Translated by Andrew P. Peabody
Annotation of text copyright ©2008 David Trumbull, Agathon Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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Here begins Book III of Cicero's De Officiis, being the
continuation of the discussion from Book II.
[1] My son Marcus, Cato /1/, who was nearly of the same age with Publius
Scipio /2/, the first of the family that bore the name
of Africanus, represents him as in the habit of saying that he was never less at leisure than when he was at leisure,
or less alone than when he was alone, — a truly magnificent utterance and worthy of a great and wise man, indicating
that in leisure he was wont to think of business and in solitude to commune with himself, so that he was never idle,
and had no need betweenwhile of another person’s conversation. Thus the two things, leisure and solitude, which with
others occasion languor, quickened his energies. I could wish that I were able to say the same; but if I cannot by
imitation attain such transcendent excellence of temperament, I at any rate in my inclination make as near an approach
to it as I can; for, debarred from political and forensic employments by sacrilegious arms and violence,
I am abandoning myself to leisure, and therefore, leaving the city and wandering from one place in the country to another,
I am often alone. But neither is this leisure of mine to be compared with the leisure of Africanus, nor this solitude
with his. He, indeed, reposing from the most honorable public trusts, upon certain occasions snatched leisure for himself,
and from the company and concourse of men betweenwhile betook himself to solitude as to a harbor. But my leisure
proceeds from lack of employment, not from desire for repose. For, the Senate being silenced and the courts suspended,
what is there worthy of myself that I can do either in the senate-house or in the forum? Thus, after having lived
in the greatest publicity and in the presence of my fellow-citizens, I now hide myself to escape the sight of bad
men who swarm everywhere, and I am often alone. Yet since philosophers say that one ought not only of evils to choose
the least, but from even these least evils to extract whatever of good there may be in them, I therefore am utilizing
my leisure, though it be not that to which I was entitled after having obtained leisure for the state, nor am I
suffering this solitude — which necessity, not choice, imposes upon me — to remain idle. Africanus, indeed, as I
think, attained a higher merit; for no monuments of his genius were committed to writing, there remains no work
of his leisure, no fruit of his solitude, — whence it should be inferred that it was in consequence of mental
activity and the investigation of those things to which he directed his thoughts, that he was never at leisure or
alone. But I who have not such strength of mind that I can abstract myself from the weariness of solitude by
silent meditation, am directing all my study and care to this labor of writing, and thus in the short time that
has elapsed since the overthrow of the state, I have written more than in many years while it stood.
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[2] But while all philosophy, my Cicero, is fertile and fruitful, nor is any part of it untilled or
unoccupied, there is no department within its pale more productive or more prolific than that relating
to the duties whence are derived rules for living consistently and virtuously. Therefore, although I trust
that you are diligently hearing and receiving instruction on this subject from Cratippus, the foremost philosopher
of the present age, yet I think that it will be for your benefit that your ears should constantly ring with such
themes, and, were it possible, should hear nothing else. While this should be the case with all who mean to enter
on a virtuous life, I am inclined to think that there is no one for whom it is more fitting than for you, — liable
as you are to no small anticipation of imitating my diligence, to the confident expectation that you will succeed
me in public trusts, and to some hope, perhaps, of rivalling my reputation. You have, beside, taken upon yourself
the heavy responsibility of both Athens and Cratippus, to which and to whom, after resorting as to a mart of good
culture, it would be in the last degree shameful for you to return empty-minded, thus disgracing the reputation
of both the city and the master. Look to it, then, that you accomplish as much as you can aim after in purpose,
and strive for by labor, — if learning be labor rather than pleasure, — nor suffer it so to be, that when I
have given you the most liberal supplies, you may appear to have been false to your own interest. But enough
of this; for I have written to you much and often by way of exhortation. Let us now return to the remaining
head of my proposed division.
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Panaetius /3/, then, who without doubt discussed the subject of duty
with the utmost precision, and whom I have
thus far followed for the most part, with an occasional correction, having laid down three heads under which men
were wont to reason and deliberate concerning duty, — one, the inquiry whether the act under discussion is right
or wrong, the second, whether it is expedient or inexpedient, the third, the mode of settling the discrepancy in
case what has the appearance of right is repugnant to what seems expedient, — treated of the first two heads in three
books, and said that he would speak of the third head in its turn, but failed to keep his promise. I am the more
surprised at this, because Posidonius, his pupil, says that he lived thirty years after writing those first three
books. I am surprised, too, to find this head but slightly touched upon in certain essays of Posidonius,
especially as he says that there is no subject of so essential importance in all philosophy. I by no means
agree with those who maintain that this subject was not overlooked by Panaetius, but purposely omitted, and
that it ought not to have been written upon at all, inasmuch as expediency can never be in conflict with the right.
With regard to this assertion one thing admits of doubt, whether this third head of Panaetius ought to have been
taken into consideration or entirely omitted; the other thing admits of no doubt, that it was undertaken by Panaetius,
but left unwritten; for to him who has finished two heads of a threefold division the third of necessity remains.
Besides, at the close of his third book he promises to treat of this division in its turn. We have further the
testimony of Posidonius, a credible witness, who also writes in one of his letters that Publius Rutilius Rufus,
a pupil of Panaetius, used to say that as no painter could be found who would finish the part of the Venus of Cos
which Apelles had left imperfect — the beauty of the countenance putting it beyond hope that the rest of the body
could be finished so as to bear comparison with it — so no one had attempted what Panaetius had left incomplete,
on account of the surpassing excellence of the things that he had completed.
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[3] There can, then, be no doubt about the intention of Panaetius; but whether he was right or not in annexing this
third head to his discussion of duty may, perhaps, admit of doubt. For whether the right is the sole good, as the
Stoics think, or whether, as your Peripatetics maintain, the right is the supreme good in such a sense that all
things else placed in the opposite scale are of insignificant moment, it is beyond question that expediency can
never clash with the right. Thus we learn that Socrates used to denounce as worthy of execration those who regarded
as separable the expedient and the right, which are conjoined by nature. The Stoics have agreed with him in maintaining
that whatever is right must be expedient, and that nothing can be expedient which is not right. Now if Panaetius were
the sort of man to say that virtue ought to be cultivated because it is productive of utility, as those do who measure
the desirableness of objects by the pleasure or the freedom from pain that they may afford, he might in that case have
said that expediency is sometimes repugnant to the right. But since he belongs to the class of men who regard what
is right as alone good, and consider life as made neither better by the acquisition nor worse by the loss of those
things which with a certain show of expediency are in conflict with the right, it does not seem as if he ought to
have introduced a discussion in which what appears to be expedient should be compared with what is right. For what
the Stoics term the supreme good, to live in conformity with nature, means, as I think, to be always in harmony with
virtue, yet to make free choice among things in general that are in accordance with nature, only on condition of
their not being repugnant to virtue. Such being the case, some think that this comparison is not properly brought
forward, and that no practical lessons ought to have been given under this head. Indeed, that which is properly and
with literal truth called the right is found in the wise alone, nor can it ever be separated from virtue; while
in those not possessed of perfect wisdom, the perfect right itself cannot possibly be, but only semblances of
the right. For all these duties discussed in the present treatise — contingent, as the Stoics call them — are
common, and are largely practised, and many attain to them by excellence of natural disposition and by advancement
in knowledge. But that duty which the Stoics term the right is perfect and absolute, and, in the phrase of those
same philosophers, has all the numbers, nor can it come into the possession of any one except the wise man. But
when anything is done in which contingent duties are manifest, it seems to be abundantly perfect, because people
in general do not understand what in it is wanting to perfection, while so far as they do understand, they think
nothing omitted. The like is of ordinary occurrence in poems, pictures, and many other matters, namely, that
the unskilled view with delight and commendation things that do not deserve praise, because, I suppose, there
is in them something good of a kind to take the fancy of the ignorant, who are incapable of determining what
defect there may be in the several objects thus placed before them; while after they have been taught by experts,
they readily change their opinion.
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[4] These duties which I am discussing in the present treatise the Stoics call a sort of secondgrade duties, not
belonging to the wise alone, but common to them with the whole human race. Thus all in whom there is a virtuous
disposition are favorably inclined to them. Nor, indeed, when the two Decii or the two Scipios are commemorated
as brave men, or when Fabricius is called just, is the example of fortitude sought from them, or of justice from
him, as from men in the strict sense of the term “wise;” for neither of them was wise as we would have the word
“wise” understood. Nor yet were the men who were esteemed and surnamed Wise, Marcus Cato and Caius Laelius, wise
in this sense, nor yet those famous seven; but from their constant practice of common duties they bore to a certain
degree the semblance and aspect of wise men. Therefore, while it is an error to compare the right properly so
called with expediency when repugnant to it, at the same time that which is commonly called right, and is held
sacred by those who want to be regarded as good men, should never be compared with external goods; and it is as
incumbent on us to defend and preserve that right which is on a level with our apprehension, as it is on the wise
to cherish the right properly and truly so called. Otherwise, if any progress toward virtue has been made, it
cannot be maintained. Enough has now been said about those who are reputed as good men on account of the discharge
of common duties. But those who measure everything by the standard of gain and personal convenience, nor are
willing that these goods should be outweighed by virtue, are accustomed, in their plans of life, to compare the
right with what they deem expedient; good men are not so accustomed. I therefore think that when Panaetius said
that men are wont to hesitate in this comparison, he meant precisely what he said; for he said only that they
were wont, not that they ought, to hesitate. And, indeed, it is in the utmost degree base not only to prize what
seems expedient above what is right, but even to compare them with each other and to incline to doubt with regard
to them. What is it, then, that is wont sometimes to occasion doubt and may seem worthy of consideration?
I believe that if doubt ever occurs, it is as to the actual character of that which is under consideration;
for it often happens, under special circumstances, that what is wont for the most part to be accounted as wrong
is found not to be wrong. Let a case which admits of a wider application be taken by way of example.
What greater crime can there be than to kill not only a man, but an intimate friend? Has one,
then, involved himself in guilt by killing a tyrant, however intimate with him? This is not the opinion of the
Roman people, who of all deeds worthy of renown regard this as the most noble /1/.
Has expediency, then, got the advantage over the right? Nay, but expediency has followed in the direction of the right.
Therefore, that we may be able to discriminate without mistake, if at any time what we call expedient
shall seem repugnant to what we conceive of as right, there must be established some general rule,
which if we recognize in the comparison of things, we shall never be false to our duty. But this
rule shall be in close accordance with the method and system of the Stoics, whom I am following
in this treatise, because though by the early Academics and by the Peripatetics who were formerly
identical with them those things that are right are preferred to those that seem expedient, yet
these themes are discussed in a loftier tone by those to whom both whatever is right is also
expedient, and there is nothing expedient that is not right, than by those to whom anything right
can be otherwise than expedient, or anything expedient otherwise than right. Moreover, my
sect of the Academy gives me broad liberty, so that I have a right to defend whatever seems to
me probable. But I return to the general rule.
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[5] For a man to take anything wrongfully from another, and to increase his own means of comfort
by his fellow-man’s discomfort, is more contrary to nature than death, than poverty, than pain,
than anything else that can happen to one’s body or his external condition. In the first place,
it destroys human intercourse and society; for if we are so disposed that every one for his own
gain is ready to rob or outrage another, that fellowship of the human race which is in the closest
accordance with nature must of necessity be broken in sunder. As if each member
of the body were so affected as to suppose itself capable of getting strength by appropriating
the strength of the adjacent member, the whole body must needs be enfeebled and destroyed
/2/, so if each of us seizes for himself the goods of others, and
takes what he can from every one for his own emolument, the society and intercourse of
men must necessarily be subverted. It is, indeed, permitted, with no repugnancy of nature,
that each person may prefer to acquire for himself, rather than for another, whatever
belongs to the means of living; this, however, nature does not suffer, — that we should
increase our means, resources, wealth, by the spoils of others. Nor is this so merely
by the law of nature and of nations; but also by those statutes of particular communities
on which the body politic in each state depends for its safety, it is in like manner
enacted that no one can be permitted to injure another for his own benefit. It is to this
that the laws look, it is this that they mean, that the union of citizens shall be
secure; and those who dissever it they restrain by death, exile, imprisonment, fine.
Moreover, much more is this end effected by the reason inherent in nature, which is the
law of gods and of men, which he who wills to obey — and all will obey it who desire
to live according to nature — will never so act as to seek what belongs to another and
to appropriate to himself what he has taken from another. For loftiness and largeness
of soul, and therewith affability, justice, kindness, are more in accordance with nature
than pleasure, than life, than wealth, to despise which and to count them as naught when
compared with the common good is the token of a great and lofty mind. To take aught
from another for one’s own benefit is, then, more opposed to nature than death, or
pain, or any other adverse experience. At the same time, it is more in accordance
with nature to assume the greatest labors and discomforts for the preservation and
succor of all nations, were it possible, imitating that Hercules whom human gratitude,
commemorative of his services, exalted to a seat among the gods, than to live in isolation,
not only free from all causes of disturbance, but even in the fulness of sensual
gratification, abounding in resources of every kind, nay, even surpassing all others
in beauty and in strength. Therefore every man endowed with a mind of superior excellence
and brilliancy prefers the former to the latter mode of life, whence it may be inferred that
man, when obedient to nature, cannot injure man. Still further, he who maltreats another that
he himself may obtain some benefit, either is unaware that he is acting contrary to nature, or
else thinks that poverty, pain, loss of children, of kindred, of friends, is to be avoided rather
than wrong-doing to a fellow-man. If he is unaware that he is acting contrary to nature in
maltreating men, how are you to reason with one who takes away from man all that makes him man?
But if he thinks that wrong-doing ought indeed to be shunned, but that death, poverty, or pain
is much more to be shunned, he errs in imagining any evil affecting the bodily condition or
property to be of greater consequence than moral evil.
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[6] This, then, above all, ought to be regarded by every one as an established principle, that
the interest of each individual and that of the entire body of citizens are identical, which
interest if any one appropriate to himself alone, he does it to the sundering of all human
intercourse. And further, if nature prescribes this, that man shall desire the promotion of man’s
good for the very reason that he is man, it follows in accordance with that same nature that
there are interests common to all. The antecedent is true; therefore the consequent is true.
For this is absurd indeed which some say, that they would take nothing from a parent or a brother
for their own benefit, but that it is quite another thing with persons outside of one’s own
family. These men disclaim all mutual right and partnership with their fellow-citizens for the
common benefit, — a state of feeling which dismembers the fellowship of the community. Those,
too, who say that account is to be taken of citizens, but not of foreigners, destroy the common
sodality of the human race, which abrogated, beneficence, liberality, kindness, justice, are
removed from their very foundations. And those who remove them are to be regarded as impious
toward the immortal gods; for they overturn the fellowship established among men by the gods,
the closest bond of which fellowship is the opinion that it is more contrary to nature for man
to take anything from man for his own benefit than to endure all forms of discomfort, whether
external, or bodily, or even mental, which leave room for the exercise of justice. For this one
virtue is mistress and queen of all the virtues. One may perhaps say, “Should not then a wise
man who is perishing with hunger take away food from another man who is good for nothing?” No,
indeed, by no means; for my life is not of greater service to me than is such a disposition of
mind as would preclude my injuring any one for my own benefit. What if a good man, to save
himself from perishing with the cold, should rob of his clothes the cruel and savage tyrant
Phalaris? May he do it? These matters are very easy of determination. If, indeed, you were
to take anything from a perfectly worthless man merely for your own benefit, you would perform
an inhuman act and one contrary to nature. If, however, you are a person capable, by prolonging
your life, of rendering great service to the state and to human society, and for that reason
you take something from another person, you would not be blameworthy. But except in such a case,
each man must bear his own privations rather than take what belongs to another. Sickness, or poverty,
or anything of this kind is not, indeed, more opposed to nature than is the appropriation or
coveting of what belongs to another. But at the same time the dereliction of the common good is
opposed to nature, for it is unjust; and therefore the very law of nature, which preserves and
maintains the good of man, undoubtedly prescribes that the necessaries of life should be
transferred from an inefficient and useless man to a wise, good, brave man, whose death would
make a large deduction from the common good, — provided he effect the transfer in such a way
that his self-esteem and self-love may not furnish a pretext for wrong-doing. In this way he
will perform his duty with reference to the good of mankind and to the human fellowship of
which I have so often spoken. Now as regards Phalaris the decision is very easy; for we have
no fellowship with tyrants, but rather the broadest dissiliency from them, and this whole
pestiferous and impious class of men ought to be exterminated from human society. Indeed, as
limbs are amputated when they are bloodless and virtually lifeless, and injure the rest of the
body, so this beastly savageness and cruelty in human form ought to be cut off from what may be
called the common body of humanity. Of this sort are all the questions in which duty is to be
determined from circumstances.
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[7] Panaetius would, I think, have followed up topics of this kind, had not some accident or some
other occupation frustrated his intention. Toward these very inquiries there may be drawn from
his first three books many maxims, from which it can be clearly seen what is to be avoided on
account of its immorality, and what is not to be avoided because not absolutely immoral.
But since I am, as it were, putting the topstone on a work incomplete, yet almost finished,
as mathematicians are wont, instead of demonstrating everything, to ask that some things be admitted
in order to explain more easily what they want to prove, so I ask of you, my Cicero, to admit,
if you can, that nothing except what is right is to be sought for its own sake. If, however, you
cannot grant this without hindrance from the teachings of Cratippus, you can certainly admit that
what is right is to be sought chiefly for its own sake. Either proposition is sufficient for my
purpose; and now this, now that, seems the more probable, while no other proposition relating to
this subject is in any degree probable. At the same time, Panaetius ought in the first place to
be defended on this point; inasmuch as he said, not that expediency could ever be in conflict with
the right, — for this he could not consistently say, — but that things that seemed expedient might
be thus in conflict. Indeed, he often affirms that nothing is expedient which is not also right,
and nothing right which is not also expedient; and he maintains that no more prolific source of
evil has ever found its way into human society than the opinion of those who have divorced the
expedient and the right. Therefore, it was not in order that on certain occasions we should prefer
expediency to the right, but that we might discriminate without mistake between appearance and reality,
if at any time there were a seeming conflict, that he introduced into the plan of his work a seeming,
not an actual, collision between the expedient and the right. This division, then, which he left
unwritten, I propose to fill out, relying on no authority, from my own resources; for since the time
of Panaetius there has been nothing written on this head of a nature to satisfy me, among the works
that have come into my hands.
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[8] When any specious appearance of expediency is presented, one cannot help being impressed
by it. But if, when you give it closer attention, you see that there is something morally
wrong connected with what thus seems expedient, in that case you are not to sacrifice expediency,
but you are to understand that where there is moral wrong expediency cannot be. For if nothing
is so contrary to nature as immorality (inasmuch as nature craves things right, and fitting,
and consistent), and nothing so in unison with nature as expediency, then it is certain that expediency
and immorality cannot exist in the same thing. Still further, if we were born for virtue, and
the right either is alone worthy to be sought (as Zeno maintained), or is assuredly to be regarded
as immeasurably outweighing all things else (as is Aristotle’s doctrine), then, of necessity,
what is right must be either the sole or the supreme good. But what is good is certainly expedient.
Consequently whatever is right is expedient. It is then the misapprehension of bad men which,
when it lays hold on anything that seems expedient, considers it independently of the question
of right. This is the origin of assassinations, poisonings, forgeries of wills. Hence come thefts,
embezzlements of public money, plunderings and pillagings of allies and of citizens. Hence, too,
proceed the intolerable usurpations of excessive wealth, and, lastly, even in free states, the yearning
for sovereign authority, than which nothing can be imagined more foul or more offensive. Men, indeed,
in their false appreciation, see the profit of the wrong they do; they see not the punishment, I
do not say, of the laws which they often evade, but of the guilt itself, of which the punishment
is intensely bitter. Therefore let no quarter be given to this class of doubters, utterly wicked
and impious, who deliberate whether they shall pursue what they see to be right, or shall knowingly
defile themselves with guilt; for there is crime in the mere hesitation, even if they do not go
so far as the outward act. Therefore those things in which the very deliberation is criminal ought
not to be deliberated at all. Moreover, the hope and expectation of concealment, whether of the
act or of the actor, ought to be excluded from every deliberation on the conduct to be pursued.
If we have made even the least proficiency in philosophy, we ought to be thoroughly persuaded that,
even though we could escape the view of all gods and men, still nothing ought to be done by us
avariciously, nothing unjustly, nothing lustfully, nothing extravagantly.
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[9] For this reason Plato introduces the wellknown story of Gyges /3/,
who, when the ground had caved away on account of heavy rains, passed down into the opening,
and saw, as the story goes, a brazen horse with doors in his sides. Opening these doors, he
saw a man of unusual size, with a gold ring on his finger, which drawing off, he put it on
his own finger (he was a shepherd in the king’s service), and then repaired to the company
of the shepherds. There, as often as he turned the part of the ring where the stone was set
to the palm of his hand, he became invisible, yet himself saw everything; and was again
visible when he restored the ring to its proper place. Then, availing himself of the advantage
which the ring gave him, he committed adultery with the queen, and by her assistance killed
the king his master, and removed by death those whom he thought in his way. Nor could any one
see him in connection with these crimes. By means of the ring he in a short time became
king of Lydia. Now if a wise man had this ring, he would not think himself any more at liberty
to do wrong than if he had it not; for it is right things, not hidden things, that are sought
by good men. Here, however, certain philosophers, by no means ill-disposed, yet somewhat
deficient in acuteness, say that this is only a fictitious and imaginary story that Plato
has told, — as though, forsooth, he asserted that such a thing took place or could have taken
place. The meaning of this ring and of this example is as follows: If no one would ever know,
if no one would ever suspect, when you performed some act for the sake of wealth, power,
ascendency, lust, — if it would remain forever unknown to gods and men, would you do it?
They say that it is impossible. Yet it is not utterly impossible. But I ask, If that were
possible which they say is impossible, what would they do? They persist, awkwardly indeed;
they maintain that such a thing could not be, and they stand firm in this assertion; they do
not take in the meaning of the phrase, “If it were possible.” For when we ask what they would
do if they could conceal what they did, we do not ask whether they can hide it; but we put
them, as it were, on the rack, that if they answer that they would do what seemed expedient
if assured of impunity, they may confess themselves atrociously guilty; and if they make the
contrary answer, that they may grant that whatever is wrong in itself ought to be shunned.
Let us now return to the subject under discussion.
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[10] There occur many cases of a nature to perplex the mind under the aspect of expediency, — cases
in which the real question is not whether the right is to be sacrificed on account of the greatness
of the benefit to be gained (for that is unquestionably wrong), but whether that which seems
expedient can be done without guilt. When Brutus deposed his colleague Collatinus
from the consulship, he might seem to have done this unjustly; for Collatinus had been the associate
of Brutus, and his assistant in measures for the expulsion of the royal family /4/.
But when the chief men of the state had come to the determination that the kindred of Superbus, and
the name of the Tarquins, and the remembrance of kingly government must be put out of the way, what
was expedient — that is, care for the well-being of the country — was so entirely right that it
ought to have satisfied Collatinus himself. Thus expediency became valid on account of the right
that was in it, without which, indeed, there could not have been any expediency.
Not so, however, in the case of the king who founded the city; for a bare show
of expediency struck his mind. When it seemed to him better to reign alone than with a colleague,
he killed his brother. He set aside both brotherly affection and humanity, in order to attain what
seemed expedient, yet was not so; and then offered in defence the pretext of the wall, — a mere
show of right, improbable in itself, and insufficient even if true. He was therefore entirely in
the wrong. With his leave I would say it, whether he be Quirinus or Romulus /5/.
Nevertheless, advantages that are properly our own we are not to abandon, or to yield up to others,
if we ourselves need them; but each one must minister to his own advantage only so far as it may be
done without wrong to others. Chrysippus, who has written many sensible things, wisely says:
“He who is running a race ought to endeavor and strive to the utmost of his ability to come off
victor; but it is utterly wrong for him to trip up his competitor, or to push him aside. So in
life it is not unfair for one to seek for himself what may accrue to his benefit; but it is not
right to take it from another.”
But in the case of friendships there is the greatest perplexity as to duty, it being equally opposed
to duty to withhold what you can rightfully concede to a friend, and to concede what is not right. Office,
wealth, pleasure, other things of that sort, are certainly never to be preferred to friendship.
At the same time a good man will do nothing against the state, or in violation of his oath or of
good faith, for the sake of his friend, not even if he were a judge in his friend’s case. For
“He drops the friend, when he puts on the judge.”
He will yield so far to friendship as to wish his friend’s case to be worthy of succeeding, and
to accommodate him as to the time of trial within legal limits. But inasmuch as he must pass sentence
upon his oath, he will bear it in mind that he has God for a witness, that is, as I think, his own
conscience, than which God himself has given man nothing more divine. In this view, it is an admirable
custom derived from our ancestors — if we would only adhere to it — that when a favor is asked
of a judge, it is in the words, “So far as it can be done without a breach of good faith.” A request
proffered in such terms applies to things which, as I just said, can be granted by a friend who
is acting as a judge. On the other hand, were one to feel bound to do all that friends might desire,
such connections ought to be considered as not friendships, but conspiracies. I am speaking of
ordinary friendships; for in the case of wise and perfect men there can be nothing of the kind.
It is related that Damon and Phintias /6/, Pythagoreans,
were so disposed toward each other, that when Dionysius the tyrant had fixed for one of them the
day of execution, and he that was condemned to death asked for a few days’ respite to make
arrangements for the care of his family, the other became surety for his appearance, to die in
his stead if he did not return. When he returned on the day appointed, the tyrant, admiring their
mutual good faith, begged them to admit him to their friendship as a third person. In fine, whenever
what seems expedient in friendship comes into competition with what is right, let the apparent
expediency be disregarded; let the right prevail. Moreover, when in friendship things that are not
right are demanded, religion and good faith are to take precedence of friendship. Thus will the
choice of duty, which is the subject of our inquiry, be determined.
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[11] But it is in affairs of state that wrong is the most frequently committed under the show of expediency.
Our own people were thus guilty with reference to the demolition of Corinth. The Athenians acted with
still greater severity in decreeing that the men of Aegina, who were able seamen, should have their
thumbs cut off. This seemed expedient; for Aegina was too threatening on account of its proximity to
the Piraeus. But nothing that is cruel is expedient; for cruelty is in the utmost degree hostile to
human nature, which ought to be our guide. Those also are to be blamed who prohibit
foreigners from living in their cities, and expel them, as Fannius did in the time of our fathers,
and Papius more recently. It is indeed right that one who is not a citizen should lack the full privileges
of citizenship, as is enacted by the law passed under the consulship of those very wise men Crassus
and Scaevola; but it is clearly inhumane to prohibit foreigners from living in the city
/7/. On the other hand, a worthy renown rests upon the instances in which
the show of public benefit is despised in comparison with the right. Our history is full of examples
of this kind, while often at other times, especially in the second Punic war, when, after the disaster
of Cannae, the people manifested greater spirit than ever in prosperity. There was no symptom of fear,
no intimation of peace. Such is the power of the right, that it eclipses the show of expediency. When
the Athenians were utterly unable to sustain the assault of the Persians, and determined that,
deserting the city and leaving their wives and children at Troezen, they would go on board of their
ships and defend the liberty of Greece by their fleet, they stoned to death a certain Cyrsilus who
pressed upon them the advice to stay in the city and receive Xerxes. He, indeed, seemed to advocate
expediency; but expediency did not exist, when the right was on the other side. Themistocles, after
the victory in the Persian war, said in a popular assembly that he had a plan conducive to the
public good, but that it was not desirable that it should be generally known. He asked that the
people should name some one with whom he might confer. Aristides was named. Themistocles said to
him that the fleet of the Lacedaemonians, which was drawn ashore at Gytheum, could be burned
clandestinely, and if that were done, the power of the Lacedaemonians would be inevitably broken.
Aristides, having heard this, returned to the assembly amidst the anxious expectation of all, and
said that the measure proposed by Themistocles was very advantageous, but utterly devoid of right.
Thereupon the Athenians concluded that what was not right was not expedient, and they repudiated
the entire plan which they had not heard, on the authority of Aristides. Better this than our
conduct in holding pirates free from all exactions, our allies tributary.
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[12] Let it be settled, then, that what is wrong is never expedient, not even when you obtain by it
what you think to be of advantage to you. Nay, the mere thinking that what is wrong is expedient is
in itself a misfortune. But, as I have already said, there often occur cases of such a nature that
expediency seems in conflict with the right, so that it must be ascertained by close examination whether
it is really thus in conflict, or whether it can be brought into harmony with the right. Of this class
are questions like the following: If, for example, a good man has brought from Alexandria to Rhodes
a large cargo of corn, when there is a great scarcity and dearth at Rhodes and corn is at the highest
price, — in case this man knows that a considerable number of merchants have set sail from Alexandria,
and on his passage he has seen ships laden with corn bound for Rhodes, shall he give this information
to the Rhodians, or shall he keep silence and sell his cargo for the most that it will bring? We are
imagining the case of a wise and good man. We want to know about the thought and feeling of such a
man as would not leave the Rhodians uninformed if he thinks it wrong, but who doubts whether it is
wrong or not. In cases of this kind Diogenes of Babylon, an eminent Stoic of high authority, is wont
to express one opinion, Antipater his pupil, a man of superior acuteness, another. According to
Antipater, all things ought to be laid open, so that the buyer may be left in ignorance of nothing
at all that the seller knows. According to Diogenes, the seller is bound to disclose defects in his
goods so far as the law of the land requires, to transact the rest of the business without fraud, and
then, since he is the seller, to sell for as much as he can get. “I have brought my cargo; I have
offered it for sale; I am selling my corn for no more than others ask, perhaps even for less than they
would ask, since my arrival has increased the supply. Whom do I wrong?” On the other side comes the
reasoning of Antipater: “What say you? While you ought to consult the welfare of mankind and to render
service to human society, and by the very condition of your being have such innate natural principles
which you are bound to obey and follow, that the common good should be your good, and reciprocally
yours the common good, will you conceal from men what comfort and plenty are nigh at hand for them?”
Diogenes, perhaps, will reply as follows: “It is one thing to conceal, another not to tell. Nor am
I now concealing anything from you, by not telling you what is the nature of the gods, or what is
the supreme good, — things which it would profit you much more to know than to know the cheapness
of wheat. But am I under the necessity of telling you all that it would do you good to hear?” “Yes,
indeed, you are under that necessity, if you bear it in mind that nature establishes a community
of interest among men.” “I do bear this in mind. But is this community of interest such that one
can have nothing of his own? If it be so, everything ought, indeed, to be given, not sold.”
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[13] You see that in this whole discussion it is not said, “Although this be wrong, yet, because
it is expedient I will do it;” but that it is expedient without being morally wrong, and, on the
other side, that because it is wrong it ought not to be done. A good man sells a house on account
of some defects, of which he himself is aware and others ignorant. Perhaps it is unhealthy, and
is supposed to be healthy, — it is not generally known that snakes make their appearance in all
the bedrooms, — it is built of bad materials, and is in a ruinous condition; but nobody knows
this except the owner. I ask, if the seller should have failed to tell these things to the buyer,
and should thus have sold his house for a higher price than he could have reasonably expected,
whether he would have acted unjustly or unfairly? “Yes, he would,” says Antipater; “for what
is meant by not putting into the right way one who has lost his way (which at Athens exposed
a man to public execration), if it does not include the case in which a buyer is permitted to
rush blindly on, and through his mistake to fall into a heavy loss by fraudulent means? It is
even worse than not showing the right way; it is knowingly leading another into the wrong way.”
Diogenes, on the other hand, says: “Did he who did not even advise you to buy, force you to buy?
He advertised for sale what he did not like; you bought what you did like. Certainly, if those
who advertise a good and well-built house are not regarded as swindlers, even though it is neither
good nor properly built, much less should those be so regarded who have said nothing in praise of
their house. For in a case in which the buyer can exercise his own judgment, what fraud can there
be on the part of the seller? And if all that is said is not to be guaranteed, do you think that
what is not said ought to be guaranteed? What could be more foolish than for the seller to tell
the defects of the article that he is selling? Nay, what so absurd as for an auctioneer, by the
owner’s direction, to proclaim, ‘I am selling an unhealthy house’?” Thus, then, in certain doubtful
cases the right is defended on the one side; on the other, expediency is urged on the ground that
it is not only right to do what seems expedient, but even wrong not to do it. This is the
discrepancy which seems often to exist between the expedient and the right. But I must state my
decision in these cases; for I introduced them, not to raise the inquiry concerning them, but
to give their solution. It seems to me, then, that neither that Rhodian corn-merchant nor this
seller of the house ought to have practised concealment with the buyers. In truth, reticence
with regard to any matter whatever does not constitute concealment; but concealment consists
in willingly hiding from others for your own advantage something that you know. Who does not
see what sort of an act such concealment is, and what sort of a man he must be who practises it?
Certainly this is not the conduct of an open, frank, honest, good man, but rather of a wily, dark,
crafty, deceitful, illmeaning, cunning man, an old rogue, a swindler. Is it not inexpedient
to become liable to these so numerous and to many more bad names?
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[14] But if those who keep silence deserve censure, what is to be thought of those who employ absolute
falsehood? Caius Canius, a Roman knight, a man not without wit and of respectable literary culture,
having gone to Syracuse, for rest, as he used to say, not for business, wanted to buy a small estate,
to which he could invite his friends, and where he could take his own pleasure without intruders.
When his wish had become generally known, a certain Pythius, who was doing a banker’s business at
Syracuse, told him that he had a country-seat, not, indeed, for sale, but which Canius was at liberty
to use as his own if he wished to do so; and at the same time he invited the man to supper at the
country-seat for the next day. He having accepted the invitation, Pythius, who, as being a banker,
was popular among all classes, called the fishermen together, asked them to fish the next day in front
of his villa, and told them what he wanted them to do. Canius came to supper at the right time;
a magnificent entertainment was prepared by Pythius; a multitude of little boats were in full sight;
every fisherman brought what he had taken; the fish were laid down at the feet of Pythius. Then
Canius says, “Prithee, what does this mean? So many fish here? So many boats?” And he answered,
“What wonder? All the fish for the Syracuse market are here; they come here to be in fresh water.
The fishermen cannot dispense with this villa.” Canius, inflamed with longing, begs Pythius to sell
the place. He hesitates at first. To cut the story short, Canius overpersuades him. The greedy and
rich man buys the villa for as high a price as Pythius chooses to ask, and buys the furniture too.
He gives security; he finishes the business. Canius the next day invites his friends. He comes early;
he sees not a thole-pin. He asks his next neighbor whether it is a fishermen’s holiday, as he sees
none of them. “Not so far as I know,” was the reply. “No fishermen are in the habit of fishing here.
I therefore yesterday could not think what had occurred to bring them.” Canius was enraged.
But what was he to do? My colleague and friend, Aquillius, had not then published his forms of
legal procedure in the case of criminal fraud, as to which when he was asked for a definition
of criminal fraud, he replied, “When one thing is pretended, another done.” This is perfectly
clear, as might be expected from a man skilled in defining. Pythius, then, and all who do one
thing while they pretend another, are treacherous, wicked, villanous. Therefore nothing that
they do can be expedient, when defiled by so many vices.
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[15] But if the definition of Aquillius is correct, pretence and concealment should be entirely
done away with. Thus a good man will neither pretend nor conceal anything for the sake of buying
or selling on better terms. Indeed, this offence of criminal fraud had been previously punished
both by the laws, as in the case of guardianship, by the Twelve Tables, and in the defrauding of
minors, by the Plaetorian law, and also, without express statute, by legal decisions in which the
phrase “As good faith requires” is employed. In other decisions the following words hold a
prominent place: — in the case of arbitration about a wife’s property, “The better, the more
equitable;” in the case of trust-property, “Fair dealing between good men.” What then? Can there
be any admixture of deceit in “The better, the more equitable?” Or when “Fair dealing between
good men” is specified, can anything be done craftily or fraudulently? But, as Aquillius says,
criminal fraud consists in misrepresentation. All falsehood, then, must be removed from contracts.
The seller must not employ a sham purchaser, nor the buyer one to depreciate the article on sale by
too low a bid. Let either party, if it comes to naming the price, say once for all what he will give
or take. Quintus Scaevola, the son of Publius, when he asked to have the price of an estate that he
was buying named once for all, and the seller had complied with his request, said that he thought
it worth more, and added a hundred thousand sesterces. There is no one who would say that this was
not the act of a good man; but men in general would not regard it as the act of a wise man, any
more than if he had sold an estate for less than it would bring. This, then, is the mischievous
doctrine, — regarding some men as good, others as wise, according to which notion Ennius writes that
the wise man who cannot provide for his own advantage is wise in vain. I would readily account this
saying true, if I were agreed with Ennius as to what one’s advantage is. I see, indeed, that Hecato
of Rhodes, a disciple of Panaetius, says, in the books on Duties which he dedicated to Quintus Tubero:
“It is a wise man’s duty, while he does nothing contrary to morals, laws, and customs, to have regard
to his private fortune. For we desire to be rich, not for ourselves alone, but for children, kindred,
friends, and most of all for the state, — considering that the means and resources of individual citizens
are the wealth of the state.” The act of Scaevola just named cannot, then, be in any way pleasing to
Hecato. Nor is any great praise or favor to be rendered to a man who merely says that he will not do
for his own benefit what is unlawful. But if pretence and concealment constitute criminal fraud, there
are very few transactions entirely free from criminal fraud; or if he is a good man who does good to
those to whom he can and injures no one, of a certainty we shall not easily find that good man.
We conclude, then, that it is never expedient to do wrong, because wrong-doing is always disgraceful;
and because to be a good man is always right, it is always expedient.
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[16] As to landed property, the law of the state enacts that defects known to the seller must be made
known in selling it; and while by the law of the Twelve Tables it was enough for such things as
were guaranteed to be made good, and for the seller who made false statements with regard to them
to pay double damages, the jurisconsults have determined that the legal penalty applies also to
reticence. Their doctrine is, that whatever defect there may be in an estate, if the seller knows it,
he is bound to make it good. Thus when the augurs were going to take an augury on the Capitol, and had
ordered Tiberius Claudius Centumalus, who had a house on the Coelian hill, to pull down those parts of
it which were so high as to obstruct their view of the heavens, Claudius advertised the detached house,
and sold it. The purchaser was Publius Calpurnius Lanarius. The same notice was given to him by the
augurs. So when Calpurnius had complied with the order, and had ascertained that Claudius advertised
the house for sale after being notified of the decree of the augurs, he procured the appearance of
Claudius before a legally appointed arbitrator, suing him for damages for his breach of good faith.
Marcus Cato pronounced the decision, the father of my friend Cato — for as other men are named from
their fathers, so is the father of that illustrious man to be named from his son — he, I say, as judge,
pronounced the decision: “Forasmuch as the seller knew of that decree when he sold the house, and
did not make it known, the damage ought to be made good to the buyer.” He thus decided that in good
faith a defect known by the seller ought to be known by the buyer. If this was a right decision, then
neither that corn-merchant, nor the seller of the unhealthy house, had a right to keep silence. But
all such cases of reticence cannot be comprised in the law of the land, though those which can be so
comprised are carefully repressed. Marcus Marius Gratidianus, my kinsman, had sold to Caius Sergius
Orata the house which he had bought from that same Orata a few years before. The estate was subject
to certain rights of way, which Marius had omitted to name in the contract of sale. The case was
brought into court. Crassus was advocate for Orata, Antonius for Gratidianus. Crassus laid stress
on the law that any defect known by the seller and not mentioned ought to be made good. Antonius
rested his plea on the equity of the case, that inasmuch as the defect was not unknown to Sergius,
who had previously sold the house, there was no need of its being specified, nor had the purchaser
been imposed upon, since he knew perfectly well to what the estate purchased was liable. To what
purpose do I name these things? That you may understand that our ancestors did not approve of chicanery.
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[17] But the laws remove chicanery in one way, philosophers in another, — the laws, so far as they can
lay hold on overt acts; philosophers, so far as they can reach such cases by reason and understanding.
Reason, then, demands that nothing be done ensnaringly, nothing under false pretence, nothing
deceitfully. Yet is it not ensnaring to spread nets, even if you do not start and hunt your victims?
For beasts themselves often fall into nets without being pursued. Is it not thus that you advertise
a house, — put up a notice of sale as a net; sell the house on account of its defects; and some
unwary person runs into the net? Yet such is the degenerate state of feeling, that I find this
neither accounted as morally wrong, nor yet forbidden by statute or by the civil law, though it
is forbidden by the law of nature. For there is — though I have often said it, there is need of
its being said still oftener — a fellowship of men with men, which has, indeed, the broadest
possible extent; a more intimate union, of those who belong to the same race; one closer still,
of those who belong to the same state. Therefore our ancestors recognized a distinction between
the law of nations and the law of the state. What is the law of the state is not necessarily
also the law of nations; but whatever is the law of nations ought also to be the law of the state.
But of true law and genuine justice we have no real and lifelike representation; their shadow
and semblances alone are ours. Yet would that we might follow even these! For they are drawn
from excellent models presented by nature and truth. How precious are these words: “That I be
not taken in and defrauded through you or on account of my confidence in you!” What a golden
formula is this: “As ought to be done between good men, fairly and without fraud!” But the great
question is, Who are the “good men,” and what is it to be “fairly done”? Quintus Scaevola, the
head of the pontifical college, said that there was the greatest force in all decisions to which
the phrase “in good faith” was annexed, and he thought that as the term “good faith” had the
broadest application as employed in guardianships, partnerships, trusts, commissions, purchases,
sales, hiring, leases, which make up the whole system of social transactions, it required a judge
of superior capacity to determine — especially as there are often cross-suits — what each party
is bound to render, and to whom, in the satisfaction of just claims.
There should, then, be an end of chicanery and of that cunning which means indeed to pass for prudence,
but is an entirely different thing and at the widest distance from it; for prudence has its proper place
in the choice between good and evil, while cunning — if whatever is immoral is evil — prefers evil things to good.
Nor is it only with reference to landed estate that the civil law, derived from nature, punishes cunning
and fraud; but in the sale of slaves also all fraud on the part of the seller is prohibited. By the edict
of the aediles, the seller who may rightly be supposed to know about the health, the truant habits, the
dishonesty of the slave, is bound to guarantee the purchaser against damage. The case of persons who sell
slaves that have recently come to them by inheritance is different. From these instances it is clear, since
nature is the fountain of law, that it is in accordance with nature that no one should act so as to prey
upon another’s ignorance. Nor can there be found any greater source of mischief to human society than the
false show of intelligence in the practice of cunning. Hence spring those countless cases in which
expediency seems to be in conflict with the right. For how few will be found who, if impunity and absolute
secrecy were offered, could refrain from wrong-doing!
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[18] Let us, if you please, try the principle that I have laid down, with reference to cases in which
the generality of mankind do not think that any wrong is committed. For I am not going to speak here
of assassins, poisoners, forgers of wills, thieves, peculators, who are to be repressed, not by words
and philosophical discussion, but by chains and imprisonment. Let us consider the things that are done
by those who are accounted as good men. Certain persons brought from Greece to Rome a forged will of
Lucius Minucius Basilus, a rich man. That they might more easily maintain its validity, they made joint-heirs
with themselves Marcus Crassus and Quintus Hortensius, the most influential men of that time, who, while
they suspected the forgery, yet being conscious of no guilt of their own in the case, did not spurn the
paltry present that came to them through the crime of others. What then? Is their freedom from the
positive offence of forgery sufficient for their acquittal? I think not, though I loved one of them
while he lived, and am not an enemy of the other now that he is dead. But when Basilus meant that
his sister’s son, Marcus Satrius, should take his name, and had made him his heir, — I mean this patron
of the Picene and Sabine territory, to the disgrace of our time, — was it right that those distinguished
citizens should have the property, and that nothing save the name should descend to Satrius? Forsooth,
if he who does not, when he can, ward off or repel wrong is guilty of injustice (as I showed in the First Book),
what is to be thought of him who, so far from repelling, abets the wrong? To me, indeed, genuine inheritances
do not seem right, if sought by knavish blandishments, — by attentions rendered not from sincere but
simulated kindness. In such affairs, one thing sometimes appears expedient, another right. But it is a
deceptive appearance; for the standard of expediency is the same as that of right. He who does not clearly
see this is capable of any kind of fraud, of any crime. For he who thinks, “That is indeed right, but
this is expedient,” will dare in his ignorance to divorce things united by nature, — a state of feeling
which is the source of all frauds, wrongs, crimes.
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[19] Therefore, if a good man could by snapping his fingers make his name creep surreptitiously into
rich men’s wills, he would not use this power, no, not even though he were absolutely certain that
no one would ever have the least suspicion of it. But had you given this power to Marcus Crassus,
that by snapping his fingers he could get his name inserted in a will though he were not really
the heir, I warrant you he would have danced in the forum. A just man, however, and one whom
we feel to be a good man, will take nothing from any one to transfer it to himself. Let him who
marvels at this confess that he knows not what a good man is. But if one would only develop the
idea of a good man wrapped up in his own mind, he would then at once tell himself that he is a
good man who benefits all that he can, and does harm to no one unless provoked by injury. What
then? Must not he do harm, who, as if by enchantment, displaces the true heirs, to put himself
in their stead? “Is he not, then,” some one may say, “to do what is serviceable, what is expedient?”
Yes, but let him understand that nothing unjust can be either expedient or serviceable. He who
has not learned this cannot be a good man. In my boyhood I heard from my father that Fimbria,
who had been consul, was appointed judge in the case of Marcus Lutatius Pinthias, a Roman knight,
not otherwise than respectable, who had laid a wager, to be forfeited if he did not prove himself
to be a good man. Fimbria said that he would never act as judge in the case, lest, if he decided
against Pinthias, he might deprive a worthy man of his reputation, or if he decided in his favor,
he might seem to have pronounced some ordinary person to be a good man, while such a character
was made up of innumerable duties and merits. To a good man, then, even in the conception of Fimbria,
not to say of Socrates, nothing can by any possibility seem expedient that is not right. Therefore
such a man will not dare, not only to do, but even to think anything which he may not venture to
proclaim publicly. Is it not shameful that philosophers should be in doubt about these matters as
to which even peasants have no doubt? From the peasants sprang the old saying that has become
proverbial. When they commend any one’s honesty and goodness, they say that you might trust him
to play odd and even with you in the dark. What does this mean, unless that what is unbecoming
is not expedient, even if you could obtain it without any one being able to prove it against you?
Do you not see that according to this proverb there could be no apology either for that Gyges
of whom I have spoken, or for this man whom I just now supposed by way of illustration, who by
snapping his fingers could convert the inheritances of a whole community to his own use? For
as what is immoral, though concealed, cannot be in any way made right, so it cannot be brought
about that, in spite of the opposition and repugnancy of nature, what is not right should in any case be expedient.
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[20] Yet it may be said that when the gain is very great, there is justifying cause for wrongdoing.
When Caius Marius had no near prospect of the consulship, and still remained in obscurity the
seventh year after he had been praetor, nor gave any token that he was ever going to offer himself
as a candidate for the consulship, having been sent to Rome by his commander Quintus Metellus,
a man and citizen of the highest eminence, whose lieutenant he was, he charged Metellus before
the Roman people with needlessly protracting the war, intimating that if they had made him consul,
he would in a short time have given Jugurtha either living or dead into the power of the Roman
people. And so he was indeed made consul; but in bringing into odium by a false accusation a
citizen of the highest worth and eminence, whose lieutenant he was and by whom he had been sent
home, he made a wide departure from good faith and honesty. My kinsman Gratidianus did not
play the part of a good man on the occasion when he was praetor, and the tribunes of the people
had called into counsel the college of praetors, that the currency might have its standard fixed
by a joint resolution; for the value of money was then so fluctuating that no one could know how
much or how little property he had. The tribunes and praetors jointly framed a decree, specifying
the penalty and the judicial proceedings for its violation, and agreed to mount the rostrum together
in the afternoon. The others went their several ways; while Marius from the seats of the tribunes
directly mounted the rostrum, and alone announced the decree which had resulted from their combined
action. This affair, if you want to know, brought him great popularity. Statues were erected in his
honor in all the streets; incense and wax tapers were burned before them. To cut the story short,
no man was ever more cherished by the multitude. These are the cases which sometimes perplex one
in the discussion, — cases where the matter in which honesty is transgressed is not so very great,
while that which is obtained by means of it is of the very highest value; as, for Marius, it was
not so irredeemably shameful to forestall the popular favor from his colleagues and the tribunes
of the people, while by this means to become consul, the end which he then had in view, seemed
in the highest degree desirable. But there is one rule for all cases, which I would have profoundly
impressed on your mind, — either that what seems expedient must not be wrong, or if it be wrong,
that it must not seem to be expedient. Can we deem either that Marius or this a good man? Unfold
and examine your own consciousness, that you may see what within it is the aspect, shape, and
conception of a good man. Does it fall in with the character of a good man to lie, to slander,
to forestall, to deceive? Nothing certainly can be less in harmony with it. Is there, then, any
object of so much value, or any advantage so worthy of your quest, that you should forfeit for
it the glory and reputation of a good man? What is there that so-called expediency can bring to
you of equal worth with what it takes from you, if it robs you of the reputation of a good man,
and deprives you of truth and honesty? For what difference does it make, whether one turns
himself from a man into a beast, or in the form of a man carries the moral obduracy of a beast?
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[21] What? Do not those who violate all that is right and virtuous if they can only obtain power,
do the same thing with him who chose to have even for a father-in-law the man by whose audacity
he himself might become powerful? It seemed expedient to him to avail himself of the other’s
unpopularity for his own great advancement. He did not perceive how unjust this was to the country,
how base, and how harmful. The father-in-law himself had always on his lips the Greek verses from
the Phoenissae, which I will render as I can, awkwardly it may be, but still so as to be intelligible: —
“Transcend the right in quest of power alone; In all things else hold fast the bond of kindred.”
It was criminal in Eteocles, or rather in Euripides, to except that one thing which was the most
wicked of all. Why, then, do we gather up crimes on a small scale, fraudulent heirships, bargains,
sales? Here you have a man who desired to be king of the Roman people, and who accomplished his purpose.
Whoever says that this desire was right, is mad; for he approves of the destruction of laws and of liberty,
and deems their foul and detestable suppression glorious. But as for him who acknowledges that it
is not right to usurp sovereign power in a state which was and which ought to be free, yet that it
is expedient for him who can do so, by what remonstrance, or rather by what reproach, can I strive
to draw him back from so grave an error? For (ye immortal gods!) can the basest and foulest parricide
committed upon his country be expedient for any man, even though he who has made himself thus guilty
be called parent by the citizens whom he has brought under the yoke? Expediency, then, ought to be
measured by the right, and so indeed, that the two, though expressed by different names, may have
to the ear the same sound. I do not accord with the opinion of the multitude who ask what can be
more expedient than the possession of sovereign power; on the other hand, I find nothing more
inexpedient for him who has obtained this power unjustly, when I begin to recall reason to things
as they really are. For can anxieties, solicitudes, terrors by day and by night, a life crowded
full of snares and of perils, be expedient for any one? Attius says,
“The throne has many faithless, loyal few.”
But of what throne does he say this? Of one that was held by right, transmitted from Tantalus
and Pelops. How much more, think you, must those words apply to that king who by the army of the
Roman people subdued that very Roman people, and forced to servile obedience a state not only free,
but ruling over whole races of men? What misgivings of conscience must he have had on his mind,
think you? What inward wounds? Whose life can be serviceable to himself if he holds it on condition
that whoever deprives him of it will rise to the summit of favor and glory? But if these things which
seem in the highest degree expedient are yet inexpedient because full of disgrace and wickedness,
we ought to be thoroughly convinced that there is nothing expedient that is not right.
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[22] This, while often indeed at other times, was expressly decreed by Caius Fabricius
in his second consulate and by our Senate, in the war with Pyrrhus. For Pyrrhus having made war with
the Roman people without provocation, and there being a contest for supremacy with that high-minded
and powerful king, a deserter came from him to the camp of Fabricius, and promised that, if he would
give him his price, as he had come secretly, so he would return secretly to the camp of Pyrrhus,
and kill him by poison. Fabricius sent the man back to Pyrrhus, and that act of his was commended by
the Senate. Yet if we look to the appearance and the popular opinion of expediency, a single deserter
would have put an end to that great war and to a dangerous enemy of the empire. But it would have been
a great disgrace and scandal for one with whom the contest was for glory to have been overcome by crime,
not by valor. Which, then, was the more expedient, for Fabricius, who was in this city what Aristides
was in Athens, or for the Senate, which never divorced expediency from honor, to contend with the enemy
by arms, or by poison? If empire is to be sought for the sake of glory, let crime, in which there
can be no glory, be excluded; but if power be sought by any means whatsoever, it can be of no service
conjoined with infamy. Therefore the proposal of Lucius Philippus, the son of Quintus, was not expedient,
namely, that the states which by a decree of the Senate Lucius Sulla, for money received from them,
had freed from tribute should be taxed again, without our returning to them the money that they had
paid for their exemption. The Senate assented to the proposal, to the disgrace of the empire. Pirates
keep better faith. But it may be said that the revenues were increased, and it was therefore expedient.
How long will men dare to call anything expedient that is not right? Can odium and infamy be of service
to any empire, which ought to be supported by glory and by the good-will of its allies? I was often
at variance even with my friend Cato. He seemed to me to guard the treasury and the revenues too
obstinately, to refuse everything to the farmers of the revenue, and many things to our allies;
while we ought to be generous to our allies, and to deal with the farmers of the revenue as leniently
as we individually do with our own tenants, especially as the union of orders to which such a course
would conduce is for the well-being of the state. Curio, too, was entirely in the wrong, when he said
that the cause of the colonies north of the Po was just, but always added, “Let expediency prevail.”
He should have said that it was not just because it was not expedient for the state, rather than have
acknowledged it as just while saying that it was not expedient.
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[23] The Sixth Book of Hecato’s treatise on Duties is full of such questions as these.
“Ought a good man in a time of extreme dearth to continue to furnish food to his slaves?”
He discusses both sides of the question, yet at the last makes expediency rather than humanity
the standard of duty. He asks, “If in a storm at sea something must be thrown overboard, shall
it be a valuable horse, or a slave of no value?” In this case interest inclines in one direction,
humanity in the other. “If in case of shipwreck a fool gets possession of a plank, shall a wise man
wrest it from him if he can?” He answers in the negative, because it would be unjust. “What may
the master of the ship do in such a case? May he not take possession of the plank as his own property?”
Not by any means. He has no more right to do this than to throw a passenger from the ship into the sea
because the ship is his own. Until it arrives at the port to which passage has been taken, the ship
belongs not to the master, but to the passengers. “What if there be but one plank for two shipwrecked
passengers, both wise men? Shall they both try to get possession of it, or shall one yield to the
other?” One should give it up to the other; but let that other be the one whose life is the more
valuable, either for his own sake or for that of the state. “What if their claims are equal?”
There must be no quarrel between them, but one must yield to the other, as if he had come off
second-best in drawing lots or at odd and even. “What if a father pillages temples, or makes an
underground passage to the public treasury? Shall the son give information to the magistrates?”
That indeed would be wrong. Nay, he may even defend his father if he should be publicly accused.
“Does not then duty to the country take precedence of all other duties?” Yes, indeed; but it is
for the welfare of the country to have citizens dutiful toward their parents. “What if the father
should attempt to usurp supreme authority, or to betray the country? Shall the son keep silence?”
Yes, but he will implore his father not to do so. If that is of no avail, he will take him earnestly
to task; will even threaten him; yet at the last, if there is danger of great harm to the country,
he will prefer the country’s safety to his father’s safety. He asks also, “If a wise man by an
oversight takes counterfeit coins for good, when he ascertains what they are, shall he pay them for
good money to his creditors?” Diogenes says, Yes; Antipater, No, and I agree with him. “Ought the
seller of wine that he knows will not keep, to tell his purchasers?” Diogenes says that there is no
need of it; Antipater thinks that a good man would tell. These questions are like mooted points of
law, among the Stoics. “In selling a slave, are his faults to be told? Not such faults as, if not
mentioned, would by the civil law throw the slave back upon the vender’s hands, but such as his
being a liar, a gambler, thievish, a drunkard?” Antipater says that they are to be told; Diogenes,
that they are not. “If any one selling gold thinks that it is brass that he is selling, will a good
man tell him that it is gold, or will he buy for a shilling what is worth a thousand shillings?”
It is plain enough by this time what I think of these things, and what a difference of opinion there
is among the philosophers that I have named.
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[24] It is asked whether agreements and promises are always to be kept, if made — to borrow
the language of the praetorian edict — neither by force nor by criminal fraud. If one had given
to a person a remedy for the dropsy, and had stipulated that he should never afterward use
the medicine, — in case that person, having been cured by the medicine, were to contract the
same disease some years afterward, and could not obtain from him with whom he had made the
agreement leave to use the remedy again, what ought he to do? Since he who would refuse such
a request would be inhuman, and no harm can be done to him by using the remedy, regard should
be paid to life and health. What, if a wise man were asked by one who wants to make him his
heir to the amount of a million of sesterces, to promise that before taking possession of his
legacy he will dance in the forum publicly by daylight, and if without this promise the testator
would not have given the legacy? Shall he keep his promise, or not? I should prefer that he had
not made the promise, and this I think would have befitted his dignity. But since he has made
the promise, if he thinks it disgraceful to dance in the forum, the least immoral falsehood of
the two will be for him to break his promise and decline the legacy, unless, perchance, he can
expend that money for the state in some great emergency of need, so that even dancing in the
forum for the country’s benefit would not be disgraceful.
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[25] Nor yet are those promises to be kept which are not for the advantage of those to whom you
have made them. To go back to myths, Phoebus having promised his son Phaethon that he would do
whatever he wished, the son wished to be taken up into his father’s chariot. He was taken up,
and before he was fairly seated, he was consumed by a thunderbolt. How much better would it
have been if in this case the father’s promise had not been kept! What shall be said of the
promise that Theseus exacted of Neptune? Neptune having promised to grant him three wishes,
he asked for the death of his son Hippolytus, whom he suspected of intrigue with his stepmother;
but when Theseus had obtained his wish he was plunged into the deepest sorrow. What shall we
say of Agamemnon, who, having vowed to Diana the most beautiful creature that should be born
that year in his kingdom, immolated Iphigenia, because no creature more beautiful was born
that year in the kingdom? It would have been better not to keep the promise than to commit
so foul a crime. Therefore promises are sometimes not to be kept, nor are deposits always
to be returned. If one had deposited a sword with you when he was of sound mind, and were to
ask for it in a fit of insanity, to restore it would be wrong; not to restore it, your duty.
What if he who had deposited money with you were to levy war against the country? Should you
deliver up the trust? I think not; for you would act against the state, which ought to be
nearest to your affection. Thus many things which seem to be right by nature become wrong by
circumstances. To keep promises, to abide by agreements, to restore trusts, by a change of
expediency becomes wrong. I think that I have now said all that is necessary about those things
that seem to be expedient under the pretext of prudence, yet are really opposed to justice.
But since in the First Book I derived duties from four sources of right, I will adopt the
same division in showing how hostile to virtue are those things that seem to be expedient,
yet are not so. I have already, indeed, treated of prudence which cunning would fain imitate,
and of justice which is always expedient. There remain two divisions of the right, one of
which is witnessed in the greatness and superiority of a lofty mind; the other, in the shaping
and government of the life by self-restraint and temperance.
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[26] It seemed expedient to Ulysses, — as the story has come to us through some of the tragedians;
Homer throws no such suspicion on him, but there are tragedies that charge him with having purposed
to escape service in the war by feigning insanity. The purpose was not right. “Yet it was
expedient,” some one perchance will say, “to reign in Ithaca, and to live at his ease with
his parents, with his wife, with his son. Do you think any honor won in daily labors and perils
to be compared with this quiet life?” I, indeed, think that this quiet life was to be despised
and spurned; for the repose which was not right I cannot regard as expedient. What, think you,
would Ulysses have heard, had he persevered in his pretended insanity? when, after his greatest
achievements in the war, he hears from Ajax: —
“He who first took the oath, and he alone, As you all know, forswore his plighted faith.
Madness he feigned, the compact to evade, And had not Palamedes, with keen vision
And wise device, unmasked his craft and cunning, He still had been a perjured recreant.”
It was, indeed, better for him to fight, not only with the enemy, but with the waves, as he did,
than to desert Greece confederated with one mind to carry war into the country of the barbarians.
But let us leave myths and foreign instances. Let us come to fact and to our own history. Marcus
Atilius Regulus, when in his second consulship he was captured by troops in ambush under Xanthippus
the Lacedaemonian, — Hamilcar, Hannibal’s father, being commander-in-chief, — was sent to the Senate
under oath that, unless certain prisoners of high rank were restored to the Carthaginians, he would
himself return to Carthage. He on his arrival at Rome saw the semblance of expediency — but, as fact
shows, regarded it as delusive — to be in his own home, with his wife, with his children; to maintain
unimpaired his consular dignity, regarding the calamity which he had incurred in battle as but a
common incident in the fortunes of war. Who can deny that this was expedient? Who, think you? Magnanimity and Fortitude deny this.
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[27] Do you ask for better authorities? It is the property of these virtues to fear nothing, to
despise all human vicissitudes, to think nothing that can happen to man intolerable. And so what
did he do? He came to the Senate; he stated his mission; he refused to give his own vote in the
case, because so long as he was bound by his oath to the enemy he was not a senator. He, however,
denied the expediency of sending back the prisoners of war (“O foolish man,” some one may have
said, “to contend against his own interest”); for the prisoners were young men and good leaders,
while his vigor was already impaired by age. By virtue of his influence the prisoners were retained.
He himself returned to Carthage, nor did his love for his country or his kindred retain him.
Yet he then well knew that he was returning to an implacably cruel enemy and to excruciating
punishment; but he considered his oath as binding. Thus when he was killed by being deprived
of sleep he was in a better condition than if he had remained at home, a captive old man, a
perjurer of consular dignity. “Yet he acted foolishly, in not only declining to vote in favor
of sending the prisoners back, but in also giving his advice against their release.” How,
foolishly? Did he act foolishly, if it was for the good of the state? Can what is harmful to the state be expedient for any citizen?
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[28] Men subvert the very foundations of nature when they separate expediency from the right. For we all
seek what is expedient, and are drawn toward it, nor can we anyhow resist its attraction. Forsooth,
who is there that shuns the things that are expedient? Or rather, who is there that does not pursue
them with the utmost earnestness? But because we never can find what is expedient, save in good report,
honor, right, we therefore esteem these first and highest; we regard expediency thus defined as not so
much respectable as indispensable. “What is there in an oath?” some one may say. “Do we fear the anger
of Jupiter? It is indeed an opinion common to all philosophers, not only to those who believe that
the Deity neither does anything nor makes manifestation of himself to any other being, but equally
to those who suppose him always active in the government and direction of events, that the Deity is
never angry and never does harm. But what more harm could an angry Jupiter have done than Regulus did
to himself? There was then no power of religion that could supersede expediency so weighty. Was his
motive to avoid acting basely? In the first place, the least of evils are to be chosen. Was then the
evil in the baseness of which you speak so great as that of the torture which he had to bear? Then again, this sentiment from Attius, —
‘Faith hast thou broken?’ ‘I neither gave nor give faith to the faithless,’
although put into the mouth of an impious king, yet is admirably well said.” They add also that as we
say that some things seem expedient that are not so, in like manner they say that some things seem right
that are not so, — as, for instance, this very thing, returning to torture for the sake of preserving
an oath inviolate seems right, yet becomes wrong, because a promise extorted by force ought not to be
ratified. They still further say that whatever is highly expedient becomes right, even if it did not seem so before.
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[29] This is the substance of the case against Regulus. Let us now examine the first count. “He had no
need to fear any harm from Jupiter’s anger; for Jupiter is not wont either to be angry or to do harm.”
This argument is of no more force against Regulus than against any oath. But in an oath the point to be
considered is not what it threatens, but what it means. For an oath is a religious affirmation.
Therefore what you positively promise as in the presence of God ought to be performed. The question,
then, no longer concerns the anger of the gods (for there is no such thing), but it is a question
of honesty and good faith. Ennius well says: —
“Oh genial, bright-winged Faith, and oath of Jove!”
He, then, who profanes an oath, profanes Faith, whom — as it is said in Cato’s speech — our ancestors
chose to have in the Capitol, hard by the shrine of Jupiter Best and Greatest. “Then, too, Jupiter,
if he had been angry, could not have done more harm to Regulus than Regulus did to himself.” Undoubtedly,
if pain were the only evil. But philosophers of the highest authority affirm, not only that pain is not
the greatest evil, but that it is not even an evil. For the truth of this do not, I beg you, cast reproach
on the testimony of Regulus, a witness not of moderate, but, so far as I know, of the very highest
credibility; for what more trustworthy witness can you ask than the chief man of the Roman people, who
of his own accord endured torture that he might keep duty inviolate? Then, as to what they say about
“the least of evils,” — namely, that meanness is to be preferred to calamity, — is there any evil greater
than meanness? If such meanness as there is in the case of bodily deformity has in it something offensive,
in what vile esteem ought the depravation and foulness of soul to be held! Therefore those who take the
strongest ground on these matters dare to affirm that meanness of soul is the only evil; those who
speak with more laxity do not hesitate to call it the greatest of evils. As to the saying,
“I neither gave nor give faith to the faithless,”
he poet had a right to say this; for in bringing Atreus upon the stage, he had to support the character.
But if those who are reasoning against Regulus assume that the faith pledged to a faithless person is
null, let them look to it lest there be found here a subterfuge for perjury. Even belligerents have rights,
and an oath is often to be kept sacred with an enemy. For what was so sworn that the mind of him who took
the oath at the time confessed the obligation, ought to be fulfilled; what was not so sworn may be left
unfulfilled without perjury. Thus you would not pay robbers a price that you had agreed to pay for your
life; it is no wrong if you fail to do this after having promised with an oath. For a robber is not
included in the list of belligerents, but is the common enemy of all. Between him and other men there
ought to be neither mutual confidence nor binding oath. For it is not simply swearing what is false that
constitutes perjury; but it is perjury not to perform what you have sworn, as it is expressed in our
legal form, in the purpose of your own mind. Euripides makes a proper distinction when he says: —
“I swore in words; my mind I keep unsworn.”
But Regulus was bound in duty not to violate conditions and agreements made in war and with an enemy;
for his concern was with a rightful and legitimate enemy, and as to such enemies our whole fecial law
and many mutual rights were valid between them and us. If it were not so, the Senate would never have
surrendered to enemies men of renown as prisoners.
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[30] This they did in the case of Titus Veturius and Spurius Postumius, who, in their second consulship,
after the defeat at Caudium when our soldiers passed under the yoke, having concluded a peace with the
Samnites without the consent of the people and the Senate, were delivered up to the Samnites. At the
same time Tiberius Numicius and Quintus Maelius, then tribunes of the people, because the peace had been
concluded by their authority, were also surrendered, to consummate the repudiation of the treaty with
the Samnites. Moreover, Postumius himself, who was among those surrendered, advised and supported the measure.
Many years afterward the same thing was done by Caius Mancinus, who, having made a treaty with the
Numantians without authority from the Senate, was surrendered to them, he himself advising the passage by
the people of the decree to that effect, reported from the Senate by Publius Furius and Sextus Atilius.
He acted more honorably than Quintus Pompeius, who when he was in the same case begged to be let off,
and the decree of surrender was not passed. Here what seemed expedient preponderated over the right;
in the former instances the false show of expediency was outweighed by the authority of the right.
“But a promise exacted by force ought not to be performed.” As if force could be brought to bear upon
a brave man. “Still, why did he go to the Senate for the special purpose of dissuading them from
surrendering the prisoners?” In asking this question, you cast reproach on what was greatest in Regulus.
For he did not make himself judge in his own case; he undertook the management of the case that the Senate
might decide upon it, and unless he had led the way to the decision by his authority, the prisoners would
have been returned. Thus Regulus would have remained safe in his own country. Because he thought that
this was not expedient for the country, he believed it right for himself to express his opinion and to
suffer. Still further, as to their saying that whatever is highly expedient becomes right, the truth
is that it is right, not that it becomes right. For nothing is expedient which is not also right, nor
is anything right because it is expedient, but expedient because it is right. Therefore from many remarkable
examples it would be difficult to name one more praiseworthy or illustrious than this.
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[31] Of all that is thus praiseworthy in the conduct of Regulus the one thing specially worthy of admiration
is that he gave his advice in favor of retaining the prisoners. That, having thus advised, he returned,
now seems to us admirable; in those times he could not have done otherwise. This merit therefore belongs
to the times, not to the man; for our ancestors considered no bond more stringent than an oath in
securing good faith. This is declared by the Sacred Laws; it is declared by treaties in which good
faith even with an enemy is made binding; it is declared by the examinations and sentences of the
censors, who used to take no more diligent cognizance of any other subject than they took of oaths.
Marcus Pomponius, tribune of the people, gave notice of an impeachment to Lucius Manlius, son of Aulus,
after his dictatorship, because he had illegally added a few days to the term of his dictatorship.
He also reproached him with having banished his son Titus from society and ordered him to live in
the country. When the young man, the son of Manlius, heard that legal proceedings were instituted
against his father, he is said to have hastened to Rome, and to have come to the house of Pomponius
at early dawn. On his being announced, Pomponius, supposing that he had come in anger to bring
some charge against his father, rose from his bed, and suffering none others to be present, gave
orders for the young man to come to him. He, on entering, at once drew his sword, and swore that
he would kill Pomponius instantly unless he gave his oath to drop the prosecution. Pomponius, constrained
by imminent peril, took the oath; did not lay the accusation before the people; told why he had been
compelled to drop the case; discharged Manlius. Such was the importance attached to an oath in those
times. This Titus Manlius is the one who obtained his surname near the Anio from a collar taken from
a Gaul who had challenged him and was killed by him, in whose third consulship the Latin army was
scattered and put to flight near the Veseris, — a very distinguished man, as bitterly severe toward
his son as he had been excessively kind to his father.
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[32] But as Regulus merits renown for keeping his oath inviolate, so are those ten whom, after the battle of
Cannae, Hannibal sent to the Senate under oath that they would return to the camp that had fallen into the
possession of the Carthaginians, unless they obtained the redemption of the prisoners of war, to be held in
the vilest esteem, if they really did not return. As to these men accounts vary. Polybius, a fully trustworthy
authority, says that of ten men of the highest rank who were sent, nine returned, not having obtained from the
Senate the release of the prisoners, but that one who had gone back to the camp shortly after leaving it on
the pretence of having forgotten something, remained in Rome. By his return to the camp he maintained that
he was acquitted of his oath; but wrongly, for deceit aggravates perjury instead of annulling it. This was,
then, a foolish cunning perversely assuming the aspect of prudence. The Senate, therefore, decreed that the
rogue and cheat should be sent in chains to Hannibal. But there was something still greater on the part of
the Roman people. Hannibal held as prisoners eight thousand men, who had not been taken in battle or escaped
when in peril of death, but who had been left in camp by Paulus and Varro. The Senate refused to have them
redeemed, though it might have been done for a small sum of money, that it might be ingrafted in the minds
of our soldiers that they must either conquer or die. Polybius writes that when Hannibal heard this his
spirit was broken, because the Senate and the Roman people had borne their reverses with so lofty a mind.
Thus does what seems expedient sink out of account when brought into comparison with the right. I ought
to add that Acilius, who wrote a history in Greek, says that there were several who returned to the camp
to free themselves from their oath by the same equivocation, and that they were branded with every token
of ignominy by the censors. We may close this head; for it is perfectly clear that whatever is done with
a timid, sordid, abject mind — such as the action of Regulus would have been, had he either given his
opinion concerning the prisoners in his own interest and not in that of the state, or consented to remain
at home — is not expedient, because it is infamous, foul, base.
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[33] There remains the fourth division, comprehending becomingness, moderation, discretion, self-restraint,
temperance. Can anything be expedient which is opposed to this choir of such virtues? However, those of
the Cyrenaic school and the disciples of Anniceris, philosophers only in name, followed Aristippus in
making all good to consist in pleasure, and regarded virtue as commendable only in its pleasure-giving capacity.
They having passed almost out of notice, Epicurus holds his ground as an advocate and teacher of nearly the
same doctrine. With these I must contend, as the phrase is, with infantry and cavalry, if I mean to guard and
maintain the right. For if not only expediency but everything appertaining to a happy life consists in a strong
constitution of body and in a reasonable expectation of preserving that constitution, as Metrodorus writes,
certainly this expediency — the highest expediency in the opinion of those who thus reason — will be in conflict
with the right. For where, in the first place, shall room be found for prudence? In raking together from every
quarter objects to delight the senses? How wretched this slavery of virtue in bondage to pleasure! What, then,
is the function of prudence? To choose pleasures intelligently? Grant that nothing can be more delightful than
this, what can be imagined meaner? Then, again, what room is there for fortitude, which is the contempt of pain
and labor, with him who calls pain the greatest of evils? For although Epicurus may in many places, as he does,
speak bravely enough about pain, we are to look, not at what he says, but at what it is consistent for him to
say, who acknowledged no good except pleasure, no evil except pain. Thus also, if I listen to him about
self-restraint and temperance, he says indeed much in many places; but, as the phrase is, the water does not run.
For how can he commend temperance, who places the greatest good in pleasure? Temperance is inimical to the
sensual appetites; but those appetites are the handmaids of pleasure. Yet as to these three virtues they shift
and turn as they can, and with no little ingenuity. They bring in prudence as knowledge employed to supply
pleasures, to drive away pain. They also explain fortitude after some fashion, calling it the method of taking
no account of death and putting up with pain. Temperance, too, they drag in, not very easily indeed, but as
well as they can, saying that the highest pleasure amounts to no more than the absence of pain. Justice totters,
or rather lies prostrate, and so do all those virtues which belong to social life and the fellowship of the
human race. Nor can there be goodness, or generosity, or courtesy, any more than friendship, if they are not
to be sought on their own account, but only with reference to pleasure. To sum up the whole in brief, as I
have maintained that there is no expediency which is opposed to the right, so I affirm that all sensual pleasure
is opposed to the right. All the more do I find fault with Calliphon and Dinomachus, who thought that they
were going to put an end to the controversy by uniting pleasure with the right, as they might yoke a beast
with a man. The right does not accept this union, spurns it, repels it. Nor can the supreme good, which ought
to be simple, be mingled and compounded of widely unlike ingredients. But of this — for it is a great
theme — I treat more at length elsewhere. As to the subject now in hand, I have sufficiently shown how the
matter is to be decided, if at any time what seems to be expedient is repugnant to the right. But if sensual
pleasure shall be said even to have the appearance of expediency, it cannot have any union with the right.
To make such concession as we can in favor of pleasure, the most that we can say of it is that it may perhaps
give some seasoning to life; it certainly is of no benefit.
You have from your father, my son Marcus, a gift, in my opinion, great; but that will be according to
the use that you make of it. Although you are to take in these three books as guests among the lectures of
Cratippus, yet as if, in case I had come to Athens — which I should indeed have done had not the country
with a loud voice recalled me midway — you would sometimes have listened to me as well as to Cratippus,
so since my voice reaches you by means of these volumes, you will give them as much time as you can, and
you can give them as much time as you please. When I shall have become fully aware that you take pleasure
in science of this type, while I shall, as I hope, at no great distance of time, talk with you face to face,
I shall none the less, while we are apart, converse with you though absent from you. Farewell, then, my Cicero,
and believe that you are very dear to me, and will be much more dear if you shall find your happiness in
writings like these and in such precepts as they contain.
Here ends Cicero's De Officiis.
NOTES.
/1/
Marcus Porcius Cato, 234-149 B.C., Roman statesman.
/2/
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, 236–183 B.C., Roman general, the conqueror of Hannibal in the Punic Wars.
/3/
Panaetius of Rhodes, c. 185-c. 110 B.C., Stoic philosopher, and head of the Stoic school in Athens.
/1/
Cicero here refers to the assassination, on March 15, 44 B.C., of Julius
Caesar by the hand of Brutus, who had received many kindnesses of Caesar, even
to the sparing of the life of Brutus after he took arms against Caesar in
the battle of Pharsalia. It is believed that Cicero wrote this in the fall of the same year.
/2/
This bodily analogy of human society is employed again, about a century later
by St. Paul in the Twelfh Chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians:
If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
/3/
See Plato, Republic, Book II.
/4/
In 509 B.C. Publius Valerius, known as Poplicola, joined with with Lucius Junius Brutus to drive out Tarquinius Superbus
(Tarquin the "Proud") the last and wickedest of the kings of Rome. The final outrage of Tarquinius was his
sufferance of his son Sextus, who raped the Roman matron Lucretia, who then took her own
life after calling on her family to avenge her ont he Tarquins. Lucius Junius Brutus and
Tarquinius Collatinus, the husband of the lamentable Lucretia, were chosen as the first consuls of Rome under
the newly formed Republic. But Tarquinius did not give up without yet another fight and, subverts some
of the noble youths of Rome to conspire with him against the Republic and its free institutions. Publius Valerius
discovered the plot and brought to justice the conspirators who include two sons of Brutus. So great is the
hatred of tyranny in Brutus that he watched, unflinching, as his own treasonous sons were put to death.
The consul Tarquinius Collatinus, on the other hand, had hinted of clemency for the conspirators but Publius Valerius
and Brutus withstand him. Tarquinius Collatinus, who was a kinsman of the deposed Tarquin, was thought
to have insuficiently hatred of the kings and was removed, or perhaps resigned, from office. His position
of co-consul with Brutus was filled
by Publius Valerius.
/5/
Shortly after the twin brothers Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome
they quarrelled, obstensibly over the placement of the city walls. Romulus
killed Remus to become sole king of Rome. In time the high-handedness of Romulus
caused him to be ill regarded of the senators and a scuffle ensues. Romulus
is killed (or by some accounts transfer, by whirlwind, to heaven). After
his death or disappearance, Romulus was defied and worshiped as the god
Quirinus. Whether as man or god, his fratricide was an unjust act, according
to Cicero.
/6/
Of, more commonly Phythias.
/7/
According to Plutarch, writing in the first century of the Christian Era,
the original small settlement of Rome quickly grew fueled by a generous sanctuary law.
Not long after the first foundation of the city, they opened a sanctuary of refuge for all fugitives,
which they called the temple of the god Asylaeus, where they received and protected all, delivering none
back, neither the servant to his master, the debtor to his creditor, nor the murderer into the hands of
the magistrate, saying it was a privileged place, and they could so maintain it by an order of the holy
oracle; insomuch that the city grew presently very populous.
--Life of Romulus, 9.
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