On the Intention of Cicero's

De Officiis
Douglas Kries
Recent scholarship has yielded a great deal of information on Cicero's De
officiis; this essay, however, seeks to move beyond information about the work
in favor of an interpretation of Cicero's intention in writing it. To this end, the
essay analyzes the genre and intended audience of De officiis, the allegedly
Stoic teaching contained in it, and the puzzle presented by its crucial third
book. The understanding of Cicero's intention that emerges from these
investigations is then briefly compared with Cicero's teaching in De finibus.
The essay ultimately claims that De officiis should be interpreted as advocating
a sort of Stoicism for the unphilosophical even while urging the views of the
Peripatetics on the more sophisticated.

That Cicero's stature among political thinkers has diminished in

contemporary times is hardly news, but it is still astonishing to con-
sider how far De officiis in particular has fallen in the standard
curriculum for students of politics in the West. Without going into the
details of the story, one notes that Cicero's last philosophical project
soon established itself as a standard pedagogical tool in late antiquity,
that it became a common book in the medieval schools, that it was a
key text in the curriculum of the Renaissance humanists, and that it
held a preeminent position in both the grammar schools and the uni-
versities of the Enlightenment. Ambrose imitated the book, even
borrowing its title;' Thomas Aquinas cites it frequently in treating moral
and political matters in the Summa theologiae; Erasmus and
Melanchthon each published editions of the text; Montesquieu was
inspired by it and Kant against it.2 Indeed, if one compares lists of
books commonly read by students of politics today with such lists
from the past, the most striking difference would have to be the vir-
tual omission of De officiis from contemporary lists, especially in the
United States.
1. In his impressive new commentary on Ambrose's book, Davidson argues
persuasively that the title of the work was originally not De officiis ministrorum, as it
has come to be known in recent centuries, but simply De officiis. See Ivor J. Davidson,
Ambrose De officiis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1: 1-2.
2. The works cited in notes 5 and 6 below each contain more extensive
treatments of the influence of Cicero's De officiis.
376 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
On the other hand, the tools available to those hardy students
of De officiis who do remain, and especially to English-speaking
ones, have never been greater. For starters, we now have an au-
thoritative new critical edition of the Latin text by M. Winterbottom,
published in 1994 in the esteemed Oxford Classical Texts series. 3
Two new English translations have appeared, one by M. T. Griffin
and E. M. Atkins, which was published by Cambridge University
Press in 1991,4 and another by P. G. Walsh, published by Oxford
University Press in 2000.5 Both are extensively annotated and in-
clude indices, chronologies, synopses, and learned introductions.
Most impressive of all is the massive commentary of Andrew R.
Dyck, which appeared in 1996 in a volume that runs to over 700
pages and includes a long list of secondary literature written mostly
by trained classicists. 6 Whatever the cause of the neglect of De of-
ficiis by the political thinkers of our time, it cannot be a lack of
access to vital information about the work.
Ironically, while present-day students of De officiis must be
enormously grateful for all the genuine advancements achieved
by the recent scholarship just cited, it is also true that these vol-
umes do not aim at providing a justification for studying De officiis,
and indeed some of the very information contained within them
could cause a potential reader to be disinclined. One reads, for
example, that the occasion for Cicero's writing the work was in
some ways largely accidental. Cicero had planned to visit his
son who was studying at Athens, and had indeed started the
journey, but unfavorable winds and news of recent political de-
velopments in Rome caused him to change his mind. Perhaps it
seemed better to Cicero simply to send an extended letter to
young Marcus rather than turn his attention from truly impor-
tant affairs. Thus, the three books that comprise De officiis were
"dashed off at a remarkably quick rate"; 7 such haste, we learn,
is visible in "a certain carelessness in structure and argument"
and "a tendency to repetition" in the work. 8 Deficiencies like

3. M. Winterbottom, De officiis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). All

Latin quotations from De officiis will be taken from this edition.
4. M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins, Cicero On Duties (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991).
5. P. G. Walsh, On Obligations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). All
English quotations from De officiis used in this essay will be taken from Walsh's
translation.
6. Andrew R. Dyck, A Commentary on Cicero, De Officiis (Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press, 1996).
7. Dyck, Commentary on Cicero, pp. 39 and 37.
8. Griffin and Atkins, Cicero on Duties, p. xix.
 CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 377
these were not likely to matter, though, for Marcus was a profli-
gate young man of twenty-one who was more interested in
pursuing pleasures than studies anyway (he eventually became
a degenerate alcoholic). Worst of all, we are told that Cicero him-
self did not bother to be very innovative in De officiis, for he was
pretty much just passing on the teaching of another work, one
written in Greek by Panaetius. Panaetius's book is lost, but some
commentators still tend to be remarkably confident that the goal
of Cicero's project was primarily to dress up Panaetius's book in
Roman garb so that it might speak to a Roman audience. Ulti-
mately, Dyck's judgment on the philosophical value of De officiis
is that, "It shows us less of Cicero the philosopher than Cicero
the father and politician," but perhaps we should not be dis-
traught at this, since Cicero pursued philosophical questions only
"in the amateur way he considered suitable to a Roman gentle-
man and statesman." 9 Griffin and Atkins are a little more kind:
"Even if Cicero did not always succeed, he did at least try to use
the tools of Greek philosophy ... to live and act rationally.""0
Walsh's assessment is not exactly negative, but he speaks of
Cicero's enthusiasm for philosophy rather than his skill at it,
and he emphasizes Cicero's ability to communicate to a popular
audience rather than to a more sophisticated one."'
The recent commentators have much to say that is not reflected
in the previous paragraph, of course, but it is still the case that these
new volumes, for all their merits, may well not move students of
political philosophy to return to the work that so inspired their
predecessors. What is still wanting is not so much more informa-
tion on De officiis but rather an interpretation-an interpretation
that argues for its timeless significance and the enduring benefits
to be gained from its study. The present essay is more modest in
scope, but it will begin to establish the outlines of such an interpre-
tation by considering the basic intention of Cicero in composing De
officiis. Three particular problems will be analyzed in order to ar-
gue for this understanding of Cicero's intention: the work's intended
audience and genre; the work's imputed Stoicism; and the perplex-
ing nature of the work's third and final book. As a result of such
analysis, De offlciis reveals itself to be a much more subtle philo-
sophical project than has been generally understood and one whose
potential contributions are much greater than is usually acknowl-
edged in our time.

9. Dyck, Commentary on Cicero, p. 39.

10. Griffin and Atkins, Cicero on Duties, p. xxviii.
11. Walsh, On Obligations, p. xvi.
379 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
378 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
Genre and Intended Audience

As already indicated, De officiis is formally addressed to Cicero's

son, a young man of twenty-one years who was studying in Ath-
ens. It seems that the immediate purpose of the aborted trip during
the summer of 44 B.C. was to exhort young Marcus to pursue his
studies more diligently, for letters from those watching over
Marcus's progress were not at all encouraging. Consequently, De
officiis has sometimes been viewed as a sort of extended personal
letter sent in lieu of an actual visit, and indeed Cicero suggests at
the very end of the work that if he had made his way to Athens he
would have spoken to Marcus in person about officia (3.121). At the
same time, one wonders just how much should be made of the fa-
ther and son relationship in reading De officiis. For one thing, Cicero
addresses most of his works to one person or another, and it is far
from obvious that the choice of addressee seriously impacts the
content of the work as a whole. Would the works addressed to
Brutus, for example, be substantially different if they had been ad-
dressed to some other prominent senator? Besides, Cicero could
certainly have exhorted Marcus to study harder via private corre-
spondence; why was there a need to say these things publicly?
Indeed, at the end of the preface to the third book, Cicero breaks off
an exhortation to Marcus by stating that he has already written
such things in private correspondence: "But enough of this, for I
have exhorted you by letter at length and often. Now let us get
back to the remaining section of the work before us" (3.6). Most
importantly, Cicero clearly says at one point that De officiis is meant
to have a wider audience than Marcus: "[T]he discussion on which
I have embarked is concerned not with you personally, but with
the whole category of youths [non de te, sed de toto genere]" (2.45).12
A few paragraphs later, Cicero refers in passing to other fa-
mous letters from fathers to sons: "Letters have survived composed
by three men who we are told were masters of practical wisdom:
the first was sent by Philip to Alexander, the second by Antipater
to Cassander, and the third by Antigonus to his son Philip" (2.48).
From the context, it seems that Cicero has read these letters or at
least knows their contents. Unfortunately, these letters have not
come down to us. It is necessary to avoid falling into the trap of
assuming that one knows the contents of ancient documents that

12. Although Dyck, Commentary on Cicero, emphasizes De officiis as an act of

parenting by Cicero, he does note (p. 16) that the work was also addressed to a
larger audience.
 CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 379
do not survive, but one can at least wonder whether De officiis should
be read as belonging to a tradition of letters from fathers to sons
that contain fatherly advice to young statesmen. Perhaps it would
be a little presumptuous for Cicero indirectly to liken himself to
Philip, Antipater, and Antigonus; certainly it is quite presumptu-
ous to liken his son to Alexander, Cassander, or Philip. Furthermore,
the monarchical overtones of the literary tradition or genre would
presumably require alteration by the republican Cicero. Still, the
literary precedent provided by such letters would give Cicero an
opportunity to address himself not only to Marcus but also to the
young aristocracy of Rome, which would explain the work's fre-
quent references to contemporary political events, including the
recent assassination of Julius Caesar. Yet another clue about the
genre of De officiis is found in the letter to Atticus in which Cicero
first tells Atticus about the new project he is working on: "Here I
philosophize (what else?) and expound the subject of Duty on a
magnificent scale. I am addressing the book to Marcus. From fa-
ther to son what better theme [qua de re enim potius paterfilio]?"'3
What is noteworthy about this brief passage for our purposes is
Cicero's suggestion that his goal is not to speak directly to Marcus,
but that addressing the book to Marcus will give the project its
"theme" or, we might even say, its "conceit."
Given these various considerations, it seems best to conclude
that De officiis should not be read as the personal letter of a father
trying to exhort a not-too-promising son. Rather, the intended au-
dience of the work is aspiring young statesmen and the father and
son aspect of the work provides the form or genre. If this is the
audience and genre, though, one wonders about the relationship
of the De officiis to Cicero's philosophical project. Certainly the form
of the work cannot be said to be the philosophical dialogue that
Cicero often employed in his philosophical writings. Moreover, in
the famous passage in De divinatione in which Cicero explains the
sequence and purpose of his philosophical works, De officiis is not
mentioned."4 It is hardly necessary to conclude, however, that Cicero
has nothing to say to philosophers in De officiis. While De officiis
may well not have been planned by the time of the writing of De
divinatione, there is no reason to think that it could not have grown
out of the ethical reflections that were undertaken in writing De

13. Letters to Atticus, trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1999), 15.13a.2, #417. Cicero also connects the theme of duty to
the theme of father and son early on in De officiis: "I intend to begin with the subject
most suited to both your years and my paternal authority" (1.4).
14. De divinatione 2.1.
380 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
finibus. Moreover, even if the intended audience of De officiis is pri-
marily young republican aristocrats rather than philosophers,
studying what Cicero says to young statesmen may well tell us a
great deal about his understanding of political philosophy.
Machiavelli's Prince is also a book written in the form of an ex-
tended exhortation to a young "statesman," but few commentators
conclude that Machiavelli has nothing to say to serious philoso-
phers in it. Finally, in the letter to Atticus cited at the end of the
previous paragraph, Cicero quite clearly links the activity of phi-
losophizing to De officiis. It is therefore entirely possible that Cicero
intends De officiis to speak not only to the youth of the Roman world
but also to the more philosophically inclined.

Stoic Posturing

At the beginning of De officiis, Cicero says that he will adopt

the general viewpoint of Stoicism, and indeed, even more par-
ticularly, that of the Stoic philosopher Panaetius. The manner in
which he declares himself to be a Stoic, however, is most curious.
For starters, he begins the work by reminding young Marcus that
he is studying with the Peripatetic Cratippus, "the outstanding
philosopher of our day," and Cicero continues on to say that his
own views "do not differ markedly from those of the Peripatet-
ics" (1.2). In the preface to the second book, he mentions Cratippus
again and speaks of the similarity of his own views with those of
Cratippus's tradition of philosophy (2.8). He speaks of Cratippus
also in the preface to Book 3, saying that he is "the outstanding
philosopher in our recollection" (3.5), and later in the book sug-
gests that Marcus himself belongs to the Peripatetic school (3.20).
One might, then, expect a discussion on officia-obligations or
duties-that would be in accord with Peripatetic principles rather
than Stoic ones. On the other hand, Cicero himself always claimed
to be an adherent to one branch of the ancient Academy, the so-
called new or skeptical Academy, and in fact in De officiis he
forthrightly says that he belongs to the philosophical school of
the Academy (3.20; also 2.7-8). We might, then, expect an exposi-
tion of duties that would be in accord with Academic principles,
especially since Cicero thinks that the Peripatetics and the Aca-
demics were once the same school and still hold very similar views
with respect to the matter at hand (3.20; 1.2).
Initially, in stating his intention to follow the Stoics, Cicero claims
that all three schools-the Academics, the Peripatetics, and the Sto-
ics-are able rightfully to speak with authority about obligations,
 CICERO'S DE OFFICITS 381
for "only those who maintain that right behavior alone is worth
seeking, or those who claim that it should be our chief aim for its
own sake, can enunciate principles of obligation which are steady
and unshifting and inherent in nature" (1.6). Since the Stoics claim
that "right behavior" or virtue or honestum is the only good and the
Peripatetics and the Academics claim that such is the highest or
chief good (although not the only one), all three schools meet the
stated criterion. In a seemingly arbitrary choice, however, Cicero
then simply states, without explanation, that he will follow the
teachings of the Porch over the other two alternatives: "So at this
particular time in my enquiry I follow the Stoics chiefly" (1.6).
Indeed, the choice of Stoicism is stranger than merely being
arbitrary. Not only is Marcus a Peripatetic and Cicero an Academic,
but the Stoics are often the targets of criticism and sometimes even
ridicule by Academic skepticism in general and Cicero in particu-
lar. This is clearly the case with respect to physics and theology, as
can be seen in De natura deorum, De divinatione, and De fato, but
Cicero is also quite willing to criticize Stoic ethics, as is clearly evi-
dent in De finibus. In Book 3 of the latter work, he places in the
mouth of Cato Uticensis what is generally understood to be the
most thorough statement on early Stoic ethics that has come down
to us, but in Book 4 he articulates in his own name a rather severe
criticism of the ethical principles of Stoicism. In Pro Murena, a speech
in which Cicero found himself at odds with Cato, Cicero was even
willing to criticize publicly Cato's Stoic ethical principles."5 It is,
therefore, at the very least certainly odd that Cicero is suddenly
willing to wrap himself in the mantle of Stoic ethics in De officiis.16
Walter Nicgorski states this paradox very bluntly: "If at all serious
about philosophy, how can Cicero be both a skeptic and a stoic?""7
But Cicero gives his readers plenty of hints that De officiis is not
as Stoic as it professes to be. This begins right with his first an-
nouncement, mentioned above, that he will be following the
teachings of the Porch: "So at this particular time in my enquiry I
follow the Stoics chiefly, not translating them, but following my
usual procedure of drawing from their wells as much as, and in
whatever way, my judgement and inclination dictate" (1.6). The

15. Pro Murena 29.61-31, 66; cf. Definibus 4.74.

16. Other texts in which Cicero is often thought to assume the position of the
Stoics include his De legibus and his ParadoxaStoicorum. There is not space to comment
thoroughly on those works in this article, but they are addressed obliquely in the
conclusion of the present essay.
17. Walter Nicgorski, "Cicero's Paradoxes and His Idea of Utility," Political
Theory 12 (1984): 559.
'382 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
382 THIE REVIEW OF POLITICS
passage is of course ambiguous. It tells us both that Cicero will and
will not be writing in accord with Stoic principles. Immediately
after this enigmatic statement, he tells his readers that Panaetius,
the famous Stoic whom he is supposedly following, made two egre-
gious mistakes. First, he did not define officium, which is a serious
oversight, because "every rational approach to instruction on any
subject ought to begin with a definition" (1.7). Second, in classify-
ing officia, Panaetius neglected to treat two important points, and
in classification, "the most grievous fault is to leave something out"
(1.10). Cicero proceeds similarly in the preface to Book 3. First, he
says that, "Panaetius, then, discussed obligations in the most scru-
pulous manner without provoking disagreement, and I have
followed him very closely though with some amendments" (3.7).
What does the qualifying clause "though with some amendments"
mean? Cicero then proceeds with another implicit criticism of
Panaetius, telling the reader that this Panaetius whom he is follow-
ing has failed to discuss the most important question of all
concerning officia, namely, what conclusions one should draw about
apparent conflicts between the honestum and the utile.
Most importantly, Cicero never tells us in his essay that the
ethical theory of the Stoics is true, or even most probably true.
What he says is that questions about duties or officia "will be more
nobly [splendidius] expounded" (3.20) by the Stoics, because they
claim that everything honorable is useful and nothing is useful
which is not honorable, whereas the Academics and Peripatetics
(Cicero's and Marcus's schools) admit that there are some honor-
able things that are not useful and some useful things that are not
honorable, even if they insist that the honorable things are higher.
Here Cicero admits forthrightly that, at least on one level, De of-
ficiis does not aim at directly stating what is true but rather what
is noble. The extent to which the work might indirectly state what
is true while ostensibly treating only what sounds noble will be
taken up below.

The Crux of the Problem: Book III

Cicero's remarks on why he chooses to write under the guise of

Stoicism lead us straight into the crux of the problem explored in
De officiis. The first book of the work treats what is honestum or
honorable; the second book considers what is utile or useful. The
immediate and obvious question that arises concerns the relation
between the two, for a moment's reflection seems to indicate that
what is honorable or virtuous might conflict with what is at least
 CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 383
thought to be useful. Statesmen especially face difficult choices
where the two do not always appear to go hand in hand. The stated
theme of Book 3 of Cicero's work is precisely this problem.
Cicero tells us that Panaetius's book, Peri tou kathekontos, an-
nounced that it would take up the problem of the honestum first, the
utile second, and then treat the question of seeming conflicts between
the two (since Panaetius wrote in Greek, presumably he used the
words kalon and sympheron).15 In any event, Cicero says, Panaetius
treated the first two topics (albeit incompletely) but the third not at
all.19 Cicero goes to some length to try to explain Panaetius's failure
to complete the work, thus calling the reader's attention to Panaetius's
omission. Panaetius's failing turns out to be all the more remarkable
because, says Cicero, Panetius's student Posidonius tells us that
Panaetius lived for thirty years after he finished his treatment of the
first two topics in the series. Moreover, we learn that neither did
Posidonius, who became a famous Stoic philosopher of no small abil-
ity himself, attempt to answer the question that Panaetius had asked,
despite the fact that Posidonius had written that "no topic in the
whole of philosophy is as vital as this" (3.8).
If we are not already perplexed at why Panaetius and Posidonius,
the most famous names of what has come to be known as the
"middle" Stoa, abandoned the crucial third question, Cicero draws
the reader's attention to two possible explanations. The first is that
Panaetius had deliberately not addressed the question. Cicero pro-
tests against this explanation in such a way and to such an extent
that he seems to protest too much. He assures the reader that
Panaetius did intend to treat the matter because he promised to do
so at the end of the last completed book, not mentioning as a possi-
bility that perhaps Panaetius wanted to draw attention to the
seriousness of the problem by noting that it needed to be taken up
but then walking away from it. In an apparent aside, Cicero goes on
to tell his readers that Posidonius had said that another of Panaetius's
students, Publius Rutilus Rufus, drew a comparison between

18. Dyck, Commentary on Cicero, p. 17; Walsh, On Obligations, p. xxix.

19. Dyck's commentary emphasizes "source-criticism" as an appropriate
approach to De officiis, and so he emphasizes Cicero's reliance on Panaetius. He gives
an argument to justify his approach on pp. 18-21 (Commentary on Cicero). I have
suggested, to the contrary, that Cicero seems critical of Panaetius, which would mean
that source-criticism may not be a good approach to Cicero's book, especially since it
is impossible to compare it with Panaetius's lost work. Whatever one decides about
using source-criticism for Books I and 2 of De officiis, it seems that source-criticism
will not work well for Book 3, since Cicero himself indicates that he is not following
Panaetius in this final book: "So now I shall complete the remaining part of this work
with no props to lean on, battling it out by myself, as the saying goes" (3.34).
384 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
Panaetius's unfinished work and a famous unfinished painting, The
Venus of Cos. Just as this painting by Apelles had not been finished
because no one could hope to match the excellence of the parts that
had been finished, so no one had dared to finish the work of Panaetius
because of the excellence of the earlier books. Cicero, of course, is
undeterred and will soon boldly offer to finish Panaetius's work!
Rejecting the explanation that Panaetius's book was deliberately
left unfinished because it was unfinishable, Cicero offers instead a
second possible explanation for Panaetius's failure to treat the topic
of the relation between the honestum and the utile-one that is more
in accord with Stoic principles themselves. In the strict Stoic view of
the matter, there is no difference between the honestum and the utile,
and even to think that they might be different is a sign of a lack of
wisdom on the part of the questioner. A fundamental principle of
the Porch was the view that only virtue can make a human being
happy, and happiness is generally conceded to be the goal of all right
living. If this is so, then there can be nothing "useful" that is outside
of the "virtuous," but rather only the virtuous is useful. Since the
honestum and the utile can never conflict, so the argument goes, there
would be no reason for Panaetius even to raise this question, and he
was therefore correct not to record any teaching on this point; in-
deed, he should not even have raised the matter as a topic for
discussion (3.9-13). Cicero says that there is something to this inter-
pretation of Panaetius's silence, but that it needs qualification. On
the one hand, he grants that there can be no real comparison of the
honestum and the utile for the Stoic sage; the conflict simply does not
exist for sages. Such people, however, are very rare-apparently
Socrates and Hercules were true sages, but the Scipios and the Decii
were not (3.15-16).21 On the other hand, most people have a sort of
virtue that is imperfect, and Cicero says that his own book De officiis
is devoted not to the sort of virtue that is the highest but rather to the
"intermediate" duties, as they are called by the Stoics. 2 1 The "inter-
mediate" morality is a semblance of the real thing, and for that reason
the many mistake the intermediate for the highest (3.14-16). As a

20. Cicero begins Book 3 with praise of Scipio Africanus and even says that he
is Cicero's superior. But by paragraph 16 even this Scipio is demoted to the status
of being common or at least to being inferior to the Stoic sage.
21. See also 1.8. For analysis of this aspect of the teaching of Stoicism, see I.G.
Kidd, "Stoic Intermediates and the End of Man," in Problems in Stoicism, ed. A. A.
Long (London: The Athlone Press, 1971), pp. 150-72. (Originally published under
a different title in Classical Quarterly [1955]: 181-94); also "Moral Actions and Rules
in Stoic Ethics," in The Stoics, ed. John M. Rist (Berkeley, University of California
Press, 1978), pp. 247-49 ff: See also John M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1969), esp. chaps. 5, 6, and 10.
 CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 385
result of this confuision, many people may become perplexed at what
seem to be differences between the honorable and the useful, and
Cicero presumes that explaining such problems for people who are
still working toward true virtue is what Panaetius must have been
planning for the conclusion of his work. At any rate, such is what
Cicero will provide, he says, in the final book of De officiis, since
Panaetius must have been prevented by "some accident or pressure
of work" from completing the job himself (3 .33).22 In completing the
project by descending to the intermediate morality, Cicero says he
will be offering a "defense of Panaetius" against those who find it
unseemly that Panaetius would ever have thought of juxtaposing
the honorable and the useful (3.34).
Cicero's admission that De officiis is devoted not to the highest
plane of morality but only an intermediate one must not be over-
looked, for it implies that there is something about the morality of
De officiis that Cicero knows is inadequate, and the discerning reader
should wonder what that inadequacy might be. Indeed, Cicero's
confession that he will not be treating the highest themes places
everything in the final book of De officiis under a sort of suspicion.
He begins his exposition by indicating that he will need a rule to
dissolve all apparent conflicts between the honestum and the utile.
The rule or principle seems to become more strict as Cicero dis-
cusses it. First, it is simply that it is "wrong to harm a neighbour for
one's own profit" (3.23), but it soon grows into the principle that
"what is useful to the individual is identical with what is useful to
the community" (3.27), and this is not simply Cicero's principle
but even "the law of nature" (3.27). The rationale given for this
principle is that the fellowship of the human race is the highest or
supreme good. If this is so, then all individual goods, such as exter-
nal goods, must yield to the common good of the whole race. This
highest or common good is identified with honestum and the indi-
vidual good-one should say "apparent" good-is identified with
utile. It therefore follows that there can be no true conflict between
the honestum and the utile. All conflicts are only apparent ones be-
cause the truly useful is the honorable and the honorable is what is
truly useful.
Cicero does not give much of an argument for this principle or
rule. He begins with an assertion regarding the superiority of the
fellowship of humanity to individual concerns and moves without
much trouble to the complete or absolute hegemony of the com-

22. Cicero's generous stance in Book 3 toward those who are confused about
the honorable and the useful conflicts with his harsh remarks toward them in Book
2 (2.10).
386 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
munity. The conflict between the honestum and the utile, which is a
conflict only for the vast majority of human beings who are not
sages, is thus resolved, but only if the individual is completely po-
liticized. In this connection Cicero appeals to the analogy regarding
the body and its individual parts. Just as the individual members
of the human body only achieve their function and end when they
subordinate themselves to the overall purpose of the body, so indi-
vidual human beings can only achieve their function and end when
they are completely subordinated to the common good. 23
Thus, the rule that began with an injunction against harming
other human beings becomes restated as a rule that what is useful
to the individual is identical with what is useful to the community,
but it is restated again as an identifiable Stoic premise that the only
good is the honorable or honestum (3.33). Here Cicero more or less
admits that his argument for the principle is thin:

Now that I am putting the finishing touches, so to say, to this work which
has been launched but is not quite complete, I model myself on those
geometricians who tend not to demonstrate everything but ask us to allow
them to take certain things for granted so that they may more readily explain
the points which they wish to put across. In the same way, if you approve,
my dear [Marcus] Cicero, I am asking you to allow me to claim that nothing
is worth seeking on its own account except the honourable. If Cratippus
does not permit you to accept this, you can at any rate concede that the
honourable is what is chiefly worth seeking on its own account (3.33).

Cicero gives the discerning reader two important pieces of infor-

mation here. The first is that he recognizes that his argument is
hypothetical and thus unproven. If the Stoic principle is granted,
then it is not hard to point out that the only useful reality is the
honestum. Indeed, the rest of Book 3 is devoted to raising many
cases in which the honestum and the utile do not seem to coincide,
but Cicero always appeals to the unestablished principle about the
identity of the two. 2 4 More subtle, though, is the quotation's com-

23. This analogy is, of course, not as perfect as it might be. An arm cut off from
a body cannot be even an arm any longer, for its very function is to be a part of a
greater body. An arm has no end outside of the body to which it belongs. Yet, even
if one admits that a human being can only be perfected in and through a political
community, it does not follow that a human being is only a part that can have no
function or end outside of the city. Given what he says about the Peripatetic insistence
that human ends are not reducible to virtue only, one wonders if Cicero does not
know the limitations of the analogy he is using.
24. The serious analysis these cases deserve is not possible here, but they
generally involve a pattern whereby a case implying the need for a distinction
between honor and utility is proposed and Cicero vigorously appeals to his rule
and reasserts the lack of such a distinction.
 CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 387
ment on Aristotle. Cratippus, the Peripatetic, will not admit the
Stoic principle regarding the chief good, but will instead insist that
there are other goods, including external goods, that are also to be
sought for their own sake. Cicero suggests that whether the Stoic
or the Peripatetic principle is supposed, the result will be the same
for the question about the relationship between the utile and the
honestum. But, of course, if the Peripatetic position is once granted,
if one concedes that not all goods are reducible to one final good,
but that there is a collection of goods for human beings, then it
follows that the various goods might come into conflict and the
honestum and the utile might not coincide.
My understanding of Cicero's intention in De officiis, then, is
that he wants to communicate two different messages to two dif-
ferent readerships. On the one hand, there is his rhetorical message
addressed to the young republican aristocrats. This aspect of the
work is Stoic in that it treats moral matters as if virtue is the only
good, and thus the moral code it articulates is quite demanding,
involving as it does the complete subordination of the private to
the political good. On the other hand, there is Cicero's subtle mes-
sage addressed to the more philosophically sophisticated of his
readers. This aspect of the work is Peripatetic in that it grasps that
not all ends are reducible to a unity, and thus it points to the poten-
tial conflict between virtue and external goods, a conflict that may
be endemic to political life.

Confirmation from De Finibus

If there is something to be said for this interpretation of Cicero's

intention in De officiis, one might anticipate finding confirming evi-
dence for it in De finibus.25 De officiis is the last writing project on
philosophical ethics that Cicero produced, 2 6 but De finibus was writ-

25. There are also rich new resources for students of De finibbus, namely a new
critical text in the Oxford Classical Texts series as well as a new translation in the
Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy series. See L. D. Reynolds, De Finibus
Bonorum et Malorum Libri Quinque (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Raphael
Woolf, trans., and Julia Annas, ed., Cicero: On Moral Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001).
26. With the exception of the later Phillipics,De officiis is the last work of Cicero's
pen. De finibus was completed during the summer of 45 B.C.; the aborted visit to
Athens was to take place during the summer of 44. Cicero entered Rome to confront
Antony in September of 44 but soon recognized Antony's growing political power
and withdrew. Work on De officiis began in late October and the first two books
were completed by November 5, even as Cicero was beginning the series of attacks
on Antony that would ultimately culminate in his death in December of 43.
388 TBE REVIEW OF POLITICS
ten only about a year and a half earlier and is, by Cicero's own
account, his chief statement on ethics. 2 7 Of course, philosophers
sometimes change their minds, but one would anticipate that the
teaching of De officiis might well conform to, or at least not be in-
consistent with, De finibus.
As is well-known, this latter work is comprised of five books
divided into three dialogues. The first book is a statement of Epicu-
reanism by Torquatus and the second a critique of his philosophical
position by Cicero. In De finibus, Epicureanism is clearly ranked
very low by Cicero, but it does at least receive serious discussion.
In De officiis it is occasionally alluded to, but it is considered too
mean even to bother with. Books 3 and 4 of De finibus are devoted
to the second dialogue of the work. As noted earlier, Cato Uticensis
delivers a statement of Stoicism in Book 3 that is generally thought
to be the most complete account of pre-imperial Stoicism that has
come down to us. In Book 4, Cicero gives in his own name a pointed
critique of Cato's philosophy, the primary thrust of which is that
Stoicism views human beings not as comprised of body and soul
or body and mind, but as bodiless beings. The Stoics therefore say
that the only good is virtue, which they attach not to body but to
reason, and thus they neglect external goods or goods of the body.
Since they have a distorted view of human nature, happiness for
them consists only in the rational good of virtue. Given this cri-
tique of Stoicism from Book 4 of De finibus, which is delivered in
Cicero's own name, it would seem odd if Cicero's adoption of Sto-
icism in De officiis is meant to be taken at face value.
But the really interesting part of De finibus for understand-
ing De officiis is Book 5. Most of the book is devoted to a speech
by Piso, who delivers the philosophical position associated with
Antiochus of Ascalon, the position sometimes referred to as that
of the "old" Academy. Piso claims that there is an unbroken tra-
dition of philosophy stemming from Plato and his Academy. This
tradition includes the Peripatetics, especially Aristotle and
Theophrastus, and indeed Piso says that he is relying especially
on the Nicomachean Ethics in articulating the position that he and
Antiochus share. The Nicomachean Ethics seems to be even more
important than Plato to Piso's understanding of the ethical teach-
ing of the Academy. As Piso describes it, one of the important
teachings of that work is the existence of both internal goods-
such as virtue-and external ones. If this teaching is true, then it
follows that a virtue such as wisdom, while it may be the high-

27. See De divinatione2.1.

 CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 389
est perfection available to human beings, is still not, all by itself,
sufficient to guarantee perfect happiness. 2 8
What is especially strange about Piso's position is that he claims
that the "old" Academic position is actually shared by the Stoics.
To be sure, the Stoics have changed the terminology of the Acad-
emy, so much so that they might appear to hold something radically
different, but Piso insists that in fact they teach the same doctrine
with different words. They say that only virtue is good, so that all
who are virtuous are happy, and they do not want to talk about
external "goods" because, of course, they are not virtues and hence
not true goods. Still, the Stoics admit that a life including external
advantages is preferable to one that does not include such advan-
tages. Piso thus concludes that the Academy, the Peripatetics, and
the Stoics hold the same view, although they may express it with
different words.
Cicero himself (that is, the character of Cicero in the dialogue)
delivers a relatively brief critique of Piso's speech at the end of Book
5, but the critique is sharp and Julia Annas describes it well when
she says that it is "devastating." 2 9 Cicero finds Piso's position with
respect to the Stoics thoroughly incoherent. Cicero asserts that,
granted the fundamental Stoic principle identifying virtue as the
sole good, the Stoics are completely logical in their conclusion that
virtue alone confers happiness. 3 0 He insists, however, that such a
conclusion clearly contradicts the teaching of the Peripatetics. In
running together the positions of the Peripatetics and the Stoics,

28. 5.9-23. Piso is not sure whether Aristotle or Nicomachus is the author of
the Nicomachean Ethics (5.12), but of course we do not know for sure whether the
work Cicero would have known by that name was the same as the work we know
by that name. On the important question of what Aristotle's texts were like during
Cicero's time, see the recent treatment by Jonathan Barnes, "Roman Aristotle," in
Philosophia Togata, ed. Jonathan Barnes and Mariam Griffin. (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1997), 2: 1-69. Texts in the Nicomachean Ethics as it presently exists that would
support Piso's interpretation of Peripatetic ethics include 1.8.1099a31-b8;
1.10.1100b22-1101a20; 10.7.1177a28-35; 10.8.1178a24-68,1178b33-1179al7; cf. also the
implications of 4.1-2.
29. Cicero: On Moral Ends, 143, n. 55. It should be noted that Cicero himself
employs an argument very much like that of Piso as one part of his refutation of
Cato in Book 4 (4.3-15). In Cicero's eyes, it seems that the argument of Piso's Old
Academy, while unsound, might still be useful for refuting Stoicism.
30. Of course, Cicero has already rejected the fundamental premise of the Stoic
position in Book 4 of De finibus. His point here in Book 5 is that if the premise is
once accepted, the Stoics accurately reason about what it implies. To use the language
of introductory logic, Cicero thinks that the position of the Stoics is valid (that is,
their conclusion follows from their premises) but unsound (their premises are not
all true).
390 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
Piso has obscured the important distinction between the two re-
garding the role played by external goods in attaining happiness.
In fact, he has distorted the Stoic definition of happiness so that it
now seems to require external goods. In the end, Piso's view that
the Stoic principle on virtue and happiness can be reconciled with
the Peripatetic teaching on a hierarchy of goods that includes ex-
ternals as one component of happiness is simply inconsistent; Piso's
failure to see this only obfuscates a proper analysis of the argu-
ment between the Stoics and their critics, such as the Peripatetics.
How does this admittedly superficial summary of the De finibus
help explain De officiis? What Piso does in the former work is to
attempt to reconcile the views of the Peripatetics and the Stoics,
but such a reconciliation is immediately and thoroughly refuted in
Cicero's own name. Yet, the reconciliation unwisely pursued by
Piso is precisely what Cicero himself ostensibly insists on in De of-
ficiis, even while he hints that the reconciliation is questionable on
philosophic grounds. Thus, the surface teaching articulated in De
officiis is most similar if not identical to the one articulated by Piso,
but the teaching hinted at in De officiis is most similar if not identi-
cal to Cicero's own criticism of Piso.
Why would Cicero articulate in De officiis a position that he has
criticized in De finibus? A clue that might help us answer this ques-
tion emerges from considering the roles played by young people in
both works. In the first dialogue of De finibus, the youth Triarius is
present for the conversation, listening first to Torquatus and then
to Cicero's lambasting of Epicureanism. At the end of Book 2,
Triarius, a serious young man who was apparently always ill-dis-
posed toward the philosophical school of Epicureanism, says that
Cicero has emboldened him to be harsh against the philosophy of
the Garden. The second dialogue of De finibus is set in the privacy
of a library, so no young person is present to hear Cicero criticize
Cato's Stoicism.3 ' In the third dialogue, young Lucius is present for
Piso's speech, and he says that he is convinced by it (5.76). This is
prior to Cicero's launching into his attack on Piso, but when Piso
then accuses Cicero of trying to steal Lucius for his own pupil, Cicero
merely says that Lucius can make up his own mind: "You can take
him if he will follow," he says to Piso, but he then adds cryptically,
"By being at your side he will be at mine" (5.86). It seems, then,
that Cicero teaches in De finibus that a politically astute philoso-
pher should criticize Epicureanism harshly in front of the young

31. Cicero calls attention to this fact by including a short discussion of the
education of the absent young Lucullus at the beginning of the conversation (3.9).
 CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 391
but should criticize Stoicism when the young are not present. He
may criticize the Old Academy of Antiochus and Piso before young
people, but he should still be satisfied if the young follow the Old
Academy. This pattern is repeated in De officiis. Epicureanism is
spoken of as being beneath contempt and not really worthy of a
serious treatment. Stoicism, I have suggested, is indeed subtly criti-
cized in De officiis, but not openly, for in speaking with Marcus,
Cicero does not subject Stoicism to anything like the severe treat-
ment it receives when the young are absent in De finibus. Finally,
what is openly advocated in De officiis is a philosophically inconsis-
tent position not unlike that of the Old Academy. This position is
weak in the eyes of real philosophers, but it is not a bad one for
young people like Marcus, Lucius, and other young Roman repub-
licans to accept.
The young who are unphilosophical, then, should learn of the
wickedness of the Garden, but they should not learn of the inepti-
tude of the Porch, or at least they should learn of it only in a
circumspect manner. The more philosophically inclined, though,
should learn to recognize the weaknesses of the Porch and the Old
Academy. The positive philosophical position that emerges from
both De finibus and De officiis is that of the Peripatetics. That view is
characterized by both a certain subordination of external goods to
the claims of virtue as well as the recognition that external goods
still play a role in the attainment of happiness. In adopting such a
position, Cicero points to a fundamental problem of political life
rather than to an easy solution. Virtue and the honorable must be
the highest ends of politics, but the recalcitrance of external goods
and utility prevents their lower claims from being completely ab-
sorbed by the higher ones.

Conclusion

If there is something to be said for the preceding remarks, some

common ways of thinking about Cicero's intention in De officiis need
to be revised. The goal of Cicero in the work is not primarily to
exhort his wayward son to amend his ways (although he does that)
nor to criticize Caesar, Antony, and other would-be tyrants (al-
though he does that also). Even less is it his intention to provide a
simple recasting of Panaetius's book on duties for a Roman audi-
ence. Rather, De officiis would seem to be a work intended for two
audiences.
First, it is a sort of handbook of duties or obligations, based
loosely on Stoicism, that would be suitable to aspiring republican
392 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS
statesmen. Cicero found in the teachings of Zeno's disciples a doc-
trine both good and bad. The moral severity of Stoicism would be
of assistance to any regime, particularly one that, in Cicero's view,
was in a state of moral decline. At the same time, Stoicism's un-
yielding attachment to principle even when principle conflicted with
reality was hardly helpful for politics, nor could Stoicism refute the
philosophical arguments made against it by the Peripatetics. Cicero
thus uses Stoicism rather as a civil religion. He does not want to
destroy it, but he does want to reform it along more politically salu-
tary lines, and this is one of the purposes of De officiis. The work
gives its readers noble words in defense of a noble cause. In it we
find praised those qualities that Cicero thinks important for repub-
licans, for it exhorts the young to aspire to honestum and to
subordinate any individual concerns they might have about their
individual utile to preeminent concerns about republican virtue. It
is this exhortation to virtue in general that presumably endeared
the De officiis to Christians from Ambrose to Thomas Aquinas, and
specifically its exhortation to republican virtue that endeared it to
Renaissance humanists.
Second, Cicero's last philosophical project also poses a serious
question for political philosophers. His ironical treatment of the
problem of the relationship between the honestum and the utile is
perhaps not immediately transparent to the young republicans, but
it is not opaque to the more philosophically-inclined. Among those
scholars who have grasped the problem best are Marcia Colish and
Walter Nicgorski. Colish is willing to say that, "Cicero's argument
in the De officiis, for all its dependence on Stoicism, ends by sub-
stantially reversing the direction of Panaetius' ethics." 3 2 Nicgorski
comments that,

Cicero's emphasis throughout De Officiis as well as elsewhere in his

writings is on making stoicism come down to earth, on forcing it to face
the urgent claims of necessity and utility. ... He works to open the stoic
moral teaching to an explicit acknowledgement of the peripatetic view
that there are other goods besides the highest good.33

If anything, the reading proposed here goes even further, suggesting

that De officiis should be understood as a serious criticism of
Stoicism-even as anti-Stoicism. In Cicero's view, the Stoics have
not attended to the problem presented by external goods. The moral
severity of a Cato Uticensis is most helpful in the battle for the

32. Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Traditionfrom Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.
vol. I, Stoicism in Classical Latin Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), p. 151.
33. Nicgorski, "Cicero's Paradoxes and His Idea of Utility," p. 570.
 CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 393
republic, but it is not a philosophically adequate position. With this
implicit criticism, Cicero points to a morality that seems more
adequate to himself, the morality of the Peripatetics which, while
holding moral virtue to be the highest good for man, recognizes
the exigencies of political life that render man a problem or tension
to himself.
To conclude, I would like to return to the image, mentioned
above, of the unfinished Venus of Cos, to which Cicero says that
Posidonius says that Publius Rutilius Rufus likened Panaetius's
unfinished work, Peri tou kathekontos:
[J]ust as no artist had been found to fill in that part of the painting of The
Venus of Cos which Apelles had left unfinished (for the beauty of her
features made it hopeless to think of matching it with the rest of her body),
so no one had completed what Panaetius had left out, because of the
consummate excellence of the parts which he had finished (3.10).

It becomes clear as one reads De officiis that the problem that makes
it impossible for the painting to be finished is precisely the prob-
lem that makes it impossible for a Stoic treatise on duty to be
finished, and that this must be Cicero's reason for referring to the
painting in his work. The Stoics paint officia or kathekonta beauti-
fully, so beautifully that they paint them as if human beings had no
bodies, the needs and desires of which might genuinely conflict
with officia or kathekonta. By making the most attractive part of the
whole too attractive, they make it impossible to depict the whole.
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TITLE: On the Intention of Cicero’s “De Officiis”

SOURCE: Rev Polit 65 no4 Fall 2003
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