INTRODUCTION
IN the
de Officiis we have, save for the latter
Philippics, the great orator's last contribution to
literature. The last, sad, troubled years of his busy
life could not be given to his profession; and he
turned his never-resting thoughts to the second love
of his student days and n ade Greek philosophy a
possibility for Roman readers. The senate had been
abolished; the courts had been closed. His occupation was gone; but Cicero could not surrender himself
to idleness. In those days of distraction (46–43 B.C.)
he produced for publication almost as much as in all
his years of active life.
The liberators had been able to remove the tyrant,
but they could not restore the republic. Cicero's
own life was in danger from the fury of mad Antony
and he left Rome about the end of March, 44 B.C.
He dared not even stop permanently in any one of
his various country estates, but, wretched, wandered
from one of his villas to another nearly all the summer and autumn through. He would not suffer
himself to become a prey to his overwhelming sorrow
at the death of the republic and the final crushing
of the hopes that had risen with Caesar's downfall,
but worked at the highest tension on his philosophical
studies.
The Romans were not philosophical. In 161 B.C.
the senate passed a decree excluding all philosophers
[p. xii]
and teachers of rhetoric from the city. They had no
taste for philosophical speculation, in which the Greeks
were the world's masters. They were intensely,
narrowly practical. And Cicero was thoroughly
Roman. As a student in a Greek university he
had had to study philosophy. His mind was broad
enough and his soul great enough to give him a joy
in following after the mighty masters, Socrates, Plato,
Zeno, Cleanthes, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and the
rest. But he pursued his study of it, like a Roman,
from a “practical” motive—to promote thereby his
power as an orator and to augment his success and
happiness in life. To him the goal of philosophy was
not primarily to know but to do. Its end was to point
out the course of conduct that would lead to success
and happiness. The only side of philosophy, therefore, that could make much appeal to the Roman
mind was ethics; pure science could have little
meaning for the practical Roman; metaphysics might
supplement ethics and religion, without which true
happiness was felt to be impossible.
Philosophical study had its place, therefore, and
the most important department of philosophy was
ethics. The treatise on Moral Duties has the very
practical purpose of giving a practical discussion of
the basic principles of Moral Duty and practical
rules for personal conduct.
As a philosopher, if we may so stretch the term as
to include him, Cicero avows himself an adherent of
the New Academy and a disciple of Carneades. He
had tried Epicureanism under Phaedrus and Zeno,
Stoicism under Diodotus and Posidonius; but Philo
of Larissa converted him to the New Academy.
Scepticism declared the attainment of absolute
[p. xiii]
knowledge impossible. But there is the easily obtainable golden mean of the probable; and that appealed
to the practical Roman. It appealed especially to
Cicero; and the same indecision that had been his
bane in political life naturally led him first to scepticism, then to eclecticism, where his choice is
dictated by his bias for the practical and his scepticism itself disappears from view. And while Antiochus,
the eclectic Academician of Athens, and Posidonius,
the eclectic Stoic of Rhodes, seem to have had the
strongest influence upon him, he draws at his own
discretion from the founts of Stoics, Peripatetics, and
Academicians alike; he has only contempt for the
Epicureans, Cynics, and Cyrenaics. But the more he
studied and lived, the more of a Stoic in ethics he
became.
The cap-sheaf of Cicero's ethical studies is the
treatise on the Moral Duties. It takes the form of a
letter addressed to his son Marcus (see Index), at this
time a youth of twenty-one, pursuing his university
studies in the Peripatetic school of Cratippus in
Athens, and sowing for what promised to be an
abundant crop of wild oats. This situation gives
force and definiteness to the practical tendencies of
the father's ethical teachings. And yet, be it observed, that same father is not without censure for
contributing to his son's extravagant and riotous
living by giving him an allowance of nearly £870 a
year.
Our Roman makes no pretensions to originality
in philosophic thinking. He is a follower—an expositor—of the Greeks. As the basis of his discussion
of the Moral Duties he takes the Stoic Panaetius of
Rhodes (see Index),
περὶ καθήκοντος, drawing also
[p. xiv]
from many other sources, but following him more or
less closely in Books I and II; Book III is more independent and much inferior. He is usually superficial and not always clear. He translates and
paraphrases Greek philosophy, weaving in illustrations from Roman history and suggestions of Roman
mould in a form intended to make it, if not popular,
at least comprehensible, to the Roman mind. How
well he succeeded is evidenced by the comparative
receptivity of Roman soil prepared by Stoic doctrine
for the teachings of Christianity. Indeed, Anthony
Trollope labels our author the “Pagan Christian.”
“You would fancy sometimes,” says Petrarch, “it
is not a Pagan philosopher but a Christian apostle
who is speaking.” No less an authority than
Frederick the Great has called our book “the best
work on morals that has been or can be written.”
Cicero himself looked upon it as his masterpiece.
It has its strength and its weakness—its sane
common sense and noble patriotism, its self-conceit
and partisan politics; it has the master's brilliant
style, but it is full of repetitions and rhetorical
flourishes, and it fails often in logical order and
power; it rings true in its moral tone, but it shows
in what haste and distraction it was composed; for
it was not written as a contribution to close scientific
thinking; it was written as a means of occupation
and diversion.