Cicero: On Duties

by Marcus Tullius Cicero , Edited and translated by M. T. Griffin , Edited by E. M. Atkins

• ISBN13: 9780521343381
• ISBN10: 0521343380
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1991-02-22
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

De Officiis (On Duties) was Cicero’s last philosophical work. In it he made use of Greek thought to formulate the political and ethical values of Roman Republican society as he saw them, revealing incidentally a great deal about actual practice. Writing at a time of political crisis after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44BC, when it was not clear how much of the old Republican order would survive, Cicero here handed on the insights of an elder statesman, adept at political theory and practice, to his son, and through him, to the younger generation in general. De Officiis has often been treated merely as a key to the lost Greek works that Cicero used. This volume aims to render De Officiis, which was such an important influence on later masterpieces of Western political thought, more intelligible by explaining its relation to its own time and place. A wholly new translation is accompanied by a lucid introduction and all the standard features of Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, including a chronology, select bibliography, and notes on the vocabulary and significant individuals mentioned in the text.

Table of Contents

Editors' note	vii
Introduction	ix
Principal Dates	xxix
Plan of the Hellenistic Schools	xxxiv
Summary of the Doctrines of the Hellenistic Schools	xxxv
Bibliography	xxxviii
Notes on Translation	xliv
Synopsis	xlviii
On Duties
Book I	1	(62)
Book II	63	(38)
Book III	101	(47)
Biographical Notes	148	(31)
Index of Persons and Places	179	(6)
Index of Subjects	185