my part I 
 have found the composition of this book so delightful, that it 
 has not only wiped off all the annoyance of old age, but has 
 rendered old age even easy and delightful. Never, therefore, 
 can philosophy be praised in a manner sufficiently worthy, 
 inasmuch as he who obeys philosophy is able to pass every 
 period of life without irksomeness. But upon other subjects 
 we both have discoursed much, and often shall discourse : this 
 book, on the subject of old age, I have sent to you. And all 
 the discourse we have assigned not to Tithonus, 1 as Aristo 2 the 
 Chian did, lest there should be too little of authority in the 
 tale ; but to Marcus Cato, 3 when an old man, that the dis- 
 course might carry with it the greater weight ; at whose house 
 we introduce Lalius 4 and Scipio, expressing their wonder that 
 he so patiently bears old age, and him replying to them. And 
 if he shall appear to discourse more learnedly than he himself 
 was accustomed to do in his own books, ascribe it to Greek 
 literature, of which it is well known that he was very studious 
 in old age. But what need is there to say more ? for now the 
 conversation of Cato himself shall unfold all my sentiments on 
 old age. 
 
 II. SCIPIO. I am very often accustomed with my friend 
 here, C. Laelius, to admire as well your surpassing and ac- 
 complished wisdom in all other matters, O Marcus Cato, as 
 also especially that I have never perceived old ago to be 
 
 1 Tiihonus, son of Laomedon, king of Troy. Ho was carried away by 
 Aurora, who made him immortal. 
 
 2 Aristo, a philosopher of Chios, a pupil of Zeno tho Stoic. 
 
 5 M. Cato. M. Porcius Cato was a Roman censor, famed for tho strict- 
 ness of his morals. Ho died at an advanced age, about B.C. 151. He 
 wrote a work called " Origines," i. e., antiquities, some fragments of 
 which are still extant. 
 
 4 Lcelium. C. Laclius, a Roman consul, A.U.C. 614. He was tho inti- 
 mate friend of Africanus tho younger, and is tho principal character in 
 Cicero's treatise, " Do Amicitia." 
 
 10
 
 218 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. n. 
 
 burdensome to you ; which to most old men is so disagree- 
 able, that they say they support a burden heavier than Jltna. 
 CATO. It is not a very difficult matter, Scipio, and Laelius, 
 which you seem to be surprised at; for to those who have 
 no resource in themselves for living well and happily, every 
 age is burdensome ; but to those who seek all good things 
 from themselves, nothing can appear evil which the necessity 
 of nature entails ; in which class particularly is old age, which 
 all men wish to attain, and yet they complain of it when they 
 iave attained it ; so great is the inconsistency and wayward- 
 ness of folly. They say that it steals over them more quickly 
 than they had supposed. Now, first of all, who compelled 
 them to form a false estimate of its progress ? for how does 
 old age more quickly steal upon youth, than youth upon boy- 
 hood ? Then, again, how would old age be less burdensome to 
 them, if they were in their 800th year than in their 80th ? for 
 the past time, however long, when it had flowed away, would 
 not be able to soothe with any consolation an old age of folly. 
 Wherefore, if you are accustomed to admire my wisdom 
 and I would that it were worthy of your high opinion and 
 my surname in this I am wise that I follow nature, that 
 best guide, as a god, and am obedient to her ; l by whom if 
 is not likely, when the other parts of life have been well 
 represented, that the last act should have been ill done, as ii 
 were, by an indolent poet. But yet it was necessary that there 
 should be something final, and, as in the berries of trees and 
 the fruits of the earth, something withered and falling through 
 seasonable ripeness ; which must be taken quietly by a wise 
 man : for what else is it, to war with nature, than, after the 
 manner of the giants, to fight with the gods ? L^ELICS. But, 
 Cato, you will do a very great favor to us, as I may also 
 engage on behalf of Scipio, if inasmuch as we hope, or at 
 
 1 " The acknowledgment of the intention of the Creator as the proper 
 rule of man's actions, has sometimes been expressed by saying that men 
 ought to live according to nature, and that virtue and duty are according 
 to nature, vice and moral transgression contrary to nature ; for man's 
 nature is a constitution in which reason and desire are elements, but of 
 these elements it was plainly intended that reason should control desire, 
 not that desire should overmaster reason." "Whewell's Elements of 
 Morality, book iv. cap. 10. 
 
 Seneca also has a similar idea : " Quid enim aliud est natura quam 
 deus ct divina ratio toti mundo ct partibusejus inserta." Do Benef. iv. 7.
 
 CHAP. in. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 219 
 
 least desire, to become old men, we shall have learned long 
 before from you by what methods we may most easily be 
 able to bear the increasing burden of age. CATO. Well, I 
 will do so, Laelius ; especially if, as you say, it is likely to be 
 pleasant to each of you. SCIPIO. In truth we wish, unless 
 it be irksome, Cato, just as if you had completed some long 
 journey, on which we also must enter, to see of what nature 
 that spot is at which you have arrived. 
 
 III. CATO. I will do it as well as I shall be able, Lselius ; 
 for I have often been present at the complaints of men of my 
 own age (and equals with equals, according to the old proverb, 
 most easily flock together), and have heard the things which 
 Caius Salinator and Spurious Albinus, men of consular rank, 
 and nearly of my age, were wont to deplore : on the one hand, 
 that they had no pleasures, without which they thought life 
 was valueless ; on the other, that they were neglected by those 
 by whom they had been accustomed to be courted, in which 
 they appeared to me not to accuse that which deserved ac- 
 cusation ; for if thai happened from the fault of old age, the 
 same things would be experienced by me and all others 
 advanced in years : and yet the old age of many of them I 
 have remarked to be without complaint, who were not 
 grieved to be let free from the thralldom of the passions, and 
 were not looked down upon by their friends ; but of all com- 
 plaints of this kind, the fault lies in the character of the man, 
 not in his age. For old men of regulated minds, and neither 
 testy nor ill-natured, pass a very tolerable old age. But a 
 discontented and ill-natured disposition is irksome in every 
 age. 1 LAELIUS. It is as you say, Cato. But perhaps some 
 
 1 "It may very rcason.ibly be suspected that the old draw upon them- 
 selves the great part of those insults which they so much lament ; and 
 that age is rarely despised but when it is contemptible. If men imagine 
 that excess of debauchery can bo made reverend by time ; that knowledge 
 is the consequence of long life, however idly and thoughtlessly employ- 
 ed; that priority of birth will supply the want of steadiness or honesty, 
 can it raise much wonder that their hopes are disappointed, and that they 
 see their posterity rather willing to trust their own eyes in their progress 
 into life, than enlist themselves under guides who have lost their way ? 
 
 "He that would pass the latter part of life with honor and decency, 
 must, when ho is young, consider that he shall one day be old ; and re- 
 member, when he is old, that he has once been young. In youth he must 
 lay up knowledge for his support, when his powers of acting shall forsake 
 him ; and in age forbear to animadvert with rigor on faults which expe- 
 rience only can correct." Johnson's Rambler, No. 50.
 
 220 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. iv. 
 
 one may say, that to you, on account of your wealth, and 
 resources, and dignity, old age appears better to endure, but 
 that this can not be the lot of many. CATO. That to be sure, 
 Laelius, is something, but all things are by no means involved 
 in it : as Themistocles is said to have replied to a certain man 
 of Seriphus 1 in a dispute, when the other had said that he had 
 gained distinction, not by his own glory, but by that of his 
 country ; neither, by Hercules, said he, if I had been a. man 
 of Seriphus, should I ever have been eminent, nor if you 
 had been an Athenian, would you ever have been renowned. 
 Which, in like manner, can be said about old age. For 
 neither can old age be easy in extreme poverty, not even to 
 a wise man ; nor to a foolish man, even in the greatest 
 plenty, otherwise than burdensome. The fittest arms of old 
 age, Scipio and Laelius, are the attainment and practice of 
 the virtues ; which, if cultivated at every period of life, pro- 
 duce wonderful fruits when you have lived to a great age ; 
 not only, inasmuch as they never fail, not even in the last 
 period of life and yet that is a very great point but also 
 because the consciousness of a life well spent, and the recol- 
 lection of many virtuous actions, is most delightful. 2 
 
 IV. I, when a young man, was as fond of Quintus Maxi- 
 mus, 3 the same who recovered Tarcntum, though an old 
 man, as if he had been one of my own age. For there 
 
 1 Seriphus was a barren island, or rock, in tho JEgean Sea, used by 
 the Romans as a place of banishment for criminals : 
 
 " Cui vix in Cyclada mitti 
 Contigit, et parva tandem camisse Seripho." 
 
 Juvenal, 6th Sat. 56. lib. iii. 
 
 2 " As to all the rational and worthy pleasures of our being, the con- 
 science of a good fame, the contemplation of another life, the respect and 
 commerce of honest men ; our capacities for such enjoyments are enlarged 
 by years. "While health endures, tho latter part of life, in the eye of 
 reason, is certainly the more eligible.' Tho memory of a well-spent youth 
 gives a peaceable, unmixed, and elegant pleasure to the mind ; and to 
 Buch who are so unfortunate as not to be able to look back on youth 
 with satisfaction, they may give themselves no little consolation that 
 they are under no temptation to repeat their follies, and that they at 
 present despise them." Spectator, No. 153. 
 
 3 Quinttis Maximus, a Roman general of the Fabian family, who re- 
 ceived the surname of Cunctator from his harassing Hannibal by delays. 
 After the battle of Cannae, he retook Tarentum from the Carthaginians. 
 Virgil alludes to him in a passage quoted from Ennius, in tho JEneid, 
 Book vL 84:6, "Unus qui nobia cunctaudo restituit rem."
 
 CHAP. iv. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 221 
 
 was in that man dignity refined by courtesy ; nor had old 
 age changed his character. And yet I began to cultivate 
 his acquaintance when he was not a very old man, but still 
 when somewhat advanced in age. For he had been consul 
 for the first time in the year after I was born, and in his 
 fourth consulship I, then a stripling, marched with him as 
 a soldier to Capua, and in the fifth year after, as quaestor to 
 Tarentum; I was next made aedile, and four years afterward 
 praetor, an office which I held in the consulship of Tudi- 
 tanus 1 and Cethegus, when he, a very old man, was the 
 promoter of the Cincian" law, about fees and presents. He 
 both carried on campaigns like a young man when he was 
 quite old, and by his temper cooled Hannibal when im- 
 petuous from the fire of youth, about whom our friend 
 Ennius has admirably spoken : " Who alone, by delay re- 
 trieved our state ; for he did not value rumor above our 
 safety, therefore brighter and brighter is now the glory of 
 that man." And with what vigilance, with what talent did 
 he recover Tarentum ? When too, in my hearing, as Sali- 
 nator, who, after losing the town, had taken refuge in the 
 citadel, was boasting and speaking thus : " It was owing to my 
 exertions, Quintus Fabius, that you recovered Tarentum." 
 " Unquestionably," said he, laughing, " for unless you had lost 
 it, I should never have regained it." Nor in truth was he more 
 excellent in arms than in civil affairs ; for, in his second 
 consulship, when Spurius Carvilius, his colleague, was neuter, 
 he made a stand to the utmost of his power against Caius 
 Flaminius, tribune of the commons, when ho was for dis- 
 tributing the Picenian and Gallic land to individuals, con- 
 trary to the authority of the senate ; and when he was augur, 
 he had the spirit to say that those things were performed 
 with the best auspices which were performed for the welfare 
 of the commonwealth ; that those things which were un- 
 dertaken against the commonwealth were undertaken in 
 opposition to the auspices. 3 Many excellent points have I 
 
 1 Consulibus Tuditano, etc. A.r.C. 550. 
 
 2 A law enacted by M. Cincius, tribune of tho people, A.r.c. 549. By 
 this law no one wr.s allowed to receive a present for pleading a cause. 
 
 3 "Homer," says Melmoth, "puta a sentiment of the same spirited 
 kind into the mouth of Hector. That gallant prince, endeavoring to 
 force the Grecian intrenchmeuts, is exhorted by Polydamas to discon- 
 tinue tho attack, on occasion of an unfavorable omen which appears on
 
 222 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. T. 
 
 remarked in that man : but there is nothing more deserving 
 of admiration than the way in which he bore the death of 
 his son Marcus, an illustrious man, and one of consular rank. 
 The panegyric he pronounced is still in our hands ; which 
 when we read, what philosopher do we not despise ? nor, 
 in truth, was he great only in public and in the eyes of 
 his fellow-citizens, but still more admirable in private and 
 at home. What conversation ! what maxims ! what deep 
 acquaintance with ancient history ! what knowledge of the 
 law of augury ! his learning too, for a Roman, was extensive. 
 He retained in memory all, not only domestic but foreign 
 wars; and I at that time enjoyed his conversation with as 
 much avidity as if I was already divining that which came 
 to pass, that when he was gone, there would be none other 
 for me to learn from. 
 
 V. To what end then do I say so much about Maximus ? 
 because doubtless you see that it is quite wrong to say that 
 such an old age was miserable. Still, all men can not be 
 Scipios or Maximi, so as to remember the stormings of cities^ 
 battles by land and sea, wars conducted and triumphs gained 
 by themselves. The old age also of a life past in peace and 
 innocence and elegance is a gentle and mild one, such as we 
 have heard that of Plato to have been, who, in his eighty- 
 first year, died while writing ; such as that of Isocrates, who 
 says that he wrote that book which is entitled the Panathc- 
 naican in his ninety-fourth year, and he lived five years 
 after : whose master, Gorgias, the Leontine, completed one 
 hundred and seven years, nor did he ever loiter in his pur- 
 suit and labor ; who, when it was asked of him why he 
 liked to be so long in life, said : " I have no cause for 
 blaming old age." An admirable answer, and worthy of a 
 man of learning: for the foolish lay their own vices and 
 
 the left side of tho Trojan army. Hector treats both the advice and the 
 adviser with much contempt ; and among other sentiments equally just 
 and animated, nobly replies (as the lines are finely translated by Mr. 
 Pope) : 
 
 ' Ye vagrants of the sky ! your wings extend, 
 Or where the sun arise, or where descend ; 
 To right, to left, unheeded take your way' 
 ' Without a sign his sword the brave man draws, 
 Aad asks no omen but his country's cause.' " 
 
 Pope's Homer, II. xiL 279=
 
 CHAP. VL CICERO ON OLD AGE. 223 
 
 their own faults to the charge of old age, which that Ennius, 
 of whom I lately made mention, was not disposed to do : " As 
 the gallant steed, who often at the close of the race won the 
 Olympic prizes, now worn out with old age, takes his rest." 
 lie compares his own old age to that of a mettled and victo- 
 rious steed, and that indeed you can very well remember ; 
 for it was in the nineteenth year after his death that the 
 present consuls, Titus Flaminius 1 and Marcus Acilius, were 
 elected, and he died in the second consulship of Coepio and 
 Philip; when I too, at the age of sixty-five, had supported 
 the Voconian law 1 with a powerful voice and unimpaired 
 lungs. At the age of seventy, for so many years Ennius 
 lived, he in such a manner endured two burdens, which are 
 deemed the greatest, poverty and old age, that he almost 
 seemed to take pleasure in them. For when I consider it in 
 my mind, I find four causes why old age is thought miserable : 
 one, that it calls us away from the transaction of aft'airs ; the 
 second, that it renders the body more feeble ; the third, that 
 it deprives us of almost all pleasures ; the fourth, that it is 
 not very far from death. Of these causes let us see, if you 
 please, how great and how reasonable each of (hem is. 
 
 VI. Does old age draw us away from active duties ? 
 From which ? from those which are performed by youth 
 and strength ? Are there, then, no concerns of old age, 
 which even when our bodies are feeble, are yet carried 
 on by the mind ? Was Q. Maximus, then, unemployed ? 
 Was L. Paul us, your father, Scipio, unemployed, the father- 
 in-law of that most excellent man, my son ? Those other old 
 men, the Fabricii, the Curii, the Coruncanii, when they sup- 
 ported the commonwealth by wisdom and authority, were 
 they unemployed ? It was an aggravation of the old age of 
 Appius Claudius that he was blind, and yet he, when the 
 opinion of the senate was inclined to peace, and the con- 
 clusion of a treaty with Pyrrus, did not hesitate to utter 
 these words, which Ennius has expressed in verse: 
 " Whither have your minds, which used to stand upright 
 before, in folly turned away ?" And all the rest with the 
 utmost dignity, for tho poem is well known to you, and yet 
 
 1 A.U.C. 604. 
 
 2 The Voconian law enacted that no one should make a woman his hoir.
 
 224 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. VL 
 
 the speech of Appius himself still exists : and he delivered 
 this speech seventeen years after his second consulship, 
 when ten years had intervened between the two consulships, 
 and he had been censor before his former consulship ; from 
 which it is concluded that in the war with Pyrrhus, he 
 was a very old man, and yet AVC have been thus informed 
 by our fathers. Therefore they advance no argument who 
 oay that old age is not engaged in active duty, and resemble 
 those who should say that the pilot in navigation is unem- 
 ployed, for that while some climb the mast, others run up 
 and down the decks, others empty the bilge-water, he, 
 holding the helm, sits at the stern at his ease. He does not 
 do those things that the young men do, but in truth he does 
 much greater and better things. Great actions are not 
 achieved by exertions of strength, or speed, or by quick 
 movement of bodies, but by talent, authority, judgment ; of 
 which faculties old age is usually so far from being deprived, 
 that it is even improved in them : unless, indeed, I, who 
 both as a soldier and tribune, and lieutenant-general, and 
 consul, have been employed in various kinds of wars, now 
 seem to you to be idle when I am not engaged in wars. 
 But I counsel the senate as to what wars are to be engaged 
 in, and in what manner; against Carthage, 1 which has now 
 for a long tune been meditating mischief, I have long been 
 denouncing war ; about which I shall not cease to fear until 
 I shall know that it has been razed to the ground ; which 
 victory I wish the immortal gods may reserve for you, 
 Scipio, that you may consummate the unfinished exploits of 
 your grandfather; since whose death this is the thirty-third 
 year : but all succeeding years will cherish the memory of 
 that man. He died in the year before I was censor, nine 
 years after my consulship, when he had been in my consul- 
 ship created consul a second time. Would he, therefore, if 
 he had lived to one hundred years old, ever have regretted 
 his old age ? for he would not exercise himself, either in 
 running a race, or in leaping, or at a distance with spears, 
 or in close quarters with swords, but in counsel, reflection, 
 and judgment. Now, unless those faculties existed in old 
 
 1 " Delenda est Carthago" was so common an expression of Cato's &s 
 to have become proverbial.
 
 CHAP. vi. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 225 
 
 men, our ancestors would never have called the supreme 
 council by the name of senate. 1 Among the Lacedaemo- 
 nians, those who hold the highest office, as they are, so also 
 are they styled, elders. But if you shall be inclined to read 
 or hear of foreign matters, you will find the greatest com- 
 monwealths have been overthrown by young men, and 
 supported and restored by the old. " Pray, how lost you your 
 commonwealth, so great as it was, in so short a time ?" For 
 such is the appeal as it is in the play of the poet Nsevius ; 2 
 both other answers are given, and these especially : " There 
 came forward orators inexperienced, foolish young men." 
 Rashness, beyond a doubt, belongs to life when in its bloom ; 
 wisdom to it in old age. 
 
 VII. But the memory is impaired. I believe it, unless 
 you keep it in practice, or if you are by nature rather dull. 
 Themistocles had learned by heart the names of all his 
 fellow-citizens. Do you suppose, therefore, when he ad- 
 vanced in age, he was accustomed to address him as Lysi- 
 machus who was Aristides ? For my part, I know not only 
 those persons who are alive, but their fathers also, and 
 grandfathers; nor in reading tombstones am I afraid, as 
 they say, lest I should lose my memory ; for by reading 
 these very tombstones, I regain my recollection of the dead. 3 
 
 1 So called from tho Latin word senex. The members of this august 
 assembly were originally distinguished by tho title of fathers. " Vel 
 actate," says Sallust, " vel curse similitudine." Ovid has some pretty 
 lines in allusion to the same etymology : 
 
 "Magna fuit capitis quondam reverentia cani, 
 
 Inque suo pretio rugo senilis erat, 
 Nee nisi post annos patuit tune curia seros 
 
 Nomen et aetatis mite senatus habet, 
 Jura dabat Populo senior finitaque certis, 
 
 Legibus est iotas inde petatur honor." 
 " Time was when reverend years observance found, 
 And silver hairs with honor's meed was crowned. 
 In those good days tho venerably old 
 In Rome's sago synod stood alone enrolled. 
 Experienced old she gave her laws to frame, 
 And from the seniors rose the senate's name." Mclmoth. 
 s Cneius Naevius was a Latin poet, who lived during the first Punie 
 war, which he made the subject of an epic poem. Ho also wrote com- 
 edies, now lost. He died about B.C. 203. 
 
 1 " It was a prevailing superstition," says Melmoth, in his annotation 
 upon this passage, " among the Romans, that to read tho inscriptions on 
 
 10*
 
 226 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. VIL 
 
 Nor indeed have T heard of any eld man having forgotten in 
 what place he had buried a treasure ; they remember all 
 things which they care about : appointments of bail ; ' who 
 are indebted to them, and to whom they are indebted. 2 What 
 do lawyers ? what do pontitfs ? what do augurs ? what do phi- 
 losophers, when old men ? how many things they remember ! 
 The intellectual powers remain in the old, provided study 
 and application be kept up ; and that not only in men illus- 
 trious and of high rank, but also in private and peaceful life. 
 Sophocles wrote tragedies up to the period of extreme old age ; 
 and when on account of thai pursuit he seems to be neglect- 
 ing the family property, he was summoned by his sons into 
 a court of justice, that, as according to our practice, fathers 
 mismanaging their property are wont to be interdicted their 
 possessions, 3 so in his case the judges might remove him 
 
 the monuments of the dead, weakened the memory. Of this very singular 
 and unaccountable notion, no other trace I believe is to be found among 
 the Eoman authors but what appears in the present passage. Possibly 
 it might take its rise from the popular notion that the spirits of malevolent 
 and wicked men, after their decease, delighted to haunt the places where 
 their bodies or ashes were deposited, and there were certain annual rites 
 celebrated at these sepulchers for appeasiny the ghosts." Vid. Platon. 
 Phsed. No. 3. Ovid, Fast. II. 533. 
 
 1 Vadimonia, "vades," or "vadimonium dare," to give bail or recog- 
 nizances ; " deserere vadimonium" to forfeit his recognizances. 
 
 2 " We generally find that this inaptitude at recollection is most ap- 
 parent with reference to subjects which are uninteresting or distasteful 
 to the individual ; and this for an obvious reason. To such subjects the 
 mind gives little or no attention, and consequently few or no associations 
 are connected with the facts observed. Hence these facts never become 
 the property of the mind, and of course can never be recalled. On the 
 other hand, on what subjects do we find that the faculty of recollection 
 is the most susceptible ? Unquestionably on those, on which the indi- 
 vidual is most deeply interested, either from taste, habit, or professional 
 pursuit. Its apparent defects are clearly traceable to voluntary habits 
 of inactivity and neglect ; while like every other faculty of the intellect- 
 ual nature, it is capable of receiving from practice an indefinite measure 
 of susceptibility and power. In short, in the degree of perfection at 
 which it may arrive, it is one of the most commanding and dignified 
 faculties of an intelligent being. It extends the very limit of our exist- 
 ence back from the present to the past; so that the stream of by-gone 
 years, with all the rich freight of knowledge and experience which it 
 beara upon its bosom, does not merge and lose itself in an unknown 
 ocean, but only winds itself out of sight in the recesses of our own do- 
 mains." Edmonds's Philosophy of Memory. 
 
 3 Interdici bonis. The praetor was said " interdicere," when ho took 
 from any one the management of his property, as in cases of lunacy, etc.
 
 CHAP. vin. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 227 
 
 from the management of the state as being imbecile. Then 
 the old man is related to have read aloud to the judges that 
 play which he held in his hands and had most recently 
 written, the OElipus Coloneus, and to have asked whether 
 that appeared the poem of a dotard ; on the recital of which, 
 he was acquitted by the sentences of the judges. Did, then, 
 old age compel this man, or Homer, or Hesiod, 1 or Simoni- 
 des, 3 or Stesiehorus, 3 or those men whom I mentioned 
 before Isocrates, Georgias, or the chiefs of the philosophers, 
 Pythagoras, Democritus, or Plato, or Xenocrates, or after- 
 ward Zeno, Cleanthes, or him whom you have also seen at 
 Koine, Diogenes the Stoic, to falter in their pursuits ? Was not 
 the vigorous pursuit of their studies commensurate with 
 their life in all these men ? Come, to pass over these sublime 
 pursuits, I can mention in the Sabine district, country gen- 
 tlemen at Rome, neighbors and acquintances of mine, in 
 whose absence scarcely ever are any important "Works done 
 in the farm, either in sowing, or in reaping, or in storing the 
 produce ; and yet in those men this is less to be wondered 
 at ; for no man is so old as not to think he may live a 
 year. But they also take pains in those matters, which they 
 know do not at all concern themselves. " He plants trees to 
 benefit another generation," as our friend Statius* says in 
 his Synephebi. Nor, in truth, let the husbandman, however 
 old, hesitate to reply to any one who asks him " for whom ho 
 is sowing :" " For the immortal gods, who intended that I 
 should not only receive these possessions from my ancestors, 
 but also transmit them to my descendants." 
 
 VIII. Caecilius speaks more wisely about in old man look- 
 ing forward to another generation, than the following: 
 " In truth,* old age, if thou bringcst with thee no other 
 
 1 ffesiod, a poet of Ascra in Boeotia, supposed by some to havo lived 
 about the time of Homer. His principal poem is the " Works and 
 Days," a sort of shepherd's calendar. 
 
 2 Simonides, a poet of Cos, who flourished B.C. 538. 
 
 3 Stesichorus, a lyric Greek poet of Himera, in Sicily, B.C. 556. 
 
 Stalius, a comic poet in the days of Ennius. Ho was a native of 
 Gaul. His surname was Caecilius. Vid. Chap. viii. at the beginning. 
 
 5 JEdepol. Per cedtm Pollucis, by the temple of Pollux : a form of 
 swearing common both to men and women. Mecastor, or Ecastor, " by 
 Castor," was used by women only : Hercle, or Mehercle, was the form 
 used by TOCO.
 
 228 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP, ix 
 
 fault when thou arrivest, this one is enough, that by living 
 long, one sees many things Avhich he does not like :" and 
 many things, perhaps, which he does like ; and youth also 
 often meets with things which he does not like. But the 
 same Caecilus makes the following assertion, which is still 
 more objectionable : " Then, for my part, I reckon this 
 circumstance connected with old age the most wretched, 
 to be censcious at that age that one is disagreeable to 
 others." Pleasant rather than disagreeable. For as wise 
 old men take pleasure in young men possessed of good 
 disposition, and the old age of those persons becomes 
 lighter who are courted and loved by youth ; so young men 
 take pleasure in the lessons of the old, by which they arc led 
 on to the pursuits of virtue. Nor am I aware that I am less 
 agreeable to you than you are to me. But you see that old 
 ago is so far from being feeble and inactive, that it is even 
 industrious, and always doing and devising something ; 
 namely, such pursuits as have belonged to each man in 
 former life. Nay, they even learn something new ; as we see 
 Solon in his verses boasting, who says that he was becoming 
 an old man, daily learning something new, as I have done, 
 who, when an old man, learned the Greek language ;' 
 which too I so greedily grasped, as if I were desirous of 
 satisfying a long protracted thirst, that those very things 
 became known to me which you now see me use as illus- 
 trations. And when I heard that Socrates had done this 
 on the lyre, for my part I should like to do that also, for 
 the ancients used to learn the lyre : but with their literature, 
 at any rate, I have taken pains. 
 
 IX. Nor even now do I feel the want of the strength of a 
 young man for that was the second topic about the faults 
 of old age no more than when a young man I felt the want 
 of the strength of the bull or of the elephant. What one has, 
 that one ought to use ; and whatever you do, you should do 
 
 1 Referring to this fact in the life of Cato, Lord Bacon says, " As to the 
 judgment of Cato the censor, ho was well punished for his blasphemy 
 against learning, in the same kind wherein he offended ; for when he was 
 past threescore years old, lie was taken with an extreme desire to go to 
 school again and to learn the Greek tongue to the end to peruse the Greek 
 authors, which doth well demonstrate, that his former censure of tho 
 Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity than according to the in- 
 ward sense of his own opinion." " Advancement of Learning," book i.
 
 CHAP. ix. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 229 
 
 it with all your strength. For what expression can be more 
 contemptible than that of Milo 1 of Crotona, who, when he 
 was now an old man, and was looking at the prize-fighters 
 exercising themselves on the course, is reported to have 
 looked at his arms, and, weeping over them, to have said, 
 " But these, indeed, are now dead." " Nay, foolish man, not 
 these arms so much as yourself; for you never derived your 
 nobility from yourself, but from your chest and you arms. 
 Nothing of the kind did Sextus JElius ever say, nothing of 
 the kind many years before did Titus Coruncanius, nothing 
 lately did Publius Crassus; by whom instructions in juris- 
 prudence were given to their fellow-citizens, and whose 
 wisdom was progressive even to their latest breath. For 
 the orator, I fear lest he be enfeebled by old age ; for elo- 
 quence is a gift not of mind only, but also of lungs and 
 strength. On the whole, that melodiousness in the voice is 
 graceful, I know not how, even in old age ; which, indeed, I 
 have not lost, and you see my years. Yet there is a grace- 
 ful style of eloquence in an old man, unimpassioned and 
 subdued, and very often the elegant and gentle discourse of 
 an eloquent old man wins for itself a hearing; and if you 
 have not yourself the power to produce this effect, yet you 
 
 1 Mlo. A famous Athlete, of Crotona, in Italy. lie is said to have 
 carried on his shoulders a young bullock. Ho was seven times crowned 
 at the Pythian games, and six times at the Olympian. 
 
 a " When an old man bewails the loss of such gratifications as aro 
 passed, he discovers a monstrous inclination to that which it is not in the 
 course of Providence to recall. The state of an old man, who is dissat- 
 isfied merely for his being such, is the most out of all measures of reason 
 and good sense of any being wo have any account of, from the highest 
 angel to the lowest worm. How miserable is the contemplation, to con- 
 sider a libidinous old man fretting at the course of things, and being al- 
 most the solo malcontent in the creation. But let us a little reflect upon 
 what he has lost by the number of years ; the passions which he had in 
 youth are not to be obeyed as they were then, but reason is more power- 
 ful now without the disturbance of them. One would think it should 
 be no small satisfaction to have gone so far in our journey that the heat 
 of the day is over with us. When life itself is a fever, as it is in licen- 
 tious youth, the pleasures of it are no other than the dreams of a man 
 in that distemper; and it is as absurd to wish the return of that season 
 of life, as for a man in health to be sorry for the loss of gilded palaces, 
 fairy walks, and flowery pastures, with which he remembers he was en- 
 tertained in the troubled slumbers of a fit of sickness."- The Spectator, 
 No. 153.
 
 230 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP, x, 
 
 may be able to teach it to Scipio and Laelius. For what 
 is more delightful than old age surrounded with the stud' 
 ious attention of youth ? Shall we not leave even such a 
 resource to old age, as to teach young men, instruct them, 
 train them to every department of duty ? an employment, 
 indeed, than which what can be more noble? But, for 
 my part, I thought the Cneius and Publius Scipios, and 
 your two grandfathers, L. JEmilius and P. Africanus, quite 
 happy in the attendance of noble youths ; nor are any pre- 
 ceptors of liberal accomplishment to be deemed otherwise 
 than happy, though their strength hath fallen into old age 
 and failed ; although that very failure of strength is more 
 frequently caused by the follies of youth than by those of 
 old age ; for a lustful and intemperate youth transmits to 
 old age an exhausted body. 1 Cyrus too, in Xenophon, in 
 that discourse which he delivered on his death-bed when he 
 was a very old man, said that he never felt that his old 
 age had become feebler than his youth had been. I recol- 
 lect when a boy, that Lucius Metellus, who, when four 
 years after his second consulship he had been made " pon- 
 tifex maximus," and for twenty-two years held that sacer- 
 dotal office, enjoyed such good strength at the latter period 
 of his life, that he felt no want of youth. There is no need 
 for me to speak about myself, and yet that is the privilege 
 of old age, and conceded to my time of life. 
 
 X. Do you sea how, in Homer, Nestor very often pro- 
 claims his own virtues ? for he was now living in the third 
 generation of men ; nor had he occasion to fear lest, when 
 stating the truth about himself, he should appear either too 
 arrogant or too talkative ; for, as Homer says, 3 from his 
 tongue speech flowed sweeter than honey ; for which charm 
 he stood in need of no strength of body : and yet the famous 
 chief of Greece nowhere wishes to have ten men like Aj.ix, 
 but like Nestor ; 3 and he does not doubt if that should 
 
 1 " When young men in public places betray in their deportment an 
 abandoned resignation to their appetites, they give to sober minds a pros- 
 poet of a despicable age, which, if not interrupted by death in the midst 
 of their follies, must certainly come." The Spectator, No. 153. 
 * Toi) KOL find y/lw<7CTJ7f /ze/ltrof JMK'IUV ptsv avdij. 
 
 Oh t would the gods, in love to Greece, decree 
 But ten such sages as they grant in thoo 1
 
 CHAP. x. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 231 
 
 happen, Troy would in a short time perish. But I return to 
 myself. I am in my eighty-fourth year. In truth I should 
 like to be able to make the same boast that Cyrus did : but 
 one thing I can say, that although I have not, to be sure, that 
 strength which I had either as a soldier in the Punic war, or 
 as quaestor in the same war, or as consul in Spain, or, four 
 years afterward, when as military tribune I fought a battle at 
 Thermopylae, in the consulship of Marcus Acilius Glabrio : 
 yet, as you see, old age has not quite enfeebled me nor broken 
 me down : the senate-house does not miss my strength, nor 
 the rostra, 1 nor my friends, nor my clients, nor my guests ; 
 for I have never agreed to that old and much-praised 
 proverb, which advises you to become an old man early, if 
 you wish to be an old man long. I for my part would rather 
 be an old man for a shorter length of time than be an old 
 man before I was one. And, therefore, no one as yet has 
 wished to have an interview with me, to whom I have been 
 denied as engaged. But I have less strength than either of 
 you two. Neither even do you possess the strength ot Titus 
 Pontius the centurion : is he, therefore, the more excellent 
 man ? Only let there be a moderate degree of strength, and 
 let every man exert himself as much as he can ; and in truth 
 that man will not be absorbed in regretting the want of 
 strength. Milo, at Olympia, is said to have gone over the course 
 while supporting on his shoulders a live ox. Whether, then, 
 would you rather have this strength of body, or Pythagoras's 
 strength of intellect, bestowed upon you ? In a word, enjoy 
 that blessing while you have it : when it is gone, do not 
 lament it ; unless, indeed, young men ought to lament the 
 loss of boyhood, and those a little advanced in age the loss 
 of adolescence. There is a definite career in life, and one 
 way of nature, and that a simple one ; and to every part of 
 life its own peculiar period has been assigned : so that both 
 the feebleness of boys, and the high spirit of young men, and 
 the steadiness of our fixed manhood, and the maturity of old 
 age, have something natural, which ought to be enjoyed in 
 
 Such wisdom soon should Priam's forco destroy ; 
 And soon should fall the haughty towers of Troy. 
 
 Illiad, Pope's Translation. 
 
 1 Rostra : a pulpit from which the orators used to harangue the peoplo 
 at the comitia or public assemblies. It was so called, because it was 
 adorned with the beaks of the ships taken from the Antiates.
 
 232 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. XL 
 
 their own time. I suppose that you hear, Scipio, what your 
 grandfather's host, Masinissa, 1 is doing at this day, at the age 
 of ninety : when he has commenced journey on foot, he 
 never mounts at all ; when on horseback, he never dismounts : 
 by no rain, by no cold, is he prevailed upon to have his 
 head covered ; that there is in him the greatest hardiness 
 of frame ; and therefore he performs all the duties and 
 functions of a king. Exercise, therefore, and temperance, 
 oven in old age, can preserve some remnant of our pristine 
 vigor. 
 
 XI. Is there no strength in old age ? neither is strength 
 exacted from old age. Therefore, by our laws and insti- 
 tutions, our time of life is relieved from those tasks which 
 can not be supported without strength. Accordingly, so far 
 are we from being compelled to do what we can not do, that 
 Ave are not even compelled to do as much as we can. But so 
 feeble are many old men, that they can not execute any task of 
 duty, or any function of life whatever ; but that in truth is 
 not the peculiar fault of old age, but, belongs in common to 
 bad health. How feeble was the son of Publius Africanus, 
 he who adopted you? What feeble health, or rather no 
 health at all, had he ! and had that not been so, he would 
 have been the second luminary of the state ; for to his pater- 
 nal greatness of soul a richer store of learning had been 
 added. 3 What wonder, therefore, in old men, if they are 
 
 1 Masinissa, son of Gala, king of a small part of Northern Africa: ho 
 assisted the Carthaginians in their wars against Rome. lie afterward 
 became a firm ally of the Romans. lie died after a reign of sixty years, 
 about B.C. 149. 
 
 2 " There are perhaps," says Dr. Johnson, " very few conditions more 
 to be pitied than that of an active and elevated mind laboring under the 
 weight of a distempered body. The time of such a man is always spent 
 in forming schemes which a change of wind hinders him from executing, 
 his powers fume away in projects and in hope, and the day of action 
 never arrives. He lies down delighted with the thoughts of to-morrow, 
 pleases his ambition with thb fame ho shall acquire, or his benevolence 
 with the good he shall confer. But in the night the skies are overcast, 
 the temper of the air is changed, he wakes in languor, impatience, and 
 distraction, and has no longer any wish but for ease, nor any attention 
 but to misery. It may be said that disease generally begins that equality 
 which death completes ; the distinctions which set one man so much 
 above another are very little perceived in the gloom of a sick chamber, 
 where it will be vain to expect entertainment from the gay, or instruc- 
 tion from tho wise ; whero all human glory is obliterated, the wit is
 
 CHAP. XL CICERO ON OLD AGE. 233 
 
 sometimes weak, when even young men can not escape that. 
 We must make a stand, Scipio, and Lselius, against old age, 
 and its faults must be atoned for by activity ; we must 
 fight, as it were, against disease, and in like manner against 
 old age. Regard must be paid to health ; moderate exer- 
 cises must be adopted ; so much of meat and drink must be 
 taken that the strength may be recruited, not oppressed. 
 Nor, indeed, must the body alono be supported, but the 
 mind and the soul much more ; for these also, unless you 
 drop oil on them as on a lamp, are extinguished by old age. 
 And our bodies, indeed, by weariness and exercise, become 
 oppressed ; but our minds are rendered buoyant by exercise. 
 For as to those, of whom Csecilius speaks, " foolish old men," 
 fit characters for comedy, by these he denotes the credulous, 
 the forgetful, the dissolute ; which are the faults not of old 
 age, but of inactive, indolent, drowsy old age. As petu- 
 lance and lust belong to the young more than to the old, yet 
 not to all young men, but to those who are not virtuous ; so 
 that senile folly which is commonly called dotage, belongs 
 to weak old men, and not to all. Four stout sons, five 
 daughters, so great a family, and such numerous dependents, 
 did Appius manage, although both old and blind ; for ho 
 kept his mind intent like a bow, nor did he languidly sink 
 under the weight of old age. He retained not only author- 
 ity, but also command, over his family : the slaves feared 
 him ; the children respected him ; all held him dear : there 
 prevailed in that house the manners and good discipline of 
 our fathers. For on this condition is old age honored if it 
 maintains itself, if it keeps up its own right, if it is subserv- 
 ient to no one, if even to its last breath it exercises control 
 over its dependents. For, as I like a young man in whom 
 there is something of the old, so I like an old man in whom 
 there is something of the young; and ho who follows this 
 maxim, in body will possibly be an old man, but he will 
 never be an old man in mind. I have in hand my seventh 
 book of Antiquities ; I am collecting all the materials of our 
 early history ; of all the famous causes which I have de- 
 clouded, the reasoner perplexed, and tho hero subdued ; where the 
 highest and brightest of mortal beings finds nothing left him but the 
 consciousness of innocence." Dr. Johnson's Rambler, No. 48.
 
 234 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. IL 
 
 fended, I am now completing the pleadings ; * I am employed 
 on the law of augurs, of pontiffs, of citizens. I am much en- 
 gaged also in Greek literature, and, after the manner of the 
 Pythagoreans, for the purpose of exercising my memory, 
 I call to mind in the evening what I have said, heard, 
 and done on each day. 2 These are the exercises of the 
 understanding ; these are the race-courses of the mind ; 
 while I am perspiring and toiling over these, I do not greatly 
 miss my strength of body. I attend my friends, I come into 
 the senate very often, and spontaneously bring forward things 
 much and long thought of, and I maintain them by strength 
 of mind, not of body ; and if I were unable to perform these 
 duties, yet my couch would afford no amusement, when re-, 
 fleeting on those matters which I was no longer able to do 
 but that I am able, is owing to my past life : for, by a person 
 
 1 The speeches here referred to, which Cato collected and published, 
 amounted to about 150, in which, as we are assured by one of the 
 greatest masters of eloquence that Rome ever produced, Cato displayed 
 all the powers of a consummate orator. Accordingly ho was styled by 
 his cotemporaries " The Roman Demosthenes," and he is frequently 
 mentioned by subsequent writers under the designation of " Cato the 
 Orator." 
 
 4 "It was not," says Melmoth, and that with great propriety, "in order 
 to exercise and improve the memory, that Pythagoras enjoined his dis- 
 ciples the practice of this nightly recollection ; it was for a much more 
 useful and important purpose. The object of the philosopher's precept 
 is indeed wholly of a moral nature, as appears from that noble summary 
 of his Ethics, supposed to be drawn up by one of his disciples, and 
 known by the name of the ' Golden Verses of Pythagoras: 1 
 
 " ' M7?<5' virvov fiaAanoiai err' o/j.[iavi.,' etc. 
 ' Nightly forbear to close thine eyes to rest 
 Ere thou hast questioned well thy conscious breast 
 "What sacred duty thou hast left undone 
 What act committed which thou oughtest to shun. 
 And as fair truth or error marks the deed, 
 Let sweet applause, or sharp reproach succeed : 
 So shall thy steps, while this great rule is thine, 
 Undevious lead in Virtue's path divine.' 
 
 " It is not a little surprising that Cicero should have considered this 
 great precept merely in its mechanical operation upon one of the faculties 
 of the human mind, and have passed over unnoticed its most important 
 intent and efficacy ; especially as he had so fair an occasion of pointing 
 out its nobler purpose. Perhaps there never was a rule of conduct de- 
 livered by any uninspired moralist which hath so powerful a tendency to 
 promote the interests of virtue as the present precept"
 
 CHAP. xn. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 235 
 
 who always lives in these pursuits and labors, it is not per- 
 ceived when old age steals on. Thus gradually and uncon- 
 sciously life declines into old age ; nor is its thread suddenly 
 broken, but the vital principle is consumed by length of 
 time. 
 
 XII. Then follows the third topic of blame against old 
 age, that they say it has no pleasures. Oh, noble privi- 
 lege of age ! if indeed it takes from us that which is in 
 youth the greatest defect. For listen, most excellent young 
 men, to the ancient speech of Archytas of Tarentum, a man 
 eminently great and illustrious, which was reported to me 
 when I, a young man, was at Tarentum with Quintus Maxi- 
 mus. He said that no more deadly plague than the pleasure 
 of the body was inflicted on men by nature ; for the pas- 
 sions, greedy of that pleasure, were in a rash and unbridled 
 manner incited to possess it ; that hence arose treasons against 
 one's country, hence the ruining of states, hence clan- 
 destine conferences with enemies : in short, that there 
 was no crime, no wicked act, to the undertaking of which 
 the lust of pleasure did not impel ; but that fornications 
 and adulteries and every such crime were provoked by 
 no other allurements than those of pleasure. And whereas 
 either nature or some god had given to man nothing 
 more excellent than his mind ; that to this divine func- 
 tion and gift, nothing was so hostile as pleasure : since 
 where lust bore sway, there was no room for self-restraint ; 
 and in the realm of pleasure, virtue could by no possi- 
 bility exist. And that this might be the better understood, 
 he begged you to imagine in your mind any one actuated 
 by the greatest pleasure of the body that could be enjoyed ; 
 he believed no one would doubt, but that so long as the person 
 was in that state of delight, ho would bo able to consider 
 nothing in his mind, to attain nothing by reason, nothing by 
 reflection : wherefore that there was nothing so detestable 
 and so destructive as pleasure, inasmuch as that when it waf 
 excessive and very prolonged, it extinguished all the light of 
 the soul. Nearchus of Tarentum, our host,' who had ro- 
 
 1 The title of ft'vof, or public host of a nation or city, is exceedingly 
 common in the classic writers. The duty of the person on whom it was 
 conferred, was to receive embassadors from the state with which ho was 
 thus connected, into his own house, if they had been sent on public
 
 236 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. xrn. 
 
 mained throughout in friendship with the Roman people, said 
 he had heard from older men, that Archytas held this con- 
 versation with Caius Pontius the Samnite, the father of him 
 by whom, in the Caudian battle, 1 Spurius Postumius and 
 Titus Veturiua, the consuls, were overcome, on which occa- 
 sion Plato the Athenian had been present at that discourse ; 
 and I find that he came to Tarentum in the consulship of 
 Lucius Camillus and Appius Claudius. 3 Wherefore do I 
 adduce this ? that we may understand that if we could not 
 by reason and wisdom despise pleasure, great gratitude 
 would be due to old age for bringing it to pass that that 
 should not be a matter of pleasure which is not a matter of 
 duty. For pleasure is hostile to reason, hinders deliberation, 
 and, so to speak, closes the eyes of the mind, nor does it hold 
 any intercourse with virtue. I indeed acted reluctantly in ex^ 
 pelling from the senate Lucius Flaminius, brother of that very 
 brave man, Titus Flaminius, seven years after he had been 
 consul ; but I thought that his licentiousness should be stig- 
 matized. For that man, when he was consul in Gaul, was pre- 
 vailed on at a banquet, by a courtezan, to behead one of those 
 who were in chains, condemned on a capital charge. He es- 
 caped in the censorship of his brother Titus, who had immedi- 
 ately preceded me : but so profligate and abandoned an act of 
 lust could by no means be allowed to pass by me and Flaccus, 
 since with private infamy it combined the disgrace of the em- 
 pire. 
 
 XIII. I have often heard from my elders, who said that, 
 in like manner, they, when boys, had heard from old men, 
 that Caius Fabricius was wont to wonder that when he was 
 embassador to king Pyrrhus, he had heard from Cineas the 
 Thessalian, that there was a certain person at Athens, who 
 professed himself a wise man, and that he was accustomed to 
 say that all things which we did were to be referred to 
 pleasure : and that hearing him say so, Manius Curius and 
 Titus Coruncanius were accustomed to wish that that might 
 
 business to tho city in which he resided, and to use all the interest ho 
 possessed in furthering the purpose of their mission. 
 
 1 Prcetio Caudino. Caudi and Caudium, a town of tho Samnites, near 
 which, in a place called Caudinae Furculae or Fauces, the Romans were 
 defeated and made to pass under tho yoko of Pontius Ilerennius. 
 
 2 Consulibus L. Camillo, etc. A.U.C. 330.
 
 CHAP, nil CICERO ON OLD AGE. 237 
 
 be the persuasion of the Samnites and Pyrrhus himself, that 
 they might the more easily be conquered when they had 
 given themselves up to pleasure. Manius Curius had lived 
 with Ptiblius Decius, who, five years before the consulship 
 of the former, had devoted himself for the commonwealth in 
 his fourth consulship. Fabricius had been acquainted with 
 him, and Coruncacius had also known him ; who, as well 
 from his own conduct in life, as from the great action of 
 him whom I mention, Publius Decius, judged that there was 
 doubtless something in its own nature excellent and glorious, 
 which should be followed for its own sake, and which, scorn- 
 ing and despising pleasure, all the worthiest men pursued. 
 To what end then have I said so many things about pleas- 
 ure ? Because it is so far from being any disparagement, 
 that it is even the highest praise to old age, that it has no 
 great desire for any pleasures. It lacks banquets, and piled- 
 up boards, and fast-coming goblets ; it is therefore also free 
 from drunkenness and indigestion and sleeplessness. But if 
 something must be conceded to pleasure (since wo do not 
 easily withstand its allurements, for Plato beautifully calls 
 pleasure the bait of evils, inasmuch as, by it, in fact, men 
 are caught as fishes with a hook), although old ago has 
 nothing to do with extravagant banquets, yet in reasonable 
 entertainments it can experience pleasure. I, when a boy, 
 often saw Caius Duilius, 1 son of Marcus, the first man who 
 had conquered the Carthaginians by sea, returning from 
 dinner, when an old man : he took delight in numerous 
 torches and musicians, things which he, as a private person, 
 had assumed to himself without any precedent : so much 
 indulgence did his glory give him. But why do I refer to 
 others ? let me now return to myself. First of all, I always 
 had associates in clubs; and clubs were established when 
 I was quaestor, on the Idacan worship of the great mother 
 being adopted. Therefore I feasted with my associates" 
 altogether in a moderate way; but there was a kind of 
 fervor peculiar to that time of life, and as that advances, all 
 things will become every day more subdued. For I did not 
 calculate the gratification of those banquets by the pleasures 
 
 1 C. Duilius, surnamed A'epos, obtained a naval victory over the Cat 
 thaginians, B.C. 260. 
 
 3 Sodcdilia were club-feasts, corporation dinners, etc.
 
 238 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. xiv. 
 
 of the body, so much as by the meetings of friends and con- 
 versations. For well did our ancestors style the reclining 
 of friends at an entertainment, because it carried with it a 
 union of life, by the name u convivium" l better than the 
 Greeks do, who call this same thing as well by the name of 
 " compotatio " as " concoenatio :" so that what in that kind 
 (of pleasure) is of the least value, that they appear most to 
 ypprove of. 
 
 XIV. For my part, on account of the pleasure of conver- 
 sation, I am delighted also with seasonable entertainments, 
 not only with those of my own age, of whom very few sur- 
 vive, but with those of your age, and with you ; and I give 
 great thanks to old age, which has increased my desire for 
 conversation, and taken away that of eating and drinking. 
 But even if such things delight any person (that I may noL 
 appear altogether to have declared war against pleasure, of 
 which perhaps a certain limited degree is even natural), I 
 am not aware that even in these pleasures themselves old age 
 is without enjoyment. For my part, the presidencies 2 estab- 
 lished by our ancestors delight me ; and that conversation, 
 which after the manner of our ancestors, is kept up over our 
 cups from the top of the table ; and the cups, as in the Sym- 
 posium of Xenophon, small and dewy, and the cooling of 
 the wine in. summer, and in turn either the sun, or the fire 
 in winter : practices which I am accustomed to follow among 
 the Sabines also, and I daily join a party of neighbors, 
 which we prolong with various conversation till late at 
 night, as far as we can. But there is not, as it were, so 
 ticklish a sensibility of pleasures in old men. I believe it : 
 but then neither is there the desire. But nothing is irksome, 
 unless you long for it. Well did Sophocles, when a certain 
 man inquired of him advanced in age, whether he enjoyed 
 venereal pleasures, reply, "The gods give me something 
 better ; nay, I have run away from them with gladness, as 
 from a wild and furious tyrant." For to men fond of such 
 things, it is perhaps disagreeable and irksome to be without 
 them ; but to the contented and satisfied it is more delightful 
 to want them than to enjoy them : and yet he does not want 
 who feels no desire ; therefore I say that this freedom from 
 
 1 Convivium, which the Greeks call (w/u.truatoi>. 
 
 2 "Nee regna vini sortiere talis." Horace, Book T. Ode 4.
 
 CHAP. nr. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 239 
 
 desire is more delightful than enjoyment. But if the prime 
 of life has more cheerful enjoyment of those very pleasures, 
 in the first place they are but petty objects wich it en- 
 joys, as I have said before ; then they are those of which 
 old age, if it does not abundantly possess them, is not 
 altogether destitute. As he is more delighted with Turpio 
 Ambivius, who is spectator on the foremost bench, 1 yet 
 he also is delighted who is in the hindmost; so youth 
 having a close view of pleasure, is perhaps more grati- 
 fied; but old age is as much delighted as is necessary in 
 viewing them at a distance. But of what high value are the 
 following circumstances, that the soul, after it has served out, 
 as it were, its time under lust, ambition, contention, enmities, 
 and all the passions, shall retire within itself, and, as the 
 phrase is, live with itself? But if it has, as it were, food for 
 study and learning, nothing is more delightful than an old age 
 of leisure. I saw Caius Gallus, the intimate friend of your 
 father, Scipio, almost expiring in the employment of calcu- 
 lating the sky and the earth. How often did daylight over- 
 take him when he had begun to draw some figure by night, 
 how often did night when he had begun in the morning? 
 How it did delight him to predict to us the eclipses of the sun 
 and the moon long before their occurrence ! What shall wo 
 say in the case of pursuits less dignified, yet, notwithstanding, 
 requiring acuteness ! How Nsevius did delight in his Punic 
 war ! how Plautius in his Truculentus ! how in his Pseudolus ! 
 I saw also the old man Livy," who, though he had brought a 
 play upon the stage six years before I was born, in the consul- 
 ship of Cento and Tuditanus, yet advanced in age even to the 
 time of my youth. Why should I speak of Publius Licinius 
 Crassus's study both of pontifical and civil law ? or of the 
 present Publius Scipio, who within these few days was cre- 
 ated chief pontiff? Yet we have seen all these persons whom 
 I have mentioned, ardent in these pursuits when old men. 
 But as to Marcus Cethcgus, whom Ennius rightly called the 
 
 1 Prima caved. The theater was of a semicircular form : tho foremost 
 rows next the stage were called orchestra : fourteen rows behind them 
 were assigned to tho knights, tho rest to tho people. Tho wholo was 
 frequently called cavea. 
 
 '* Livius Andronicus flourished at Rome about 240 years before tfiw 
 Christian era
 
 240 CICERO ON OLD AGE CHAP. XT. 
 
 " marrow of persuasion," with what great zeal did we sec him 
 engage in the practice of oratory, even when an old man ! 
 What pleasures, therefore, arising from banquets, or plays, 
 or harlots, are to be compared with these pleasures? And 
 these, indeed, are the pursuits of learning, which too, with 
 the sensible and well educated, increase along with their age : 
 so that is a noble saying of Solon, when he says in a certain 
 verse, as I observed before, that he grew old learning many 
 things every day than Avhich j^easurc of the mind, certainly, 
 none can be greater. 
 
 XV. I come now to the pleasures of husbandmen, with 
 which I am excessively delighted ; which are not checked 
 by any old age, and appear in my mind to make the 
 nearest approach to the life of a wise man. 1 For they have 
 relation to the earth, which never refuses command, and 
 never returns without interest that which it hath received ; 
 but sometimes with less, generally with very great interest. 
 And yet for my part it is not only the product, but the virtue 
 and nature of the earth itself delights me ; which, when in 
 its softened and subdued bosom it has received the scattered 
 seed, first of all confines what is hidden within it, from which 
 harrowing, which produces that effect, derives its name 
 (pccatio) ; then, when it is warmed by heat and its own com- 
 pression, it spreads it out, and elicits from it the verdant 
 blade, which, supported by the fibers of the roots, gradually 
 grows up, and, rising on a jointed stalk, is now inclosed in a 
 sheath, as if it were of tender age, out of which, when it 
 hath shot up, it then pours forth the fruit of the ear, piled in 
 due order, and is guarded by a rampart of beards against the 
 pecking of the smaller birds. Why should I, in the case 
 of vines, tell of the plantings, the risings, the stages of 
 growth ? That you may know the repose and amusement of 
 my old age, I assure you that I can never have enough of 
 that gratification. For I pass over the peculiar nature of all 
 things which are produced from the earth : which generates 
 
 ' " God Almighty first planted a garden ; and indeed it is the purest 
 of human pleasures ; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man ; 
 without which buildings and palaces are but gross handy-works, and a 
 man shall ever see, that, when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men 
 come to build stately sooner than to garden finely ; as if gardening wers 
 the greater perfection." Lord Bacon, Essay 46.
 
 CHAP. xv. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 241 
 
 such great trunks and branches from so small a grain of the 
 fig or from the grape-stone, or from the minutest seeds of 
 other fruits and roots : shoots, plants, twigs, quicksets, layers, 
 do not these produce the effect of delighting aay one even to 
 admiration I The vine, indeed, which by nature is prone to 
 fall, and is borne down to the ground, unless it be propped, 
 in order to raise itself up, embraces with its tendrils, as it 
 were with hands, whatever it meets with ; which, as it creeps 
 with manifold and wandering course, the skill of the hus- 
 bandmen, pruning with the knife, restrains from running 
 into a forest of twigs, and spreading too far in all directions. 
 Accordingly, in the beginning of spring, in those twigs 
 which are left, there rises up as it were at the joints of the 
 branches that which is called a bud, from which the nascent 
 grape shows itself; which, increasing in size by the moisture 
 of the earth and the heat of the sun, is at first very acid to 
 the taste, and then as it ripens grows sweet, and being 
 clothed with its large leaves does not want moderate warmth, 
 and yet keeps oft' the excessive heat of the sun ; than which 
 what can be in fruit on the one hand more rich, or on the 
 other hand more beautiful in appearance ? Of which not 
 only the advantage, as I said before, but also the cultivation 
 and the nature itself delights me: the rows of props, the 
 joining of the heads, the tying up and propagation of vines, 
 and the pruning of some twigs, and the grafting of others, 
 which I have mentioned. Why should I allude to irriga- 
 tions, why to the diggings of the ground, why to the trenching 
 by which the ground is made much more productive ? Why 
 should I speak of the .advantage of manuring ? I have treated 
 of it in that book which I wrote respecting rural affairs, 
 concerning which the learned Ilesiod has not said a single 
 word, though he has written about the cultivation of the 
 laud. But Homer, who, as appears to me, lived many ages 
 before, introduces Laertes soothing the regret which he felt 
 for his son, by tilling the land and manuring it. Nor in- 
 deed is rural life delightful by reason of corn-fields only 
 and meadows and vineyards and groves, but also for its 
 gardens and orchards ; also for the feeding of cattle, the 
 swarms of bees, and the variety of all kinds of flowers. 1 Nor 
 
 1 "I look upon the pleasure which wo take in a garden, as one of the 
 most innocent delights in human life. A garden was the habitation of 
 
 11
 
 242 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. XVL 
 
 do plantings 1 only give me delight, but also engraftings; 
 than which agriculture has invented nothing more inge- 
 nious. 
 
 XVL I can enumerate many amusements of rustic life ; 
 but even those things which I have mentioned, I perceive to 
 have been rather long. But you will forgive me; for both 
 from my love of rural life I have been carried away, and old 
 age is by nature rather talkative, that I may not appear to 
 vindicate it from all failings. In such a life then as this, 
 Marcus Curius, 2 after he had triumphed over the Samnites, 
 over the Sabines, over Pyrrhus, spent the closing period of 
 his existence. In contemplating whose country seat, too 
 (for it is not far distant from my house), I can not sufficiently 
 & '.mire either the continence of the man himself, or the moral 
 character of the times. 
 
 When the Samnites had brought a great quantity of gold to 
 Curius as he sat by his fire-side, they were repelled with dis- 
 dain by him ; for he said that it did not appear to him glorious 
 to possess gold, but to have power over those who possessed 
 gold. Could so great a soul fail in rendering old age pleasant ? 
 But I come to husbandmen, that I may not digress from my- 
 self. In the country at that time there were senators, and 
 they too old men : inasmuch as Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus 
 was at the plow when it was announced to him that he was 
 made dictator : by whose command when dictator, Caius 
 Servilius Ahala, the master of the horse, arrested and put 
 to death Spurius Melius, who was aspiring to kingly power. 
 From their country house, Curius and other old men were 
 summoned to the senate, from which cause they who sum- 
 moned them were termed " viatores." Was then their old 
 age to be pitied, who amused themselves in the cultivation 
 of land? In my opinion, indeed, I know not whether any 
 other can be more happy : and not only in the discharge of 
 
 our first parents before the fall. It is naturally apt to fill the mind with 
 calmness and tranquillity, and to lay all its turbulent passions at rest. 
 It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Prov- 
 idence, and suggests innumerable subjects for meditation." Spectator, 
 No 477. 
 
 1 Consitio, sowing or planting ; insitio, grafting ; repaslinatio, trench- 
 ing. 
 
 2 Curius Dentatus Marctts Annius, celebrated for his fortitude and 
 frugality. Ho was thrice consul, and twice honored with a triumph.
 
 CHAP. xvii. CICERO Otf OLD AGE. 243 
 
 duty, because to the whole race of mankind the cultivation 
 of the land is beneficial ; but also from the amusement, which 
 I have mentioned, and that fullness and abundance of all 
 things which are connected with the food of men, and also 
 with the worship of the gods; so that, since some have a 
 desire for these things, we may again put ourselves on good 
 terms with pleasure. For the wine-cellar of a good and 
 diligent master is always well stored ; the oil-casks, the 
 pantry also, the whole farm-house is richly supplied ; it 
 abounds in pigs, kids, lambs, hens, milk, cheese, honey. 
 Then, too, the countrymen themselves call the garden a 
 second dessert. And then what gives a greater relish to 
 these things is that kind of leisure labor, fowling and hunt- 
 ing. Why should I speak of the greenness of meadows, or 
 the rows of trees, or the handsome appearance of vineyards 
 and olive grounds ? Let me cut the matter short. Nothing 
 can be either more rich in use, or more elegant in appear- 
 ance than ground well tilled ; to the enjoyment of which 
 old age is so far from being an obstacle, that it is even 
 an invitation and allurement. For where can that age 
 be better wanned either by basking in the sun or by the 
 fire, or again be more healthfully refreshed by shades or 
 waters ? Let the young, therefore, keep to themselves their 
 arms, horses, spears, clubs, tennis-ball, swimmings, and 
 races : to us old men let them leave out of many amuse- 
 ments the tali and lesser i ce ;' and even in that matter it may 
 be as they please, since old age can be happy without these 
 amusements. 
 
 XVII. For many purposes the books of Xenophon are 
 very useful ; which read, I pray you, with diligence, as you 
 are doing. At what length is agriculture praised by him in 
 that book, which treats of the management of private property, 
 and which is styled " CEconomicus." * And that you may 
 understand that nothing to him appears so kingly as the pur- 
 suit of agriculture, Socrates in that book converses with Crito- 
 
 1 Tesserae had six sides marked 1, 2, 3, etc., like our dice. The tali 
 had four sides longwise, the ends not being regarded. The lowest throw 
 (unio), the ace, was called canis: the highest (senio or sice), was called 
 Venus ; the dice-box, Fritittus. 
 
 3 (Economicus. A dialogue of Xenophon, in which he treats of the 
 management of a farm, horses, etc.
 
 244 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. xvn. 
 
 bulus, [and remarks] that Cyrus the younger, 1 king of the 
 Persians, pre-eminent in talent and the glory of his empire, 
 when Lysander 1 the Lacedaemonian, a man of the highest 
 valor, had come to him at Sardis, and had brought to him 
 presents from the allies, both in other respects was courteous 
 and kind toward Lysander, and in particular showed to him 
 an inclosed piece of ground planted with great care. And that 
 when Lysander admired both the tallness of the trees and the 
 lines arranged in a quincunx, and the ground well cultivated 
 and clear, and the sweetness of the perfumes which were 
 breathed from the flowers, he said that he admired not only the 
 diligence, but also the skillfulness of the man by whom these 
 grounds had been planned and measured out ; and that Cyrus 
 answered him, " Well, it was I who planned all these grounds ; 
 mine are the rows, mine the laying out ; many also of these 
 trees were planted by my own hand." That then Lysander, 
 beholding his purple robe and the elegance of his person, and 
 his Persian dress adorned with much gold and many jewels, 
 said, " O Cyrus, they truly report you as happy, since excel- 
 lence is combined with your fortune !" This lot then old men 
 may enjoy ; nor does age hinder us from retaining the pursuit 
 both of other things, and especially of cultivating the land, 
 even to the last period of old age. In the case of Marcus 
 Valerius Corvus, we have heard that he continued to live to 
 his hundredth year, while, when his (active) life had been 
 spent, he lived in the country and tilled the land : between 
 whose first and sixth consulship forty-six years intervened. 
 Thus, as long a period of life as our ancestors considered to 
 reach to the beginning of old age, just so long was the career 
 of his honors : and the close of his life was happier on this 
 account than the middle, because it had more of authority 
 and less of toil. Now authority is the crown of old age. How 
 great was it in Lucius Caecilius Metellus ! how great in 
 Atilius Calatinus! on whom was that singular inscription 
 " Many nations agree that he was the leading man of the 
 people." It is a well-known epitaph, inscribed on his tomb. 
 He therefore was justly dignified, about whose praises the 
 
 1 Cyrus tfte younger. He attempted to dethrone his brother Arta- 
 jcerxes, and was killed at the battle of Cynaxa, B.C. 401. 
 
 2 Lysander defeated the Athenian fleet at the battle of ^Egos 
 p.c. 405, and put an end to the Peloponnesian war.
 
 CHAP, xvm. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 245 
 
 report of all meii was concurrent. IIow great a man have 
 we seen in Publius Crassus, late pontifex maximus; how 
 great a man subsequently in Marcus Lepidus, invested with 
 the same sacerdotal office ! Why should I speak of Paulus or 
 Africanus ? or, as I have already done, about Maximus ? men 
 not only in whose expressed judgment, but even in whose 
 acquiescence authority resided. Old age, especially an honored 
 old age, has so great authority, that this is of more value than 
 all the pleasures of youth. 
 
 XVIII. But in my whole discourse remember that I am 
 praising that old age which is established on the foundations 
 of youth : from which this is effected which I once asserted 
 with the great approbation of all present that wretched 
 was the old age which had to defend itself by speaking. 
 Neither gray hairs nor wrinkles can suddenly catch respect ; 
 but the former part of life honorably spent, reaps the fruits 
 of authority at the close. For these very observances, which 
 seem light and common, are marks of honor to be saluted, to 
 be sought after, to receive precedence, to have persons rising 
 up to you, to be attended on the way, to be escorted home, to 
 be consulted ; points which, both among us and in other states, 
 in proportion as they are the most excellent in their morals, are 
 the most scrupulously observed. They say that Lysander the 
 Lacedaemonian, whom I mentioned a little above, was accus- 
 tomed to remark, that Lacedaemon was the most honorable 
 abode for old age ; for nowhere is so much conceded to that 
 time of life, nowhere is old age more respected. Nay, further, 
 it is recorded that when at Athens, during the games, a cer- 
 tain elderly person had entered the theater, a place was 
 nowhere offered him in that large assembly by his own 
 townsmen ; but when lie had approached the Lacedaemonians, 
 who, as they were cmbassadors, had taken their seats together 
 in a particular place, they all rose up and invited the old 
 man to a seat ; and when reiterated applause had been be- 
 stowed upon them by the whole assembly, one of them 
 remarked, that the Athenians knew what was right, but 
 were unwilling to do it. There are many excellent rules in 
 our college, 1 but this of which I am treating especially, that 
 in proportion as each man has the advantage in age, BO he 
 
 1 In nostro coUegio. The College of Augurs b hero meant, which 
 Cicero calls " amplissimi sacerdotii collegium."
 
 246 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. xix. 
 
 takes precedence in giving his opinion ; and older augurs arc 
 preferred not only to those who are higher in office, but even 
 to such as are in actual command. What pleasures, then, of 
 the body can be compared with the privileges of authority ? 
 which they who have nobly employed seem to me to have 
 consummated the drama of life, and not like inexpert per- 
 formers to have broken down in the last act. Still old men 
 are peevish, and fretful, and passionate, and unmanageable 
 nay, if we seek for such, also covetous : but these are the 
 faults of their characters, not of their old age. And yet 
 that peevishness and those faults which I have mentioned 
 have some excuse, not quite satisfactory indeed, but such 
 as may be admitted. They fancy that they are neglected, 
 despised, made a jest of; besides, in a weak state of body 
 every offense is irritating. All which defects, however, 
 are extenuated by good dispositions and qualities ; and this 
 may be discovered not only in real life, but on the stage, 
 from the two brothers that are represented in the Brothers ;' 
 how much austerity in the one, and how much gentleness in 
 the other ! Such is the fact : for as it is not every wine, so 
 it is not every man's life, that grows sour from old age. I 
 approve of gravity in old age, but this in a moderate degree, 
 like every thing else ; harshness by no means. 3 What avarice 
 in an old man -can propose to itself I can not conceive : for 
 can any thing be more absurd than, in proportion as less of 
 our journey remains, to seek a greater supply of provisions ? 
 
 XIX. A fourth reason remains, which seems most of all 
 to distress and render anxious our time of life, namely, the 
 near approach of death, which certainly can not be far distant 
 from old age. O wretched old man, who in so long a time 
 of life hast not seen that death is a thing to be despised ! 
 Which either ought altogether to be regarded with indiffer- 
 ence, if it entirely annihilates the mind, or ought even to be 
 
 1 Adelphi. A play of Terence : Demea and Micio are the names of the 
 two old men alluded to here. 
 
 a " Nothing is more despicable or more miserable, than the old age of 
 a passionate man. When the vigor of youth fails him, and his amuse- 
 ments pall with frequent repetition, his occasional rage sinks by decay 
 of strength into peevishness; that peevishness, for want of novelty and 
 variety, becomes habitual ; the world falls off from around him, and he 
 is left, as Homer expresses it, '<j>oivv&uv <t>ihnv nr/p,' to devour his own 
 heart in solitude and contempt." Rambler, No. 11.
 
 CHAP, xix CICERO ON OLD AGE. 247 
 
 desired, if it leads it to a place where it is destined to be im- 
 mortal.' Yet no third alternative certainly can be found. 
 
 What, therefore, should I fear, if after death I am sure 
 either not to be miserable or to be happy ? Although who is 
 so foolish, though he be young, as to be assured that he will 
 live even till the evening ? Nay, that period of life has 
 many more probabilities of death than ours has : young 
 men more readily fall into diseases, suffer more severely, are 
 cured with more difficulty, and therefore few arrive at old 
 age. Did not this happen so, we should live better and moro 
 wisely, for intelligence, and reflection, and judgment reside 
 in old men, and if there had been none of them, no states 
 could exist at all. But I return to the imminence of death. 
 What charge is that against old age, since you see it to be 
 common to youth also ? I experienced not only in the case 
 of my own excellent son, but also in that of your brothers, 
 Scipio, men plainly marked out for the highest distinction, 
 
 1 " I thank God I have not those straight ligaments or narrow obli- 
 gations to the world as to doto ou life, or be convulst and tremble at the 
 name of death : not that I am insensible of the dread and horror thereof 
 or by taking into the bowels of the deceased continual sight of anatomies, 
 skeletons, or cadaverous reliques like vespillores, or grave-makers ; I am 
 become stupid, or have forgot the apprehension of mortality, but that 
 marshaling all the honors, and contemplating the extremities thereof, I 
 find not any thing therein able to daunt my courage of a man, much less 
 a well resolved Christian ; and therefore am not angry at the error of 
 our first parents, or unwilling to bear a part of this common fall, and, like 
 the best of them, to die ; that is, to cease to breathe, to take a farewell 
 of the elements, to be a kind of nothing for a moment, to be within ono 
 instant of a spirit. "When I take a full view and circle of myself without 
 this reasonable moderator and equal piece of justice, I do conceive my- 
 self the miserablest person extant ; were there not another life that I 
 hope for, all the vanities of this world should not intreat a moment's 
 breath from mo ; could the devil work my belief to imagine I could never 
 die, I would not outlive that very thought ; I have so abject a conceit 
 of this common way of existence, this retaining to the sun and elements 
 I can not think thia is to be a man, or to live according to the dignity 
 of humanity : in expectation of a better, I can with patience embrace 
 this life ; yet in my best meditations do often defy death ; I honor any 
 man that contemns it, nor can highly love any that is afraid of it. This 
 makes mo naturally love a soldier, and honor those tattered and con- 
 temptible regiments that will die at the command of a sergeant. For a 
 pagan, there may be some motives to be in love with life ; but for a 
 Christian to be amazed at death, I see not how he can escape this dilem- 
 ma, that ho is too sensible of this life, or hopeless of the life to come." 
 Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, chap. xxxviiL
 
 248 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. xix. 
 
 that death was common to every period of life. Yet a young 
 man hopes that he will live a long time, which expectation 
 an old man can not entertain. His hope is but a foolish one : 
 for what can be more foolish than to regard uncertainties as 
 certainties, delusions as truths ? An old man indeed has 
 nothing to hope for ; yet he is in so much the happier state 
 than a young one ; since he has already attained what the 
 other is only hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, 
 the other has lived long. And yet, good gods ! what is there 
 in man's life that can be called long ? For allow the latest 
 period: let us anticipate the age of the kings of the Tar- 
 tessii. For there dwelt, as I find it recorded, a man named 
 Arganthonius at Gades, 1 who reigned for eighty years, and 
 lived 120. But to my mind, nothing whatever seems of long 
 duration, in which there is any end. For when that arrives, 
 then the time which has passed has flowed away ; that only 
 remains which you have secured by virtue and right conduct. 
 Hours indeed depart from us, and days and months and 
 years; nor does past time ever return, nor can it be dis- 
 covered what is to follow. Whatever time is assigned to 
 each to live, with that he ought to be content : for neither 
 need the drama be performed entire by the actor, in order 
 to give satisfaction, provided he be approved in whatever 
 act he may be : nor need the wise man live till the 
 plaudite? For the short period of life is long enough 
 for living well and honorably; 8 and if you should advance 
 
 1 Gades, a small island in the Atlantic, now Cadiz. It was anciently 
 called Tartessus and Erythia. 
 
 2 The last word of the play which invites the applause of the audience. 
 It is here equivalent to the phrase, 'the fall of the curtain.' 
 
 3 " Glory is the portion of virtue, the sweet reward of honorable toils, 
 the triumphant crown which covers the thoughtful head of the disinte- 
 rested patriot, or the dusty brow of the victorious warrior. Elevated by 
 BO sublime a prize, the man of virtue looks down with contempt on all 
 the allurements of pleasure, and all the menaces of danger. Death itself 
 loses its terrors when ho considers that its dominion extends only over 
 a part of him, and that, in spite of death and time, the rage of the ele- 
 ments, and the endless vicissitudes of human affairs, he is assured of an 
 immortal fame among all the sons of men. There surely is a Being who 
 presides over the universe ; and who with infinite wisdom and power 
 has reduced the jarring elements into just order and proportion. Let 
 speculative reasoners dispute how far this beneficent Being extends his 
 care, and whether he prolongs our existence beyond the grave, in order 
 to bestow on virtue its just reward, and render it fully triumphant. The
 
 CHAP. xix. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 249 
 
 further, you need no more grieve than farmers do when the 
 loveliness of spring-time hath passed, that summer and 
 autumn have come. For spring represents the time of youth, 
 and gives promise of the future fruits ; the remaining seasons 
 are intended for plucking and gathering in those fruits. Now 
 the harvest of old age, as I have often said, is the recollection 
 and abundance of blessings previously secured. In truth 
 every thing that happens agreeably to nature is to be reckoned 
 among blessings. What, however, is so agreeable to nature 
 as for an old man to die ? which even is the lot of the young, 
 though nature opposes and resists. And thus it is that 
 young men seem to me to die, just as when the violence of 
 flame is extinguished by a flood of water ; whereas old men 
 die, as the exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without 
 the exertion of any force : and as fruits when they are 
 green are plucked by force from the trees, but when ripe and 
 mellow drop off, so violence takes away their lives from 
 youths, maturity from old men ; a state which to me indeed 
 is so delightful that the nearer I approach to death, I seem 
 as it were to be getting sight of land, and at length, after a 
 long voyage, to be just coming into harbor. 1 
 
 man of morals, without deciding any thing on so dubious a subject, ia 
 satisfied with the portion marked out to him by the supreme Disposer 
 of all things. Gratefully ho accepts of that further reward prepared for 
 him; but is disappointed, he thinks not virtue an empty name, but justly 
 esteeming it its own reward, ho gratefully acknowledges the bounty of 
 his Creator, who, by calling him into existence, has thereby afforded him 
 an opportunity of once acquiring so invaluable a possession." Hume's 
 Essays, Essay 16. 
 
 1 " It ia curious to observe the difference in the estimate formed by 
 Cicero and the great moralist of the last century on the condition of old 
 age and the proximity of death. A difference depending partly, no doubt, 
 upon the temperament of the two men, but still more on their religious 
 notions. The other miseries which waylay our passage through the 
 world, wisdom may escape, and fortitude may conquer ; by caution and 
 circumspection, we may steal along with very little to obstruct or incom- 
 mode us; by spirit and vigor wo may force a way, and reward tho 
 vescalion by conquest, by the pleasures of victory. But a time must como 
 when our policy and bravery shall bo equally useless ; when we shall 
 all sink into helplessness and sadness, without any power of receiving 
 solace from the pleasures that have formerly delighted us, or any pros- 
 pect of emerging into a second possession of tho blessings that wo havo 
 lost. However ago may discourage us by its appearance from consider- 
 ing it in prospect, wo shall all by degrees certainly be old, and therefore 
 wo ought to inquire what provision can be made against that time of 
 
 U*
 
 250 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. xx. 
 
 XX. Of all the periods of life there is a definite limit ; 
 but of old age there is no limit fixed ; and life goes on very 
 well in it, so long as you are able to follow up and attend to 
 the duty of your situation, and, at the same time, to care 
 nothing about death ; Avhence it happens that old age is even 
 of higher spirit and bolder than youth. Agreeable to this 
 was the answer given to Pisistratus, 1 the tyrant, by Solon ; 
 when on the former inquiring, " in reliance on what hope 
 he so boldly withstood him," the latter is said to have 
 answered, "on old age." The happiest end of life is this 
 when the mind and the other senses being unimpaired, the 
 same nature, which put it together, takes asunder her own 
 work. As in the case of a ship or a house, he who built them 
 takes them down most easily ; so the same nature which has 
 compacted man, most easily breaks him up. Besides, every 
 fastening of glue, when fresh, is with difficulty torn asunder, 
 but easily when tried by time. Hence it is that that short rem- 
 nant of life should be neither greedily coveted, nor without 
 reason given up : and Pythagoras forbids us to abandon the 
 station or post of life without the orders of our commander, 
 that is of God." There is indeed a saying of the wise Solon, in 
 
 distress ? what happiness can be stored up against the winter of life ? 
 and how we may pass our latter years with serenity and cheerfulness ? 
 If it has been found by the experience of mankind, that not even the best 
 seasons of life are able to supply sufficient gratifications without antici- 
 pating uncertain felicities, it can not surely be supposed that old age, 
 worn with labors, harassed with anxieties, and tortured with diseases, 
 should have any gladness of its own, or feel any satisfaction from tho 
 contemplation of tho present. All the comfort that can now be expect- 
 ed must be recalled from the past, or borrowed from the future ; tho 
 past is very soon exhausted ; all the events or actions of which tho 
 memory can afford pleasure, are quickly recollected ; and the future lies 
 beyond the grave, where it can be reached only by virtue and devotion. 
 Piety is tho only proper and adequate relief of decaying man." Ramb- 
 ler, No. 69. 
 
 1 Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, reigned thirty-three years, and died 
 about B.C. 527. 
 
 a Upon this passage Melmoth has a note, of which the following is an 
 abstract: "Although the practice of suicide too generally prevailed among 
 the ancient Greeks and Romans, yet it was a practice condemned by tho 
 best and wisest of their philosophers. Nothing can be more clear and 
 express than the prohibition of Pythagoras with respect to this act, as 
 cited by Cicero in the present passage ; and in this he was followed both 
 by Socratx^ and Plato, those noblest and most enlightened of the pagan 
 moralists. -xmsiderod suicide as an act of rebellion against the authority
 
 CHAP. xx. CICERO ON" OLD AGE. 251 
 
 which he declares that he does not wish his own death to bo 
 unattended by the grief and lamentation of friends. He 
 
 of the Supreme Being, who having placed man in his present post, hath 
 reserved to himself alone the right of determining the proper time for his 
 dismission. Agreeably to these principles, Cicero in his relation of 
 Scipio's dream, represents the departed spirit of Emilius as assuring his 
 son, who had expressed an impatience of joining him in the heavenly 
 mansions, that there was no admittance into those regions of felicity for 
 the mail who attempted to force his way into them by his own unau- 
 thorized act. The Platonic poet, it is well known, places those unhappy 
 persons in a state of punishment, who not having the piety and the cour- 
 age to support their misfortunes with duo resignation, impiously endeav- 
 ored to deliver themselves by venturing to bo their own executioners." 
 
 Such were the sentiments of the most approved moralists among the 
 ancient philosophers ; tho doctrine of the Stoics, it must be acknowledg- 
 ed, was more relaxed upon this important article ; but although they did 
 not scruple to represent it even as a duty in some very particular circum- 
 stances, they ought, if they had reasoned consequentially from their own 
 principles, to have held it forth as highly criminal in all. For there is 
 no precept of morality which they inculcate more frequently, nor in 
 stronger terms, than an unlimited submission to tho dispensations of 
 Providence ; the truth is, the ancient writers of this sect are not more at 
 variance with reason than with themselves in what they have delivered 
 upon this subject. Inconsistency, indeed, is one of the characteristical 
 marks of tho Stoical system, as Plutarch has proved by a variety of in- 
 stances drawn from tho writings of Chrysippus. Those of Seneca and 
 Epictetus may equally bo produced in support of tho same charge, so 
 far at least as relates to their sentiments on tho present question ; for 
 they sometimes contend for tho lawfulness of suicide without any restric- 
 tion, sometimes only under very peculiar circumstances, and sometimes 
 zealously press upon their disciples, as an indispensable obligation, tho 
 duty of a pious acquiescence under all tho various calamities of human 
 life. 
 
 Agreeably to this last position, Seneca, in answer to a querulous letter 
 he had received from his friend Lucilius, writes thus: "A wise and 
 pood man," says ho, " should stand prepared for all events, remembering 
 that he is destined to pass through a world where pain and sorrow, disease 
 and infirmity, aro posted in his way. It is not in his power to change 
 these conditions upon which ho receives his present existence ; but it 
 certainly is to submit to them with such fortitude and acquiescence in 
 the laws of nature as becomes a virtuous mind. It should bo our con- 
 stant endeavor, therefore, to reconcile our minds to these unalterable 
 laws of Providence, and to submit to them without murmur or com- 
 plaint ; fully persuaded that every thing is as it ought to be, and that tho 
 government of tho world is in the hands of the Supreme Being. To de- 
 liver himself up to that Being with an implicit md unreserved resigna- 
 tion, is the merit of a truly great soul, as it is of a base and little mind 
 to entertain unworthy suspicions of the order est&b\ished in the world, 
 to attempt to break through the laws of Provideno/i , ar,d instead of cor-
 
 252 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. xx. 
 
 wishes, I suppose, that he should be dear to his friends. But 
 I know not whether Ennius does not say Avith more propriety, 
 
 " Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor celebrate my funeral 
 with mourning." 
 
 He conceives that a death ought not to be lamented which 
 an immortality follows. Besides a dying man may havo 
 some degree of consciousness, but that for a short time, espe- 
 Icially in the case of an old man : after death, indeed, con- 
 'sciousness either does not exist, or it is a thing to be desired. 
 But this ought to be a subject of study from our youth to be 
 indifferent about death ; without which study no one can be 
 of tranquil mind. For die we certainly must, and it is 
 uncertain whether or not on this very day. He, therefore, 
 who at all hours dreads impending death, how can he be at 
 peace in his mind? concerning which there seems to be no 
 need of such long discussion, when I call to mind not only 
 Lucius Brutus, who was slain in liberating his country ; nor 
 the two Decii, who spurred on their steeds to a voluntary- 
 death ; nor Marcus Atilius, 1 who set out to execution, that 
 he might keep a promise pledged to the enemy ; nor the two 
 
 recting his own ways, impiously presume to correct the ways of God." 
 Sen. Ess. 10T. 
 
 To the same purpose, and with equal inconsistency, is the doctrine of 
 Epictetus ; on the one hand telling those who complain under the press- 
 ure of any calamity that they have the remedy in their own power, and 
 on the other exhorting them to bear with a patient composure of mind 
 the evils that attend human life, and not presume to deliver themselves 
 by an unwarranted desertion of that post in which the Supremo Being 
 has thought proper to place them. 
 
 With the exception of the cases of soldiers, suicide was not forbidden 
 by the Roman law, nor was it discountenanced by public opinion. Vol- 
 untary suicide, by the law of England is a crime ; and every suicide is 
 presumed to be voluntary until the contrary is made apparent. It is re- 
 markable, however, that even English moralists are by no means unani- 
 mous in condemning it ; both llumo and Godwin submit it to the test 
 of a mere calculation of expediency. The Code Penal of France contains 
 no legislation on the subject of suicide. Of the modern codes of Germany, 
 some adopt the silence of the Trench code, and others vary in their 
 particular provisions. In the Bavarian and Saxon codes, suicide is not 
 mentioned. The Prussian code forbids all mutilation of the dead body 
 of a self-murderer, under ordinary circumstances, but declares that it 
 chall be buried without any marks of respect, otherwise suitable to tho 
 rank of the deceased. 
 
 1 Better kaown to tho English reader by tho name of Regulus.
 
 CHAP. xxi. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 253 
 
 Scipios, who even with their very bodies sought to obstruct 
 the march of the Carthaginians ; nor your grandfather Lucius 
 Paulus, 1 who by his death atoned for the temerity of his 
 colleague in the disgraceful defeat at Cannae ; nor Marcus 
 Marcellus, 5 whose corpse not even the most merciless foo 
 suffered to go without the honor of sepulcher : but that our 
 legions, as I have remarked in my Antiquities, have often 
 gone with cheerful and undaunted mind to that place from 
 .which they believed that they should never return. Shall, 
 then, well-instructed old men be afraid of that which young 
 men, and the'y not only ignorant, but mere peasants, de- 
 spise ? On the whole, as it seemed to me indeed, a satiety of 
 all pursuits causes a satiety of life. There are pursuits pe- 
 culiar to boyhood ; do therefore young men regret the loss of 
 them ? There are also some of early youth ; does that now 
 settled age, which is called middle life, seek after these ? 
 There are also some of this period ; neither are they looked for 
 by old age. There are some final pursuits of old age ; accord- 
 ingly, as the pursuits of the earlier parts of life fall into 
 disuse, so also do those of old age ; and when this has taken 
 place, satiety of life brings on the seasonable period of death. 3 
 
 XXI. Indeed I do not see why I should not venture to 
 tell you what I myself think concerning death ; because I 
 
 1 Lucius Faidus fell at tho battle of Cannae, which was brought on by 
 tho rashness of his colleagues, Terentius Varro, B.C. 21G: 40,000 Romans 
 were killed in this battle. 
 
 2 M. MarceU'us, a Roman consul who fought against Hannibal. Ho 
 was killed in an ambuscade, A.U.C. 546. 
 
 3 " Confound not tho distinctions of thy life which nature hath divided, 
 that is youth, adolescence, manhood, and old ago; nor, in these divided 
 periods, wherein thou art in a manner four, conceive thyself but one. 
 Let every division bo happy in its proper virtues, nor one vice run through 
 alL Let each distinction have its salutary transition, and critically de- 
 liver theo from the imperfections of tho former, so ordering the whole that 
 prudence and virtue may havo tho largest section. Do as a child, but 
 when thou art a child, and rido not on a reed at twenty. He who hath 
 not taken leave of tho follies of his youth, and in his maturer state scarce 
 got out of that division, disproportionately divideth his days, crowds up 
 the latter part of his life, and leaves too narrow a corner for the ago of 
 wisdom, and so hath room to bo a man scarce longer than he hath been 
 a youth. Rather than to make this confusion, anticipate the virtues of 
 
 age, and live long without the infirmities of it. So mayest thou count 
 i up thy days, as some do Adam's, that is by anticipation. So mayest 
 thou bo co-ctaneous unto thy elders, and a father unto thy cotempora- 
 i.-:es." Sir T. Browne's " Christian Morals," part 3, ch. 8.
 
 254 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHIP. *xi. 
 
 fancy I see it so much the more clearly, in proportion as I 
 am less distant from it. I am persuaded that your fathers, 
 Publius Scipio, and Caius Lselius, men of the greatest 
 eminence and very dear friends of mine, are living ; and that 
 life too which alone deserves the name of life. 1 For whilo 
 
 1 In another of his writings, "The Tusculan Questions," Cicero thus 
 expresses himself: "There is, I know not how, in minds, a certain pre- 
 sage as it were, of a future existence. And this takes the deepest root, 
 and is most discoverable in the greatest geniuses and most exalted minds." 
 It was naturally to be expected that far more distinct and elevated views 
 should be entertained upon this subject subsequently to the dawn of the 
 Christian dispensation, and it is most interesting to observe both the 
 resemblances and the contrasts which obtain between the views of Cice- 
 ro, the most enlightened of heathen advocates for the soul's immortality, 
 and of Christian moralists the analogies doubtless arising from tho 
 universality and instinctiveness of the notion, and the differences being 
 readily explained by the fuller light shed upon tho subject by the Chris- 
 tian revelation. We will select Addison as one of the most charming, 
 if not one of tho most profound of the latter school. In stating tho argu- 
 ments for the immortality of the soul, in one of his elegant essays, he has 
 the following observations: "I consider these several proofs drawn: 
 First, from the nature of the soul itself, and particularly its immateriality, 
 which though not absolutely necessary to the eternity of its duration, 
 has, I think, been evinced to almost a demonstration. Secondly. From 
 its passions and sentiments. As particularly from its love of existence, 
 its horror of annihilation, and its hopes of immortality, with that secret 
 satisfaction which it finds in the practice of virtue, and that uneasiness 
 which follows in it upon tho commission of vice. Thirdly, From the 
 nature of the Supreme Being, whose justice, wisdom, goodness, and 
 voracity, are all concerned in this great point. But among these and 
 other excellent arguments for tho immortality of the soul, there is one 
 drawn from the perpetual progress of the soul to its perfection, without 
 a possibility of its ever arriving at it, which is a hint that I do not remem- 
 ber to have seen opened and improved by others who have written upon 
 this subject, though it seems to mo to carry a great weight with it. How 
 can it enter into tho thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of 
 such immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all 
 eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created ? Aro 
 such abilities made for no purpose? A brute arrives at a point of per- 
 fection that ho can never pass in a few years ; he has all the endowments 
 he is capable of, and were he to live ten thousand more, would be tho 
 same thing he is at present. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her 
 accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown and incapable of 
 further enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away insensibly, and 
 drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking 
 being that is in a perpetual progress of improvements, and traveling on 
 from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into tho 
 works of its Creator, and make a few discoveries of Ms infinite goodness,
 
 .JHAP. XXL CICERO ON OLD AGE. 255 
 
 we are shut up in this prison of the body, we arc fulfilling as 
 it were the function and painful task of destiny : for the 
 heaven-born soul has been degraded from its dwelling- 
 place above, and as it were buried in the earth, a situation 
 uncongenial to its divine and immortal nature. But I believe 
 that the immortal gods have shed souls into human bodies 
 that beings might exist Avho might tend the earth, and by 
 contemplating the order of the heavenly bodies, might imitate 
 it in the manner and regularity of their lives. 1 Nor have 
 reason and argument alone influenced me thus to believe, but 
 likewise the high name and authority of the greatest philo- 
 sophers. I used to hear that Pythagoras and the Pytha- 
 goreans, 2 who were all but our neighbors, who were formerly 
 called the Italian philosophers, had no doubt that we possess 
 souls derived from the universal divine mind. Moreover, 
 
 wisdom, and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the be- 
 ginning of her inquiries ? 
 
 " There is not, in my opinion, a more pleasing and triumphant conside- 
 ration in religion than this, of the perpetual progress which the soul 
 makes toward the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a 
 period of it To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength ; 
 to consider that she is to shine forever, with new accessions of glory, 
 and brighten to all eternity ; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, 
 and knowledge to knowledge, carries in it something wonderfully agree- 
 able to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man. Nay, it 
 must be a prospect pleasing to God himself, to see his creation forever 
 beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to him by greater degrees 
 of resemblance." Spectator, No. 111. 
 
 1 The Pythagoreans, according to Aristotle (Eth. Magn. I.), were tho 
 first who determined any thing in moral philosophy. Their ethics are of 
 the loftiest and most spiritual description. Virtue was with them a har- 
 mony, an unity, and an endeavor to resemble tho Deity. Tho whole lifo 
 of man should be an attempt to represent on earth tho beauty and har- 
 mony displayed in the order of the universe. Tho mind should have tho 
 body and the passions under perfect control ; the gods should bo wor- 
 shiped by simple purifications, offerings, and abovo all, by sincerity and 
 purity of tho heart. 
 
 2 Tho Pythagoreans represented tho souls of men as light particles of 
 tho universal soul diffused through tho whole world (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 
 L 11). Tho souls of tho gods wero considered as proceeding directly 
 from the central fire, which was on this account designated " mother of 
 the gods," while the souls of men proceeded from tho sun, which was a 
 mere reflux of tho central fire. The soul of man was divided into three 
 parts, vovf, <t>pevt<;, and dvpor. The two former were considered as tho 
 rational half of tho soul, and had their seat in tho brain. Tho last, or 
 dvpos, was the animal half, and its seat was in tho heart. Diog. 
 
 riiu 19. 30. Plut. do Plac. Phil. iv. 5.
 
 236 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CHAP. XXL 
 
 the arguments were conclusive to me, which Socrates de- 
 livered on the last day of his life concerning the immortality 
 of the soul he who was pronounced by the oracle of Apollo 
 the wisest of all men. But why say more ? I have thus per- 
 suaded myself, such is my belief: that since such is the 
 activity of our souls, so tenacious their memory of things 
 past, and their sagacity regarding things future so many 
 arts, so many sciences, so many discoveries, that the nature 
 Avhich comprises these qualities can not be mortal j 1 and since 
 the mind is ever in action and has no source of motion, 
 because it moves itself, I believe that it never will find any 
 end of motion, because it never will part from itself; and 
 that since the nature of the soul is uncompounded, and has 
 not in itself any admixture heterogeneous and dissimilar to it- 
 self, I maintain that it can not undergo dissolution ; and if this 
 be not possible, it can not perish : and it is a strong argument, 
 that men know very many things before they are born, since 
 when mere boys, while they are learning difficult subjects, they 
 so quickly catch up numberless ideas, that they seem not to 
 be learning them for the first time, but to remember them, 2 and 
 to be calling them to recollection. 3 Thus did our Plato argue. 
 
 1 " Tho sublime attainments which man has boon capable of making 
 in science, and the wonders of his own creative art in that magnificent 
 scene to which he has known how to give new magnificence, have been 
 considered by many as themselves proofs of the immortality of a being 
 so richly endowed. When we view him, indeed, comprehending in hia 
 single conception, the events of ages that have preceded him, and not 
 content with the past, anticipating events that are to begin only in ages 
 as remote in futurity as the origin of the universe is in the past, measur- 
 ing the distance of the remotest planets, and naming in what year of 
 other centuries, the nations that are now gazing with astonishment on 
 some comet, are to gaze on it in its return, it is scarcely possible for us 
 to believe that a mind which seems equally capacious of what is infinite 
 in space and time, should only be a creature whose brief existence is 
 measurable by a few points of space, and a few moments of eternity." 
 Brown's Moral Philosophy, lect. xcvii. 
 
 2 Reminisci et recordari. See Plato's dialogue called Mono, in which 
 it is attempted to bo shown that all our knowledge is the reminiscence 
 of what has passed in some previous state of existence. 
 
 3 "That the soul had an existence prior to her connection with tho 
 body, seems to have been an opinion of the highest antiquity ; as it may 
 be traced in the Chaldean, Egyptian, and Grecian theology, as far back 
 as there are any records remaining of their speculative tenets. This 
 general notion, however, was not maintained universally in tho same 
 precise sense. Some considering the soul in its former state as subsist- 
 ing only in tho great soul of tho universe, while others held its prior
 
 CHAP. xxii. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 25 7 
 
 XXII. Moreover, in Xenophon, Cyrus the elder, 1 on his 
 death-bed, discourses thus : " Never imagine, O iny dearest 
 sons, that when I have departed from you, I shall exist 
 nowhere, or cease to be : for while I was with you you 
 never saw my soul; though you concluded from the actions 
 which I performed that it was in this body. Believe, 
 therefore, that it still exists, though you will see nothing of 
 it. Nor, in truth, would the honors of illustrious men con- 
 tinue after death, if their own spirits did not make us pre- 
 serve a longer remembrance of them. I could never, indeed, 
 be persuaded that souls, while they were in mortal bodies, 
 lived ; and when they had quitted them, perished : nor, in 
 truth, that the soul became senseless when it made its escape 
 from a senseless body ; but that it then became wise when 
 freed from every corporeal admixture, it had become pure 
 and genuine. Besides, when the constitution of man is 
 broken up by death, it is clear whither each of its other parts 
 depart ; for they all return from the source from whence 
 they sprang : whereas, the soul alone, neither shows itself 
 when it is with us, nor when it departs. Further, you see 
 there is nothing so like death as sleep. Yet the souls of per- 
 sons asleep especially manifest their divine nature ; for when 
 they are disengaged and free, they foresee many future 
 events." From which we conclude in what state they will bo 
 
 distinct and personal individuality. Those philosophers who maintained 
 the latter opinion, at least the generality of them, seem to have supposed 
 that the soul is sent down into this sublunary orb as into a place of pun- 
 ishment for transgressions committed in a former state. And this theory 
 claims the greater attention, not only as it appears to have been adopted 
 both by the Pythagoric and Platonic schools, which undoubtedly produced 
 the most respectable philosophers that ever enlightened the Pagan world, 
 but as bearing strong marks of being primarily derived from the Mosaical 
 account of the fall of man." (Melmoth, in loco), 
 
 1 Cyrus Major. The character of this Cyrus is drawn by Xenophon 
 in his Cyropaedia. Ho was king of Persia, son of Cambyses and Man- 
 dane, daughter of Astyages, king of Media. IIo dethroned Astyages, 
 and transferred tho Persian empire to the Modes. The Cyropaadia is not 
 to be looked upon as an authentic history, but as showing what a good 
 and virtuous prince ought to be. 
 
 8 " There is surely a nearer apprehension of any thing that delights us 
 in our dreams than in our waking senses, without this I were unhappy, 
 for my awakened judgment discontents me, ever whispering unto me that 
 I am from my friend, but my friendly dreams in night requite me and 
 make me think I am within his arms. I thank God for my happy 
 dreams, as I do for my good rest, for there is a satisfaction in *bem unto
 
 258 CICERO ON OLD AGE CHAP. xxn. 
 
 when they shall have altogether released themselves from the 
 fetters of the body. Wherefore, if this is the case, regard me 
 
 reasonable desires, and such as can bo content with a fit of happiness. 
 And surely, it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in 
 this world, and that the conceits of this life are as mere dreams to those 
 of the next, as the phantasms of the night to the conceits of the day. 
 There is an equal delusion in both, and the one doth but seem to be the 
 emblem or picture of the oth&r ; we are somewhat more than ourselves 
 in our sleep, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking 
 of the soul It is tho ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason, and 
 our awakening conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. I am 
 in no way facetious, not disposed for tho mirth and galliardizo of com- 
 pany, yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold tho ac- 
 tion, apprehend tho jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. 
 Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I could never 
 study but in my dreams, and this time also would I choose for my devo- 
 tions ; but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted 
 understandings that they forget tho story, and can only relate to our 
 awakened souls, a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed. 
 Aristotle, who hath written a singular tract on sleep, hath not, methinks, 
 thoroughly defined it ; nor yet Galen, though he seem to have corrected 
 it ; for those noctambuloes and night-walkers, though in their sleep, do 
 yet enjoy the action of their senses, wo must therefore say that there is 
 something in us that is not in tho jurisdiction of Morpheus, and that 
 those abstracted and ecstatic souls do walk about in their own corps, as 
 spirits with tho bodies they assume wherein they seem to hear, see, and 
 feel, though indeed, tho organs aro destitute of sense, and their natures 
 of those faculties that should inform them. Thus it is observed that men 
 sometimes upon the hour of their departure, do speak and reason above 
 themselves ; for then the soul, beginning to bo freed from the ligaments 
 of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain above 
 mortality." Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, part ii. chap. 11. 
 
 " Dreams," says Addison, " are an instance of that agility and perfection 
 which is natural to tho faculties of tho mind when they are disengaged 
 from the body. Tho soul is clogged and retarded in her operations when 
 she acts in conjunction with a companion, that is so heavy and unwieldy 
 in its motion. But in dreams it is wonderful to observe with what a 
 sprightliness and alacrity she exerts herself. Tho slow of speech make 
 unpremeditated harangues, or converse readily in languages that they are 
 but little acquainted with. The grave abound in pleasantries, the dull 
 in repartees and points of wit. There is not a more painful action of tho 
 mind than invention, yet in dreams it works with that case and activity 
 that we are not sensible of when the faculty is employed. For instance, 
 I believe every one some time or other dreams that he is reading papers, 
 books, or letters, in which case the invention prompts so readily chat tho 
 mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the compo- 
 sitions of another. I must not omit that argument for the excellency of 
 tho soul which I have seen quoted out of Tertullian, namely, its power 
 of divining in dreams. That several such divinitions have been made, 
 none can question who believes tho holy writings, or who has but the
 
 CHAP. xxni. CICEKO OK OLD AGE. 259 
 
 as a god, but if the soul is destined to perish along with the body, 
 yet you, reverencing the gods, who oversee and control all this 
 beautiful system, will affectionately and sacredly preserve my 
 memory." Such were the dying words of Cyrus. 
 
 XXIII. Let me, if you please, revert to my own views. 
 No one will ever persuade me that either your father, Paulus, 
 or two gandfathers, Paulus and Africanus, or the father of 
 Africanus, or his uncle, or the many distinguished men whom 
 it is unnecessary to recount, aimed at such great exploits as 
 might reach to the recollection of posterity, had they not 
 perceived in their mind that posterity belonged to them. Do 
 you suppose, to boast a little of myself, after the manner of 
 old men, that I should have undergone such great toils, 
 by day and night, at home and in service, had I thought to 
 limit my glory by the same bounds as my life ? Would it not 
 have been far better to pass an easy and quiet life without 
 any toil or struggle ? But I know not how my soul, stretch- 
 ing upward, has ever looked forward to posterity, as if, when 
 it had departed from life, then at last it would begin to live. 1 
 
 least degree of a common historical faith ; thcro being innumerable in- 
 stances of this nature in several authors, both ancient and modern, 
 sacred and profane. "Whether such dark presages, such visions of the 
 night, proceed from any latent power in the soul, during this her state 
 of abstraction, or from any communication with tho Supremo Being, or 
 from any operation of subordinate spirits has been a great dispute among 
 the learned. The matter of fact is, I think, incontestible, and has been 
 looked upon as such by tho greatest writers who have been never sus- 
 pected either of superstition or enthusiasm. I do not suppose that the 
 soul in those instances is entirely loose and unfettered from tho body: it 
 is sufficient if she is not so far sunk and immersed in matter, nor en- 
 tangled and perplexed in her operations with such motions of blood and 
 spirits, as when she actuates the machine in its waking hours. Tho 
 corporeal union is slackened enough to give tho mind more play. Tho 
 soul seems gathered within herself, and recovers that spring which is 
 broken and weakened when she operates more in concert with tho body." 
 Spectator, No. 487. 
 
 1 Dr. Thomas Brown attaches no value to tho argument for tho im- 
 mortality of the soul, derived from the aspiration after it which is com- 
 mon to all. " I am aware," he says, " that in judging from the mind it- 
 self a considerable stress has often been laid on the existence of feelings 
 which admit of a very easy solution, without the necessity of ascribing 
 them to any instinctive foreknowledge of a state of immortal being. 
 Of this sort particularly seems to me an argument which, both in ancient 
 and modern times, has been brought forward as one of the most power- 
 ful arguments for our continued existence, after life has seemed to close 
 upon us forever. I allude to the universal desire of this immortal exist-
 
 260 CICEEO ON OLD AGE. CHAF. xx:n 
 
 And, indeed, unless this were the case, that souls were im- 
 mortal, the souls of the noblest of men would not aspire 
 above all things to an immortality of glory. 1 Why need I 
 
 ence. But surely, if life itself be pleasing, and even though there were 
 no existence beyond the grave life might be still, by the benevolence 
 of Him who conferred it, have been rendered a source cf pleasure ; it is 
 not wonderful that we should desire futurity, since futurity is only pro- 
 tracted life. It would, indeed, have been worthy gf our astonishment it 
 man, loving his present life, and knowing that it was to terminate in the 
 space of a very few years, should not havo regretted the termination of 
 what ho loved ; that is to say, should not havo wished the continuance 
 of it beyond the period of its melancholy close. The universal desire 
 then, even if the desire were truly universal, would prove nothing, but 
 the goodness of Him who has made the realities of life or if not tho 
 realities, the hopes of life so pleasing that the mere loss of what is 
 possessed, or hoped, appears like a positive evil of tho most afflicting 
 kind." Dr. Brown's Moral Philosophy, sec. 97. 
 
 1 "I am fully persuaded that one of the best springs of generous ar,<? 
 worthy actions is having generous and worthy thoughts of ourselves. 
 Whoever has a mean opinion of the dignity of his nature will act in no 
 higher a rank than he has allotted himself in his own estimation If ho 
 considers his being as circumscribed by tho uncertain term of a few 
 years, his designs will bo contracted into the same narrow space he 
 imagines is to bound his existence. How can ho exalt his thoughts to 
 any thing great and noblo, who only believes that after a short turn on 
 the stage of this world, he is to sink into oblivion, and to loso his con- 
 sciousness forever ? For this reason I am of opinion that so useful and 
 elevated a contemplation as that of tho soul's immortality can not be re- 
 sumed too often. There is not a more improving exercise to tho human 
 mind than to bo frequently reviewing its own great privileges and en- 
 dowments, nor a moro effectual means to awaken in us an ambition 
 raised above low objects and little pursuits, than to value ourselves as 
 heirs of eternity." Hughes. Spectator, No. 210. 
 
 Upon the love of posthumous fame, Dr. Johnson has tho following 
 observations : " If the love of fame is so far indulged by tho mind as to 
 become independent and predominant ; it is dangerous and irregular, 
 but it may bo usefully employed as an inferior and secondary motive, 
 and will serve sometimes to revive our activity, when we begir to lan- 
 guish and loso sight of that moro certain, moro valuable, and more dur- 
 able reward, which ought always to bo our first hope and our last, But 
 it must be strongly impressed upon our minds that virtue is not to be 
 pursued as one of the means to fame ; but fame to be accepted as tho 
 only recompense which mortals can bestow on virtue, to be accepted 
 with complacence, but not sought with eagerness Simply to be remem- 
 bered is no advantage ; it is a privilege which satire as well as panegyric 
 can confer, and is not more enjoyed by Titus or Constantino than by Ti- 
 mocrean of Rhodes, of whom we only know from his epitaph, that he 
 had eaten many a meal, drank many a flagon, and uttered many a re- 
 proach. The true satisfaction which is to be drawn from the conscious 
 ness that wo shall share the attention of future times must a p ise from tho
 
 CHAP, xxiii. CICERO ON OLD AGE. 201 
 
 adduce that the wisest man ever dies with the greatest equa- 
 nimity, the most foolish with the least ? Does it not seem to 
 you that the soul, which sees more and further, sees that it 
 is passing to a better state, while that body, whose vision is 
 duller, does not see it ? I, indeed, am transported with eager- 
 ness to see your fathers, whom I have respected and loved : 
 nor in truth is it those only I desire to meet whom I myself 
 have known ; but those also of whom I havo heard or read, 
 and have myself written. Whither, indeed, as I proceed, no 
 one assuredly should easily force mo back, nor, as they did 
 with Pelias, cook me again to youth. For if any god should 
 grant me, .that from this period of life I should become a 
 child again and cry in the cradle, I should earnestly refuse 
 it: 1 nor in truth should I like, after having run, as it were, 
 my course, to be called back to the starting-place" from the 
 goal. For what comfort has life 1 What trouble has it not, 
 rather? But grant that it has; yet it assuredly has either 
 satiety or limitation (of its pleasures). For I am not dis- 
 posed to lament the loss of life, which many men, and those 
 learned men too, have often done ; neither do I regret that I 
 have lived since I have lived in such a way that I con- 
 ceive I was not born in vain : and from this life I depart as 
 from a temporary lodging, not as from a home. For nature 
 has assigned it to us as an inn to sojourn in, not a place of 
 habitation. Oh, glorious day ! when I shall depart to that 
 divine company and assemblage of spirits, and quit this 
 troubled and polluted scene. For I shall go not only to those 
 great men of whom I have spoken before, but also to my 
 liope that with our name our virtues will bo propagated, and that thoso 
 whom wo can not benefit in our lives, may receive instruction from our 
 examples and incitement from our renown." Rambler, No. 49. 
 
 1 "Though I think no man could live well once, but ho that could livo 
 twice, yet, for my own part I would not livo over my hours past, or begin 
 again the thread of my days ; not upon Cicero's ground, because I havo 
 lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse. I find my grow- 
 ing judgment daily instruct me how to be better, but my untamed affec- 
 tions and confirmed vitiosity make mo daily do worse. I find in my 
 confirmed age the same sins I discovered in my youth ; I committed 
 many then, because I was a child ; and because I commit them still, I am 
 yet an infant ; therefore I perceive a man may bo twico a child before 
 tho days of dotage, and stand in need of Eson's bath before threescore." 
 Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, ch. 42. 
 
 2 Ad carceres a calce: carceres or repagula, from which tho horses 
 started. A lino called creta or calx was drawn, to mark tho end of tho
 
 262 CICERO ON OLD AGE. CH 
 
 friend Cato, 1 than whom never was better man born, nor 
 more distinguished for pious affection ; whose body was 
 burned by me, whereas, on the contrary, it was fitting thai 
 mine should be burned by him. But his soul nofc deserting 
 me, but oft looking back, no doubt departed to those regions 
 whither it saw that I myself was destined to come. Which, 
 though a distress to me, I seemed patiently to endure : not that 
 I bore it with indifference, but I comforted myself with the 
 recollection that the separation and distance between us would 
 not continue long. For these reasons, O Scipio (since you 
 said that you with Laelius were accustomed to wonder at this), 
 old age is tolerable to me, and not only not irksome, but even 
 delightful. And if I am wrong in this, that I believe the 
 souls of men to be immortal, I willingly delude myself: nor 
 do I desire that this mistake, in which I take pleasure, should 
 be wrested from me as long as I live ; but if I, when dead, 
 shall have no consciousness, as some narrow-minded philoso- 
 phers imagine, I do not fear lest dead philosophers should ridi- 
 cule this my delusion. But if we are not destined to be immor' 
 tal, yet it is a desirable thing for a man to expire at his fit time. 
 For, as nature prescribes a boundary to all other things, so doe? 
 she also to life. Now old age is the consummation of life, just 
 as of a play ; from the fatigue of which we ought to escape, es- 
 pecially when satiety is stiperaclded. This is what I had to say 
 on the subject of old age ; to which may vou arrive ! that, after 
 having experienced the truth of those statements which you 
 have heard from me, you may be enabled to give them your ap- 
 probation. 
 
 1 This apostrophe has suggested to the greatest of modern pulpit ora- 
 tors one of his most eloquent perorationa " If," says Robert Hall, " tho 
 mere conception of the reunion of good men in a future state infused a 
 momentary rapture into the mind of Tully ; if an airy speculation, for 
 there is reason to fear it had little hold on his convictions, could inspire 
 him with such delight, what may we be expected to feel who are assured 
 of such an event by the true sayings of God I - How should we rejoice in 
 the prospect the certainty, rather, of spending a blissful eternity with 
 those whom we loved on earth ; of seeing them emerge from the ruind 
 of the tomb, and the deeper ruins of the fall, not only uninjured, but 
 refined and perfected. What delight will it afford to renew the sweet 
 counsel we have taken together, to recount the toils of combat and tho 
 labor of the way, and to approach not the house but the throne of God 
 in company, in order to join in the symphony of heavenly voices, and 
 lose ourselves amid the splendors and fruitions of the beatific vision." 
 Funeral Sermon for Dr. Ryland.
 
 PARADOXES. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO MARCUS BRUTUS. 
 
 I HAVE often observed, Brutus, that your uncle 
 Cato, when he delivered his opinion in the senate, was 
 accustomed to handle important points of philosophy, in- 
 consistent with popular and forensic usage; but that yet, 
 in speaking, he managed them so that even these seemed 
 to the people worthy of approbation ; which was so 
 much the greater excellency in him, than either in you or 
 in me, because we are more conversant in that philosophy 
 which has produced a copiousness of expression, and in 
 which those things are propounded which do not widely 
 differ from the popular opinion. But Cato, in ray opinion a 
 complete Stoic, both holds those notions which certainly do 
 not approve themselves to tho common people ; and belongs 
 to that sect which aims at no embellishments, and does not 
 spin out an argument. He therefore succeeds in what he 
 has purposed, by certain pithy and, as it were, stimulating 
 questions. There is, however, nothing so incredible that it 
 may not bo made plausible by eloquence ; nothing so rough 
 and uncultivated that it may not, in oratory, become brilliant 
 and polished. 
 
 As I have been accustomed to think thus, I have made 
 bolder attempt than he himself did of whom I am speaking. 
 For Cato is accustomed to treat stoically of magnanimity, of 
 modesty, of death, and of all the glory of virtue, of the im- 
 mortal gods, and of patriotism, with the addition of the orna- 
 ments of eloquence. But I have, for arauseme*nt, digested 
 into common-places those topics which the Stoics scarcely 
 prove in their retirement and in their schools. Such 
 topics are termed, even by themselves, paradoxes, be- 
 cause they are remarkable, and contrary to the opinion of 
 all men. I have been desirous of trying whether they 
 might not come into publicity, that is before the forum, and 
 be so expressed as to be anproved ; or whether learned
 
 264 CICERO'S PARADOXES. PAB. i 
 
 expressions were one thing, and a popular mode of address 
 another. I undertook this with the more pleasure, because 
 these very paradoxes, as they are termed, appear to me to 
 Le the most Socratic, and by far the most true. Accept 
 therefore this little work, composed during these shorter 
 nights, since that work of my longer watchings appeared in 
 your name. You will have here a specimen of the manner 
 I have been accustomed to adopt when I accommodate those 
 things which in the schools are termed theses to our oratorical 
 manner of speaking. I do not, however, expect that you 
 will look upon yourself as indebted to me for this perform- 
 ance which is not such as to be placed, like the Minerva of 
 Phidias, in. a citadel, but still such as may appear to have 
 issued from the same studio. 
 
 PARADOX I. 
 
 THAT VIRTUK IS THE ONLY GOOD. 
 
 I AM apprehensive that this position may seem to some 
 among you to have been derived from the schools of the 
 Stoics, 1 and not from my own sentiments. Yet I will tell 
 you my real opinion, and that too more briefly than so im- 
 portant a matter requires to bo discussed. By Hercules, I 
 never was one who reckoned among good and desirable 
 
 1 The ethical doctrines of the Stoics have attracted most attention, as 
 exhibited in the lives of distinguished Greeks and Romans. To live 
 according to nature was the basis of their ethical system ; but by this it 
 was not meant that a man should follow his own particular nature ; ho 
 must make his life conformable to the nature of the whole of things. 
 This principle is the foundation of all morality; and it follows that 
 morality is connected with philosophy. To know what is our relation 
 to the whole of things, is to know what wo ought to bo and to do. This 
 fundamental principle of the Stoics is indisputable, but its application is 
 not always easy, nor did they all agree in their exposition of it. Soroo 
 things were good, some bad, and some indifferent ; the only good things 
 were virtue, wisdom, justice, temperance, and the like. The truly wise 
 man possesses all knowledge ; ho is perfect and sufficient in himself; he 
 despises all that subjects to its power the rest of mankind ; he feels pain, 
 but he is not conquered by it. But the morality of the Stoics, at least 
 in the later periods, though it rested on a basis apparently so sound, 
 permitted the wise man to do nearly every thing that he liked. Such a 
 system, it has been well observed, might do for the imaginary wise man 
 of the Stoics ; but it was not a system whoso general adoption was com- 
 patible with the existence of any actual society.
 
 PAH t CICERO'S PABADOXES. 265 
 
 things, treasures, magnificent mansions, interest, power, or 
 those pleasures to which, mankind are most chiefly addicted. 
 For I have observed, that those to whom these things 
 abounded, still desired them most : for the thirst of cupidity 
 is never filled or satiated. They are tormented not only 
 with the lust of increasing, but with the fear of losing what 
 they have. I own that I often look in vain for the good 
 sense of our ancestors, those most continent men, who 
 affixed the appellation of good to those weak, fleeting, cir- 
 cumstances of wealth, when in truth and fact their senti- 
 ments were the very reverse. 1 Can any bad man enjoy a 
 good thing? Or, is it possible for a man not to, be good, 
 when he lives in the very abundance of good things? 
 And yet we see all those things so distributed that 
 wicked men possess them, and that they are inauspicious 
 to the good. Now let any man indulge his raillery, if he 
 please ; but right reason will ever have more weight with 
 me than the opinion of the multitude. Nor shall I ever 
 account a man, when he has lost his stock of cattle, or 
 furniture, to have lost his good things. Nor shall I seldom 
 speak in praise of Bias, who, if I mistake not, is reckoned 
 among the seven wise men. For when the enemy took pos- 
 session of Priene, his native country, and when the rest so 
 managed their flight as to carry off with them their effects, 
 on his being recommended by a certain person to do the 
 same, " Why," answered he, " I do so, for I carry with me 
 all 7ny possessions." He did not so much as esteem those 
 playthings of fortune, which wo even term our blessings, to 
 be his own. 1 But some one will ask, What then is a real 
 good ? Whatever is done uprightly, honestly, and virtuously, 
 is truly said to be done well ; and whatever is upright, honest, 
 and agreeable to virtue, that alone, as I think, is a good thing. 
 But these matters, when they are more loosely discussed, 
 
 1 " I can not call riches better than tho baggage of virtue ; the Roman 
 word is better, "impedimenta;" for as the baggage is to an army, so is 
 riches to virtue, it can not be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth tho 
 march ; yea, and tho care of it sometimes loscth or disturbeth tho vic- 
 tory ; of great riches there is no real use, except it bo in tho distribu- 
 tion ; tho rest is but conceit." Lord Bacon, Essay 34. 
 
 2 Ovid expresses tho same idea in the following passage: 
 
 " Et genus et proavos et qua? non fucimua ipai 
 Vis ca nostra vocc," 
 
 12
 
 266 CICERO'S PARADOXES. PAR. i 
 
 appear somewhat obscure ; but those things which seemed 
 to be discussed with more subtlety than is necessary in 
 words, may be illustrated by the lives and actions of the 
 greatest of men. I ask then of you, whether the men who 
 left to us this empire, founded upon so noble a system, 
 seem ever to have thought of gratifying avarice by money ; 
 delight by delicacy ; luxury by magnificence ; or pleasure 
 by feasting ? * Set before your eyes any one of our monarchs 
 Shall I begin with Bomulus? Or, after the state was free, 
 with those who liberated it? By what steps then did 
 Romulus ascend to heaven ? By those which these people 
 term good things? Or by his exploits and his virtues? 
 What ! are we to imagine, that the wooden or earthen dishes 
 of Numa Pompilius were less acceptable to the immortal 
 gods, than the embossed plate of others? I pass over our 
 other kings, for all of them, excepting Tarquin the Proud, 
 were equally excellect. Should any one ask, What did 
 Brutus perform when he delivered his country ? Or, as 
 to those who were the participators of that design, what was 
 their aim, and the object of their pursuit ? Lives there the 
 man who can regard as their object, riches, pleasure, or any 
 thing else than acting the part of a great and gallant man ? 
 What motive impelled Caius Mucius, without the least hope 
 of preservation, to attempt the death of Porsenna? What 
 impulse kept Codes to the bridge, singly opposed to the 
 whole force of the enemy ? What power devoted the eldei 
 and the younger Decius, and impelled them against armed 
 battalions of enemies ? What was the object of the continence 
 of Caius Fabricius, or of the frugality of life of Manius 
 Curius ? What were the motives of those two thunderbolts 
 of the Punic war, Publius and Cneius Scipio, when they 
 proposed with their own bodies to intercept the progress ol 
 
 1 Horace develops the same thought In coraroeniiin deciaioo of 
 character, he writes : 
 
 Hac arte Pollux et vagus Hercules 
 Enisus arces attigit igneas: 
 
 Quos inter Augustus recumbens 
 
 Purpureo bibit ore nectar, 
 Hac te merentem, Baccbe pater, tu3 
 Vexere tigres indocili jugum 
 Collo trahentes : hac Quirinus 
 
 Martis equis Acheronta fugit. Carm, lib iik carm ?.
 
 CICERO'S PARADOXES. 26 Y 
 
 the Carthaginians ? What did the elder, what did the younger 
 Africanus propose ? What were the views of Cato, who lived 
 between the times of both ? What shall I say of innumerable 
 other instances ; for we abound in examples drawn from our 
 own history ; can we think that they proposed any other 
 object ia life but what seemed glorious and noble ? 
 
 Now let the deriders of this sentiment and principle come 
 forward ; let even them take their choice, whether they would 
 rather resemble the man who is rich-in marble palaces, adorned 
 with ivory, and shining with gold, in statues, in pictures, in 
 embossed gold and silver plate, in the workmanship of Corin- 
 thian brass, or if they will resemble Fabricius, who had, and 
 who wished to have, none of these things. And yet they are 
 readily prevailed upon to admit that those things which are 
 transferred, now hither, now thither, are not to be ranked 
 among good things, while at the same time they strongly 
 maintain, and eagerly dispute, that pleasure is the highest 
 good ; a sentiment that to me seems to be that of a brute, 
 rather than that of a man.' Shall you, endowed as you are 
 
 ' That pleasure is man's chiefest good (because indeed it is the per- 
 ception of good that ia properly pleasure), is an assertion most certainly 
 true, though under the common acceptance of it not only false but odious : 
 for, according to this, pleasure and sensuality pass for terms equivalent ; 
 and therefore he that takes it in this sense alters the subject of the dis- 
 course. Sensuality is indeed a part, or rather one kind of pleasure, such 
 an one as it is ; for pleasure in general is the consequent apprehension 
 of a suitable object, suitably applied to a rightly disposed faculty ; and 
 so must be conversant both about the faculties of the body and of tho 
 soul respectively ; as being the result of the functions belonging to both. 
 
 "Since God never created any faculty either in soul or body, but 
 withal prepared for it a suitable object, and that in order to its gratifica- 
 tion ; can we think that religion was designed only for a contradiction 
 to nature? And, with tho greatest and most irrational tyranny in tho 
 world, to tantalize and tie men up from enjoyment, in tho midst of all 
 the opportuniea of enjoyment ? To place men with the furious affections 
 of hunger and thirst in tho very bosorn of plenty, and then to tell them 
 that the euvy of Providence has scaled up every thing that is suitable 
 under the character of unlawful? For certainly, first to frame appetites 
 fit to receive pleasure, and then to interdict them with a ' touch not, 
 taste not,' can be nothing else than only to give them occasion to devour 
 and prey upon themselves, and so to keep men under the perpetual tor- 
 ment of an unsatisfied desire ; a thing hugely contrary to tho natural 
 felicity of tho creature, and consequently to tho wisdom and goodness 
 of the great Creator. There is no doubt but a man, while ho resigns 
 himself up to tho brutish guidance of scnso and appetite, has no relish
 
 268 CICERO'S PARADOXE . PAR. r. 
 
 by God or by nature, whom we may term the mother of a\i 
 things, with a soul (than which there exists nothing more 
 excellent and more divine), so degrade and prostrate yourself 
 as to think there is no difference between yourself and any 
 quadruped ? Is there any real good that does not make him 
 who possesses it a better man ? For in proportion as every 
 man has the greatest amount of excellence, he is also in that 
 proportion most praiseworthy; nor is there any excellence 
 on which the man who possesses it may not justly value 
 himself. But what of these qualities resides in pleasure? 
 Does it make a man better, or more praiseworthy 1 Does 
 any man extol himself in boasting 'or self-recommendation 
 for having enjoyed pleasures? Now if pleasure, which is 
 defended by the advocacy of many, is not to be ranked 
 among good things, and if the greater it is the more it 
 dislodges the mind from its habitual and settled position ; * 
 surely to live well and happily, is nothing elso than to live 
 virtuously and lightly. 8 
 
 at all for tho spiritual, refined delights of a soul clarified by grace and 
 virtue. The pleasures of an angel can never be the pleasures of a hog. 
 But this is the thing that we contend for, that a man, having once ad- 
 vanced himself to a state of superiority over the control of his inferior ap- 
 petites, finds an infinitely more solid and sublime pleasure in the delights 
 proper to his reason, than the same person had ever conveyed to him by 
 the bare ministry of his senses." South's Sermons, voL i. sermon 1. 
 
 1 " All pleasures that affect tho body must needs weary, because they 
 transport ; and all transportation is a violence, and no violence can bo 
 lasting, but determines upon the falling of the spirits, which are not ablo 
 to keep up that height of motion that the pleasures of the senses raiso 
 them to ; and therefore, how inevitably does an immoderate laughter 
 end in a sigh ? which is only nature's recovering itself after a force done 
 to it. But the religious pleasure of a well-disposed mind moves gently, 
 and therefore constantly ; it does not affect by rapture and ecstasy ; but 
 is like the pleasure of health, which is still and sober, yet greater and 
 stronger than those that call up the senses with grosser and more affect- 
 ing impressions. God has given no man a body as strong as his appe- 
 tites ; but has corrected the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires by 
 stinting his strength and contracting his capacities." Ibid. 
 
 a "And now, upon tho result of all, I suppose that to exhort men to 
 be religious is only in other words to exhort them to take their pleasure. 
 A pleasure high, rational, and angelical ; a pleasure, embased with no 
 appendent sting, no consequent loathing, no remorses, or bitter farewells; 
 but such an one as, being honey in the month, never turns to gall or 
 gravel in the belly. A pleasure made for the soul, and the soul for that ; 
 suitable to its spirituality, and equal to all its capacities. Such an one 
 as grows fresher upon enjoyment, and though continually fed xipon, yet
 
 PAU ii. CICERO'S PARADOXES. 
 
 PARADOX II. 
 
 A MAN WHO IS VIRTUOUS IS DESTITUTE OF NO REQUISITE OP 
 A HAPPY LIFE. 
 
 NEVER, for my part, did I imagine Marcus Regulus tc 
 have been distressed, or unhappy, or wretched; because his 
 magnanimity was not tortured by the Carthaginians; nor 
 was the weight of his authority ; nor was his honor ; nor 
 was his resolution ; nor was one of his virtues ; nor, in 
 short, did his soul suffer their torments, for a soul with the 
 guard and retinue of so many virtues, never surely could be 
 taken, though his body was made captive. 1 We have seen 
 
 is never devoured A pleasure that a man may call as properly his own 
 as his soul and his conscience ; neither liable to accident, nor exposed to 
 injury. It is the foretaste of heaven, and the earnest of eternity. In a 
 word, it is such an one, as being begun in grace passes into glory, bless- 
 edness, and immortality, and those pleasures that 'neither eye has seen, 
 nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive ' " 
 South's Sermons, vol. i. sermon 1. 
 
 1 " The sect of ancient philosophers that boasted to have carried this 
 necessary science to the highest perfection were the Stoics, or scholars 
 of Zeno, whose wild enthusiastic virtue pretended to an exemption from 
 the sensibilities of unenlightened mortals, and who proclaimed them- 
 Blves exalted, by the doctrines of their sect, above the reach of those 
 miseries which embitter life to the rest of the world. They therefore 
 removed pain, poverty, loss of friends, exile, and violent death, from the 
 catalogue of evils ; and passed, in their haughty style, a kind of irrever 
 sible decree, by which they forbade them to be counted any longrci 
 among the objects of terror or anxiety, or to give any disturbance to the 
 tranquillity of a wise man. 
 
 " This edict was, I think, not universally observed ; for though one of 
 the more resolute, when ho was tortured by a violent disease, cried out 
 that let pain harass him to its utmost power, it should never force hiir 
 to consider it as other than indifferent and neutral ; yet all had not stub- 
 bornness to hold out against their senses ; for a weaker pupil of Zeno ia 
 recorded to have confessed, in the anguish of the gout, that ho now found 
 pain to be an evil 
 
 " It may, however, bo questioned, whether these philosophers can b 
 very properly numbered among the teachers of patience ; for if pain be 
 not an evil, there seems no instruction requisite how it may be borcr , 
 and, therefore, when they endeavor to arm their followers with arguments 
 against it, they may be thought to have given up their first position. 
 But such inconsistencies are to be expected from the greatest under 
 standings, when they endeavor to grow eminent by singularity, and em 
 ploy their strength in estabh'shing opinions opposite to nature. The 
 controversy about the reality of external evils is now at an end. That
 
 270 CICERO'S PARADOXES. PAR. a 
 
 Caius Marius; he, in my opinion, was in prosperity one of 
 the happiest, and in adversity one of the greatest of men 
 than which man can have no happier lot. Thou knowest 
 not, foolish man, thou knowest not what power virtue 
 possesses ; thou only usurpest the name of virtue ; thou 
 art a stranger to her influence. No man who is wholly 
 consistent within himself, and who reposes all his interests 
 in himself alone, can be otherwise than completely happy. 1 
 But the man whose every hope, and scheme, and design 
 depends upon fortune, such a man can have no certainty ; 
 can possess nothing assured to him as destined to continue 
 for a single day. If you have any such man in your power, 
 you may terrify him by threats of death or exile ; but what- 
 ever can happen to me in so ungrateful a country, will find 
 me not only not opposing, but even not refusing it. To 
 what purpose have I toiled? to what purpose have I acted? 
 or on what have my cares and meditations been watchfully 
 employed, if I have produced and arrived at no such results, 
 as that neither the outrages of fortune nor the injuries of 
 enemies can shatter me. Do you threaten me with death ? 2 
 life has many miseries, and that those miseries are sometimes at least, 
 equal to all the powers of fortitude, ia now universally confessed ; and, 
 therefore, it is useful to consider not only how we may escape them, but 
 by what means those which either the accidents of affairs, or the infirm- 
 ities of nature, must bring upon us, may be mitigated and lightened, 
 and how we may make those hours less wretched, which the condition 
 of our present existence will not allow to bo very happy." Dr. Johnson, 
 Rambler, No. 32. 
 
 1 " There is nothing that can raise a man to that generous absolute- 
 ness of condition, as neither to cringe, to fawn, or to depend meanly ; 
 but that which gives him that happiness within himself for which men 
 depend upon others. For surely I need salute no great man's threshold, 
 sneak to none of his friends or servants, to speak a good word for me to 
 my conscience. It is a noble and a sure defiance of a great malice, 
 backed with a great interest, which yet can have no advantage of a man, 
 but from his own expectations of something that is without himself. 
 But if I can make my duty my delight ; if I can feast, and please, and 
 caress my mind, with the pleasures of worthy speculations or virtuous 
 practices ; let greatness and malice vex and abridge me, if they can ; my 
 pleasures are as free as my will, no more to be controlled than my 
 choice, or the unlimited range of my thoughts and my desires." South's 
 Sermons, Vol. i., Sermon L 
 
 2 To be understood as addressed to Anthony. Virgil has a similar 
 idea: 
 
 "Breve et irreparabilo tempus, 
 Omnibus est vita?, sed famam extendere factis 
 Hoc virtutis opus." JEn. X. ver. 467-469.
 
 PAR. in CICERO'S PARADOXES 271 
 
 which is separating me from mankind ? Or with exile, 
 which is removing me from the wicked ? Death is dreadful 
 to the man whose all is extinguished with his life ; hut not 
 to him whose glory never can die. Exile is terrible to 
 those who have, as it were, a circumscribed habitation ; but 
 not to those who look upon the whole globe but as one city. 
 Troubles and miseries oppress thee who thinkest thyself 
 happy and properous. Thy lusts torment thee, day and 
 night thou art upon the rack; for whom that which thou 
 possessest is not sufficient, and who art ever trembling lest even 
 that should not continue ; the consciousness of thy misdeeds 
 tortures thee ; the terrors of the laws and the dread of justice 
 appall thee ; look where thou wilt, thy crimes, like so many 
 furies, meet thy view and suffer thee not to breathe.' There- 
 fore, as no man can be happy if he is wicked, foolish, or indo- 
 lent ; so no man can be wretched, if he is virtuous, brave, and 
 wise. Glorious is the life of that man whose virtues and 
 practice are praiseworthy; nor indeed ought that life to be 
 escaped from which is deserving of praise, though it might 
 well be if it were a wretched one. We are therefore to look 
 upon whatever is worthy of praise as at once happy, prosperous, 
 and desirable. 
 
 PARADOX IIL 
 
 THAT ALL MISDEEDS ARE IN THEMSELVES EQUAL, AND GOOD 
 DEEDS THE SAME. 
 
 THE matter it may be said is a trifle, but the crimo is 
 enormous ; for crimes are not to be measured by the issue of 
 events, but from the bad intentions of men. 1 The fact in 
 
 1 " Though," says South, in tho sermon from which wo have several 
 times quoted, " company may reprieve a man from his melancholy, yet it 
 can not secure him from his conscience, nor from sometimes being alono. 
 And what is all that a man enjoys from a week's, a month's, or a year's 
 converse, comparable to what he feelfs or one hour, when his conscience 
 shall take him aside and rate him by himself." 
 
 2 The ethical principle of Cicero, so far from having been improved 
 upon in modern times, shows in favorable contrast beside that of tho 
 eminent Christian moralist, Paley. "The method," he says, "of coming 
 at the will of God, concerning any action, by tho light of nature, is to 
 inquire into tho tendency of that action to promote or diminish tho gene- 
 ral happiness. 
 
 " So then actions are to bo estimated by their tendency. Whatever is
 
 272 CICERO'S PARADOXES. PAR. m 
 
 which the sin consists may be greater in one instance and 
 less in another, but guilt itself, in whatsoever light you be- 
 hold it, is the same. A pilot oversets a ship laden with gold 
 or one laden with straw : in value there is some difference, 
 but in the ignorance of the pilot there is none. Your illicit 
 desire has fallen upon an obscure female. The mortification 
 affects fewer persons than if it had broken out in the case of 
 some high-born and noble virgin ; nevertheless it has been 
 guilty, if it be guilty to overstep the mark. When yon have 
 done this, a crime has been committed ; nor does it matter 
 
 expedient, is right It is the utility of any moral rule alone which con- 
 stitutes the obligation of it. But to all this there seems a plain objec- 
 tion, viz., that many actions are useful, which no man in his senses will 
 allow to be right. There are occasions in which the hand of the assassin 
 would bo very useful. The present possessor of some great estate em- 
 ploys his influence and fortune, to annoy, corrupt, or oppress, all about 
 him. His estate would devolve, by his death, to a successor of an oppo- 
 site character. It is useful, therefore, to dispatch such a one as soon as 
 possible out of the way ; as the neighborhood will exchange thereby a 
 pernicious tyrant for a wise and generous benefactor. It might be use- 
 ful to rob a miser, and givo the money to the poor ; as the money, no 
 doubt, would produce more happiness by being laid out in food and cloth- 
 ing for half a dozen distressed families, than by continuing locked up in 
 a miser's chest. It may be useful to get possession of a place, a piece 
 of preferment, or of a seat in Parliament, by bribery or false swearing : 
 as by means of them wo may serve the public more effectually than in 
 our private station. What then shall we say ? Must we admit theso 
 actions to be right, which would be to justify assassination, plunder, and 
 perjury ; or must we givo up our principle, that the criterion of right is 
 utility ? It is not necessary to do either. The true answer is this ; that 
 these actions, after all, are not useful, and for that reason, and that alone, 
 are not right. To see this point perfectly, it must be observed that the 
 bad consequences of actions are twofold, particular and general. The 
 particular bad consequences of an action, is the mischief which that single 
 action directly and immediately occasions. The general bad consequence 
 is, the violation of some necessary or useful general rule. Thus, the 
 particular bad consequence of the assassination above described, is tho 
 fright and pain which the deceased underwent ; the loss he suffered of 
 life, which is as valuable to a bad man as to a good one, or more so ; tho 
 prejudice and affliction, of which his death was the occasion, to his fam- 
 ily, friends, and dependents. The general bad consequence is the viola- 
 tion of this necessary general rule, that no man be put to death for his 
 crimes but by public authority. Although, therefore, such an action 
 have no particular bad consequence, or greater particular good conse- 
 quences, yet it is not useful, by reason of the general consequence, 
 which is of more importance, and which is evil." Moral and Political 
 Philosophy.
 
 PAR. ra. CICERO'S PARADOXES. 273 
 
 in aggravation of the fault how far you run afterward ; 
 certainly it is not lawful for any one to commit sin, and that 
 which is unlawful is limited by this sole condition, that it 
 is shown to be wrong. If this guilt can neither be made 
 greater nor less (because, if the thing was unlawful, therein 
 sin was committed), then the vicious acts which spring out 
 of that which is ever one and the same must necessarily bo 
 equal. Now if virtues are equal among themselves, it 
 must necessarily follow that vices are so likewise ; and it is 
 most easy to be perceived that a man can not be better than 
 good, more temperate than temperate, braver than brave, 
 nor wiser than wise. Will any man call a person honest, 
 who, having a deposit of ten pounds of gold made to him 
 without any witness, so that ho might take advantage of it 
 with impunity, shall restore it, and yet should not do the 
 same in the case of ten thousand pounds ? ' Can a man be 
 accounted temperate who checks one inordinate passion and 
 gives a loose to another ? Virtue is uniform, conformable to 
 reason, and of unvarying consistency ; nothing can be added 
 to it that can make it more than virtue ; nothing can be 
 taken from it, and the name of virtue be left. If good offices 
 are done with an upright intention, nothing can be more 
 upright than upright is ; and therfore it is impossible that any 
 thing should be better than what is good. It therefore follows 
 that all vices are equal ; for the obliquities of the mind are 
 properly termed vices. Now we may infer, that as all virtues 
 are equal, therefore all go"od actions, when they spring from 
 virtues, ought to be equal likewise ; and therefore it necessarily 
 follows, that evil actions springing from vices, should be also equal. 
 You borrow, says one, these views from philosophers. I 
 was afraid you would have told me that I borrowed it from 
 panders. But Socrates reasoned in the manner you do. 
 By Hercules, you say well ; for it is recorded that he was a 
 learned and a wise person. Meanwhile as we are contending, 
 not with blows, but with words, I ask you whether good 
 men should inquire what was the opinion of porters and 
 laborers, or that of the wisest of mankind ? Especially too 
 
 1 The reader will probably be reminded by this passage of the words 
 of the Great Teacher : " He that is faithful in that which is least, is 
 faithful also in much. And he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also 
 m much." Luke, chap, xvl 10. 
 
 12*
 
 274 CICERO'S PARADOXES. PAR. m. 
 
 as no truer sentiment than this can be found, nor one more 
 conducive to the interests of human life. For what influence 
 is there Avhich can more deter men from the commission of 
 every kind of evil, than if they become sensible that there arc 
 no degrees in sin ? That the crime is the same, whether they 
 offer violence to private persons or to magistrates. That in 
 whatever families they have gratified their illicit desire, the 
 turpitude of their lust is the same. 
 
 But some one will say, what then ? does it make no differ- 
 ence, whether a man murders his father or his slave ? If 
 you instance these acts abstractedly, it is difficult to decide 
 of what quality they are. If to deprive a parent of life is in 
 itself a most heinous crime, the Saguntines were then parri- 
 cides, because they chose that their parents should die as 
 freemen rather than live as slaves. Thus a case may happen 
 in which there may be no guilt in depriving a parent of life, 
 and very often we can not without guilt put a slave to death. 
 The circumstances therefore attending this case, and not the 
 nature of the thing, occasion the distinction : these circum- 
 stances as they lean to either case, that case becomes the 
 more favorable ; but if they appertain alike to both, the 
 acts are then equal. There is this difference that in killing 
 a slave, if wrong is done, it is a single sin that is committed ; 
 but many are involved in taking the life of a father. The 
 object of violence is the man who begat you, the man who 
 fed you, the man who brought you up, the man who gave 
 your position in your home, your family, and the state. This 
 offense is greater by reason of the number of sins (involved 
 in it), and is deserving of a proportionately greater punish- 
 ment. But in life we are not to consider what should be the 
 punishment of each offense, but what is the rule of right to 
 each individual. We are to consider every thing that is not 
 becoming as wicked, and every thing which is unlawful as 
 heinous. What ! even in the most trifling matters ? To bo 
 sure ; for if we are unable to regulate the course of events, 
 yet we may place a bound to our passions. If a player 
 dances ever so little out of time, if a verse is pronounced by 
 him longer or shorter by a single syllable than it ought to 
 be, he is hooted and hissed off the stage. And shall you, who 
 ought to be better regulated than any gesture, and more regu- 
 lar than any verse shall you be found faulty oven in a syllable
 
 PAR. IV. CICERO'S PARADOXES. 275 
 
 of conduct ? I overlook the triflitig faults of a poet ; but shall 
 I approve my fellow-citizen's life while he is counting his mis- 
 deeds with his fingers ? If some of these are trifling, 1 how can 
 it be regarded as more venial when whatever wrong is commit- 
 ted, is committed to the violation of reason and order ? Now, 
 if reason and order are violated, nothing can be added by which 
 the offense can seein to be aggravated. 
 
 PARADOX IV. 
 
 THAT EVERY FOOL IS A MADMAN. 
 
 I WILL now convict you, 1 by infallible considerations, 
 not as a fool, as I have often done, nor as a villain, as I 
 always do, but as insane and mad. Could the mind of 
 the wise man, fortified as with walls by depth of counsel, 
 by patient endurance of human ills, by contempt of for- 
 tune; in short, by all the virtues a mind that could not 
 be expelled out of this community shall such a mind be 
 overpowered and taken by storm ? For what do we call 
 a community 1 Surely, not every assembly of thieves and 
 ruffians ? Is it then the entire rabble of outlaws and 
 robbers assembled in one plaee? No; you will doubtless 
 reply. Then this was no community when its laws had no 
 force; when its courts of justice were prostrated; when the 
 custom of the country had fallen into contempt ; when, the 
 magistrates having been driven away by the sword, there was 
 not even the name of a senate in the state. Could that gang 
 of ruffians, that assembly of villains which you head in the 
 forum, could those remains of Catiline's frantic conspiracy, 
 diverted to your mad and guilty schemes, bo termed a com- 
 munity ? I could not therefore be expelled from a commu- 
 nity, because no such then existed. I was summoned back 
 to a community when there was a consul in the state, which 
 
 1 The reference hero is to beating time to the quantity of syllables in 
 a verse, and the term breviora, which is here rendered by the word 
 " trifling," indicates the short syllables in the metre. 
 
 2 This paradox takes for its illustration the life of Publius Clodius, a 
 Roman soldier of noble birth, but infamous for the corruption of his 
 morals. He was ultimately slain by the retinue of Milo, in a renconter 
 which took place between the two as Milo was journeying toward Lanu- 
 vium, his native place, and Clodius was on his way to Rome.
 
 276 CICERO'S PARADOXES. PAH. IT. 
 
 at the former time there was not ; when there was a senate, 
 which then had ceased to exist ; when the voice of the people 
 was free ; and when laws and equity, those bonds of a commu- 
 nity, had been restored. 
 
 But see how much I despised the shafts of your villainy. 
 That you aimed your villainous wrongs at me, I was always 
 aware ; but that they reached me I never thought. It is 
 true, you might think that somewhat belonging to me was 
 tumbling down or consuming, when you were demolishing my 
 walls, and applying your detestable torches to the roofs of my 
 houses. But neither I nor any man can call that our own 
 which can be taken away, plundered, or lost. Could you have 
 robbed me of my godlike constancy of mind, of my applica- 
 tion, of my vigilance, and of those measures through which, 
 to your confusion, the republic now exists ; could you have 
 abolished the eternal memory of this lasting service ; far more, 
 had you robbed me of that soul from which these designs 
 emanated ; then, indeed, I should have confessed that I had 
 received an injury. But as you neither did nor could do 
 this, your persecution rendered my return glorious, but not 
 my departure miserable. I, therefore, was always a citizen 
 of Rome, but especially at the time when the senate charged 
 foreign nations with my preservation as the best of her citi- 
 zens. As to you, you are at this time no citizen, unless the 
 same person can be at once a citizen and an enemy. Can you 
 distinguish a citizen from an enemy by the accidents of 
 nature and place, and not by its affections and actions ? 
 You have perpetrated a massacre in the forum, and occupied 
 the temples with bands of armed ruffians; you have set on 
 fire the temples of the gods and the houses of private citizens. 
 If you are a citizen, in what sense was Spartacus an enemy ? 
 Can you be a citizen, through whom, for & time, the state had 
 no existence ? And do you apply to me your own designa- 
 tion, when all mankind thought that on my departure Rome 
 herself was gone into exile ? Thou most frantic of all mad- 
 men, wilt thou never look around thee ? Wilt thou never con- 
 sider what thou sayest, or what thou doest ? Dost thou not 
 know that exile is the penalty of guilt : but that the journey 
 I set out upon was undertaken by me in consequence of the 
 most illustrious exploits performed by me ? All the criminals, 
 til the profligates, of whom you avow yourself the leader, and
 
 PAR.T, CICERO'S PARADOXES. 277 
 
 on whom our laws pronounce the sentence of banishment, are 
 exiles, even though they have not changed their locality. At 
 the time when all our laws doom thee to banishment, wilt 
 thou not be an exile ? Is not the man an enemy who carries 
 about him offensive weapons ? A cut-throat belonging to you 
 was taken near the senate-house. Who has murdered a man ? 
 You have murdered many. Who is an incendiary ? You ; 
 for with your own hand you set fire to the temple of the 
 nymphs. Who violated the temples ? You pitched your 
 camp in the forum. But what do I talk of well-known ]aws, 
 all which doom you to exile ; for your most intimate friend 
 carried through a bill with reference to you, by which you 
 were condemned to be banished, if it was found that you had 
 presented yourself at the myteries of the goddess Bona ; and 
 you are even accustomed to boast that you did so. 1 As there- 
 fore you have by so many laws been doomed to banishment, 
 how is it that you do not shrink from the designation of exile ? 
 You say you are still at Rome, and that you were present at 
 the mysteries too : but a man Avill not be free of the place 
 where he may be, if he can not be there with the sanction of 
 the laws. 
 
 PARADOX V. 
 
 THAT THE WISE MAN ALONE IS FREE, AND THAT EVERY FOOt 
 IS A SLAVE. 
 
 HERE let a general 3 be celebrated, or let him be honored 
 with that title, or let him be thought worthy of it. But 
 how or over what free man will ho exercise control who 
 can not command his own passions ? 3 Let him in the first 
 
 1 " Among other offenses Clodius is said to have violated the myste- 
 ries of tho Bona Dea by penetrating into the house of Caesar during their 
 celebration, disguised in female attire. He was led to tho commission 
 of this act by a guilty attachment to Pompeia, Caesar's wife. Being tried 
 for this impiety, he managed to escape by bribing the judges." Anthon'a 
 Cicero: Historical Index. 
 
 2 Supposed to refer to Marcus Antonius. 
 
 8 On this principle Lactantius denies that Hercules was a man of real 
 courage, because he was unable to vanquish his own passions ; for, says 
 ho, that man who overcomes a lion is not to bo considered more bravo 
 than he who quells hia own anger, that raging monster that resides 
 within himself; nor the man who lays low the most rapacious wingec? 
 creatures than ho who restrains his own craving desires ; nor tho man
 
 278 CICERO'S PARADOXES. PAR. v. 
 
 place bridle his lusts, let him despise pleasures, let him 
 subdue anger, let him get the better of avarice, let him 
 expunge the other stains on his character, and then when 
 he himself is no longer in subjection to disgrace and de- 
 gradation, the most savage tyrants, let him then, I say, 
 begin to command others. 1 But while he is subservient 
 to these, not only is he not to be regarded as a general, 
 but he is by no means to be considered as even a free 
 man. This is nobly laid down by the most learned men, 
 whose authority I should not make use of were I now 
 addressing myself to an assembly of rustics. But as I 
 speak to the wisest men, to whom these things are not new, 
 why should I falsely pretend that all the application I have 
 
 who conquers the warlike araazon, than ho who subjugates his lust that 
 victorious foe of modesty and reputation ; nor the man who casts out 
 the filth from a stable, than he who has expelled the vices from his heart, 
 which are the more destructive, inasmuch as evils that are internal and 
 part of ourselves, are worse than those which may be shunned and 
 avoided. 
 
 1 " Rest not in an ovation, but a triumph over thy passions. Let anger 
 walk hanging down the head, let malice go manacled, and envy fettered 
 after tliee. Behold within thee the long train of thy trophies, not with- 
 out thee. Make the quarreling Lapithytes sleep, and Centaurs within 
 lie quiet. Chain up the unruly legion of thy breast. Lead thine own 
 captivity captive, and be Caesar within thyself." Sir Thomas Browne's 
 Christian Morals, Part I. chap. 2. 
 
 "Be not," says the same author, "a Herculeus fureus abroad, and a 
 poltroon within thyself. To chase our enemies out of the field, and bo 
 led captive by our vices ; to beat down our foes, and fall down to our 
 concupiscences ; are solecisms in moral schools, and no laurel attends 
 thereon. To well manage our affections, and wild horses of Plato, are 
 the highest circenses ; and the noblest digladiation is in the theater of 
 ourselves ; for therein our inward antagonists, not only like common 
 gladiators, with ordinary weapons and downright blows make at us, but 
 also like retiary and laqueary combatants with nets, frauds, and entang- 
 lements, fall upon us. "Weapons for such combats are not to be forged 
 at Lipara ; Vulcan's art doth nothing in this internal militia ; wherein 
 not the armor of Achilles, but the armature of St. Paul, gives the glori- 
 ous day, and triumphs, not leading up into capitols, but up into the 
 highest heavens. And, therefore, while so many think it the only valor 
 to command and master others, study thou the dominion of thyself, and 
 quiet thine own commotions. Let right reason be thy Lycurgus, and 
 lift up thy hand unto the law of it; move by thy intelligences of the 
 superior faculties, not by the rapt of passion, nor merely by that of tem- 
 per and constitution. They who are merely carried on by the wheel of 
 such inclinations, without the hand and guidance of sovereign reason, 
 are but the automatous part of mankind, rather lived than living, or at 
 least underliving themselves." Ibid. chap. 24.
 
 PAB.V. CICERO'S PARADOXES. 279 
 
 bestowed upon this study has been lost ? It has been said, 
 then, by the most learned men, that none but the wise man 
 is free. For what is liberty ? The power of living as you 
 please. Who, then, is he who lives as he pleases, but the 
 man surely who follows righteousness, who rejoices in ful- 
 filling his duty, and whose path of life has been well 
 considered and preconcerted ; the man who obeys the 
 laws of his country, not out of dread, but pays them re- 
 spect and reverence, because he thinks that course the most 
 salutary ; who neither does nor thinks any thing otherwise 
 than cheerfully and freely ; the man, all whose designs and 
 all the actions he performs arise from and are terminated in 
 his proper self;' the man who is swayed by nothing so 
 much as by his own inclination and judgment ; the man 
 who is master of fortune herself, whose influence is said to 
 be sovereign, agreeably to what the sage poet says, "the 
 fortune of every man is molded by his character." To the 
 
 1 That is, his understanding, as distinct from his passions. 
 
 2 "The regulation of every man's plan," saya John Foster, in his cele- 
 brated Essay on Decision of Character, " must greatly depend upon tho 
 course of events, which come in an order not to be foreseen or prevented. 
 But in accommodating the plans of conduct to the train of events, the 
 difference between two men may be no less than that, in the one instance, 
 the man is subservient to the events, and in the other tho events are 
 made subservient to tho man. Some men seem to have been taken 
 along by a succession of events, and as it wero handed forward in help- 
 less passiveness from one to another ; having no determined principle in 
 their own characters by which they could constrain those events to serve 
 a design formed antecedently to them, or apparently in defiance of them. 
 The events seized them as a neutral material, not they tho events. 
 Others, advancing through life with an internal, invincible determination, 
 have seemed to make the train of circumstances, whatever they wero, 
 conduce as much to their chief design as if they had, by some directing 
 interposition, been brought about on purpose. It is wonderful how even 
 tho casualties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will not bow to them, 
 and yield to subserve a design which they may in their first apparent 
 tendency threaten to frustrate." 
 
 Shakespeare develops a similar idea in tho following passage : 
 " Men at somo times aro masters of their fate ; 
 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
 But in ourselves, that wo aro underlings." Julius Caesar. 
 And a far earlier, and scarcely less skillful anatomist of human nature 
 thus apostrophizes the imaginary goddess : 
 
 " Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia ; nos to, 
 Noa fucimus, Fortuna, dearn, coeloquo locamus." 
 
 Juvenal, Sat. v. 3G5, 3CG
 
 280 CICERO'S PARADOXES. PAR. v. 
 
 wise man alone it happens, that ho does nothing against his 
 will, nothing with pain, nothing by coercion. It would, it is 
 true, require a large discourse to prove that this is so, but it is 
 a briefly stated and admitted principle, that no man but he who 
 is thus constituted can be free. All wicked men therefore are 
 slaves, and this is net so surprising and incredible in fact as it is 
 in words. For they are not slaves in the sense those bondmen 
 are who are the properties of their masters by purchase, or by 
 any law of the state ; but if obedience to a disordered, abject 
 mind, destitute of self-control be slavery (and such it is 1 ), who 
 can deny that all the dishonest, all the covetous, in short, all 
 the wicked, are slaves ? 
 
 Can I call the men free whom a woman governs, to whom 
 she 4 gives laws, lays down directions, orders and forbids 
 what to her seems fit ; while he can deny and dare refuse 
 nothing that she commands 1 3 Does she ask ? Ho must give. 
 
 Lord Bacon also sanctions tho samo proposition with bis unvarying 1 
 wisdom. " It can not be denied but outward accidents conduce much 
 to fortune; favor, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue, 
 but chiefly, the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands : ' Faber 
 quisquo fortunse SUJE,' saith the poet, and the most frequent of external 
 causes is, that tho folly of ono man is tho fortune of another ; for no 
 man prospers so suddenly as by others' errors. ' Serpens nisi serpentera 
 comederit non fit draco." Overt and apparent virtues bring forth praise ; 
 but there bo secret and hidden virtues that bring forth fortune ; certain 
 deliveries of a man's self, which have no name. The Spanish name, 
 ' disemboltura,' partly expresseth these when there be not stones nor 
 restiveness in a man's nature, but that the wheels of his mind keep way 
 with tho wheels of his fortune ; for so Livy (after ho had described Cato 
 Major in these words, ' In illo viro, tantum robur corporis et animi fuit, 
 ut quocunque loco natus esset, fortunam sibi facturus videretur),' falleth 
 upon that that ho had, 'versatile ingenium;' therefore, if a man look 
 sharply and attentively, he shall see fortune ; for though she be blind, 
 yet she is not invisible. Tho way of fortune is like the milky way in 
 the sky ; which is a meeting, or a knot, of a number of small stars, not 
 seen asunder, but giving light together ; so are there a number of little 
 and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make 
 men fortunate." 
 
 1 The Apostle Paul lays down tho samo principle : " Know yo not 
 that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to 
 whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto right- 
 eousness?" Epist. Rom. chap. vi. ver. 16. 
 
 2 The refereuce is to Antony's amorous subserviency to Cleopatra. 
 
 3 "If Adam in the state of perfection, and Solomon tho son of David, 
 God's chosen servant, and himself a man endued with the greatest wis- 
 dom, did both of them disobey their Creator by tho persuasion, and for
 
 PAE.V. CICERO'S PARADOXES. 281 
 
 Does she call ? He must come. Does she order him off? He 
 must vanish. Does she threaten ! He must tremble. For my 
 part, I call such a fellow, though he may have been born in the 
 noblest family, not only a slave, but a most abject slave. 
 And as in a large household, some slaves look upon themselves 
 as more genteel than others, such as porters or gardeners, yet 
 still they are slaves ; in like manner, they who are inordinately 
 fond of statues, of pictures, of embossed plate, of works in 
 Corinthian brass, or magnificent palaces, are equally fools with 
 the others. " Nay, but (say they) we are the most eminent 
 men of the state." Nay ! you are not superior to your fellow- 
 slaves. But as in a household, they who handle the fur- 
 niture, brush it, anoint their masters, who sweep, and water, 
 do not occupy the highest rank of servitude ; in like man- 
 ner they who have abandoned themselves to their passions 
 for these things, occupy nearly the lowest grade of slavery 
 itself. 
 
 But you say, I have had the direction of important wars, 
 I have presided over great empires and provinces. Then 
 
 the love they bare to a woman, it is not so wonderful as lamentable, that 
 other men in succeeding ages have been allured to so many inconvenient 
 and wicked practices by tho persuasion of their wives or other beloved 
 darlings, who cover over and shadow many malicious purposes with a 
 counterfeit passion of dissimulating sorrow and unquietness." Sir Walter 
 Raleigh. 
 
 "It is a most miserable slavery to submit to what you disapprove, and 
 give up a truth, for no other reason but that you had not the fortitude to 
 support you in asserting it. A man has enough to do to conquer his 
 own unreasonable wishes and desires ; but he does that in vain, if he has 
 those of another to gratify. But in all concessions of this kind, a man 
 should consider whether the present ho makes flows from his own love, 
 or the importunity of his beloved. If from tho latter, he is her slave ; 
 if from the former, her friend. "Wo laugh it off, and do not weigh this 
 subjection to women with that seriousness which so important a circum- 
 stance deserves. Why was courage given to a man, if his wife's fears 
 are to frustrate it ? When this is once indulged, you are no longer her 
 guardian and protector, as you were designed by nature ; but in compli- 
 ance to her weakness, you have disabled yourself from avoiding tho mis- 
 fortunes into which they will lead you both, and you are to see the hour 
 in which you are to bo reproached by herself. It is indeed the most 
 difficult mastery over ourselves to resist the grief of her who charms us, 
 but the old argument, that ' you do not love me if you deny me this,' 
 which first was used to obtain a trifle, by habitual success will oblige 
 the unhappy man who gives way to it, to resign the cause even of his 
 country and his honor." Addison. Spectator, No. 610.
 
 282 CICERO'S PARADOXES. JM.R. r. 
 
 carry about you a soul worthy of praise. A painting of 
 Echion, or somo statue of Polycletus, holds you bereft of 
 your senses : I shall not mention from whom you took it, or 
 by what means you possess it : but when I see you staring, 
 gaping, and uttering cries, I look upon you to be the slave of 
 all these follies. You ask me, " Are not these, then, elegant 
 amusements ?" They are : for I too have a cultivated eye ; 
 but I beseech you, let these elegances be so regarded as 
 the playthings of boys, and not as the shackles of men. 
 What think you then? If Lucius Mummius, after he had 
 expressed his contempt for all Corinth, had seen one of these 
 men examining most eagerly a Corinthian vase, whether 
 would he have looked upon him as an excellent citizen, or 
 a busy appraiser ? If Manius Curius, or some of those 
 Romans who in their villas and their houses had nothing 
 that was costly, nothing besides themselves that was orna- 
 mental, should come to life again, and see one who had re- 
 ceived the highest honors from the people, taking out of his 
 tank his mullets or his carp, then handling them, and boasting 
 of the abundance of his lampreys, would not the old Roman 
 think that such a man was so very a slave, that he was not 
 even fit for a very high employment in a household ? Is the 
 slavery of those men doubtful, who from their greediness for 
 wealth spurn no condition of the hardest servitude ? To what 
 meanness of slavery will not the hope of succeeding to an es- 
 tate make a man stoop ? l What gesture of the childless rich 
 old fellow does he not observe ? He frames his words to his 
 inclination ; he does whatever is commanded him ; he courts 
 him, he sits by him, he makes him presents. What of these is 
 the part of a free man ? What, indeed, is not the mark of an 
 abject slave. 
 
 Well ! how hard a mistress is that passion which seems 
 to be more characteristic of liberty, I mean that for public 
 preferment, for empire, for provinces ; how imperious ! how 
 irresistible ! It forced the men who thought themselves the 
 
 1 " Riches gotten by service, though it bo of the best rise, yet when 
 they are gotten by flattery, feeding humors, and other servile conditions, 
 they may be placed among the worst. As for fishing for testaments and 
 executorships (as Tacitus saith of Seneca, ' Testamenta et orbos tam- 
 quam indagine capi), it is yet worse, by how much men submit them- 
 eelves to meaner persons than in service." Lord Bacon, Essay 34.
 
 PAR. vr. CICERO'S PARADOXES. 283 
 
 greatest men in Rome to be slaves to Cethegus, a person 
 not the most respectable, to send him presents, to wait upon 
 him at nights at his house, to turn suitors, nay, supplicants 
 to him. If this is to be regarded as freedom, what is 
 slavery ? But what shall I say when the sway of the 
 passions is over, and when fear, another tyrant, springs out 
 of the consciousness of their misdeeds ? What a hard, what 
 a wretched servitude is that, when they must be slaves to 
 chattering boys ; when all who seem to know any thing 
 against them are feared as their masters. As to their judge, 
 how powerful is his sway over them, with what terrors does 
 he afflict the guilty. And is not all fear a slavery ? What 
 then is the meaning of that more eloquent than wise speech 
 delivered by the accomplished orator Crassus? "Snatch us 
 from slavery." What slavery could happen to so illustrious 
 and noble a man ? Every terror of a weak, a mean, and a das- 
 tardly soul is slavery. He goes on " Suffer us not to be 
 the slaves of any (you perhaps imagine that he is now about 
 to assert his liberty. Not at all, for what does he add?) but 
 of you all, to whom we are able and bound to be subservient." 
 He desires not to be free, but to change his master. Now 
 we whose souls are lofty, exalted, and intrenched in virtue, 
 neither can, nor ought to be slaves. Say that you can be a 
 slave, since indeed you can ; but say not that you are bound 
 to be one, for no man is bound to any service, unless it is 
 disgraceful not to render it. But enough of this. Now let 
 this man consider if he can be a general, when reason and 
 truth must convince him that he is not so much as a 
 freeman. 
 
 PARADOX VI. 
 
 THAT THE WISE MAN ALONE IS IUCII. 
 
 WHAT means this unbecoming ostentation in making 
 mention of your money ? ' You are the only rich man ! Im- 
 mortal gods ! ought I not to rejoice that I have heard and 
 learned something ? You the only rich man ! What if you 
 are not rich at all ? What if you even are a beggar ? For 
 whom are we to understand to be a rich man? To what 
 
 1 This paradox is addressed to Marcus Crassus.
 
 284 CICERO'S PARADOXES. PAR. vi. 
 
 kind of a man do we apply the term ? To the man as I sup- 
 pose, whose possessions are such that he may be well con- 
 tented to live liberally, who has no desire, no hankering 
 after, no wish for more. It is your own mind, and not the 
 talk of others, nor your possessions, that must pronounce 
 you to be rich ; for it ought to think that nothing is want- 
 ing to it, and care for nothing beyond. Is it satiated, or 
 even contented with your money? I admit that you are 
 rich ; but if for the greed of money you think no source of 
 profit disgraceful (though your order can not make any 
 honest profits), if you every day are cheating, deceiving, 
 craving, jobbing, poaching, and pilfering; if you rob the 
 allies and plunder the treasury; if you are forever longing 
 for the bequests of friends, or not even waiting for them, 
 but forging them yourself, are such practices the indications 
 of a rich or a needy man ? It is the mind, and not the 
 coffers of a man, that is to be accounted rich. For though 
 the latter be full, when I sec yourself empty, I shall not 
 think you rich ; because men measure the amount of riches 
 by that which is sufficient for each individual. Has a man 
 a daughter ? then he has need of money. But he has two, 
 then he ought to have a greater fortune ; he has more, then 
 he ought to have more fortune still; and if, as we are told 
 of Danaus, he has fifty daughters, so many fortunes require 
 a great estate. For, as I said before, the degree of wealth 
 is dependent on how much each individual has need of. He 
 therefore who has not a great many daughters, but innu- 
 merable passions, which are enough to consume a very great 
 estate in a very short time, how can I call such a man rich, 
 when he himself is conscious that he is poor? Many have 
 heard you say, that no man is rich who can not with his in- 
 come maintain an army ; a thing which the people of Rome 
 some time ago, with their so great revenues, could scarcely 
 do. Therefore, according to your maxim, you never can be 
 rich, until so much is brought in to you from your estates, 
 that out of it you can maintain six legions, and large auxil- 
 iaries of horse and foot. 1 You therefore, in fact, confess 
 
 1 " It will bo found," says Dr. Johnson, " on a nearer view, that thoso 
 who extol the happiness of poverty, do not mean the same state with 
 those who deplore its miseries. Poets havelSair imaginations filled with 
 ideas of magnificence ; and, being accustomed to contemplate the down-
 
 PAR. VL CICERO'S PARADOXES. 285 
 
 yourself noc to be rich, who are so far short of fulfilling what 
 you desire ; you, therefore, have never concealed your poverty, 
 your neediness, and your beggary. 
 
 For as we see that they who make an honest livelihood by 
 commerce, by industry, by farming the public revenue, have 
 occasion for their earnings; so, whoever sees at your house 
 the crowds of accusers and judges together; whoever sees 
 rich and guilty criminals plotting the corruption of trials 
 with you as their adviser, and your bargainings for pay for 
 the distribution of patronage, your pecuniary interventions 
 in the contests of candidates, your dispatching your freed- 
 men to fleece and plunder the provinces; whoever calls to 
 mind your dispossessing your neighbors, your depopulating 
 the country by your oppressions, your confederacies with 
 slaves, with freedmen, and with clients; the vacating of es- 
 tates ; the proscriptions of the wealthy ; the corporations mas- 
 sacred, and the harvest of the times of Sylla; the wills you 
 have forged, and the many men you have made away with ; 
 in short, that all things were venal with you in your levies, 
 your decrees, your own votes, and the votes of others; the 
 forum, your house, your speaking, and your silence ; who 
 must not think that such a man confesses he has occasion for 
 all he has acquired? But who can truly designate him as 
 a rich man who needs all his earnings ? For the advantage 
 of riches consists in plenty, and this plenty declares the 
 overflow and abundance of the means of life, which, as you 
 can never attain, you can never be rich. I shall say nothing 
 of myself, because as you (and that with reason) despise my 
 fortune for it is in the opinion of the generality middling, 
 in yours next to nothing, and in mine sufficient I shall 
 speak to the subject. Now if facts are to bo weighed and 
 estimated by us, whether are we more to esteem the money 
 of Pyrrhus which he sent to Fabricius, or the continency of 
 Fabricius for refusing that money ? the gold of the Sam- 
 nites, or the answer of Manius Curius? the inheritance of 
 Lucius Paulus, or the generosity of Africanus, who gave 
 
 fall of empires, or to contrive forms of lamentations for monarchs in dis- 
 tress, rank all the classes of mankind in a state of poverty who make no 
 approaches to the dignity of crowns. To bo poor in the epic language 
 is only not to command the wealth of nations, and to have fleets and 
 armies to pay." Rambler, No. 202.
 
 286 CICERO'S PARADOXES. PAR. TI. 
 
 to his brother Quintus his own part of that inheritance 1 
 Surely the latter evidences of consummate virtue are more 
 to be esteemed than the former, which are the evidences of 
 wealth. If, therefore, we are to rate every man rich only in 
 proportion to the valuable things he possesses, who can doubt 
 that riches consist in virtue, since no possession, no amount of 
 gold and silver, is more to be valued than virtue ? 
 
 Immortal gods ! Men are not aware how great a revenue 
 is parsimony ; for I now proceed to speak of extravagant 
 men, I take my leave of the money-hunter. The revenue 
 one man receives from his estate is six hundred sestertia; 
 I receive one hundred from mine. To that man who has 
 gilded roofs and marble pavements in his villas, and who 
 unboundedly covets statues, pictures, vestments, and fur- 
 niture, his income is insufficient, not only for his expenditure, 
 but even for the payment of his interest ; while there will 
 be some surplus even from my slender income, through 
 cutting off the expenses of voluptuousness. Which, then, is 
 the richer, he who has a deficit, or he who has a surplus ? 
 he who is in need, or he who abounds ? the man whose 
 estate, the greater it is, requires the more to sustain it, or 
 whose estate maintains itself by its own resources ?' 
 
 But why do I talk of myself, who through the contagion 
 
 1 " Riches aro of no value in themselves, their use is discovered only 
 in that which they procure. They are not coveted unless by narrow un- 
 derstandings, which confound the means with the end, but for the sako 
 of power, influence, and esteem ; or by some of less elevated and re- 
 fined sentiments as necessary to sensual enjoyment. 
 
 "The pleasures of luxury many have, without uncommon virtue, been 
 able to despise, even when affluence and idleness have concurred to 
 tempt them ; and therefore he who feels nothing from indigence, but tho 
 want of gratifications which he could not in any other condition mako 
 consistent with innocence, has given no proof of eminent patience. 
 Esteem and influence every man desires, but they are equally pleasing 
 and equally valuable, by whatever means they are obtained ; and who- 
 ever has found tho art of securing them without the help of money 
 ought in reality to bo accounted rich, since he has all that riches can 
 purchase to a wise man. Cincinnatus, though ho lived upon a few acres, 
 cultivated by his own hand, was sufficiently removed from all the evils 
 generally comprehended under the name of poverty, when his reputation 
 was such that the voice of his country called him from his farm to tako 
 absolute command into his hand ; nor was Diogenes much mortified by 
 his residence in a tub, where ho was honored with the visit of Alexander 
 Vhe Great" The Rambler, No. 202.
 
 PAR. vi. CICERO'S PARADOXES. 287 
 
 of fashion and of the times, am perhaps a little infected with 
 the fault of the age ? In the memory of our fathers, Manius 
 Manilius (not to mention continually the Curii and the Lus- 
 cinii) at length became poor ; for he had only a little house 
 at Carani and a farm near Labicum. Now are we, because 
 we have greater possessions, richer men ? I wish we were. 
 But the amount of wealth is not defined by the valuation of 
 the census, but by habit and mode of life ; not to be greedy 
 is wealth ; not to be extravagant is revenue. Above all 
 things, to be content with what we possess is the greatest 
 and most secure of riches. If therefore they who are the 
 most skillful valuers of property highly estimate fields and 
 certain sites, because such estates are the least liable to 
 injury, how much more valuable is virtue, which never 
 can be wrested, never can be filched from us, which can not 
 be lost by fire or by shipwreck, and which is not alienated 
 by the convulsions of tempest or of time, with which those 
 who are endowed alone are rich, for they alone possess re- 
 sources which are profitable and eternal; and they are the 
 only men who, being contented with what they possess, think 
 it sufficient, which is the criterion of riches : they hanker 
 after nothing, they are in need of nothing, they feel the want 
 of nothing, and they require nothing. As to the unsatiable 
 und avaricious part of mankind, as they have possessions 
 liable to uncertainty, and at the mercy of chance, they who 
 are forever thirsting after more, and of whom there never was 
 a man for whom what he had sufficed ; they are so far from 
 being wealthy and rich, that they arc to be regarded as neces- 
 sitous and beggared.
 
 THE 
 
 VISION OF SCIPIO. 
 
 SCIPIO SPEAKS. 
 
 WHEN I had arrived in Africa as military tribune of the 
 fourth legion, as you know, under the consul, Lucius Man- 
 lius, nothing was more delightful to me than having an in- 
 terview with Massinissa, a prince who, for good reasons, was 
 most friendly to our family. When I arrived, the old man 
 shed tears as he embraced me. Soon after he raised his 
 eyes up to heaven and said, I thank thee, most glorious sun, 
 and ye the other inhabitants of heaven, that before I depart 
 from this life, I see in my kingdom and under this roof, 
 Publius Cornelius Scipio, by whose very name I am re- 
 freshed, for never does the memory of that greatest, that most 
 invincible of men, vanish from my mind. After this I informed 
 myself from him about his kingdom, and he from me about 
 our government ; and that day was consumed in much con- 
 versation on both sides. 
 
 Afterward, having been entertained with royal magnifi- 
 cence, we prolonged our conversation to a late hour of the 
 night ; while the old man talked of nothing but of Africanus, 
 and remembered not only all his actions, but all his sayings. 
 Then, when we departed to bed, owing to my journey and 
 my sitting up to a late hour, a sleep sounder than ordinary 
 came over me. In this (I suppose from the subject on 
 which we had been talking, for it commonly happens that 
 our thoughts and conversations beget something analogous 
 in our sleep, just as Ennius writes about Homer, of whom 
 assuredly, he was accustomed most frequently to think and
 
 THE VISION OP SCIPIO. 289 
 
 talk when awake), 1 Africanus presented himself to me in that 
 form which was more known from his statue than from his 
 own person. 
 
 No sooner did I know him than I shuddered. "Draw 
 near (said he), with confidence, lay aside your dread, and 
 commit what I say to your memory. You see that city, 
 which by me was forced to submit to the people of Rome, 
 but is now renewing its former wars, and can not remain at 
 peace (he spoke these words pointing to Carthage from an 
 eminence that was full of stars, bright and glorious), which 
 you are now come, before you are a complete soldier, 2 to at- 
 tack. Within two years you shall be consul, and shall over- 
 throw it ; and you shall acquire for yourself that surname 
 that you now wear, as bequeathed by me. 3 After you have 
 
 1 " I bclicvo that dreams arc uniformly the resuscitation or re-embodi- 
 ment of thoughts which have formerly, in some shape or other, occupied 
 the mind. They are old ideas revived, either in an entire state, or hetc- 
 rogeneously mingled together. I doubt if it be possible for a person to 
 have in a dream any idea whose elements did not in some form strike 
 him at a previous period. If these break loose from their connecting 
 chain, and become jumbled together incoherently, as is often the case, 
 they give rise to absurd combinations ; but the elements still subsist, 
 and only manifest themselves in a new and unconnected shape. Dreams 
 generally arise without any assignable cause, but sometimes wo can very 
 readily discover their origin. Whatever has much interested us during 
 the day is apt to resolve itself into a dream, and this will generally be 
 pleasurable or the reverse, according to the nature of the exciting cause. 
 If, for instance, our reading or conversation be of horrible subjects, such 
 as specters, murders, or conflagrations, they will appear before us mag- 
 nified and heightened in our dreams. Or if wo have been previously 
 sailing upon a rough sea, wo are apt to suppose ourselves undergoing 
 the perils of shipwreck. Pleasurable sensations during the day are also 
 apt to assume a still more pleasurable aspect in dreams. In like manner, 
 if we have a longing for anything, wo are apt to suppose that we possess 
 it. Even objects altogether unattainable are placed within our reach : 
 we achieve impossibilities, and triumph with ease over the invincible 
 laws of nature." Macnish's Philosophy of Sleep, chap. 3. 
 
 8 Soldier. The original is nunc venis pane Miles, because Scipio was 
 then only a young man and one of the military tribunes, which post wus 
 looked upon as only a kind of cadotship which they went through before 
 they could bo generals. 
 
 5 " Dreams have been looked upon by some as the occasional means 
 of giving us an insight into futurity. This opinion is so singularly un- 
 philosophical that I would not have noticed it, were it not advocated 
 oven by persons of good sense and education. In ancient times it was 
 so common as to obtain universal belief; and the greatest men placed as 
 
 13
 
 290 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 
 
 destroyed Carthage, performed a triumph, and been censor ; 
 after, in the capacity of legate, you have visited Egypt, Syria, 
 Asia, and Greece, you shall, in your absence, be chosen a 
 second time consul ; then you shall finish a most dreadful 
 war, and utterly destroy Numantia. But when you shall bo 
 borne into the capitol in your triumphal chariot, you shall find 
 the government thrown into confusion by the machinations 
 of my grandson ;* and here, my Africanus, you must display 
 to your country the luster of your spirit, genius, and wisdom. 
 " But at this period I perceive that the path of your destiny 
 is a doubtful one ; for when your lite has passed through 
 seven times eight" oblique journeys and returns of the sun ; 
 
 implicit faith in it as in any fact of which their own senses afforded them 
 cognizance. That it is wholly erroneous, however, can not be doubted ; 
 and any person who examines the nature of the human mind and tho 
 manner in which it operates in dreams, must be convinced that under no 
 circumstances, except those of a miracle, in which the ordinary laws of 
 nature are triumphed over, can such an event ever take place. The sacred 
 writings testify that miracles were common in former times, but I believe 
 no man of sane mind will contend that they ever occur in the present 
 state of the world. In judging of things as now constituted, we must 
 discard supernatural influence altogether, and estimate events according 
 to the general laws which the great Ruler of nature has appointed foi 
 the guidance of the universe. If in the present day it were possible t<7 
 conceive a suspension of these laws, it must, as in former ages, be in 
 reference to some great event and to serve some mighty purpose con- 
 nected with the general interests of the human race ; but if faith is to bo 
 placed in modern miracles, wo must suppose that God suspended the 
 above laws for tho most trivial and useless of purposes. At the same 
 time there can be no doubt that many circumstances occurring in our 
 dreams have been actually verified ; but this must be regarded as alto- 
 gether the effect of chance ; and for one dream which turns out to be 
 true, at least a thousand are false. In fact, it is only when they are of 
 the former description, that we take any notice of them, the latter are 
 looked upon as mere idle vagaries, and speedily forgotten." Macnish'a 
 Philosophy of Sleep, chap. 4. 
 
 Speaking of uninspired prophecy, Lord Bacon says : " There are num- 
 bers of the like kind; especially if you include dreams and predictions 
 of astrology, but I have set down these few only of certain credit for ex- 
 ample. My judgment is, that they ought all to be despised, and ought 
 ' to serve but for winter talk by the fireside." 
 
 1 "Grandson. Meaning Tiberius Gracchus or his brother ; their mother 
 was daughter to the elder Africanus. I can not help being of opinion 
 that -Virgil took from this vision his first hint of the discourse which he 
 introduces in the sixth book of the ^Eneid, between ^neas and his 
 /ather." -Guthrie. 
 
 a " Seven limes eight times. The critics and commentators have been
 
 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 291 
 
 and when these two numbers (each of which is regarded as 
 a complete one one on one account and the other on 
 another) shall, in their natural circuit, have brought you to 
 the crisis of your fate, then will the whole state turn itself 
 toward thee and thy glory ; the senate, all virtuous men, 
 our allies, and the Latins, shall look up to you. Upon your 
 single person the preservation of your country will depend ; 
 and, in short, it is your part, as dictator, to settle the gov- 
 ernment, if you can but escape the impious hands of your 
 kinsmen." 1 Here, when Laelius uttered an exclamation, 
 and the rest groaned with great excitement, Scipio said, with 
 a gentle smile, " I beg that you will not waken me out of my 
 dream, give a little time and listen to the sequel. 
 
 " But that you may bo more earnest in the defense of 
 your country, know from me, that a certain place in heaven 
 is assigned to all who have preserved, or assisted, or im- 
 proved their country, where they are to enjoy an endless 
 duration of happiness. 2 For there is nothing which takes 
 
 very profuse of their learning in explaining this passage. But since the 
 doctrine of numbers, and the motions of the heavenly bodies have been 
 so well understood, it is a learning of a very useless nature. The sum 
 of what they tell us is, that the numbers seven and eight are complete 
 numbers, and when multiplied into one another produce fifty-six, which 
 is one of the climacterics of human life. The reasons they give for all 
 this are so many and so fanciful, that though they are strengthened with 
 the greatest names of antiquity, it can be of very little use for a modern 
 reader to know them. " Guthrio. 
 
 1 "There scarce can be a doubt that this passage was in Virgil's eye, 
 when ho makes Anchisea break out in that beautiful exclamation in the 
 sixth book of the vEneid concerning Marcellus. 
 
 ' Heu misorando puer si qua fata aspcra rumpas, 
 Tu Marcellus eris.' " Guthrio. 
 
 2 It seems to have strongly entered into tho expectations of those 
 eminent sai^os of antiquity who embraced tho doctrine of the soul's im- 
 mortality, that the felicity of tho next life will partly arise, not only from 
 a renewal of those virtuous connections which have been formed in tho 
 present, but from conversing at largo with that whole glorious assembly 
 whom the poet hath so justly brought together, in his description of tho 
 mansions of the blessed : Tho 
 
 " Manus ob patriam pugnando vulnora passi, 
 Quiquo sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, 
 Quiquo pii vates, et Phoabo digna locuti, 
 Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes 
 Quiquo sui memorea alios focere merendo." 
 
 Virg. ^En. vl 664.
 
 292 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 
 
 place on earth more acceptable to that Supreme Deity who 
 governs all this world, than those councils and assemblies of 
 men bound together by law, which are termed states ; the 
 governors and preservers of these go from hence, 1 and hither 
 do they return." Here, frightened as I was, not so much 
 from the dread of death as of the treachery of my friends, I 
 nevertheless asked him whether my father Paulus, and others, 
 whom we thought to bo dead, were yet alive ? " To be sure 
 they are alive (replied Africanus), for they have escaped 
 from the fetters of the body as from a prison ; that which is 
 called your life is really death. But behold your father 
 Paulus approaching you." No sooner did I see him than I 
 poured forth a flood of tears ; hut he, embracing and kissing 
 me, forbade me to weep. And when, having suppressed my 
 tears, I began first to be able to speak, " why (said I), thou 
 most sacred and excellent father, since this is life, as I hear 
 Africanus affirm, why do I terry on earth, and not hasten to 
 come to you ?" 
 
 " Patriots who perished for their country's right, 
 Or nobly triumphed in the field of fight, 
 There holy priests and sacred poets stood, 
 Who sung with all the raptures of a god ; 
 Worthies, who life by useful arts refined, 
 With those who leave a deathless name behind, 
 Friends of the world, and fathers of mankind." Pitt's translation. 
 1 " Plato, in the dialogue entitled 'Phsedo,' represents Socrates on the 
 morning of his execution, as holding a conversation with his friends, on 
 the soul's immortality, in which, among other arguments, he endeavors 
 to establish the doctrine of the soul's future existence, upon the principle 
 of its having existed before its union with the body. This was attempt- 
 ing to support the truth of the hypothesis in question, by resting it on 
 another altogether conjectural and precarious. But these two proposi- 
 tions, though totally distinct from, and unconnected with each other, were 
 held by all the ancient philosophers who maintained the future perman- 
 ency of the soul, to have a mutual dependence, and necessarily to stand 
 or fall together. For, as they raised their arguments for the soul's im- 
 mortality chiefly on metaphysical ground ; they clearly perceive, as tho 
 very learned Cudworth observes, " If it were once granted that the soul 
 was generated, it could never bo proved but it might also be corrupted. 1 
 Reasonings of this kind, indeed, are generally more specious than satisfac- 
 tory ; and perhaps, every sensible reader, after perusing what the most 
 acute metaphysicians have written on this important article, will find him- 
 self not very far from the same state of mind as Cicero's Tusculan disciple 
 was after reading Plato ; ' nescio quomodo,' says he, ' dum lego assenti- 
 or; cum posui librum, assensio omnis ilia elabitur.' " Melmoth.
 
 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 293 
 
 " Not so, my son (he replied) ; unless that God, whose 
 temple is all this which you behold, shall free you from this 
 imprisonment in the body, you can have no admission to this 
 place ; for men have been created under this condition, that 
 they should keep that globe which you see in the middle of 
 this temple, and which is called the earth. And a soul has 
 been supplied to them from those eternal fires which you 
 call constellations and stars, and which, being globular and 
 round, are animated with divine spirit, and complete their 
 cycles and revolutions with amazing rapidity. Therefore you, 
 my Publius, and all good men, must preserve your souls 
 in the keeping of your bodies; nor are you, without the 
 order of that Being who bestowed them upon you, to depart 
 from mundane life, lest you seem to desert the duty of a 
 man, which has been assigned you by God. 1 Therefore, 
 Scipio, like your grandfather here, and me who begot you, 
 cultivate justice and piety ; which, while it should be great 
 toward your parents and relations, should be greatest to- 
 ward your country. 4 Such a life is the path to heaven and 
 the assembly of those who have lived before, and who, 
 having been released from their bodies, inhabit that place 
 which thou beholdest" * 
 
 1 This sentiment, in reprehension of the practice of suicide, has been 
 previously noticed in the notes on Cicero's Treatises on Friendship and 
 Old Age, where ho states that this particular illustration is taken from 
 Pythagoras. It has in it fur more of Christian philosophy than is to bo 
 found in tho reasonings of many modern moralists. 
 
 2 " Tho love of our country has often been found to bo a deceitful 
 principle, as its direct tendency is to set tho interests of ono division of 
 mankind in opposition to another, and to establish a preference built upon 
 accidental relations and not upon reason. Much of what has been un- 
 derstood by tho appellation is excellent ; but, perhaps, nothing that can 
 bo brought within tho strict interpretation of tho phrase. A wiso and 
 well-informed man will not fail to bo the votary of liberty and justice, 
 lie will bo ready to exert himself in their defense wherever they exist. 
 It can not bo a matter of indifference to him when his own liberty and 
 that of other men, with whoso merits and capacities ho has the best op- 
 portunity of being acquainted, are involved in tho event of tho struggle 
 to bo made ; but his attachment will bo to tho cause, as the cause of 
 man and not to tho country. Wherever thcro are individuals who un- 
 derstand tho valuo of political justice, and are prepared to assert it, that 
 is his country ; wherever he can most contribute to the diffusion of theso 
 principles, and tho real happiness of mankind, that is his country. Nor 
 does ho desire for any country, any other benefit than justice." God- 
 win's Political Justice, book v. chap. 16. 
 
 * So Virgil, " Macto tuu virtute, puer, sic itur ad astra."
 
 294 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 
 
 Now the place my father spoke of was a radiant circle of 
 dazzling brightness amid the flaming bodies, which you, as 
 you have learned from the Greeks, term the Milky Way ; 
 from which position all other objects seemed to me, as I sur- 
 veyed them, marvelous and glorious. There were stars 
 which we never saw from this place, and their magnitudes 
 were such as we never imagined ; the smallest of which was 
 that which, placed upon the extremity of the heavens, but 
 nearest to the earth, shone with borrowed light. But the 
 globular bodies of the stars greatly exceeded the magnitude 
 of the earth, which now to me appeared so small, that I was 
 grieved to see our empire contracted, as it were, into a very 
 point. 1 
 
 Which, while I was too eagerly gazing on, Africanus said, 
 " How long will your attention be fixed upon the earth ? 
 Do you not see into what temples you have entered ? All 
 things are connected by nine circles, or rather spheres ; one 
 of which (which is the outermost) is heaven, and compre- 
 hends all the rest, (inhabited by) that all-powerful God, 
 who bounds and controls the others ; and in this sphere 
 reside the original principles of those endless revolutions 
 which the planets perform. Within this are contained seven 
 other spheres, that turn round backward, that is, in a con- 
 trary direction to that of the heaven. Of these, that planet 
 which on earth you call Saturn, occupies one sphere. That 
 shining body which you see next is called Jupiter, and is 
 friendly and salutary to mankind. Next the lucid one, ter- 
 rible to the earth, which you call Mars. The Sun holds the 
 next place, almost under the middle region ; he is the chief, 
 the leader, and the director of the other luminaries ; he is 
 the soul and guide of the world, and of such immense bulk, 
 that he illuminates and fills all other objects with his light. 
 He is followed by the orbit of Venus, and that of Mercury, 
 as attendants ; and the Moon rolls in the lowest sphere, en- 
 lightened by the rays of the Sun. Below this there is 
 nothing but what is mortal and transitory, excepting those 
 
 1 If we compare this passage with the fortieth chapter of the Prophe- 
 sies of Isaiah, and also the fourth eclogue of Virgil, with other parts of 
 the same prophesy, we shall find it difficult to believe that that inspired 
 book had not in part or wholly come to the knowledge of the Romans 
 as early as the ago of Cicero.
 
 THE VISION OP SCIPIO. 295 
 
 souls which are given to the human race by the goodness of 
 the gods. Whatever lies above the Moon is eternal. For 
 the earth, which is the ninth sphere, and is placed in the 
 center of the whole system, is immovable and below all the 
 rest; and all bodies, by their natural gravitation, tend to- 
 ward it." 
 
 Which as I was gazing at in amazement I said, as I 
 recovered myself, from whence proceed these sounds so 
 strong, and yet so sweet, that fill my ears ? " The melody 
 (replies he) which you hear, and which, though composed 
 in unequal time, is nevertheless divided into regular har- 
 mony, is effected by the impulse and motion of the spheres 
 themselves, which, by a happy temper of sharp and grave 
 notes, regularly produces various harmonic effects. Now it 
 is impossible that such prodigious movements should pass in 
 silence; and nature teaches that the sounds which the 
 spheres at one extremity utter must be sharp, and those on 
 the other extremity must be grave ; on which account, that 
 highest revolution of the star-studded heaven, whose motion 
 is more rapid, is carried on with a sharp and quick sound ; 
 whereas this of the moon, which is situated the lowest, and 
 :it the other extremity, moves with the gravest sound. For 
 the earth, the ninth sphere, remaining motionless, abides in- 
 variably in the innermost position, occupying the centra! 
 spot in the universe. 
 
 " Now these eight directions, two of which 1 have the same 
 powers, effect seven sounds, differing in their modulations, 
 which number is the connecting principle of almost all 
 things. Some learned men, by imitating this harmony with 
 strings and vocal melodies, have opened a way for their re- 
 turn to this place ; as all others have done, who, endued 
 with pre-eminent qualities, have cultivated in their mortal 
 life the pursuits of heaven. 
 
 " The ears of mankind, filled with these sounds, have be- 
 come deaf, for of all your senses it is the most blunted." Thus, 
 
 1 Mercury and Venus are the planets hero referred to. 
 
 2 The idea of the music of the spheres has embellished the composi- 
 tions of many poets, both ancient and modern. One passage, however, 
 in the pages of Shakespeare appears to have been suggested by this part 
 of the writings of Cicero. It is as follows : 
 
 " Sit, Jessica, see how the floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
 
 296 THE VISION OP SCIPIO. 
 
 the people who live near the place where the Nile rushes 
 down from very high mountains to the parts which are 
 called Catadupa, are destitute of the sense of hearing, by 
 reason of the greatness of the noise. Now this sound, which 
 is effected by the rapid rotation of the whole system of 
 nature, is so powerful that human hearing can not compre- 
 hend it, just as you cannot look directly upon the sun, because 
 your sight and sense are overcome by his beams." 
 
 Though admiring these scenes, yet I still continued direct- 
 ing my eyes in the same direction toward the earth. On 
 this Africanus said, "I perceive that even now you are con- 
 templating the abode and home of the human race. 1 And 
 as this appears to you diminutive, as it really is, 2 fix your 
 regard upon these celestial scenes, and despise those abodes 
 
 There is not a single star which thou beholdest 
 But in its motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim. 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls : 
 But while this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doth grossly close us in, wo can not hear it." 
 
 Merchant of Venice. 
 
 1 " If minds in general arc not made to be strongly affected by the 
 phenomena of the earth and heavens ; they are, however, all subject to 
 be powerfully influenced by the appearances and character of the human 
 world. I suppose a child in Switzerland, growing up to a man, would 
 have acquired incomparably more of the cast of his mind from the events, 
 manners, and actions of the next village, though its inhabitants were but 
 his occasional companions, than from all the mountain scenes, the cata- 
 racts, and every circumstance of beauty or sublimity in nature around 
 him. "We are all true to our species, and very soon feel its importance 
 to us (though benevolence be not the basis of the interest), far beyond 
 the importance of any thing that we can see beside. Beginning your 
 observation with children, you may have noted how instantly they will 
 turn their attention away from any of the aspects of nature, however 
 rare or striking, if human objects present themselves to view in any act- 
 ive manner." John Foster, Essay L 
 
 8 " Is it for no purpose that the human eye is permitted to traverse 
 the immensity of space ? or is it with no moral intention that now at 
 length, and after five thousand years of labor and conjecture, a true no- 
 tion of the material universe has been attained and has become diffused 
 among all ranks in every civilized community? At last, and in these 
 times, man knows his place in the heavens, and is taught to think justly 
 of the relative importance of the planet which has given him birth. 
 During a long course of centuries, it was to little purpose, or to little in 
 relation to man, that the emanations of light had passed and re-passed 
 from side to side of the universe; for until of late, that is to say, the last
 
 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 297 
 
 of men. "What celebrity are you able to attain to in the dis- 
 course of men, or what glory that ought to be desired ? You 
 perceive that men dwell on but few and scanty portions of 
 the earth, and that amid these spots, as it were, vast soli- 
 tudes are interposed ! As to those who inhabit the earth, 
 not only are they so separated that no communication can 
 circulate among them from the one to the other, but part lie 
 upon one side, part upon another, and part are diametrically 
 opposite to you, from whom you assuredly can expect no 
 glory. 
 
 You are now to observe that the same earth is encircled 
 and encompassed as it were by certain zones, of which tho 
 two that are most distant from one another, and lie as it 
 were toward the vortexes of the heavens in both directions, 
 are rigid as you see with frost, while the middle and the 
 largest zone is burned up with the heat of the sun. Two of 
 these are habitable ; of which the southern, whose inhabit- 
 ants imprint their footsteps in an opposite direction to you, 
 have no relation to your race. As to this other, lying to- 
 ward the north, which you inhabit, observe what a small 
 portion of it falls to your share ; for all that part of the 
 earth which is inhabited by you, which narrows toward the 
 south and north, 1 but widens from east to west, is no other 
 than a little island surrounded by that sea which on earth 
 you call the Atlantic, sometimes the great sea, and some- 
 times the ocean ; and yet with so grand a name, you see how 
 diminutive it is ! Now do you think it possible for your re- 
 nown, or that of any one of us, to move from those cultivated 
 and inhabited spots of ground, and pass beyond that Cau- 
 casus, or swim across yonder Ganges? 1 What inhabitant of 
 
 throe centuries, it was not certainly known whether this earth (itselr 
 unexplored), were not tho only scene of life, and whether tho sun, tho 
 stars, and tho planets wero any thing more than brilliants floating in an 
 upper ether." Taylor's Physical Theory of Another Life, chap. 15. 
 
 1 Which narrows toward the south arid north, etc. This is a very curi- 
 ous passage, and if our author's interpreters are to bo believed, ho was 
 acquainted with tho true figure of tho earth, a discovery which is gene- 
 rally thought to have been reserved for Sir Isaac Newton, and to havo 
 been confirmed by some late experiments ; but I own I am not without 
 some doubts as to our author's meaning, whether he does not hero speak, 
 not of the whole face of tho earth, but of that part of it which was pos- 
 sessed or conquered by tho Romans. Guthrie. 
 
 2 " What might bo," says Dr. Johnson, after quoting this passage. 
 
 13*
 
 298 THE VISION OP SC1PIO. 
 
 the other parts of the cast, or of the extreme regions of the 
 setting sun, of those tracts that run toward the south or 
 toward the north, shall ever hear of your name ? Now sup- 
 posing them cut off, you see at once within what narrow 
 limits your glory would fain expand itself. As to those who 
 speak of you, how long will they speak ? 
 
 Let me even suppose that a future race of men shall be 
 desirous of transmitting to their posterity your renown or 
 mine, as they received it from their fathers ; yet when we 
 consider the convulsions and conflagrations that must neces- 
 sarily happen at some definite period, we are unable to attain 
 not only to an eternal, but even to a lasting fame. 1 Now of 
 
 " the effect of these observations conveyed in Ciceronian eloquence to 
 Roman understandings, can not be determined ; but few of those, who 
 shall in the present age read my humble version will find themselves 
 much depressed in their hopes or retarded in their design ; for I am not 
 inclined to believe that they who among us pass their lives in the culti- 
 vation of knowledge or acquisition of power, have very anxiously inquired 
 what opinions prevail on the further banks of the Ganges, or invigorated 
 any effort by the desire of spreading their renown among the clans of 
 Caucasus. The hopes and fears of modern minds are content to range 
 in a narrower compass ; a single nation and a few years, have generally 
 sufficient amplitude to fill our imaginations. A little consideration will 
 indeed teach us that fame has other limits than mountains and oceans, 
 and that he who places happiness in the frequent repetition of his name, 
 may spend his life in propagating it, without any danger of weeping for 
 new worlds, or necessity of passing the Atlantic sea. 
 
 "IfJ therefore, ho that imagines the world filled with his actions and 
 praises, shall subduct from the number of his encomiast, all those who 
 are placed below the flight of fame, and who hear in tho valleys of life 
 no voice but that of necessity ; all those who imagine themselves too 
 important to regard him, and consider the mention of his name as a 
 usurpation of their time ; ah* who are too much or too little pleased with 
 themselves to attend to any thing external ; all who are attracted by 
 pleasure, or chained down by pain to unvaried ideas ; all who are with- 
 held from attending his triumph by different pursuits ; and all who slum- 
 ber in universal negligence, ho will find his renown straitened by nearer 
 bounds than the rocks of Caucasus, and perceive that no man can bo 
 venerable, or formidable, but to a small part of his fellow-creatures. 
 
 " That we may not languish in our endeavors after excellence, it ia 
 necessary that, as Africanus counsels his descendants, ' we raise our eyea 
 to higher prospects, and contemplate our future and eternal state, with- 
 out giving up our hearts to tho praise of crowds, or fixing our hopes on 
 such rewards as human power can bestow." Rambler, No. 118. 
 
 1 " Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments that by learning man excell- 
 eth man in that wherein man excelleth beasts ; that by learning man 
 ascendeth to the heavens, and their motions, where in body he can not
 
 THE VISION OP SCIP10. 299 
 
 what consequence is it to you to be talked of by those who 
 are born after you, and not by those who were born before 
 you, who certainly were as numerous and more virtuous; 
 especially, as among the very men who are thus to 
 celebrate our renown, not a single one can preserve the 
 recollections of a single year ? For mankind ordinarily 
 measure their year by the revolution of the sun, that is of a 
 single heavenly body. But when all the planets shall return 
 to the same position which they once had, and bring back 
 after a long rotation the same aspect of the entire heavens, 
 then the year may be said to be truly completed ; in which I 
 do not venture to say how many ages of mankind will bo 
 contained. For, as of old, when the spirit of Romulus 
 
 come, and the like ; let us conclude with the dignity and excellency of 
 knowledge and learning in that wherounto man's nature doth most as- 
 pire, which is immortality or continuance. For to this tendeth genera- 
 tion, and raising of houses and families ; to this buildings, foundations, 
 and monuments ; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame and cele- 
 bration, and in effect the strength of all other human desires. "We see, 
 then, how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than 
 the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not the verses of 
 Homer continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss 
 of a syllable or letter, during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, 
 cities, have been decayed and demolished ? It is not possible to havo 
 the true pictures of statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, no, nor of the 
 kings or great personages of much later years; for the originals can not 
 last, and the copies can not but lose of the life and truth. But the im- 
 ages of men's wits and knowledge remain in books exempted from the 
 wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they 
 fitly to bo called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds 
 in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opin- 
 ions in succeeding ages ; so that if the invention of the ship was thought 
 so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and 
 consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how 
 much more are letters to bo magnified, which, as ships, pass through the 
 vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, 
 illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other ? Nay, further, wo 
 see some of the philosophers, which were least divine and most immersed 
 in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of the soul, yet camo 
 to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of man could act and 
 perform without the organs of the body, they thought might remain after 
 death, which were only those of the understanding, and not of the affec- 
 tions ; so immortal and incorruptible a thing did knowledge seem unto 
 them to be. But wo that know by divine revelation that not only tho 
 understanding but the affections purified, not only tho spirit but the body 
 changed, shall be advanced to immortality, to disclaim these rudiments 
 v>f tho senses." Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Book L
 
 300 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 
 
 entered these temples, the sun disappeared to mortals and 
 seemed to be extinguished ; so whenever the sun be eclipsed 
 at the same time with all the stars, and constellations, brought 
 back to the same starting-point, shall again disappear, then 
 you are to reckon the year to be complete. But be assured 
 that the twentieth part of such a year h not yet elapsed. 
 
 If, therefore, you hope to return to this place, toward 
 which all the aspirations of great and good men are tending, 
 what must be the value of that human fame that endures for 
 but a little part of a single year ?' If, then, you would fain 
 direct your regards on high, and aspire to this mansion and 
 eternal abode, you neither will devote yourself to the 
 rumors of the vulgar, nor will you rest your hopes and 
 your interest on human rewards. Virtue herself ought to 
 attract you by her own charms to true glory; what others 
 may talk of you, for talk they will, let themselves consider. 
 But all such talk is confined to the narrow limits of those 
 regions which you see. None respecting any man was ever- 
 lasting. It is both extinguished by the death of the individual 
 and perishes altogether in the oblivion of posterity. 2 
 
 1 " Le cygne qui s'envole aux routes eternelles, 
 Amis, s'informe-t-il ei 1'ombre de ses ailes. 
 Flotte encore sur un vil gazon ?" 
 
 Lamartino. Lo Poiito Mourant. 
 
 The contrast between the vanity of posthumous fame and the- glories 
 of a future state of happiness, is represented by Dr. South in the follow- 
 ing majestic passage : 
 
 " Time, like a river, carries them all away with a rapid course ; they 
 swim above the stream for a while, but are quickly swallowed up, and 
 seen no more. The very monuments men raise to perpetuate their names 
 consume and molder away themselves, and proclaim their own mortality, 
 as well as testify that of others. But now on the other side, the enjoy- 
 ments above and the treasures proposed to us by our Saviour are inde- 
 fectible in their nature and endless in their duration. They are still full, 
 fresh, and entire, like the stars and orbs above, which shine with tho 
 same undiminished luster, and move with the samo unwearied motion 
 with which they did from the first date of then* creation. Nay, the joys 
 of heaven will abide when these lights of heaven will be put out, and 
 when sun and moon, and nature itself shall be discharged their stations, 
 and be employed by Providence no more ; the righteous shall then ap- 
 pear in their full glory, and, being fixed in the Divine presence, enjoy 
 one perpetual and everlasting day : a day commensurate to the unlimited 
 eternity of God himself, the great Sun of Righteousness, who is always 
 rising and never sets." South's Sermons, vol. i. Sermon 48. 
 
 2 Thia is another of the instances in which the sentiments of Cicero
 
 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 301 
 
 Which when he had said, I replied, " Truly, Africanus, 
 since the path to heaven lies open to those who have 
 deserved well of their country, though from my childhood I 
 have ever trod in your and my father's footsteps without 
 disgracing your glory, yet now, with so noble a prize set 
 before me, I shall strive with much more diligence." 
 
 " Do so strive," replied he, " and do not consider yourself, 
 but your body, to be mortal. For you are not the being 
 ; which this corporeal figure evinces ; but the mind of every 
 man is the man, and not that form which may be delineated 1 
 
 coincide as nearly as possible with Scripture in the Book of Ecclesiastes, 
 chap. ii. ver. 1422. "The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the 
 fool walketh in darkness. And I myself perceived also that one event 
 happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to tho 
 fool, so it happeneth even to me ; and why was I then moro wise ? 
 Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity. For there is no re- 
 membrance of the wise more than of the fool forever; seeing that which 
 now is, in tho days to come shall all bo forgotten. And how dieth the 
 wise man ? As the fooL Therefore, I hated life ; because the work that 
 is wrought under tho sun is grievous unto me ; for all is vanity and vex- 
 ation of spirit. Tea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the 
 BUU ; because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. 
 And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool ? Yet shall 
 ho have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I 
 have showed myself wise under tho sun. This is also vanity. There- 
 fore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all tho labor which I 
 took under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is in wisdom, and 
 in knowledge, and in equity ; yet to a man that hath not labored therein 
 shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil 
 For what hath man of all his labor, and of tho vexation of his heart, 
 wherein he hath labored under tho sun ?" 
 
 1 The principle here enunciated by Cicero is thus expanded by Bishop 
 Butler into an argument for the soul's immortality : 
 
 " From our being so nearly related to and interested in certain systems 
 of matter, suppose our flesh and bones, and afterward ceasing to be at all 
 related to them, the living agents, ourselves, remaining all this while un- 
 destroyed, notwithstanding such alienation ; and consequently these sys- 
 tems of matter not being ourselves ; it follows further, that we have no 
 ground to conclude any other supposed interval system of matter to be 
 the living agents ourselves ; because we can have no ground to conclude 
 this, but so form our relation to and interest in such other system of 
 matter at death, to bo the destruction of tho living agents. "We havo 
 already several times over lost a great part or perhaps tho whole of our 
 body, according to certain common established laws of nature, yet wo 
 remain the same living agents ; when wo shall lose as great a part, or 
 the whole, by another common established law of nature, death, why 
 may wo not also remain tho same ?
 
 302 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 
 
 with a finger. Know therefore ' that you are a divine person. 
 Since it is divinity' that has consciousness, sensation, memory, 
 and foresight ; that governs, regulates, and moves that body 
 over which it has been appointed, just as the Supreme Deity 
 rules this world ; and in like manner, as an eternal God 
 guides this world, which in some respect is perishable, so an 
 eternal spirit animates your frail body. 
 
 For that which is ever moving* is eternal ; now that which 
 communicates to another object a motion which it received 
 
 " That the alienation has been gradual in one case, and in the other 
 will be more at once, does not prove any thing to the contrary. We 
 have passed undestroyed through those many and great revolutions of 
 matter so peculiarly appropriated to us ourselves ; why should we ima- 
 gine death will be so fatal to us ? Nor can it be objected, that what ia 
 thus alienated or lost is no part of our original solid body, but only ad- 
 ventitious matter ; because we may lose entire limbs, which must have 
 contained many solid parts and vessels of the original body ; or if this 
 be not admitted, wo have no proof that any of these solid parts are dis- 
 solved or alienated by death. Though, by the way, we are very nearly 
 related to that extraneous or adventitious matter while it continues 
 united to, and distending the several parts of, our solid body. But after 
 all the relation a person bears to those parts of his body to which he is 
 the most nearly related, what does it appear to amount to but this, that 
 the living agent and those parts of the body mutually affect each other ? 
 And the same thing, the same thing in kind though not in degree, may bo 
 said of all foreign matter which gives us ideas, and which we have any 
 power over. From these observations the whole ground of the imagin- 
 ation is removed, that the dissolution of any matter is the destruction of 
 a living agent, from the interest he once had in such matter." 
 
 1 " It was the common opinion of all the ancient philosophers who fol- 
 lowed the system of Pythagoras, that the souls of men, and even of 
 beasts, were portions of divinity. What opinion our author had of tho 
 properties and immortality of the soul is difficult to determine. For we 
 are not to imagine that in the passage before us, and in many others in 
 which he mentions tho subject, he gives his own sentiments, but those 
 of others ; accordingly, in his first book, De Natura Deorum, he makes 
 Veleius, one of his prolocutors, absolutely destroy the doctrine which is 
 advanced here." Guthrio. 
 
 " 'T is the Divinity that stirs within us, 
 'T is heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 
 And intimates eternity to man !" Addison's Cato. 
 
 3 " All this doctrine is taken almost word for word from the Phcedrus 
 of Plato, and Macrobius has reduced it to the following syllogism. The 
 soul is self-motive ; now self-motion contains the principle of motion, the 
 principle of motion ia not created, therefore tho soul is not created." 
 Guthrie.
 
 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 303 
 
 else where, must necessarily cease to live as soon as Us motion 
 is at an end. Thus the being which is self-motive is the 
 only being that is eternal, because it never is abandoned by 
 its own properties, neither is this self-motion ever at an end ; 
 nay, this is the fountain, this is the beginning of motion to 
 all thinsfs that are thus subjects of motion. Now there can 
 be no commencement of what is aboriginal, for all things 
 proceed from a beginning; therefore a beginning can rise 
 from no other cause, for if it proceeded from another cause it 
 would not be aboriginal, which, if it have no commencement, 
 certainly toever has an end ; for the primeval principle, if 
 extinct, can neither be re-produced from any other source nor 
 produce any thing else from itself, because it is necessary 
 that all things should spring from some original source. The 
 principle of motion, therefore, can only exist in a self-motive 
 being, and it is impossible that such a being should be born 
 or that it should die, otherwise all heaven must go to wreck, 
 and the whole system of nature must stop ; nor can it come 
 under any other force, should it be removed from its original 
 impulsion. 1 
 
 Since therefore it is plain that whatever is self-motive 
 must be eternal, who can deny that this natural property is 
 
 1 It only remains then to bring this idea of the material word into 
 connection with the principle that motion, in all cases, originates from 
 mind ; or in other words, in the effect of will either the supreme will, 
 or the will of created minds. Motion is either constant and uniform, 
 obeying what we call a law, or it is incidental. The visible and palpable 
 world then, according to this theory, ia MOTION, constant and uniform, 
 emanating from infinite centers, and spreading during every instant of 
 its continuance from the creative energy. The instantaneous cessation 
 of this energy, at any period, is therefore abstractedly quite as easily 
 conceived of as is its continuance ; and whether, in the next instant, it 
 shall continue, or shall cease whether the material universe shall stand 
 or shall vanish is an alternative of which, irrespective of other reasons, 
 the one member may bo as easily taken as the other ; jnst as the moving 
 of the hand, or the not moving it, in the next moment depends upon 
 nothing but our volition. The annihilation of the solid spheres the 
 planets, and the suns, that occupy the celestial spaces, would not on this 
 supposition be an act of irresistible force crushing that which resists 
 compression, or dissipating and reducing to an ether that which firmly 
 coheres ; but. it would simply be the non-exertion in the next instant of 
 a power which has been exerted in this instant ; it would be, not a de- 
 struction, but a rest ; not a crash and ruin, but a pause. Taylor's Physi- 
 cal Theory of another Life, chap. xviiL
 
 304 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 
 
 bestowed upon our minds ?' For every thing that is moved 
 by a foreign impulse is inanimate, but that which is animate 
 is impelled by an inward and peculiar principle of motion ; 
 and in that consists the nature and property of the soul. 
 Now if it alone of all things is self-motive, assuredly it never 
 was originated, and is eternal. Do thou therefore employ it 
 in the noblest of pursuits, ard the noblest of cares are those 
 
 1 " It is motion that measures duration, and time is duration, measur- 
 ed into equal parts by the equable motion of bodies through space. But 
 as motion belongs to matter, of which it is a condition, and is that where- 
 in duration and extension combine to form a common product, so mind 
 must become related to extension, in order to its having any knowledgo 
 of motion, or to its being able to avail itself of the measurement of dura- 
 tion ; in other words, it is only in connection with matter that it can 
 know any thing of time. 
 
 "Minds embodied, not only learn to measure out their own existence 
 equally, and to correct the illusions of which otherwise they would bo 
 the sport, but also, by an insensible habit, they came to exist at a moro 
 even velocity, if we may so speak, than could else be possible, and learn 
 unconsciously to put a curb upon the excessive and dangerous rapidity 
 of thought ; while in other cases a spur is supplied for the sluggishness 
 of the mind, or a remedy found for its undue fixedness ; and thus all 
 minds are brought to move together at nearly the same rate, or at least 
 as nearly so as is essential for securing the order and harmony of the 
 social system. 
 
 " But then, this same intimate connection between mind and matter, 
 while it exposes the mind, passively, to the influence of the inferior ele- 
 ment, becomes in return the means of its exerting a power and how 
 extensive and mysterious a power is it over the solid matter around it. 
 Mind, embodied, by a simple act or volition, originates motion. That 
 is to say, its will or desire, through the instrumentality of muscular con- 
 tractions, as applied to the body itself, or to other bodies, puts it or them 
 in movement. This power of the mind in overcoming the vis inertia of 
 matter and tho force of gravitation, is the only active influence in rela- 
 tion to the material world which we have a certain knowledge of its 
 possessing ; for, as is obvious, the various combinations of substances 
 that are brought about by the skill of man, are all indirectly effected 
 through the instrumentality of the muscular system ; nor can it be ascer- 
 tained, whether the chemical changes and assimilations that are carried 
 on in the secreting glands and the viscera are effected by an unconsious 
 involuntary mental operation. This organic influence excepted, suppos- 
 ing it to exist, the mechanical power of the mind is the only one it en. 
 joys ; but this it enjoys in no mean degree. It may, without much 
 hazard, be assumed, that motion in all instances originates in an imme- 
 diate volition, either of the supreme or of some created mind, and that 
 this power is exerted by the latter through the means of a corporeal 
 structure." Taylor's Physical Theory of Another Life, chap. ii.
 
 THE VISION OF SCIPIO. 305 
 
 for the safety of thy country. The soul that is stirred and 
 agitated by these "will fly the more quickly to this mansion, 
 even to its own home, 1 and this will be the more rapid, if 
 even now, while it is imprisoned within the body it sallies 
 abroad, and, contemplating those objects that are without it, 
 abstracts itself as much as possible from the body. For the 
 souls of those men who are devoted to corporeal pleasures 
 themselves, and who having yielded themselves as it were 
 as their servants, enslaved to pleasures under the impulse 
 of their passions, have violated the laws of gods and men ; 
 such souls, having escaped from their bodies, hover round the 
 earth, nor do they return to this place, till they have been 
 tossed about for many ages." He vanished, and I awoke from 
 my sleep. 
 
 1 "Wo can not better conclude our notes on this interesting fragment, 
 than by the peroration of that sermon of the late Robert Hall which 
 was possibly suggested by this passage, and indeed some of the greatest 
 beauties of that discourse seem to have been, by passages from the fore- 
 going treatises of Cicero : 
 
 "To that state all the pious on earth are tending, and if there is a law 
 from whose operation none are exempt, which inevitably conveys their 
 bodies to darkness and to dust, there is another not less certain, or less 
 powerful, which conducts their spirits to the abodes of bliss, to the bosom 
 of their father and their God. The wheels of nature are not made to roll 
 backward. Every thing presses on to eternity. From the birth of time 
 an impetuous current has set in, which bears all the sons of men toward 
 that interminable ocean. Meanwhile, heaven is attracting to itself, 
 whatever is congenial to its nature, is enriching itself by the spoils of tho 
 earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom whatever is pure, per- 
 manent, and divine, leaving nothing for the last fire to consume but tho 
 objects and slaves of concupiscence ; while every thing which grace has 
 prepared and beautified, shall be gathered and selected from the ruins of 
 the world to adorn that eternal city. 
 
 "Let us obey the voice that calls ua thither; let us seek the things 
 that are above, and no longer cleave to a world which must shortly 
 perish, and which wo must shortly quit, while wo neglect to prepare for 
 that in which we are invited to dwell forever. While every tiling 
 within us and around us reminds us of the approach of death, and con- 
 curs to teach us that this is not our rest, let us hasten our preparations 
 for another world, and earnestly implore that graco which alone can put 
 an end to that fatal war which our desires have too long waged with 
 our destiny. When these move in the same direction, and that which 
 tho will of heaven renders unavoidable, shall become our choice, all 
 things will bo c urs; life will be divested of its vanity, and death disarm- 
 ed of its terrors. ' Hall's Funeral Sermon for Dr. Ryland.
 
 806 CICERO ON THE 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO HIS BROTHER QUINTUS. 1 
 
 THOUGH I doubt not 8 that many messengers and indeed 
 that rumor itself with characteristic rapidity will have out- 
 stripped this letter, and that you will already have heard 
 that a third year has been added to your labors, and to our 
 impatience, yet I have thought that the announcement of this 
 annoyance should be made to you by me also. For while 
 every one else despaired of the success, I still, by repeated 
 letters, gave you hopes of an early return, not only that I 
 might amuse you as long as possible with that pleasing 
 expectation, but because I did not doubt that through the 
 strong interest made both by me and the praetors the object 
 might be accomplished. Now as it has so happened that 
 neither the prators by their interest, nor I by my zeal, were 
 able to effect any thing, it is certainly difficult not to feel 
 mortification at it, but yet we ought never to suffer our 
 minds which are employed in managing and supporting the 
 arduous affairs of government to be crushed or dejected by 
 misfortune. And because men ought to be most annoyed by 
 those ills which are incurred by their own faults, there is in 
 this transaction somewhat more afflicting to me than ought to 
 be to you, for it happened by my misconduct contrary to 
 your understanding with me when parting, and subsequently 
 
 1 Quintus Cicero was at this time propraetor of Asia Minor. 
 
 2 In the original " non dubitabam." The Roman idiom in epistolary 
 writing, is that the verbs by which the writer expresses a present action 
 or state, are put in the past tense ; that is, as it will appear, to the per- 
 son who subsequently reads the letter.
 
 DUTIES OP 'A MAGISTRATE. 307 
 
 by letters, that your successor was not named last year. This I 
 did unwisely, with a view of consulting the welfare of our allies, 
 of crushing the presumptuousness of certain traders, 1 and with 
 the desire of increasing my own glory through your merits ; es- 
 pecially as I effected the result of a third year being added to 
 that second. 
 
 Having thus frankly acknowledged that it was my fault, it 
 is the part of your wisdom and kindness to take care and 
 manage that this which has been unwisely schemed by me 
 may be corrected by your diligence ; and surely, if you exert 
 yourself in all the duties of government so as to seem to vie 
 not only with others but with yourself, if you call in use all 
 your faculties, all your attention, all your thought, to that 
 love of glory, which is so powerfully prevalent in all trans- 
 actions, believe me, that one year added to your toil will 
 bring many years of pleasure to us, and even glory to our pos- 
 terity. Wherefore, I in the first place beg of you, that 
 you will not suffer your spirit to be damped or diminished, 
 nor yourself to be overwhelmed, as with a flood, by the 
 multitude of business ; but that, on the contrary, you will 
 arouse yourself, and make a firm stand, even if you spon- 
 taneously incur it ; for you do not bear a part in such a 
 government as is governed by fortune, but one in which 
 discretion and diligence has the greatest influence. Had I 
 seen your command prolonged at a time when you were 
 involved in the management of some great and dangerous 
 war, then I should have been disquieted in my mind, because 
 I should have been sensible that the power of fortuuo over 
 us was prolonged at the same time. But since that depart- 
 ment of the state has been committed to you in which 
 fortune has very little or no part, it seems to mo to 
 depend entirely on your own virtue and wisdom. We 
 apprehend, I think, no treachery of enemies ; no revolt of 
 our allies ; no want of money or scarcity of provisions, and 
 no mutiny in the army. Yet these have often happened to 
 the wisest of men, who are forced to yield to the assaults of 
 
 1 Traders. " Several complaints had been carried to Rome against 
 Quintus, and Cicero thought that his brother remaining another year in 
 bis government might have stifled them. The reader is to observe that 
 this government was the province of Asia Minor, one of the best the 
 Romans had, and that a great many merchants resided there for the 
 benefit of commerce." Guthric.
 
 308 CICERO ON THE 
 
 fortune, as the best of pilots sometimes are to the violence of a 
 tempest. 
 
 Tho most profound peace and perfect tranquillity has 
 fallen to your lot ; but though those are circumstances that 
 may well give pleasure to a vigilant steersman, yet they may 
 be fatal to a sleeping one. For your province is composed, 
 first of that kind of allies, who of all the human race are the 
 most humanized ; and in the next place of those Roman 
 citizens, who either as farmers of the public revenues, are 
 most intimately connected with me, 1 or, having so traded as 
 to have become rich, consider they possess their fortunes in 
 security through the beneficial influence of my consular 
 administration. Yet even among these very men serious dis- 
 putes exist, many injustices are committed, and great con- 
 tentions are the consequence ; and, thinking thus, I am 
 sensible that you have not a little business upon your 
 hands. I know that this business is very important, and 
 requires great wisdom. But still remember that I main- 
 tain that this is a business which rather requires wisdom 
 than good fortune. If you restrain yourself, how easy 
 is it to restrain those you govern. This may indeed be 
 a great and difficult matter to others, as indeed it is a most 
 difficult achievement ; but the practice of it was ever easy to 
 you ; and well it might be, as your disposition is such that it 
 seems capable of moderation even without harming; while 
 such an education has been enjoyed by you as would be 
 capable of correcting the most vicious nature. When you 
 check, as you do, the passion for money, for pleasure, and 
 for all other things, can there be forsooth any danger of 
 your being unable to restrain a dishonest trader, or a too 
 rapacious publican ? For even the Greeks, when they 
 behold your living in this manner, will think that some one 
 
 1 So Cicero in his speech in support of the Manilian Law, says, in 
 speaking of this same class : " Equitibus Romania honestissimis virig, 
 afferuntur ex Asia quotidie literse quorum magnse res aguntur, in vestria 
 vectigalibus exercendis occupatae ; qui ad me, pro neccessitudine, qua3 
 mihi est cum illo ordine, causam rei publicse periculaque rerum suaram 
 detulerunt." 
 
 " Letters are daily brought from Asia, from Roman knights, most 
 honorable men largely engaged in the farming of your revenues, who, i:i 
 consideration of the close relationship which subsists between me and 
 that order, have laid before mo the cause of the state and the jeopardy 
 of their own interests."
 
 DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE. 309 
 
 from the records of their ancient history, or some divine person 
 from heaven has descended upon that province. 1 
 
 I write to you in this strain, not that you might practice 
 these things, but that you may rejoice that you do practice 
 them, and that you have ever done so. For it is a glorious 
 thing for a man to have been invested with a three years' 
 sovereign power in Asia, in such a manner that no statue, no 
 picture, no plate, no garment, no slave, no beauty, no hoard 
 of money, in which things this province abounds, ever caused 
 him to swerve from his continence and moderation ! a Again 
 
 1 We have a striking parallel passage to this in Cicero's oration, " Pro 
 Lcge Manilia." In eulogizing the continence of Pompey in Asia Minor, 
 lie says, " Non avaritia ab institute cursu ad praedam aliquam devocavit, 
 non libido ad voluptatem, non amcenitas ad delectationem, non nobilitas 
 urbis ad cognitionem, non denique labor ipse ad quietem Postremo signa, 
 et tabulas, ceteraque ornamenta Graecorum oppidorum, qua? ceteri tollen- 
 da esse arbitrantur, ea sibi ille no visenda quidem existimavit. Itaquo 
 omnes quidem, nunc in his locis On. Pompeium, sicut aliquem non ex 
 hac urbe missum, sed de coelo delapsum, intuentur." 
 
 "Neither did avarice call him away from the course ho had laid down, 
 to the acquisition of any gain, nor his passions to any pleasure, nor tho 
 magnificence of a city to acquaint himself with it, nor fatigue itself to 
 repose. Moreover those statues and paintings and other ornaments of 
 Greek towns, which others consider as things to be carried away, he did 
 not even regard as objects to bo visited, and thus indeed all men now in 
 these regions look upon Cnoius Pompey, not as a certain individual dis- 
 patched from this city, but as one descended from heaven." 
 
 2 " Statues and paintings, and works of art in general, were favorite 
 objects of rapacity with the Romah commanders, and were carried off 
 without any scruple. The statues and pictures which Marcellus trans- 
 ported from Syracuse to Rome, first excited that cupidity which led tho 
 Roman provincial magistrates to pillage without scruple or distinction, 
 the houses of private individuals, and tho temples of tho gods. Marcellus 
 and Mummius, however, despoiled only hostile and conquered countries. 
 They had made over their plunder to tho public, and after it was con- 
 veyed to Rome, devoted to tho embellishment of tho capital ; but subse- 
 quent governors of provinces, having acquired a tjjsto for works of art, 
 began to appropriate to themselves those masterpieces of Greece, which 
 they had formerly neither known nor esteemed. Some contrived plausi- 
 ble pretexts for borrowing valuable works of art from cities and private 
 persons?, without any intention of restoring them, while others, less cau- 
 tious or more shameless, seized whatever pleased them, whether public 
 or private property, without excuse or remuneration. But though this 
 passion was common to most provincial governors, none of them ever 
 came up to tho full measure of tho rapacity of Verres, when praator of 
 Sicily. He seized tapestry, pictares, gold and silver, plate, vases, gems, 
 and Corinthian bronzes, till ho literally did not leave a single article cf
 
 310 CICEEO ON THE 
 
 what can be a more distinguished, a more desirable circumstance, 
 than that this virtue, this moderation, this purity of mind, should 
 not be buried or concealed in darkness, but displayed in the 
 sight of Asia, to the eyes of the noblest of our provinces, and to 
 the ears of all people and nations. That the inhabitants are 
 not alarmed at your journeys ! that they are not impoverished 
 by your expenses ! that they are not frightened by your ap- 
 proach ! that there is the utmost rejoicing, both public and 
 private, wherever you go ? that every town seems to receive 
 you as its guardian, not as its tyrant ! every house as a guest, 
 not as a robber ! l 
 
 But upon this subject, experience by this time must have 
 instructed you that it is not sufficient for you alone to 
 practice these virtues, but you are to give careful attention, 
 that invested as you are with this government, not only you, 
 but all officers subordinate to your authority, are to act for 
 the good of our allies, of our fellow-citizens, and of our 
 country. You have, it is true, lieutenants under you, who 
 will themselves have regard to their own dignity ; and of 
 these the chief in preferment, in dignity, and in experience, 
 is Tubero, who, I make no doubt, especially while he is 
 writing his history, will be able to choose from his own 
 annals such models of conduct, as he both can and will 
 imitate ; and Allienus, too, attached to us as well in affec- 
 tion and inclination, as in imitation of our lives. Need I to 
 mention Gratidius, who, I know for -a certainty, labors for 
 his own fame, so as, with a brotherly affection for us, to 
 labor equally for ours. You have a quaestor, 2 whom lot, and 
 
 value of theso descriptions in the whole island." Dunlop's Roman Lite- 
 rature, vol. ii. page 284. 
 
 1 Ejusmodi in provinciam homines cum imperio mittimus, ut, etiam si 
 ab hoste defendant, tatnen ipsorum adventua in urbes sociorum non 
 multum ab hostili expugnatione different. Hunc audiebant antea, nunc 
 praesentem vident, tanta temperantia, tanta mansuetudine, tanta human- 
 itate, ut is beatissimi esso videantur, apud quos ille diutissime commo- 
 ratur." 
 
 u We send out into that province such men with military command, 
 that even if they defend them from the enemy, yet their own entranco 
 into the cities of our allies differs but little from a hostile invasion ; but 
 this man, they had heard of before, and now see him present among them 
 distinguished by so much self-control, so much gentleness, so much hu- 
 manity, that those seem to be the most fortunate with whom he makes 
 the longest stay." Cicero's Oration for the Manilian Law. 
 
 3 Qucestor. This officer had the charge of the public money, and it
 
 DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE. 311 
 
 not your own choice, appointed to you. It is necessary that ho 
 should both be moderate by his own inclination, and conform 
 himself to your arrangements and directions. 
 
 Should any of your officers appear of a more selfish dis- 
 position, you should bear with him, so long as he only 
 neglects the laws by which he is bound in his own person, 
 but not if he should prostitute for interest that power which 
 you have annexed to his office. It does not however seem 
 desirable to me, especially as our manners have lately leaned so 
 much to laxity and ambition, that you should scrutinize and 
 dissect out every instance of corruption ; l but to proportion 
 the trust you repose in every one, according to the degree of 
 honesty he possesses. In like manner you should be answerable 
 for those whom our government has given you as assessors and 
 assistants, only under the restrictions which I have already laid 
 down. 
 
 As to those whom you have chosen to belong to your 
 domestic establishment, or to be with you as your necessary 
 retinue, and who are accustomed to be designated as of the 
 praetor's cohort, you are answerable, not only for all their 
 actions, but for all their sayings. But you have about your 
 person those whom you may easily love while they act 
 rightly ; and such as but slightly consult your reputation you 
 can most easily coerce. Meanwhile it is natural to suppose 
 that, while you were inexperienced, your generosity might 
 have been imposed upon ; for the more virtuous any man is in 
 himself, the less easily does he suspect others to be vicious." 
 
 was determined by lot in what province he should serve. He likewise 
 paid the soldiers, and acted as contractor for the army. 
 
 1 Shakespeare seems to have had this passage in his recollection when 
 he wrote that passage in his play of Julius Caesar : 
 
 " At such a time as this it is not meet 
 That every nice offense should boar its comment." 
 
 2 This principle of morals has been confirmed by the experience of 
 mankind until it has almost become proverbial ; it is asserted by Dr. 
 Johnson in the following passage : " Suspicion, however necessary it may 
 be to our safe passage through ways beset on all sides, by fraud and 
 malice, has been always considered, when it exceeds the common meas. 
 ures, as a token of depravity and corruption ; and a Greek writer of 
 sentences has laid down, as a standing maxim, that ho who believeu not 
 another on his oath, knows himself to be perjured. 
 
 ""We can form our opinions of that which we know not, only by pAxc- 
 jng it in comparison with some thing that we know : whoever, therefore,
 
 312 CICERO ON THE 
 
 But now let this third year be distinguished by the same 
 purity which marked the two former, and even by more 
 caution and diligence. Let your ears be such as are 
 suppoesd to hear what they listen to, but not into which 
 things may be falsely and dishonestly whispered for the sake 
 of gain, without being the receptacles of false and malicious 
 whispers, insinuations, and complaints. Suffer not your seal 
 to be a common chattel, but as your very self ; let it not be 
 the tool of another's pleasure, but the evidence of your own. 
 Let your pursuivant keep the rank which our ancestors 
 assigned to him, who did not rashly intrust that office to any 
 but freed men, over whom they exercised pretty much the 
 same command, as they did over their slaves, and that not as 
 a post of advantage but of labor and service. Let the lictor 
 be the agent of your lenity rather than of his own, and let 
 his ax and his rods be stronger evidences of his post than of 
 his power. 
 
 is overrun with suspicion, and detects artifice and stratagem in every 
 proposal, must either have learned by experience or observation the 
 wickedness of mankind, and been taught to avoid fraud by having often 
 suffered or seen treachery, or he must derive his judgment from the con- 
 sciousness of his own disposition, and impute to others the same inclina- 
 tions, which he feels predominant in himself. 
 
 "When therefore a young man, not distinguished by vigor of intel- 
 lect, comes into the world full of scruples and diffidence, makes a bargain 
 with many provisional limitations ; hesitates in his answer to a common 
 question lest more should be intended than he can immediately discover ; 
 has a long reach in detecting the projects of his acquaintance ; considers 
 every caress as an act of hypocrisy, and feels neither gratitude nor affec- 
 tion from the tenderness of his friends, because ho believes no one to 
 have any real tenderness, but for himself; whatever expectations this 
 early sagacity may raise of his future eminence or riches, I can seldom 
 forbear to consider him as a wretch incapable of generosity or benevo- 
 lence ; as a villain early completed beyond the need of common opportu- 
 nities and gradual temptations. 
 
 " Suspicion is indeed a temper so uneasy and restless, that it is very 
 justly appointed the concomitant of guilt. It is said, that no torture is 
 equal to the inhibition of sleep long continued ; a pain to which the state 
 of that man bears a very exact analogy, who dares never give rest to 
 his vigilance and circumspection, but considers himself as surrounded by 
 secret foes, and fears to intrust his children or his friend with the secret 
 that throbs in his breast and the anxieties that break into his face. To 
 avoid, at this expense, those evils to which easiness and friendship might 
 have exposed him, is surely to buy safety at too dear a rate, and in tho 
 language of the Roman satirist, to save life by losing all for which a wise 
 man would live." Rambler, No. 79.
 
 DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE. 313 
 
 In short, let all the province be sensible how dearly you 
 prize the welfare, the children, the fame, and the fortunes of all 
 who are under your command. Let it be notorious that you 
 will be equally the enemy of the man who gives, as of him 
 who receives a present, if you shall know it ; for no one will 
 give them, when it shall be clearly perceived that those who 
 pretend to have the greatest interest with you are accustomed 
 to obtain nothing from you. 
 
 Yet this address of mine to you is not because I would 
 have you treat your dependents in a too severe or suspicious 
 manner. For if any of them for two years have never fallen 
 under suspicion of avarice, as I hear Caesius, Chaerippus, 
 and Labeo, have done, and I believe it because I know them 
 well ; there is nothing which I should not think may bo 
 most properly committed to them and to men of their 
 character. But if there is a man from whom you have 
 already received offense, or of whom you have known any 
 thing ill, never intrust any thing to him, nor commit to him 
 any portion of your reputation. But if within your province 
 you have got any person who has been thoroughly admitted 
 to your intimacy, and who is unknown to me, consider how far 
 you ought to trust him. Not but that there may be many 
 worthy men among the provincials ; but this it is lawful to 
 hope, but dangerous to determine. For every man's nature is 
 concealed with many folds of disguise, and covered as it were 
 with various vails. His nature, his brows, his eyes, and very 
 often his countenance are deceitful, and his speed is most com- 
 monly a lie. 
 
 Wherefore, out of that class of men who, being devoted to 
 the love of money, are destitute of all those qualities from 
 which we can not be separated, where can you find one who 
 will sincerely love you, a mere stranger to them, and not pre- 
 tend to do so for the sake of advantage ? It would seem to me 
 very extraordinary, especially as those very men pay seldom 
 any regard to any private man, while they are all invariably 
 attached themselves to the praetors. However, if among such 
 kind of men you should find one (for the thing is not impos- 
 sible), who loves you more than he does his own interest, eagerly 
 enroll such a man in the number of your friends ; but if you do 
 perceive this, there will be no class in your acquaintance more 
 to be avoided : because they know all the arts of getting
 
 314 CICERO ON THE 
 
 iiaoney, they do nothing but for money, and they are indifferent 
 about the opinion of any man with whom they are not to con- 
 tinue to live. 
 
 Certain connections too with the Greeks themselves are to be 
 most carefully guarded against, except with a very few men, 
 who, if any, are worthy of ancient Greece. For truly, in 
 general they are deceitful and treacherous, and trained up by 
 perpetual subjection, in the art of sycophancy. 1 All of these I 
 would say should be liberally treated, and the best of them re- 
 ceived into hospitality and friendship ; but too close intimacies 
 with them are not very safe, for though they dare not oppose 
 our wishes, yet they are jealous not only of our countrymen 
 but even of their own. Though they dare not fly in the face 
 of & Roman magistrate, yet at the bottom they hate not only 
 us but their own countrymen. 
 
 Now, as in matters of this kind, as I wish to be cautious 
 and diligent (though I fear I may seem too rigid), what do 
 you think is my feeling with respect to slaves, whom we 
 ought to keep under the strictest command in all places, 
 but especially in the provinces ? Concerning this class many 
 directions might be given ; but the shortest and plainest 
 method I can recommend is, that in all your Asiatic 
 journeys, they should behave as if you were traveling ovei 
 the Appian way, and that they think there is not the leas\ 
 difference whether they were entering Tralles 8 or Formise.' 
 But if any of your slaves should distinguish himself by hiu 
 fidelity, let him be employed in your domestic and private 
 affairs, but not let him have the smallest thing to do with 
 any public concern, or any thing relating to the business of 
 your government. For though many things may property 
 
 1 Juvenal alludes to tho same characteristic vice of the Greeks in tho 
 following passages : 
 
 Quse nunc divitibus gens acceptiasima nostris, 
 Et quos prsecipue fugiam, properabo fateri ; 
 Nee pudor obstabit. Non possum ferre, Quirites, 
 Graecam urbem, quamvis quota portion fccis Achaei 
 * * * * * 
 
 Natio comceda est : rides ? majore cachinno 
 Concutitur : flet si lachrymas conspexit amici. 
 Noc dolet. Igniculum brumae si tempore poacas, 
 Accipit endromidem : si dixeris, sestuo, sudat 
 
 8 A city in Caria under the government of Quintus. 
 
 a A cicy of Campania in Italy.
 
 DUTIES OP A MAGISTRATE. 315 
 
 be intrusted to our faithful slaves, yet for the sake of avoiding 
 observation and animadversion, they ought not to be committed 
 to them. 
 
 But I know not how my discourse has deviated into a style 
 of dictation, though that was not my intention at the com- 
 mencement. For why should I dictate to a man not inferior 
 to me in knowledge, especially in all matters of this kind, 
 and even superior in experience ? but I thought it would be 
 very agreeable, if my sanction were added to what you are 
 doing. Wherefore let these be the foundations of your 
 dignity. In the first place, your own integrity and modera- 
 tion ; in the next place, the modest behavior of all who are 
 about you, joined to a very cautious and circumspect choice 
 of your acquaintance, whether they be provincials or Greeks ; 
 and the orderly and consistent regulation of your household. 
 All which particulars are commendable in our private and 
 daily concerns, but they must appear divine amid such 
 great power, such depraved manners, and so corrupting a 
 province. 
 
 Such a plan, and such regulations, will be sufficient to sup- 
 port that severity in all your resolutions, and all your decrees, 
 which you exercised in those matters, and by which, to my 
 great pleasure, we have incurred some enmities, unless, indeed, 
 you imagine that I was influenced by the complaints of an in- 
 dividual I know not whom of the name of Paconius, who 
 is not even a Greek, but is some Mysian, or rather Phrygian ; 
 or that I was moved by the vociferations of Tuscenius, that 
 frantic, mean-spirited wretch, from whose polluted maw you, 
 with the utmost equity, rescued a dishonest prey. Wherefore 
 we could not easily maintain those and the other instances of 
 severity which you have practiced in that province, without tho 
 most perfect integrity. 
 
 There should therefore bo the utmost rigor in your ad- 
 ministration of justice, so that it should not be affected by 
 favor, but maintained without variation. 1 It is, however, 
 
 1 So impressed was Godwin with tho supremo importance of uniformi- 
 ty and certainty in tho awards and inflictions of the law, that ho thus 
 treats of tho subject of pardons as interfering with this certainty. " The 
 very word pardon, to a reflecting mind, is fraught with absurdity. What 
 is tho rule that ought in all cases to direct my conduct ? What then is 
 clemency ? It can bo nothing but the pitiable egotism of him who im- 
 agines he can do some thing better than justice." Is it right that I
 
 316 CICERO ON TUB 
 
 of no great consequence that justice should be impartialjy and 
 diligently administered by yourself, unless the same is done 
 by those to whom you have delegated some part of your 
 functions. Now it appears to me that in the government of 
 Asia there is no great variety of business, but that it is chiefly 
 employed in judicial administration, the method of which 
 especially in provinces is simple. Constancy and gravity 
 must indeed be exercise, which may be not only above 
 partiality, but even above the suspicion of it. To this 
 must be added affability in hearing, calmness in determining, 
 and carefulness in discussing the case and making restitution. 
 By reason of these qualities, Octavius 1 lately became most 
 
 should suffer constraint for a certain offense ? The reasonableness of my 
 Buffering must be founded in its consonance with the general welfare. 
 He, therefore, that pardons me, iniquitously prefers the supposed interest 
 of an individual, and utterly neglects what he owes to the whole. He 
 bestows that which I ought not to receive, and which he has no right to 
 give. Is it right, on the contrary, that I should not undergo the suffer- 
 ing in question? "Will he by rescuing me from suffering, confer a benefit 
 on me, and inflict no injury on others ? He will then be a notorious 
 delinquent if he allow me to suffer. There is indeed a considerable de- 
 fect in this last supposition. If, while he benefits me, he inflicts no 
 injury upon others, he is infallibly performing a public service. If I 
 suffered in the arbitrary manner which the supposition includes, the pub- 
 lic would sustain an unquestionable injury in the injustice that was per- 
 petrated : and yet the man who prevents this serious injustice, has been 
 accustomed to arrogate to himself the attribute of clement, and the ap- 
 parently sublime, but in reality tyrannical, name of forgiveness. For if 
 ho do, man has been hero described instead of glory ; he ought to take 
 shame to himself as an enemy to human kind. If every action, and 
 especially every action in which the happiness of a rational being is con- 
 cerned, be susceptible of a certain rule, mere caprice must be in all cases 
 excluded. There can bo no action which, if I neglect, I shall have dis- 
 charged my duty, and if I perform, I shall bo entitled to applause. From 
 tho manner in which pardons are dispensed, inevitably flows the uncer- 
 tainty of punishment. It is too evident that punishment is inflicted by 
 no certain rules, and, therefore, creates no uniformity of expectation. 
 Uniformity of treatment, and constancy of expectation, form the solo 
 basis of a genuine morality. In a just form of society, this would never 
 go beyond the sober expression of those sentiments of approbation or 
 disapprobation, with which different modes of conduct inevitably impress 
 us But if we at present exceed this line, it is surely an execrable re- 
 finement of injustice that should exhibit tho perpetual menace of suffer- 
 ing unaccompanied with any certain rule for telling its application." 
 Godwin's Political Justice, book vii. ch. ix. 
 
 1 Octavius. He was father to Augustus Cffisar, and had been about 
 this time governor of Macedonia.
 
 DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE. 317 
 
 popular, before whom, for the first time, the lictor had 
 nothing to do, and the crier had nothing to say ; for every 
 one spoke when he pleased and as long as he pleased. In 
 this matter he might, perhaps, seem too compliant, were it not 
 that this gentleness was the warrant of his inflexibility. The 
 men of Sylla's party were compelled to restore what they had 
 seized by force and terror. Such of the magistrates as had 
 made unjust decisions were obliged themselves to submit, as 
 private men, to similar inflictions. Now this severity on his 
 part would have seemed cruel, had it not been tempered 
 with many ingredients of humanity. 
 
 If this gentleness is agreeable at Rome, where there is so 
 much arrogance, such unbounded liberty, such unrestrained 
 licentiousness, where there are such numerous magistracies, 
 so many auxiliaries, so great force, and so much authority in 
 the senate, how agreeable must the affability of a praetor bo 
 in Asia, where so great a number of our countrymen and 
 allies, where so many cities and so many states, are observant 
 of one man's nod ? where they have no resource, no tribunal, 
 no senate, and no assembly of the people ? It belongs there- 
 fore to the character of a great man, and of a man as well 
 humane by nature, as improved by learning and the study 
 of the noblest arts, so to conduct himself in the use of such 
 great power as that no other authority should be desired by 
 those over whom he rules. 
 
 The great Cyrus is represented by Xenophon (not accord- 
 ing to the truth of history, but as the ideal model of right 
 government) 1 , whose extreme gravity is combined by that 
 philosopher with singular sweetness of manners ; which books 
 our countryman, Scipio Africanus, was accustomed, and not 
 without reason, always to have in his hands, for in them no 
 duty of active, well-tempered government has been passed 
 over; and if Cyrus, who could never be reduced to a private 
 station, so diligently cultivated those duties, what ought they 
 to be held by those to whom power has been given on con- 
 dition of their surrendering it, and given by ''hose laws to 
 which they must be amenable ? 
 
 Now it seems to me that all the considerations of those 
 who rule over others should be referred to than object, that 
 those who are under their government should be as happy as 
 1 See note, p. 257.
 
 318 CICERO ON THE 
 
 possible ; and by constant report, and the acknowledgment 
 of all, it has become no honor that this both is, and 
 ever has been your most settled principle ever since you 
 first landed in Asia; nay, that it is the duty, not only 
 of those who govern the allies and the subjects of Rome, but 
 of those who have the care of slaves and dumb cattle, to con- 
 tribute to the interests and welfare of all committed to their 
 charge. In this respect I perceive it is universally allowed 
 that the utmost diligence has been used by you ; that no new 
 debts have been contracted by the states ; that you have dis- 
 charged many old ones with which many of the cities were 
 burdened and oppressed ; that you have repaired many ruin- 
 ous and almost abandoned towns; among others Samus 
 the capital of Ionia, and Halicarnassus the capital of Caria; 
 that there are no seditions, no discords in your towns ; that 
 it has been seen to by you that the states are governed by 
 the councils of the best men ; that you have suppressed 
 rapine in Mye'a, and bloodshed in many places; that peace 
 has been established all over your province ; that you have 
 chased thieves and robbers, not only from the highways and 
 country places, but from towns and temples, where they 
 were more numerous and more dangerous ; that calumny, 
 that most cruel minister to the avarice of praetors, has been 
 removed from the reputation, the fortunes, and the retire- 
 ment of the rich ; that the funds and taxas of the states are 
 equally borne by all who inhabit the borders of those states ; 
 that access to you is most easy ; that your ears are open to 
 the complaints of all men ; that the poor and the helpless 
 always find admittance, not only to your public audiences 
 and tribunals, but even to your house and your bed-chamber ; 
 and that in short, in the whole of your government there is 
 nothing that is spiteful, nothing that is merciless, but that it 
 is filled with clemency, gentleness, and humanity. 
 
 How important was that public service you performed 
 when you freed Asia from the unjust and burdensome tax 
 imposed upon them by the aediles, with great odium to us ; 
 for if one man of quality publicly complains that you have 
 deprived him of almost 100,000, by ordering that money 
 should not be levied for public exhibitions, what vast sums 
 must have been ra:sed, had the custom continued for raising 
 money in the name of all who exhibited public shows at
 
 DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE. 319 
 
 Rome. I stifled these complaints of our people, by a method 
 which, however it may be regarded in Asia, is highly ap- 
 plauded at Rome ; for when the states of my province had 
 voted a sum of money for erecting a temple and a monument 
 to me, and when on account of my great deserts and your 
 extraordinary services, they did it voluntarily and cheer- 
 fully, and though the law has expressly provided, " That 
 governors may receive money for erecting a temple or a 
 monument," nay, though the money which was granted was 
 not to perish, but to be laid out upon the ornaments of a 
 temple, that was to appear to future times, not more a pres- 
 ent to me than to the people of Rome, and to the immortal 
 gods ; and yet I thought that the offer should be rejected 
 though warranted by dignity, by law, and by the good will 
 of those who made it ; and this I did for this reason, among 
 others, that those magistrates to whom such sums are not 
 due, nor permitted by law, might bear (the refusal of them) 
 with a more resigned temper. 
 
 Apply yourself, therefore, with all your spirit and all your 
 zeal, to that plan which you have already practiced, that of 
 loving the people which your country has committed and en- 
 trusted to your faithful care ; protecting them in every way, 
 and desiring that they should be as happy as possible. 1 
 
 But if fortune had set you over the Africans, the 
 Spaniards, or the Gauls, those fierce and barbarous nations, 
 yet still it would have been the dictate of your humanity to 
 study their interests, and to have promoted their advantage 
 and welfare. But when wo govern a set of men, among 
 whom civilization not only exists, but from whom it may be 
 supposed even to have extended to others, surely we are 
 most especially bound to repay them what wo havo received 
 from them ; for I am not ashamed to acknowledge, especially 
 
 1 "The only legitimate object of political institution, is the advantage 
 of individuals. All that can not bo brought home to them,4ftational 
 wealth, prosperity, and glory, can bo advantageous only to those self- 
 interostod impostors who from tho earliest accounts of time havo con- 
 founded tho understandings of mankind, tho more securely to sink them 
 n debasement and misery. Tho desire to gain a more extensive terri- 
 tory, to conquer or to hold in awe our neighboring states, to surpass them 
 in arts or arms, is a desire founded in prejudice and error. Usurped 
 authority is a spurious and unsubstantial medium of happiness ; security 
 frad peace are more to be desired than a national splendor that should 
 torrify tho world." Godwin's Political Justice, book v. chap. 22.
 
 320 CICERO ON THE 
 
 in my position in life, and with the deeds which I have per- 
 formed, which can involve no suspicion of indolence or un- 
 steadiness ; that I have arrived at all those accomplishments 
 to which I have attained, by means of those studies and arts 
 which have been handed down to us in the remains and sys- 
 tems of Greece. Therefore, besides the common faith 
 which we owe to all mankind, we seem to bo especially in- 
 debted to this race of men, 1 so that we should be desirous of 
 offering to those, by whose precepts we have been instructed, 
 that which we learned from them. Plato, that philosopher, 
 so distinguished by his genius and learning, thought that 
 states would then at length be happy, when either wise and 
 learned men should begin to be their rulers, or when their 
 governors should apply themselves wholly to the study of 
 learning and wisdom ; that is, he thought that this union of 
 power and wisdom would constitute the safety of states. 
 This may possibly, at some time, be the case of our whole 
 empire, but at present it is the case of one province, that an 
 individual possesses the supreme power in it, who has de- 
 voted, from his childhood, the largest amount of time and 
 study to the pursuit of learning, of virtue, and humanity. 
 
 Take care, therefore, my Quintus, that this year which is 
 added to your government, prove to be a year that is added 
 to the welfare of Asia ; and because Asia has been more 
 successful in detaining you than I was in procuring your 
 recall, do you behave so as that my regret may receive some 
 mitigation from the joy of the province. For if you have so 
 indefatigably applied yourself to deserve greater honors 
 than perhaps ever man did, you ought to exert much greater 
 diligence in maintaining them. I have already given you my 
 sentiments concerning that kind of honors. I have always 
 been of opinion, that if they are commonly accessible they 
 are worthless ; if bestowed to serve a purpose, they are con- 
 temptible ; but if they are offered (as has been done) as a 
 tributeto your merits, I think you can not bestow too much 
 pains upon their preservation. 
 
 As, therefore, you are invested with the highest command 
 1 Horace tacitly acknowledges the same obligations to Greek litera- 
 ture: 
 
 " Yos cxemplaria Graeca 
 Nocturna versato manu, versate diurna." 
 
 Epist. ad Pisoncs, v. 268, 269.
 
 DUTIES OP A MAGISTRATE. 321 
 
 and power in those cities where you see your virtues are 
 consecrated and deified, think, in all that you arrange, and 
 decree, and perform, what you owe to such opinions on the 
 part of mankind, to such flattering decisions, and such ex- 
 alted honors. The result of this will be that you will pro- 
 vide for all, that you will remedy the ills of your subjects, 
 provide for their welfare, and desire to be designated and 
 regarded as the parent of Asia. 
 
 To this zeal and assiduity the farmers of the revenue offer 
 a great obstruction. If we oppose them we shall separate 
 from ourselves and from the state an order of men who have 
 the highest claims upon us, and who by me were attached 
 to the service of our government. If, on the other hand, we 
 should indulge them in every respect, we must suffer those 
 to be utterly ruined, whose welfare, nay, whose convenience, 
 we are bound to consult. This, if we will view the case 
 aright, is the sole difficulty in all your administration. For 
 to practice self-control, to subdue all inordinate desires, to 
 regulate your family, to practice the impartial administra- 
 tion of justice, to show yourself ready to acquaint yourself 
 with cases, and to admit and grant a hearing to individuals, 
 are things more glorious than difficult, for they consist not 
 in any laborious application, but in the bent of the mind and 
 of the affections. 
 
 We learned how much bitterness of feeling this matter of 
 the farmers of the revenue occasioned to our allies from our 
 own fellow-countrymen ; who, when the tolls of Italy were 
 lately abolished, complained not so much of the heaviness of 
 the tolls as of the insolence of the toll-gatherers, from which 
 I am sensible of what must befall our allies in remote coun- 
 tries, when I have heard such complaints from our fellow- 
 citizens in Italy. It seems to require a superhuman virtue, 
 that is, one like your own, in this situation of things, to give 
 satisfaction to the farmers of the public revenue, especially 
 when the taxes have been disadvantageously contracted for, 
 and at the same time not to suffer our allies to be ruined. 
 
 But, in the first place, as to the Greeks, the hardship 
 which they most bitterly complain of, that of their being 
 taxed, is, in my opinion, no great hardship, because by their 
 own constitutions, apart from the government of the Roman 
 people, they were in the same condition with their own con- 
 
 14*
 
 322 CICERO ON THE 
 
 sent. As to the name of a farmer of the revenue, the Greeks 
 ought not to hold it in such contempt, because, without their 
 assistance, they could not have paid the tax indiscriminately 
 imposed upon them by Sylla. Now that the Greeks are fully 
 as severe as our farmers are, in the collection of the public 
 revenue, may be concluded from this, that the Caunians 1 
 some time ago, who inhabit the islands that were annexed' 
 by Sylla to the division of Rhodes, petitioned the senate that 
 they might pay their taxes to us, rather than to the Rho- 
 dians. They therefore who always have been taxed, ought 
 not to hold the name of a tax-gatherer with horror, nor 
 ought they to despise him, without whom they can not pay 
 their taxes ; nor ought they who have petitioned for him to 
 reject him. The Asiatics ought at the same time to reflect, 
 that were they not under our government, no calamity of 
 foreign war and domestic discussion would ever have been 
 absent from them. And since this government can not bo 
 supported without taxes, they ought cheerfully to purchase 
 for themselves, with some part of their incomes, an uninter- 
 rupted peace and tranquillity. When once they come to en- 
 dure with patience the profession and name of a farmer of 
 the revenue, your prudent measures and conduct will be able 
 to make other annoyances seem lighter to them. They will 
 come, not to reflect so much in making their compositions 
 upon the Censorian Law, but rather upon the advantage of 
 settling the business, and upon their freedom from molesta- 
 tion. You can likewise continue what you have always so 
 admirably done, to put them in mind how much dignity 
 there is in tho office of a farmer of the revenue, and how 
 much we owe to that order. So that, apart from force and 
 the influence of authority, and of the fasces, you will bring 
 the publicans into favor and credit with the Greeks. You 
 may even entreat those whom you have so highly obliged, 
 and who owe their all to you, that by their compliance they 
 wi'l suffer us to cherish and continue those intimate con- 
 nections that subsist between us and the farmers of tho 
 revenue. 
 
 But why do I exhort you to those measures which you are 
 not- only able to do of your own accord without the in- 
 
 ' The Caunians wero subjects of tho government of Quintus, inhabit- 
 ing i part of Caria in Asia Minor.
 
 DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE. 323 
 
 etructions of any one, but which in a great degree you 
 already have happily executed. For the most honorable 
 and considerable bodies of our empire never cease to pay me 
 their daily thanks, which are the more agreeable, because 
 the Greeks do the same. Now it is a matter of great 
 difficulty to bring together in good will those whose in- 
 terests, whose advantages, and whose natures, I had almost 
 said, are repugnant But what I have here written, I have 
 written not for your instruction (for wisdom such as yours 
 stands in need of no man's instructions), but the recording of 
 your merits delights me as I write. In this letter, how- 
 ever, I have been longer than I intended or supposed that I 
 should be. 
 
 There is one thing which I shall not cease to recommend 
 to you, for so far as in me lies I will not suffer an exception 
 to your praises. All who come from that region, while they 
 praise your virtue, your integrity, and your humanity, even in 
 their highest commendations make one exception, your 
 anger ; a vice, which in private and every day life seems to 
 be the defect of an inconstant and weak mind ; but when a 
 passionate behavior is joined to sovereign power, nothing 
 can be more monstrous. 1 I shall not, however, endeavor to 
 
 1 " Anger is so uneasy a guest in tho heart, that he may be said to bo 
 born unhappy who ,s of a rough and choleric disposition. The moralists 
 have defined it to be a desire of revenge for some injury offered. Men 
 of hot and heady tempera aro eagerly desirous of vengeance, the very 
 moment they apprehend themselves injured ; whereas the cool and sedato 
 watch proper opportunities to return grief for grief to their enemies. By 
 this means it often happens that the choleric inflicts disproportionate 
 punishments upon slight and sometimes imaginary offenses, but tho tem- 
 perately revengeful, have leisure to weigh tho merits of tho case, and 
 thereby either to smother their secret resentments or to seek proper and 
 adequate reparations for the damages they have sustained. Weak minds 
 are apt to speak well of tho man of fury, because when tho storm is over 
 ho is full of sorrow and repentance, but the truth is, ho is apt to commit 
 such ravages during his madness, that when ho comes to himself, ho be- 
 comes tame, then for the same reason that he ran wild before, ' only to 
 give himself ease,' and is a friend only to himself in both extremities. 
 Men of this unhappy make, more frequently than any others, expect 
 that their friends should bear with their infirmities. Their friends should 
 in return desire them to correct their infirmities. Tho common excuses 
 that they can not help it, that it was soon over, that they harbor no 
 malice in their hearts, aro arguments for pardoning a bull or a mastiff, 
 but shall never reconcile me to an intellectual savage. Why indeed 
 should any ono imagine, that persons independent u; on him should
 
 324 CICERO ON THE 
 
 give you the sentiments of the best instructed men, concern- 
 ing the passion of anger, both because I am unwilling that 
 this letter should be too long, and because you can easily 
 learn them from the writings of many men. Still I do not 
 think that one thing which is proper to a letter should be 
 neglected, namely, that he to whom we write should *t>o 
 made acquainted with those things of which he is ignorant. 
 Now I am told almost by every body, that when you are 
 free from anger, nothing can be more agreeable than you 
 are ; but when the impudence or perverseness of another has 
 excited you, you are under such violent agitations that your 
 kindly disposition is sought for in vain. 
 
 As, therefore, a certain desire of glory as well as interest, 
 and fortune, have concurred to lead us into that walk of life, 
 by which we become the perpetual subject of conversation 
 among mankind, we ought to do and to strive all we can 
 that no conspicuous vice may be said to attach to us. 1 I do 
 
 venture into his society who hath not yet so far subdued his boiling 
 blood, but that he is ready to do some thing the next minute which ho 
 can never repair, and hath nothing to plead in his own behalf but that 
 he is apt to do mischief as fast as ho can ! Such a man may be feared, 
 he may be pitied, but ho can not bo loved." Dr. Johnson, Rambler, 
 No. 129. 
 
 1 " It is methinks an unreasonable thing, that heroic virtue should, as 
 it seems to be at present, be confined to a certain order of men and bo 
 attainable by none but those whom fortune has elevated to the most 
 conspicuous stations. I would have every thing to be esteemed as heroic 
 which is great and uncommon in the circumstances of the man who per- 
 forms it. Thus there would bo no virtue in human life, which every ono 
 of the species would not have a pretense to arrive at, and an ardency to 
 exert. Since fortune is not in our power, let us be as little as possible 
 in hers. "Why should it be necessary that a man should be rich to be 
 generous ? If we measured by the quality and not the quantity of things, 
 the particulars which accompany an action is what should denominate it 
 mean or great. 
 
 " The highest station of human life is to be attained by each man that 
 pretends to it ; for every man can be as valiant, as generous, as wise, 
 and as merciful, as the faculties and opportunities which he has from 
 Heaven and fortune will permit. He that can say to himself, I do as 
 much good, and am as virtuous as my most earnest endeavors will allow 
 me, whatever is his station in the world, is to himself possessed of the 
 highest honor. 
 
 " If ambition is not thus turned, it is no other than a continual suc- 
 cession of anxiety and vexation. But when it has this cast, it invigo- 
 rates the mind and the consciousness of its own worth is a reward, which 
 it is not in the power of envy, reproach, or detraction, to take from it
 
 DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE. 325 
 
 not now insist on this consideration, that in human nature at 
 large, and especially at our time of life, it is very difficult for 
 a man to alter his disposition, or suddenly to pluck out a fail- 
 ing that has settled into a habit. But my advice to you is 
 this, if you can not altogether avoid this, but passion takes 
 possession of your mind before reason can take precautions 
 that it should not invade it, you should undergo a course of 
 preparation, and be every day meditating that resistance 
 must be offered to anger, and the more violently it affects 
 the mind, the more diligently must you restrain your tongue ; 
 which merit sometimes appears to me not less than that of 
 never being angry at all ; because the latter virtue is not 
 solely the proof of self-respect, but sometimes of a lethargic 
 temperament But when you are touched with anger, to 
 control both your temper and your language, even to hold 
 your peace, and to keep under command all excitement and 
 irritation of mind ; these are the properties, if not of consum- 
 mate wisdom, yet of extraordinaay understanding. 
 
 They say that in this respect you are become much more 
 pliable and gentle. None of your violent emotions of passion 
 are stated to me; none of your imprecating expressions, 
 and opprobrious behavior, all which are as repugnant to 
 authority and dignity as they are reproachful to learning 
 and good breeding. For if angry passions are implacable, 
 the utmost cruelty is involved, and if placable, 1 an excess of 
 weakness ; which, however, as a comparison of evils, is prefer- 
 able to the cruelty. 
 
 Thus the seat of solid honor is in a man's own bosom, and no ono can 
 want support who is in possession of an honest conscience, but ho who 
 would suffer the reproaches of it for other greatness." The Tatler, No. 
 202. 
 
 1 " Another form of a passionate disposition arising indeed from the 
 same cause, is that which involves the next error which I have stated 
 with respect to resentment the disproportion of the anger and tho of- 
 fense. He who does not pause even to weigh tho circumstances, can 
 not bo supposed to pause to measure the extent of injury. He feels that 
 he is injured, and all his anger bursts out instantly on the offender. It 
 is this disproportion, indeed, which is tho chief evil of what is commonly 
 termed passion. Some cause of slight displeasure there may be oven 
 where anger in its violence would be immoral and absurd. Yet such 
 is tho infirmity of our nature, that it is often no slight triumph over our 
 weakness to forgive a trifle with as much magnanimity as that with 
 which we have forgiven greater injuries," Dr. Brown's Moral Thi- 
 losophy, Lect. 63.
 
 326 CICERO ON THE 
 
 That the first year of your government gave rise to a 
 great deal of talk upon this subject might be owing to your un- 
 expectedly encountering that injustice, avarice, and insolence 
 of individuals, which seemed intolerable. The second year, 
 however, was more gentle ; because both habit and reason, 
 and, if I mistake not, my letters rendered you more mild 
 and patient. Now your third year ought to admit of such 
 amendment, as that no person may be able to utter the 
 slightest reproach. 
 
 And on this subject I address you in the terms neither of 
 exhortation nor precept, but of brotherly entreaty, that you 
 employ your whole abilities, care, and concern, in accumu- 
 lating praise from all quarters. 1 If our situation were one 
 of mediocrity as to public conversation and discourse, 
 nothing pre-eminent would be required of you, nothing 
 beyond the ordinary conduct of others. But by reason of 
 the splendor and magnitude of the concerns in which we 
 are engaged, unless we derive the highest glory from these 
 functions, we seem scarcely capable of avoiding the deepest 
 condemnation. We are so situated, that while all good men 
 are our friends, they also require and expect from us, 
 all application and virtue ; in the mean while, all the repro- 
 bate part of mankind, because with them we have declared 
 eternal war, seem to be satisfied with the slightest ground for 
 condemning us. 
 
 Wherefore, since such a theater as Asia has been assigned 
 you for the display of your virtues, a theater most celebrated 
 by fame, most ample in extent, most distinguished by dis- 
 cernment, but naturally so noisy that its expressions and 
 intimations reach even to Rome, I pray you to strive and 
 labor to appear, not only adequate to these conditions, but 
 by your merits to have surpassed them all ; and as fortune 
 has fixed my share of the public administration in Rome, and 
 
 1 " Make not the consequence of virtue the ends thereof. Be not 
 beneficent for a name or cymbal of applause, nor exact and just in com- 
 merce for the advantages of trust and credit, which attend the reputation 
 of true and punctual dealing. For these rewards, though unsought for, 
 plain virtue will bring with her. To have other objects in good actions 
 sours laudable performances, which must have deeper roots, motives, and 
 instigations, to give them the stamp of virtues." Sir Thomas Browne's 
 Christian Morals, Book i. chap. 10.
 
 DUTIES OP A MAGISTRATE. 327 
 
 rours in Asia, while I yield to none in my conduct, do you 
 excel all in yours. 
 
 At the same time reflect that we are not now laboring 
 for a glory that is in expectation and reversion ; but we are 
 struggling for what has been attained, a glory that we are 
 not so much to covet as to preserve. Indeed, had I any 
 interest that is distinct from yours, I could desire nothing 
 more than that situation of life which has actually been 
 assigned to me ; but as the case is, that unless all your words 
 and actions are answerable to my conduct here, I shall think 
 that I have gained nothing by all those mighty toils and 
 dangers in all which you have been a sharer. Now if you 
 were my chief fellow laborer in working my way to this 
 splendid reputation, you ought to labor beyond others that 
 I may maintain it 
 
 You are not to regard the opinion and the judgment of 
 those who are now living, but also of those who shall here- 
 after exist, whose verdict will be the more just as it will bo 
 free from detraction and malevolence. In the next place, 
 you are to reflect, that you are not seeking glory for yourself 
 alone ; and, if you were, you would not be indifferent about 
 it, especially as you have thought proper to consecrate the 
 memory of your name by the noblest memorials, but you are 
 to share it with me, and it is to descend to our posterity. 
 You are therefore to beware, lest if you should be careless 
 you should seem not only to have neglected your own 
 interests, but to have acted grudgingly even to your de- 
 scendants. 
 
 And these things are said, not that my words may seem to 
 have aroused you when slumbering, but that they may en- 
 courage you in your career ; for you will continually act as 
 you have acted, so that all may praise your equity, your 
 moderation, your inflexibility, and your integrity. But 
 through my excessive affection for you, I am possessed with 
 an insatiable passion for your glory. In the mean while I 
 am of opinion, that as you must be now as well acquainted 
 with Asia as any man is with his own house ; ' and as so 
 
 1 Thia would seem to have been a proverbial simile. Juvenal baa tho 
 same : 
 
 " X< it.-i magis null! domus cst qua, quam mihi lucus 
 Martis," etc., Sat. I. v. 7.
 
 328 DUTIES OF A MAGISTRATE. 
 
 * 
 
 great experience has been added to your great wisdom, there 
 is nothing that pertains to glory of which you are not fully 
 sensible, and which does not daily occur to your mind, 
 without the exhortation of any. But I who, when I read 
 your letters, think I hear you, and when I write to you 
 think I converse with you, am more delighted with your 
 letters the longer they are, and for the same reason I myself 
 also am more prolix in writing. 
 
 In conclusion I exhort and entreat you, that just as good 
 poets and skillful actors are wont to do, so you will redouble 
 your attention at this the latter part and conclusion of your 
 business and office ; that this last year of your government, 
 liko the last act of a play, may appear the most elaborate and 
 perfect. This you will most easily do, if you think that I, 
 whom individually you have endeavored to please more than 
 all the world besides, am ever present with you, and take an 
 interest in all that you do or say. Lastly, I entreat you, as 
 you value my welfare, and that of all your friends, that you 
 will most carefully attend to your health.
 
 INDEX, 
 
 ACADEMICS little differing from the 
 Peripatetics, 2, 6, 8 ; have a right 
 to treat about duties, 2 ; how dif- 
 fering from the Skeptics, and why 
 they dispute against every thing, 
 79 ; are not tied to a set of opin- 
 ions, 120; formerly the same 
 with the Peripatetics, 121. 
 
 Accusing, how far allowable, 96. 
 
 Acilius, the historian, 166. 
 
 Acknowledgment, a sufficient re- 
 turn for a kindness, 106. 
 
 Acropolis, its entrance, 102. 
 
 Action gives a true value to virtue, 
 13 ; to take place of speculation, 
 13, 74, 76; not to bo ventured 
 on, if we doubt of its honesty, 
 18 ; should be free from rashness, 
 etc., 52 ; three rules to be ob- 
 served for keeping decorum in 
 our actions, 68 ; order and reg- 
 ularity to bo observed in our 
 actions, 69 ; these depend upon 
 time and place, 69 ; good actions 
 ill applied become bad ones, 103. 
 
 Actors choose the parts fittest for 
 their humors, 57 ; respect mod- 
 esty, 67. 
 
 Addison, Joseph, quoted, 142, 254, 
 255, 258, 281, 300. 
 
 Admiration, how moved in men, 
 90, 91. 
 
 Advantages tempt men to bo 
 rogues, 131. 
 
 Advice of friends to bo asked in 
 prosperity, 47 ; of experienced 
 men, in doubt, 70; rules about 
 taking this advice, 72. 
 
 Advocates may plead for what is 
 not really true, 97. 
 
 ^Ediles, who, and their magnifi- 
 cence, 100. 
 
 Affability wins people's love, 95. 
 
 Affectation odious, 64. 
 
 Africanus, his saying that men 
 grown proud, etc., 47 ; his retire- 
 ment and saying that ho was 
 never less idle, etc., 115; Afric. 
 the younger razes Carthage, and 
 Numantia, 39 ; son of Paulus, 60 ; 
 not to bo corrupted by money, 109. 
 
 Agamemnon sacrificed his daugh- 
 ter, 156. 
 
 Agreement between the several 
 orders tho support of a state, 151. 
 
 Agriculture commended, 73 ; its va- 
 rious pleasures described, 240, etc. 
 
 Ajax, his character, 57. 
 
 Alexander Pheraeus the tyrant, 86. 
 
 Alexander the Great, often guilty 
 of great vices, 47 ; reproved by 
 his father for giving money, 99. 
 
 Ambition, a great cause of in- 
 justice, 16, 34; is generally in 
 men of tho greatest souls, ib. ; is 
 contrary to true courage, 34, 36 ; 
 robs a man of his liberty, 36 ; is 
 destructive to a state, 45, 149. 
 
 Anger against adversaries to bo 
 avoided, 4G ; especially in pun- 
 ishing, ib. ; also in common dis- 
 course ; in chiding, and in 
 quarrels, 66, 319. 
 
 Annicerian philosophers, 166. 
 
 Antipater the stoic, 112, 135. 
 
 Antonius Marcus, tho subject of 
 Padox V., 277; subservient to 
 Cleopatra, 280. 
 
 Antoninus quoted, 13. 
 
 Appelles's Venus, 117. 
 
 Applause, tho dcsiro of it to bo 
 avoided, 34, 36. 
 
 Aquillius's Formulae, 138. 
 
 Aratos tho Sicyonian, 110.
 
 330 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Archytas, saying of; 20G, 235. 
 
 Aristippus, 71, 166. 
 
 Aristo, 6. 
 
 Aristotle, neglected eloquence, 2 ; 
 his opinion about shows to the 
 people, etc., 100 ; makes honesty 
 far outweigh all other goods, 128; 
 quoted, 7. 
 
 Armies of little use abroad, with- 
 out prudence at homo, etc., 39. 
 
 Assent not to be given hastily, 1 2. 
 
 Athens, a famous university, 1, 116. 
 
 Athenians make a cruel edict, 132 ; 
 forsake their city for fear of the 
 Persians, ib. ; reject a dishonest 
 proposal, etc., 134. 
 
 Atilius, L., 171. 
 
 Avarice, one great cause of injustice, 
 15, 16 1 ; a sign of a narrow and 
 sordid spirit, 36 ; magistrates 
 should be free from suspicion of 
 it, 108 ; is destructive to a state, 
 109. 
 
 Augustine quoted, 17. 
 
 BACON, LORD, quoted, 113, 174, 
 188, 204, 228, 240, 265, 280, 
 282, 289, 296. 
 
 Bardylis the Illyrian, 91. 
 
 Bargains should bo made at a 
 word, 139. 
 
 Beauty of two sorts, 63 ; how to 
 be gotten, ib. 
 
 Becoming; see Decency. 
 
 Benefits ; how we should judge of 
 their value, 27 ; done either by 
 our money or industry, 98; re- 
 late either to the republic, or 
 to individuals, 104, etc.; upon 
 whom best bestowed, 105, 106. 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy, quoted, 5. 
 
 Bias of Priene, saying of, 265. 
 
 Body should be inured to labor, 40. 
 The care nature has taken in its 
 fabric 62. 
 
 Bounty ; see Liberality. 
 
 Boys not allowed all sorts of plays, 
 53. 
 
 Bragging very unbecoming, C7. 
 
 Bribery in magistrates, the ruin of 
 a republic, 108, 109; laws made 
 against it by the Romans, 1 09. 
 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, quoted, 6, 35, 
 
 36, 83, 96, 172, 176, 207, 247, 
 
 253, 257, 261, 277, 278, 321. 
 Brown, Dr. T., 7, 10, 149, 150, 161, 
 
 170, 176, 208, 212, 256, 259, 321. 
 Brutes, how differing from men, 9 ; 
 
 we often talk of their courage, 
 
 but not justice, etc., 28. 
 Brutus deposed Collatinus, 131; 
 
 decrees the augur, 172. 
 Building ; its extent and object, 68. 
 Butler, Bishop, quoted, 4, 51, 299. 
 Buyers should not use arts to bate 
 
 down the prices, 139. 
 
 C.&SAK, brother of Catulus, a face- 
 tious man, 65. 
 
 Ca3sar broke through tho most 
 sacred ties for the sake of em- 
 pire, 16; robbed some that ho 
 might be generous to others, 26 ; 
 was murdered for his tyranny, 
 triumphs over Marseilles, etc., 
 loved villainy, though he got 
 nothing by it, 112; makes him- 
 self king of tho Romans, etc., 
 150. 
 
 Callicratidas, too careful of his own 
 honor, 43 ; a lover of simplicity, 
 55. 
 
 Calling ; see Life. 
 
 Callipho and Dinomachus join pleas- 
 ure and virtue, 167. 
 
 Ka&iJKov, what, 7. 
 
 Cannius's bargain, 137. 
 
 Carriage toward all men to bo 
 taken care of, 15, 63. 
 
 Carthaginians treacherous, 23. 
 
 Cato Censorius, his letter to Po- 
 pilius, 22 ; caused tho third 
 Carthaginian war, 40 ; his ap- 
 ophthegms, 53 ; his answer 
 about managing an estate, 113. 
 
 Cato, father to Uticensis, his do- 
 termination of a case, 140. 
 
 Cato Uticensis's genius, 56; too 
 headstrong in standing up for 
 the interest of the republic, 152. 
 
 KaropQu/ua, what, 7. 
 
 Catulus not inferior to Pompey, 
 39; Catuli counted tho best 
 speaker, 65.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 331 
 
 Chiding sometimes necessary, GG ; 
 
 rules to be observed in it, 67. 
 Children naturally loved, 10. 
 Chrysippus's excellent saying, 131. 
 Cicero's service to his countrymen 
 by writing, 1 ; assumes to him- 
 self the virtue of an orator, etc., 
 ib. ; his prudent management of 
 the republic, 112; got his prefer- 
 ments by all the votes, 102 ; be- 
 takes himself to retirement, 115 ; 
 designed to have gone to*Athens, 
 168 ; quoted, 3, 254, 397, 308. 
 
 Oimbers and Celtibers, 23. 
 
 Cimon of Athens's hospitality, 104. 
 
 Circumstances of men to bo re- 
 garded in giving, 15, 103; make 
 that not to be a crime, which 
 usually is one, 120. 
 
 Cities, in taking them, nothing to 
 to be done cruelly, etc., 43 ; the 
 great use of them, 81 ; why at 
 first built, 107, 109. 
 
 Citizens' duties, 62. 
 
 Clarendon, Lord, quoted, 214. 
 
 Claudius Centumalus, 140. 
 
 Clemency, how far laudable, 45. 
 
 Cleombrotus beaten by Epaminon- 
 das, 43. 
 
 Clodius proved to bo amadman, 275. 
 
 Clothes, only health to bo regarded 
 in them, 54; moderation to bo 
 observed in the fineness of them, 
 64. 
 
 Clownishness to be avoided, 62, G4. 
 
 Cockman, Dr. quoted, 156. 
 
 Common ; all things at first were 
 so, 14 ; what things are common 
 to all, 25. 
 
 Company; a man would bo weary 
 of his life without it, 74 ; to keep 
 company with good and wise 
 men recommends young people, 
 94. 
 
 Conceal, how diflering from not to 
 tell, 135; what it is, 13G. 
 
 Concord, a pillar of any state, 109. 
 
 Confidence ; see Trust. 
 
 Constantia, what it is, 35. 
 
 Corinth razed by the Romans, 21, 
 133. 
 
 Coriolanus, 186. 
 
 Correction; see Cliiding, Punish- 
 ment. 
 Coruncanius, T., 187. 
 
 Covetousness ; see Avarice. 
 
 Countenance to be kept always tho 
 same, without dejection, 47. 
 
 Counterfeit; nothing can be last- 
 ing that is such, 92. 
 
 Country claims a share in us, 15 ; 
 the love we have for it swallows 
 up all other loves, 32; their 
 wickedness who injure it, ib. ; 
 every one that is able ought to 
 serve it, 35 ; should be preferred 
 even before parents, 32, 76, 153. 
 
 Courage is a virtue contending for 
 honesty, 34 ; an enemy to treach- 
 ery, etc., ib. ; to desire of ap- 
 plause, 35 ; consists in two things, 
 ib. ; is obtained by the mind, not 
 the body, 40 ; in war, recom- 
 mends young men, 93 ; teaches 
 us to fear nothing, etc., 158; 
 nothing profitable that is con- 
 trary to it, ib. 
 
 Craft ; see Cunning. 
 
 Crassus, Marc., his saying about 
 riches, 15 ; made heir by a falso 
 will, 144 ; a bad man, 145. 
 
 Crassus, Luc., an orator, 66 ; got 
 honor by an accusation, 94. 
 
 Crassus the wealthy, sedile, 95. 
 
 Cratippus, who he was, 179. 
 
 Cruelty most contrary to nature, 91. 
 
 Cunning far from true wisdom, 33, 
 80, 143 ; the great mischief of 
 it, ib. ; doth not excuse from 
 perjury, bat rather aggravates it, 
 165. 
 
 Curius, Marcus, 187, 242; Manius, 
 282, 285. 
 
 Custom and civil constitutions to 
 be followed, 70 ; some may act 
 against them, and others not, 71. 
 
 Cynics argue against modesty, 63 ; 
 to bo wholly rejected, 72. 
 
 Cyrenaic philosophers, 166. 
 
 Cyrus, anecdote of, 244 ; dying ad- 
 dress of, 257. 
 
 DANCING in tho streets scandalous, 
 145, 156.
 
 332 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Danger, how far to bo undertaken. 
 43 ; we should endanger our- 
 selves rather than the public, ib. 
 
 Death not terrible to the great and 
 good, 271. 
 
 Debts forgiven, etc., 109, 110 ; gov- 
 ernors should hinder people from 
 running into debt, 112. 
 
 Deceit frees a man from being 
 bound by his promise, 18. 
 
 Decency (or gracefulness) observed 
 by a man only, 9 ; inseparable 
 from honesty, 48 ; is seen in all 
 the parts of honesty, ib. ; two 
 eorts of it universal and particu- 
 lar, 49; draws the approbation 
 of all, 60; relates both to body 
 and mind, ib. ; nothing decent 
 that is contrary to a man's 
 genius, 51 ; decency of living 
 according to universal nature, 
 60, 52 ; according to each man's 
 particular one, 55 ; according to 
 one's place or station in the 
 world, 58 ; is seen in our words, 
 actions, etc., 62 ; in our eyes, 
 hands, etc., 63. 
 
 Decorum of the poets, 49. 
 
 Defending more laudable than to 
 accuse, 96 ; to defend a guilty 
 person lawful, 97. 
 
 Define ; the subject of a discourse 
 ought to be defined at the be- 
 ginning, 7. 
 
 Deliberation, five heads of it, 8 ; in 
 some cases sinful, 120, 129. 
 
 Demet. Phalereus, who he was, 2 ; 
 blames Pericles, 102. 
 
 Demetrius forsaken by the Mace- 
 donians, 86. 
 
 Demosthenes, a hearer of Plato, 2 ; 
 at what age he began his study, 
 94. 
 
 Desire of riches, etc. ; see Avarice, 
 Ambition. 
 
 Despising different from having a 
 bad opinion of, 91. 
 
 picaearchus's book about the De- 
 struction of Men, 82. 
 
 Difficult subjects ; see Study. Diffi- 
 culty makes a thing more honor- 
 able, 34. 
 
 Diogenes and Antipater dispute, 
 134. 
 
 Dion taught by Plato, 75. 
 
 Dionysius, the Sicilian tyrant, 85. 
 
 Direct a wandering traveler, 28. 
 
 Discourse: variety in men's ways 
 of it, 55 ; not to be dressed up 
 with Greek expressions, 56 ; of 
 two sorts, 65, 95 ; common dis- 
 course should be easy, etc., ib. ; 
 free from passion, etc., 67 ; should 
 be agteeable to the subject wo 
 discourse upon, 65, 69. 
 
 Disputing of two sorts, by reason 
 and by force, 21. 
 
 Dissimulation should bo excluded, 
 138. 
 
 Dolus mains, what, 137 ; punished 
 by the civil laws, 139. 
 
 Donations to the people, when al- 
 lowable, 101, 102. 
 
 Doubt : we should do nothing of 
 which we doubt whether it is 
 honest or not, 18; in cases of 
 doubt ask experienced men's ad- 
 vice, 70. 
 
 Dunlop, John, quoted, 307. 
 
 Dreams evince the immortality of 
 the soul, 257 ; not prophetic, 
 289. 
 
 Duties : the whole subject of them 
 consists of two parts, 7 ; middle 
 and perfect ones, ib., 119, 120 ; 
 incumbent on us in every part 
 of our lives, 3; greater ones to 
 take place before less, 18 ; duty 
 to parents adorns a young man, 
 94. 
 
 Dymond, Jonathan, quoted, 24, 44, 
 56, 93, 97, 128, 154, 179. 
 
 EARTH, the, its diminutiveness in 
 the universe, 292 ; too wide to 
 be pervaded by fame, 296. 
 
 Edmonds, C. R., quoted, 226. 
 
 Education of youth a laudable em- 
 ployment, 73 ; makes many use- 
 ful men, etc., 75. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, quoted, 4. 
 
 Effeminacy to be avoided, 143 ; 
 see Niceness. Its signification, 
 54.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 333 
 
 Eloquence preferable to acute 
 thinking, 75 ; its great force, 
 eta, 80; its downfall in Rome, 
 105; gives one opportunities of 
 obb'ging many, 106. 
 
 Empedocles, 182. 
 
 Enemies, by the old Romans called 
 strangers, 22 ; justice to be kept 
 toward them, 20, 23, 160; dif- 
 ference of carriage to be observ- 
 ed toward them, 23 ; none to bo 
 reckoned enemies, but who take 
 up arms against the state, 44. 
 
 Ennius, quoted, 16, 28. 
 
 Epicurus ruins all virtue, 3, 166; 
 makes happiness consist in pleas- 
 ure, 167 ; endeavors to explain 
 this away, but in vain, ib. 
 
 Estate, how to be gotten, bettered, 
 etc., 43, 112, 113 ; it is a scandal 
 to ruin it by neglect, 103 ; what 
 the best that can bo left to a 
 son, 60. 
 
 Evenness of temper, a part of cou- 
 rage, 47. 
 
 Evils: the least to be chosen, 115, 
 158, 160; those of body and 
 fortune less than those of the 
 soul, 122. 
 
 Euripides, quoted, 149, 163. 
 
 Eira&'a, what it signifies, 68. 
 
 Exacting to bo avoided in dealings 
 with others, 103. 
 
 Exercise requisite to make men 
 perfect, 32. 
 
 Extraordinary things movo admira- 
 tion, 90. 
 
 FABIUS LABEO'S (Q.) trick, 19; 
 Fab. Maximus's wise delaying, 
 43 ; his subtilty and cunning, 54. 
 
 Fabricius's justice, 24, 119, 151. 
 
 Faith the foundation of justice, 15 ; 
 Bet up in the capitol next to 
 Jupiter, 160 ; to be kept with 
 enemies, 161 ; see Oaths. 
 
 Fame, its transiency, 298. 
 
 Fannius, C. and Scajvola and C. 
 Lelius, interlocutor in the dia- 
 logue on Friendship, 171, etc. 
 
 Fathers often followed in course of 
 life by their sons, 58 ; rules to 
 
 bo observed in imitating them, 
 66; whether to be accused by 
 their sons, should they plot 
 against the state, 153. 
 
 Fear, one cause of injustice, 15 ; 
 promises made through fear not 
 binding, 19 ; an improper way 
 of getting men to be of our side, 
 and the ill consequences of it, 
 85, 87. 
 
 Fecial law of the Romans, 22, 163. 
 
 Fides derived by the Stoics, 15 ; ex 
 fide bona, a form in law, 142. 
 
 Fighting, when laudable, 41. 
 
 Fimbria judge in a case, 146. 
 
 Flatterers to be avoided, 47 ; estates 
 got by flattery, scandalous, 145. 
 
 Flattery condemned, 211. 
 
 Force and fraud, the two ways of 
 injuring men, the latter more 
 odious, 32; a courageous man 
 can not bo forced, 165. 
 
 Forms in judgment, 138; tho gen- 
 eral form or rule, 122. 
 
 Fortune must yield to nature, 60 ; 
 her influence upon tho good or 
 ill success of actions, 83 ; blind 
 and blinds her votaries, 193 ; 
 every man master of his own, 
 279; seditions will never be 
 wanting while men hope to 
 make their fortunes by them, 
 88 ; to be transported with good 
 or ill fortune shows a mean 
 spirit, 61. 
 
 Foster, John, quoted, 40, 279, 295. 
 
 Freedom, wherein it consists, 35. 
 
 Fretfulncss upon unseasonable 
 visits, etc., to bo avoided, 46. 
 
 Friends necessary for all, 88; all 
 common among friends, 28 ; tho 
 counsel of friends should bo 
 asked, 47 ; men are born for 
 their friends, as well as them- 
 selves, ib.; corrections, counsel, 
 etc., duo among friends, 32; how 
 much may bo dono for tho sake 
 or a friend, 132 ; Damon and 
 Fh i nth ias two friends, ib. ; close- 
 ness of union between friends, 
 31. 
 
 Friendship makes many become
 
 334 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 one, 31; is cemented by likeness 
 of manners, ib. ; to be broken off 
 by little and little, 60 ; of C. 
 Laslius and P. Scipio, 170, 214; 
 superior to relationship, 180 ; 
 exists between but few, ib. ; a 
 union of sentiment, 1 80 ; adorns 
 prosperity, and solaces adversity, 
 181 ; of Orestes and Py lades, 
 182 ; founded on virtue, 184, 
 185, 204; and sincerity, 197; 
 subverted by avarice and ambi- 
 tion, 186; does not excuse in- 
 justice, 188, 189; the greatest of 
 blessings, 190; this universally 
 admitted, 204; care to be em- 
 ployed in contracting it, 195 ; 
 old friendship better than new, 
 198; description of, 201; ruined 
 by iiattery, 208. 
 
 GAIT should not bo too slow, etc., 63. 
 
 Generals of the Romans delivered 
 to their enemies, 163. 
 
 Genius; see Nature. 
 
 Geometricians' method, 127. 
 
 Genteel jests, 53 ; carriage, 63. 
 
 Glory made up of three ingredients, 
 89; Cicero wrote two books 
 about it, 88 ; must bo used with 
 discretion, and what the shortest 
 cut to it, 92, 94 ; not to bo gotten 
 by counterfeit, 92 ; but by just- 
 ice, 93 ; can not be durable un- 
 less founded upon virtue, 107 ; 
 inconsistent with wickedness, 
 151. 
 
 Gods; duties to them to bo per- 
 formed first, 7G; how their favor 
 may be procured, 80 ; they never 
 hurt, ib. ; are never angry, 160. 
 
 Godwin, William, quoted, 24, 120, 
 126, 153, 160, 292, 313. 
 
 Good fortune, it is the sign of a 
 low spirit to bo transported with 
 it, 61. 
 
 Good men, so called from justice, 
 13, 91; who, 139, 145; very 
 hard to be found, ib. ; it is al- 
 ways profitable to be one, ib. ; 
 good men desire honesty, not 
 secresy, 130. 
 
 Good-will ; see Love. 
 Government of a state like the 
 office of a guardian, 44 ; tho 
 several duties of those that gov- 
 ern, 108. 
 
 Gownsmen as useful as soldiers, 
 39, 40. 
 
 Gracchus, father of the two Gracchi, 
 93 ; his sona justly slain, ib. ; 
 ruined by their leveling princi- 
 ciples, 110; Tiberius, 187, 188. 
 
 Gratidianus, 141. 
 
 Gratitude a most necessary duty, 
 in which we should imitate fruit- 
 ful fields, 27; all people hato 
 one that is not grateful, 103. 
 
 Greatness of soul natural to man, 
 11; what it appears in, 10; in- 
 clines men to ambition, 34; is 
 often too hot, 27 ; usually mado 
 most account of in the world, 
 33; necessary for statesmen 
 more than philosophers, 36; its 
 description, and how it differs 
 from greatness of understanding, 
 41 ; seen even in a retired life, 
 48 ; is savageness if not accom- 
 panied with justice, 75; seo 
 Courage. 
 
 Greek and Latin to bo joined, 1 ; 
 to bring Greek into discourse 
 ridiculous, 56; Greeks deceitful 
 and treacherous, 311. 
 
 Grotius, quoted, 14, 22. 
 
 Guardian, the, quoted, 124. 
 
 Guthrio, Wm., quoted, 13, 36, 87, 
 289, 296, 300, 305. 
 
 Guilty persons may sometimes bo 
 defended, 97. 
 
 Gyge's ring, 19, 130, 147. 
 
 Hall, Robert, quoted, 29, 30, 31, 
 
 62, 177, 184, 203, 215, 261, 302. 
 Hannibal cruel, 21 ; sends ten to 
 
 Rome after tho fight at Cannae, 
 
 23, 166. 
 Hastiness, the passion should not 
 
 through haste outrun reason, 52. 
 Hate able to ruin tho greatest 
 
 power, 85, 87. 
 Haughtiness in prosperity to bo 
 
 avoided, 47.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 335 
 
 Health, how to be preserved, 112. 
 
 Heaven ; a certain place in it as- 
 signed to patriots, 290 ; magni- 
 tude of, 292 ; what constitutes a 
 cycle of the heavens, 298. 
 
 Hecaton tho Rhodian, 139, 152. 
 
 Help; not to help the injured, if 
 we can, is injustice, 15. 
 
 Hercules sees too ways, 59 ; is 
 placed among the gods, 123. 
 
 Heriilus exploded, 6. 
 
 Herodotus the historian, 92. 
 
 Hesiod's rule, 27. 
 
 Hire ; the worst means of winning 
 men to our side, 84. 
 
 Jlonestum, whence it results, 11 ; 
 laudable in itself) ib. would 
 make tho world in love with it, 
 could it be seen, ib. ; shows it- 
 self by its own brightness, 18 ; 
 entitles a man to our liberality, 
 26, 27, 106; more especially de- 
 serves our study, 80 ; naturally 
 pleases men, 89 ; is the same 
 with profit, 118, 128, etc.; hon- 
 est man, who, 146. 
 
 Honor ; the desire of it tempts men 
 to injustice, 147. 
 
 Horace, quoted, 7, 123, 238, 266, 
 316. 
 
 Hortensius, sedile, 101 ; uses a false 
 will, 144 
 
 Hospitality to be kept by groat 
 men, 68 ; praised deservedly by 
 Theophrastus, 104. 
 
 Jlostis, its signification among tho 
 old Romans, 22. 
 
 Hot counsels and designs preferred 
 by some, 42. 
 
 House ; of what sort becomes a 
 great rnan, 68 ; tho master should 
 be an honor to his house, ib. 
 
 Humility requisite in prosperity, 47. 
 
 Hume, David, quoted, 9, 25, 56, 
 65, 120, 123, 143, 248. 
 
 Hunting ; a manly recreation, 53. 
 
 Hypocrisy should bo banished out 
 of the world, 138; repugnant to 
 friendship, 209. 
 
 JESTING, in what kind and degree 
 allowable, 53. 
 
 Immortality of tho soul asserted, 
 174, 175; its return to heaven 
 the most ready in tho case of tho 
 virtuous and the just, 176, 302 ; 
 if the doctrine is false, death ia 
 no evil, 177, 262; argued from 
 the uncompounded nature of tho 
 soul, 256; from the phenomena 
 of sleep, 257 ; held by the Italian 
 philosophers, 255 ; aspired after 
 by the greatest men, 260 ; glori- 
 ous hopes connected with it, 
 brings about the re-union of tho 
 good in heaven, 261. 
 
 Improvising; tho practice of tho 
 Greeks, 178. 
 
 Individuals ; nothing to be dono 
 for them that is a damage to tho 
 public, 107 ; should not have 
 interests separate from the pub- 
 lic, 124. 
 
 Inheritance ; the best a father can 
 leave to his son, ia the fame of 
 his virtues, 60. 
 
 Injuries : two ways of doing them, 
 25 ; injuring others most con- 
 trary to nature, 122. 
 
 Injustice of two sorts, and tho 
 causes of each, 15-17 ; tho 
 greatest, which is dono under 
 the mask of honesty, 25. 
 
 Innocent persons, never to bo ac- 
 cused, 97. 
 
 Interest draws one way, and hon- 
 esty another, 8; no base thing 
 can bo any man's interest, 146 ; 
 should be measured by justice, 
 150. 
 
 Isocratos, contrary to Aristotle, 2. 
 
 JOHNSON, Dr. Samuel, quoted, 34, 
 35, 46, 58, 61, 206, 209, 219, 
 232, 246, 249, 266, 269, 284, 
 286, 296, 322, 369. 
 
 Judges' duty, 97. 
 
 Justice, tho most splendid virtue, 
 13 ; makes men be called good, 
 ib., 91 ; the duties of it, 13 ; is 
 altered upon an alteration of 
 the circumstances, 18; to bo 
 kept toward three that have itv- 
 jured us, and cuomSos, 2 1 ; to-
 
 33C 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ward the meanest, such as 
 slaves, 25 ; is the only way of 
 obtaining our ends, 80; makes 
 men trust us more than pru- 
 dence, 89 ; no man just who is 
 afraid of death, etc., 91 ; justice 
 gets us all the three ingredients 
 of glory, ib. ; is necessary for all 
 men, even pirates, ib. ; kings 
 were at first chosen, and laws 
 made for the sake of it, 92 ; no 
 credit can be lasting that is not 
 built upon it, 106 ; is the queen 
 of all virtues, 124; nothing prof- 
 itable that is contrary to it, 152, 
 etc. 
 
 Juvenal, quoted, 210, 220, 279, 
 311, 334. 
 
 KINDNESSES should be done to 
 honest rather than great men, 
 106 ; not to be done to one, by 
 injuring another, ib. ; see Bene- 
 fits. 
 
 Kings formerly chosen for their 
 justice, 92 ; no faith in case of a 
 kingdom, 16; justice violated for 
 a kingdom, 150; many treacher- 
 ous, and but few faithful to 
 kings, ib. 
 
 Knowledge, how desired, etc., by 
 men, 10, 12; must give place to 
 action, 74; is a barren accom- 
 plishment, without justice, 75 ; 
 that of honesty best, 78, 80, 118. 
 
 Knavery to be avoided, 80 ; few 
 actions wholly free from it, 139. 
 See Dolus malus. 
 
 LACEDEMONIANS, Plato's observ- 
 ation of them, 33 ; ruined by 
 Epaminondas, 43 ; forsaken by 
 their allies, 86 ; murder their 
 king Agis, etc., 110. 
 
 Laclius, C., chief speaker in the 
 dialogue on Friendship, 172, etc. 
 
 Lsetorius's law, 138. 
 
 Lamartine, A. de, quoted, 298. 
 
 Language ; see Discourse. 
 
 Largi, of two sorts, 1 00. 
 
 Latin to bo joined with Greek, 1. 
 
 laws, a malicious interpretation 
 
 of them a means of roguery, 19 ; 
 punish offenders according to 
 justice, 46; why first invented, 
 92 ; use the same language to 
 all conditions, ib. ; the knowl- 
 edge of them creditable at Eomo, 
 104; give a man opportunities 
 of obliging, ib. ; the end and de- 
 sign of them, 122; how they 
 root out frauds, 142 ; the law of 
 nations different from that of 
 particular cities, ib. ; Roman law 
 taken from nature, and its ex- 
 cellence, ib. ; law of nature taken 
 in all men, 124; law-suits to bo 
 avoided, 103. 
 
 Learners, how best corrected, 70. 
 Learning, who may be allowed to 
 give themselves up to the study 
 of it, 36 ; is a pleasure, not a 
 labor, 116. 
 
 Letters, how to be expressed, 65. 
 Leveling estates destructive, eta, 
 
 107. 
 
 Liberality, three cautions to be ob- 
 served in it, 25 ; must be govern- 
 ed by justice, ib. ; to give to one 
 what is taken from another not 
 liberality, ib. ; to whom it should 
 be most shown, 26, 32, 104, 106, 
 moves the people's love, 98 ; con- 
 sists in doing kindnesses cither 
 by money or labor ; the latter 
 preferable, 15 ; has got no bot- 
 tom, ib. ; how the liberal dis- 
 pose of their money, 16. 
 Liberty ought to bo most of all 
 contended for, 35; wherein it 
 consists, ib. ; bites deeper after 
 it has been chained, 85. 
 Life of retirement, and that of pub- 
 lic business compared, 37 ; seve- 
 ral men take several ways of 
 life, 58 ; the difficulty of choosing 
 a way of life ; and what chiefly 
 to be regarded in it, 58, 59 ; 
 should not easily bo changed, 
 60 ; how such change should be 
 made, ib. 
 
 Little indecencies especially to bo 
 avoided, 70 ; in tho least things 
 we observe what is becoming, ib.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 337 
 
 Locke, John, quoted, 14. 
 
 Love of themselves and offspring 
 in all animals, 1 ; love a stronger 
 motive to obedience than fear, 
 85, 86 ; how to be gained of the 
 people, 89 ; by what we are to 
 judge of men's love to us, 27; 
 we should do most for those by 
 whom we are loved most, ib. ; 
 general love, and that of friend- 
 ship, how far necessary, 86. 
 
 Lucullus magnificent in building, 
 68. 
 
 Lycurgus the lawgiver of Sparta, 
 39. 
 
 Lying abominable, 72, 137 ; should 
 be banished from all commerce, 
 138 ; is inconsistent with the 
 character of a good man, 148. 
 
 Lysander enlarged the Spartan em- 
 pire, 38 ; crafty, 55 ; the Ephori 
 banished, 110. 
 
 Lysis, master of Epaminondas, 75. 
 
 MACEDONIANS desert Demetrius, 
 8G ; Paulus took the treasure of 
 Macedon, 109. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, quoted, 3, 
 4, *7, 8, 29, 71. 
 
 Macknish, Dr. 288. 
 
 Magistrates' duties, 43, 44, 60, 108 ; 
 responsible for the acts of their 
 subordinates, 309; should prac- 
 tice rigor and impartiality, 313; 
 and discountenance calumny, 
 314. 
 
 Mamcrcus put by the consulship, 
 101. 
 
 Man, how different from brutes, 9, 
 63 ; not born for himself alone, 
 14 ; all things on earth made for 
 him, say the Stoics, ib. ; wo 
 should show a respect for all 
 men, 50 ; and desire to bo 
 thought well of by them, ib. ; 
 some are men in name only, 53 ; 
 men may bo allowed some orna- 
 ments; but mu.st avoid nicencss, 
 63 ; naturally love society, 74, 
 75 ; do the most good and harm 
 to one another, 80-82 ; to pro- 
 cure their love the chief of virtue, 
 15 
 
 82; by what means they are 
 drawn to be for us, 84; every 
 man should help any other be- 
 cause he is a man, 124. 
 
 Manilius, 176, 286. 
 
 Manlius, Luc. and Titus, 164, 165. 
 
 Marius made consul, etc., 147 ; 
 Marius Gratidianus, 141, 147. 
 
 Marriage the closest bond of society 
 29. I 
 
 Medes chose the justest men kings, 
 92. 
 
 Melmoth, William, quoted, 216, 
 221, 225, 234, 250, 256, 291. 
 
 Memmius took Corinth, etc., 109. 
 
 Merchandise, how far creditable, 
 73. 
 
 Merchant of corn's case, 134, 136. 
 
 Merits of the receiver to be con- 
 sidered in giving ; of four sorts, 
 25. 
 
 Metellus accused by Marius ; and 
 Africanus's dissent, 45. 
 
 Metrodorus's opinion about happi- 
 ness, 166. 
 
 Milo got great honor, 101. 
 
 Milton, John, quoted, 16, 106, 160, 
 179. 
 
 Mind of man always in motion, 13 ; 
 consists in reason and appetite, 
 52, 64; decency to bo kept in its 
 motions, 63 ; filthiness of the 
 mind more loathsome than of the 
 body, 160. 
 
 Moderation, what, 69 ; is best in 
 most things, 64. 
 
 Modesty, bashfulness, etc., 48 ; the 
 duties of them different from 
 those of justice, 60; forbids to 
 do or name some things, 63 ; the 
 Cynics argue against it, ib.; 
 nothing virtuous or becoming 
 without it, 72 ; sets off elo- 
 quence, especially in young men, 
 95. 
 
 Money; see Hire, Riches, etc.; 
 those tried with fire, who liavo 
 withstood its temptations, 91 , 
 how best laid out, 100, 102, in:; 
 bad money should not bo put 
 away, 154. 
 Montaigne, quoted, 162.
 
 338 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Moral duties, a most useful and 
 
 comprehensive subject, 2, 116; 
 
 who have a right to discourse 
 
 about them, 2. 
 
 Motion, philosophy of, 300, etc. 
 Motives drawing men to favor us, 
 
 etc., 83. 
 Musicians discover the least faults 
 
 in music, 70. 
 
 NASICA murdered T. Gracchus, 39. 
 
 Nature should b3 taken for a guide, 
 and then we can not err, 49, 
 218; pleasures, etc., unworthy 
 man's nature, 53 ; variety of 
 men's particular natures, 54 ; 
 every one should follow his own 
 nature, and how far, 55 ; nothing 
 becoming that is contrary to it, 
 ib. ; its great influence on our 
 actions, ib. ; has greater sway 
 than fortune, 60 ; directs to 
 modesty, 62 ; is both a human 
 and divine law, 122 ; enjoins 
 each man to help another, 1 24 ; 
 always desires what is becom- 
 ing, 128; to live according to 
 nature the Stoical chief good, 
 118. 
 
 Nature, the best guide, IT 9 ; the 
 mother of all things, 267. 
 
 Necessity not the motive to society 
 among men, 75. 
 
 Niceness in carriage, 62 ; dress, 
 etc., 63. 
 
 Nola and Naples quarrel about 
 their bounds, 19. 
 
 Nan putaram, a fool's shift, 41. 
 
 Numa Pompilius, 266. 
 
 OATIIS given to soldiers, 22 ; what 
 is to bo considered in oaths, 24, 
 161 ; I am not tied by oath to a 
 deceiver, 159, 161 ; oath is a re- 
 ligious affirmation, etc., ib. ; the 
 sacredness of them among the 
 old Romans, 164 ; not eluded by 
 shifts, 24, 165. 
 
 Obscene jesting, 53 ; talking dis- 
 covers bad inclinations, etc., 63. 
 
 Obscure subjects to bo neglected, 
 13. 
 
 OSbnse ; a fear of giving offense, a 
 cause of injustice, 16 ; a cause of 
 mismanagement in civil and mili- 
 tary affairs, 43 ; it is the duty of 
 modesty not to give offense, 51 , 
 nothing to be done that may of- 
 fend the eyes and ears, 63. 
 
 Old age to bo reverenced, 60, 72; 
 the duties of it, 61 ; the, of Cicero 
 beguiled by writing a treatise on 
 that subject, 217 ; tolerable to 
 men of regulated minds, 219 ; of 
 Quintus Maximus, 221 ; of Plato, 
 Isocrates, and Gorgias, 222; of 
 Ennius, 23 ; four causes why it 
 is thought miserable, 223 ; ha? 
 its appropriate employments, 
 224; does not necessarily im- 
 pair memory, 225, nor intellect, 
 226, nor studies, 227 ; does not 
 require the strength of youth, 
 228, 232 ; mellows the voice, 
 229 ; its vigor preserved bj 
 temperance, 232 ; can enjoy 
 modern conviviality, 237 ; 238, 
 the last act of a play, 262. 
 
 Opinion of the world concerning us 
 not to be neglected, 50. 
 
 Oratory and philosophy to be join- 
 ed, 1. 
 
 Order in our words and actions, 69 
 
 Orestes gives a dinner to the people. 
 101. 
 
 Ofjfj.al, 82. 
 
 Other men's affairs appear small td 
 us as things at a distance, 1 7 ; 
 we should mind by others what 
 is becoming, 70 ; we can soonest 
 see faults in others, ib. 
 
 Ovid, quoted, 50, 225, 265. 
 
 Own : every one to be kept in tho 
 enjoyment of his own, 109; own 
 interest how far to be regarded, 
 122, 131. 
 
 Pain racks and torments us, 90; 
 
 not the greatest evil, 160. 
 Pains should be proportioned to 
 
 what we are about, 68. 
 Painters set their works out f o be 
 
 viewed, 70.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 339 
 
 Paley, Dr., quoted, 5. &, i9, 24, 
 32, 46, 71, 95, 97, 2Y1 
 
 Panaetius, 7 ; left his work about 
 duties unfinished, 117, 127. 
 
 Paradoxes, why so called, 263. 
 
 Parts; men have several parts to 
 be acted, 54, 58 ; parts of the 
 body well fitted by nature, 62. 
 
 Pascal, Blaise, quoted, 12. 
 
 Passion ; injuries done in a passion 
 less heinous than in cold blood, 
 16 ; should be governed by rea- 
 son, 52, 64, 68, 82 ; disturb both 
 body and mind, 52 ; to be shun- 
 ned in discourse, 67 ; nothing 
 can bo like that is done in a 
 passion, G6. 
 
 Pausanias. Spartan general, 38 
 
 Paulus had all tho riches of Mace- 
 don, 109. 
 
 Paulus JEmilius appears in vision 
 to his son Scipio Africanus tho 
 younger, 291. 
 
 Pcricles's answer to Sophocles, 69 ; 
 is blamed by Palerius, 102. 
 
 People caressed, etc., 100. 
 
 Peripatetics differ little from the 
 Academics, 2, 121; have a right 
 to treat about duties, 2 ; require 
 a mediocrity, and say anger was 
 given us to good purposes, 46; 
 theirs a most noble and ancient 
 philosophy, 79. 
 
 Perjury, when a man ia guilty of 
 it, 162. 
 
 Pharton, 156. 
 
 Phalaris, 86, 125. 
 
 Philip of Macedon, above his son 
 in good-nature, 47 ; advises his 
 son to speak kindly to tho people, 
 95 ; rebukes him for giving 
 them money, 99. 
 
 Philip's harangues in his tribune- 
 ship, 107 ; his ill counsel, 151. 
 
 Philosophers, unjust in minding 
 only their studies, 17; relinquish 
 the public, ib. ; their method of 
 rooting out frauds, 141 ; none 
 may assume that name without 
 giving rules about duty, 2 ; their 
 study commended, 78 ; philos- 
 ophy a comfort in affliction, 77 ; 
 
 a rich and plentiful soil, 116: the 
 meaning of the word, 78. 
 
 Phulus, 176. 
 
 Pirates ought to have no faith kept 
 with them, 162 ; can not bo 
 without justice, 91. 
 
 Place, its influence on our actions, 
 69. 
 
 Plato might have made an excel- 
 lent orator, 2; his saying, that 
 men are not born for themselves 
 only, 14 ; his mistake about tho 
 philosophers, 17 ; his two rules 
 about government, 44 ; his say- 
 ing about ambition, ib. ; his ex- 
 cellent saying about prudence, 
 33; his fablo of Gyges, 130; 
 quoted, 11, 51; his arguments 
 for the pro-existence of the 
 human soul, 256. 
 
 Plays and recreations, how far al- 
 lowable, 53 ; play at even and 
 odd, etc., 147. 
 
 Players choose the parts fittest for 
 them, 57 ; their respect to mod- 
 esty, 63. 
 
 Pleasures of body beneath a man, 
 54. 
 
 Pleasures are alluring mistresses, 
 90 ; are contrary to honesty, 
 168 ; may serve to give a relish 
 to actions, ib. ; should not bo re- 
 garded in eating, etc., 54 ; con- 
 sist in virtue, 268. 
 
 Plutarch, quoted, 106. 
 
 Poetical decorum, 49; poets set 
 their works out to be viewed, 70. 
 
 Polybius tho historian, 165. 
 
 Pompey Sextus, a geometrician, 
 13. 
 
 Pompey tho Great : his party un- 
 successful, 94 ; his magnificent 
 shows to the people, 101. 
 
 Pomponius the tribune, 164. 
 
 Pontius, C., the Samnite, 108. 
 
 Pope Alexander, quoted, 230. 
 
 Popilius, a Roman commander, 22. 
 
 Popular expressions to be used, 90. 
 
 Posterity, impartiality of their ver- 
 dict, 323. 
 
 Power ; the desire of it draws men 
 to injustice, 149.
 
 340 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Practice necessary to perfect a man 
 in virtue, 33. 
 
 Precepts insufficient without exer- 
 cise, ib. 
 
 Present things more acceptable for 
 a time, 102. 
 
 Pride in prosperity to bo avoided, 
 47. 
 
 Private men should be kept in their 
 
 / estates, 38. 
 
 Procreation ; the love of it natural 
 to all animals, 9. 
 
 Prodigal, who, 100. 
 
 Profit, the same with honesty, 80, 
 121, 128, 134; moves all men, 
 128, 159 , the appearance of it 
 makes men act contrary to duty, 
 133; ought to bo rejected, ib. ; 
 every thing honest profitable, 
 and every thing profitable hon- 
 est, 128. 
 
 Promises not always binding, 18, 
 155, 156. 
 
 Property, its original, 14. 
 
 Prudence; the duties resulting 
 from, 12 ; consists in the knowl- 
 edge of truth, and is most natu- 
 ral to man, 5. ; of but little 
 worth without justice, 74 : differ- 
 ent from craft, 33, 80, 143; a 
 definition of it, 74; makes men 
 confide in us, if joined, etc., 89. 
 
 Public officers should be free from 
 passion, etc., 36, 45, 319; should 
 see that what they undertake 
 be honest, 44 ; remember Plato's 
 two rules, ib. ; a description of a 
 good one, 44, 313 ; should bo 
 courteous, affable, etc., ib. ; do 
 the bravest actions, 47 ; should 
 guard their eyes as well as hands, 
 69, 307; not to be resisted, 72; 
 public and private life compared, 
 37. 
 
 Puffendorf, quoted, 137. 
 
 Punishment ; rules to bo observed 
 about them, 46. 
 
 Pyrrho can give no rules about 
 duty, 6, 79. 
 
 Pyrrhus, his speech upon giving 
 up the prisoners, 23 ; a deserter 
 offers to poison him, 24, 151. 
 
 Pythagoras, 31, 54; maxims oC 
 
 234. 
 Pythias, a banker, 137. 
 
 RALEIGH, SIR WALTER, quoted, 
 280. 
 
 Rashness in giving up our assent 
 to be avoided, 12, 79 ; in our ac- 
 tions, 52. 
 
 Reason ought to be the governing 
 faculty in man, 52. 
 
 Rebukes in friendship, 32. Seo 
 Chiding. 
 
 Regularity ; see Uniformity. 
 
 Regulus taken by the Carthagini- 
 ans, etc., 158, 252, etc. ; not 
 really unhappy, 269. 
 
 Relations should be considered be- 
 fore other people, 25, 27. 
 
 Republic : Cicero wrote six books 
 about it, 102. 
 
 Respect should be had for all men, 
 51 ; especially those we converse 
 with, 63, 64, 67. 
 
 Retired people do very noble tilings, 
 47. See Life. 
 
 Revenge must bo kept within 
 bounds, 20. 
 
 Rhetoricians omit some subjects, 
 64. 
 
 Riches, why desired, 15 ; neither 
 to be kept too close nor too open, 
 99 ; the best fruit of them, 100 ; 
 are too much respected, 107 ; to 
 bo got not for ourselves alone, 
 1 39 ; are not profitable, if ac- 
 companied with infamy, 151 ; 
 the baggage of virtue, 265 ; of no 
 value in themselves, 286; a com- 
 parative term, 284. See Avarice, 
 Liberality. 
 
 Romans famous for courage, 33 ; 
 their ancient justice and kind- 
 ness to allies when changed, 86 ; 
 ruined by tyranny and oppres- 
 sion, 87. 
 
 Romulus did wrong in killing Re- 
 mus, 131 ; praised, 266; the sun 
 eclipsed at his death, 297. 
 
 Roscius Amerinus, defended by 
 Cicero, 98. 
 
 Rousseau, J. J., quoted, 122.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 341 
 
 Rule ; the desire of it natural to 
 men, 10 ; general rule or meas- 
 ure, 123. 
 
 Rutilius had the name of an hon- 
 est man, etc., 94; scholar of 
 Pansetius, 117. 
 
 SALAMIS famous for a victory, 33, 
 
 Saguntines, not parricides, 274. 
 
 Salmacis, 33. 
 
 Scaevola gives more than was asked 
 for an estate, 139; Pontifex 
 Max., 142, 169, 176. 
 
 Scipio, Africanus, his history and 
 glorious end, 173, 174. 
 
 Secrecy, nothing to bo committed 
 out of hopes of it, 129, 130. 
 
 Self-love prevents men from seeing 
 their duty, 16 ; nature allows a 
 man to lovo himself first, 131, 
 122 ; but not to injure others for 
 the sake of self, 122, 124. 
 
 Seller, bound to tell the faults of 
 his goods, 134, 135, etc. ; should 
 use no arts to enhance their 
 price, 139. 
 
 Seneca, quoted, 50, 218, 251. 
 
 Serious things to be handled seri- 
 ously, 65, 69. 
 
 Shakespeare, Wm., quoted, 210, 
 279, 294, 309. 
 
 Shows to the peoplo how far al- 
 lowable, 100, 102. 
 
 Sincerity agreeable to man's na- 
 ture, 10. 
 
 Singing openly a great rudeness, 
 69. 
 
 Skeptics ; their opinion, 79. 
 
 Slaves, how to bo dealt with, 25, 
 86 ; tricks in selling them pun- 
 ished, 143 ; not to be trusted 
 with public concerns, 312. 
 
 Smith, Adam, quoted, 21, 67, 136, 
 192, 196. 
 
 Society : the principles, sorts, and 
 degrees of it, 28, 29; nothing 
 that men should bo more con- 
 cerned for, 74 ; man by nature 
 sociable, 75 ; necessity not the 
 motive to society, ib. ; duties of 
 it of several degrees, in what 
 order to bo performed, 74 ; uni- 
 
 versal society, of what nature, 
 134. 
 
 Socrates facetious and droll, 54 ; 
 of extraordinary virtues, 72; his 
 shortest cut to glory, 92; used 
 to curse those that separate pro- 
 fit and honesty, 118; pronounc- 
 ed by the oracle the wisest of 
 men, 172, 173, 255; remark of, 
 244. 
 
 Solon, Athenian lawgiver, 38; his 
 craft, 54. 
 
 Sons should live as becomes the 
 name of their ansestors, 39 ; do 
 not bathe with their fathers, 63. 
 
 Zopt'n, 74. 
 
 Sophocles the tragedian, 69, 238. 
 
 Soul's functions more noble than 
 the body's, 94 ; pre-existed, 256 ; 
 an emanation of the divine es- 
 sence, 255 ; immortal (see Im- 
 mortality), nothing more excel- 
 lent and divine, 268, 300 ; souls 
 of the wicked hover round the 
 earth for ages after death, 303. 
 
 South, Dr., quoted, 61, 267, 268, 
 270, 271, 280. 
 
 Spectator, the, quoted, 220, 229, 
 230, 241, 260. 
 
 Speech. See Discourse. 
 
 Spheres, the description of, 293 ; 
 music of, 294. 
 
 State, how to bo supported, 85, 87, 
 152. 
 
 Stewart, Dugald, quoted, 6, 174, 
 206. 
 
 Styles of eloquence and philosophy 
 to bo both cultivated, 1. 
 
 Stoics ; Cicero follows them in this 
 book, 6 ; groat admirers of deri- 
 vations, 15; their chief good, 
 etc., 118; aim at no embellish- 
 ment, 263. 
 
 Strangers' duties in a place, 62; 
 a difference to bo mado between 
 them, 7 2 ; should not bo forbid 
 a city, 133. 
 
 Study not to bo spent upon obacuro 
 and difficult subjects, 13; tho 
 end of it. ib. ; should give placo 
 to action, 13, 74, 76. 
 
 Suicide forbidden, 250, 292.
 
 342 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Subject of a discourse must bo first 
 explained, 7 ; different subjects 
 require different ways of expres- 
 sion, 90. 
 
 Subjects of common discourse, 65. 
 
 Sulpitius, an astronomer, 13, 169; 
 an orator, accuses Norbanus, 93. 
 
 Sumumjus, suma injuria, 19. 
 
 Swearing upon one's conscience, 
 146 ; my tongue swore, but, etc., 
 163. 
 
 Syla, Lucius's inhuman victory, 87. 
 
 Sylla, Pub., kinsman to the former, 
 
 0. 
 
 TAKING away what is another's, a 
 breach of justice, 14; most con- 
 trary to nature, 122, 124; taking 
 away from one and giving to 
 another no liberality, 25, no 
 good man will take from another 
 to enrich himself, 14.5. 
 
 Talk; see Discourse. 
 
 Tatler, the, quoted, 320. 
 
 Taylor, Isaac, quoted, 295, 301. 
 
 Taxes, the people not to be burden- 
 ed witli them, 108; tax-gatherers 
 hated, 72, 317. 
 
 Ten men sent by Hannibal to 
 Rome, etc., 24, 165. 
 
 Temperance, 12; the duties of it 
 must not always give placo to 
 those of justice, 76; nothing prof- 
 itable that is contrary to it, 167. 
 
 Tenths paid to the gods, 101. 
 
 Terence's Chremes, 17 ; Andria, 
 207; Eunuch, 209. 
 
 Thebe, wife of tyrant Alexander, 86. 
 
 Thomistocles, 38 ; his opinion about 
 marrying a daughter, 106 ; his 
 proposal to the Athenians, 133 ; 
 illustrations, 189 ; sayings of, 
 220. 
 
 Theophrastus, 2 ; his book about 
 riches, 100 ; praises hospitality, 
 104. 
 
 Theseus'a wish granted by Nep- 
 tune, 18, 156. 
 
 Thieves can not submit without 
 justice, 91. 
 
 Thinking; the end of it, 13; a 
 g)od man will not think what 
 
 he' is ashamed should bo known, 
 
 145. 
 
 Thracians branded, 86. 
 Time and place make actions good 
 
 or bad, 69. 
 Trades, which creditable, etc., 72; 
 
 tradesmen should avoid lying, 
 
 ib. ; be just, 91. 
 Treachery, etc., contrary to reason, 
 
 142. 
 
 Truce for thirty days, 19. 
 Trust; how men are induced to 
 
 trust us, 89 ; trust not always to 
 
 bo restored, 156. 
 Truth, the love of it natural to 
 
 man, 10, 55 ; two faults in search 
 
 of it to be avoided, 12. 
 Tyrants generally come to a bad 
 
 end, 86 ; to kill them counted 
 
 glorious among the Romans, 120 ; 
 
 are enemies of human society, 
 
 125 ; lead miserable lives, 149. 
 
 ULYSSES of a temper to undergo 
 any thing, 57 ; would have avoid- 
 ed the war, 157. 
 
 Unable ; thoso who are unable to 
 exercise some virtues, should 
 take the more care to get others, 
 60. 
 
 Ungrateful men hated by all, 103. 
 
 Uniformity, of life, whence it arises, 
 55, 69 ; is most becoming, ib. 
 
 Unjust ; thoso who spend their 
 lives in contemplation are so, 
 17 ; and those who mind no- 
 body's business but their own, ib. 
 
 Usurers hated, 72 ; Cato's opinion 
 of usury, 113. 
 
 VICTUALS ; pleasure should not bo 
 regarded in it, 54. 
 
 Vine, cultivation of, 241. 
 
 Viriathus, the Lusitanian robber, 
 11. 
 
 Virgil, quoted, 11, 270, 290. 
 
 Virtue alone, or at least chiefly 
 desirable, 5, 12 ; virtues all con- 
 nected, 12, 89 ; forces us to lovo 
 the persons that possess it, 31, 
 89 ; its principal office to pro- 
 cure tke lovo of men, 82 ; con-
 
 INDEX. 
 
 343 
 
 sists in three things, ib. ; moves 
 men's admiration, 89; when it 
 appears with greatest splendor, 
 ib. ; scorns affinity with pleas- 
 ure, 167; the only good, 264; 
 conformable to reason, 273 ; all 
 virtues equal, ib. See Honesty. 
 
 Voice should be clear and har- 
 monious, etc., 65. 
 
 Voluntary : no true virtue, that is 
 not so, 17. 
 
 WANT ; wo should be most liberal 
 to those that want most, etc., 27, 
 103. 
 
 "War; laws of it to bo observed, 
 21, 161 ; may bo undertaken, 
 but it must bo for the sake of 
 peace, 21, 41 ; the management 
 of it less glorious than civil pru- 
 dence, 38; courage hi it recom- 
 mends a young man, 93. 
 
 Ways, two, of pleasure and virtue, 
 59. 
 
 Whewell, Dr., quoted, 218. 
 
 Wicked ; to be so, never profitable, 
 139; wicked men slaves, 280. 
 
 Will forged of Minutius Basilius, 
 etc., 144. 
 
 Wing of horse, 94. 
 
 Wisdom, which the chief, 74 ; the 
 definition and commendation of 
 it, 78 ; to be often with wise 
 men recommends a young man, 
 94; a wise man not wise for 
 himself, good for nothing, 139. 
 
 Work-shop can have nothing gen- 
 teel in it, 72. 
 
 World ; we should endeavor to bo 
 well thought of by all the world, 
 50. 
 
 XAKTIPPUS the Lacedaemonian, 
 158. 
 
 Xenocrates the severest philoso- 
 pher, 55. 
 
 Xenophon's (Economics, translated 
 by Cicero, 113. 
 
 YOUNG men ; the duties of them* 
 60 ; how they should make 
 themselves taken notice of in 
 the world, 93 ; are not envied, 
 but rather encouraged, ib. 
 
 ZENO holds virtuo to bo tho only 
 good, 128.
 
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