On the Intention of Cicero's "De Officiis" Author(s): Douglas Kries Source: The Review of Politics, Vol. 65, No.

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On the Intention of Cicero's

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

That Cicero's statureamong political thinkershas diminishedin times is hardlynews, but it is still astonishingto concontemporary sider how far De officiis in particular has fallen in the standard curriculum for studentsof politics in the West. Withoutgoing into the details of the story, one notes that Cicero's last philosophicalproject soon establisheditself as a standard pedagogicaltool in late antiquity, that it became a common book in the medieval schools, that it was a key text in the curriculumof the Renaissancehumanists,and that it held a preeminentposition in both the grammarschools and the universities of the Enlightenment. Ambrose imitated the book, even its title;1ThomasAquinascites it frequently in treating moral borrowing and political matters in the Summa theologiae; Erasmus and Melanchthoneach published editions of the text; Montesquieuwas inspired by it and Kant against it.2 Indeed, if one compareslists of books commonly read by students of politics today with such lists from the past, the most strikingdifferencewould have to be the virtual omission of De officiis from contemporary lists, especially in the United States.
1. In his impressive new commentary on Ambrose's book, Davidson argues as it persuasivelythat the title of the work was originallynot De officiis ministrorum, has come to be knownin recentcenturies, but simplyDe officiis. See Ivor J. Davidson, AmbroseDe officiis (Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 2001), 1: 1-2. 2. The works cited in notes 5 and 6 below each contain more extensive treatmentsof the influence of Cicero's De officiis.

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On the other hand, the tools available to those hardy students of De officiis who do remain, and especially to English-speaking ones, have never been greater. For starters, we now have an authoritativenew critical edition of the Latin text by M. Winterbottom, published in 1994 in the esteemed Oxford Classical Texts series.3 Two new English translationshave appeared,one by M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 1991,4 and another by P. G. Walsh, published by Oxford University Press in 2000.5 Both are extensively annotatedand include indices, chronologies, synopses, and learned introductions. Most impressive of all is the massive commentary of Andrew R. Dyck, which appeared in 1996 in a volume that runs to over 700 pages and includes a long list of secondaryliteraturewritten mostly by trained classicists.6 Whateverthe cause of the neglect of De officiis by the political thinkers of our time, it cannot be a lack of access to vital information about the work. Ironically, while present-day students of De officiis must be enormously grateful for all the genuine advancements achieved by the recent scholarship just cited, it is also true that these volumes do not aim at providing a justification for studyingDe officiis, and indeed some of the very information contained within them could cause a potential reader to be disinclined. One reads, for example, that the occasion for Cicero's writing the work was in some ways largely accidental. Cicero had planned to visit his son who was studying at Athens, and had indeed started the journey, but unfavorable winds and news of recent political developments in Rome caused him to change his mind. Perhaps it seemed better to Cicero simply to send an extended letter to young Marcus rather than turn his attention from truly important affairs. Thus, the three books that comprise De officiis were "dashed off at a remarkably quick rate";7 such haste, we learn, is visible in "a certain carelessness in structure and argument" and "a tendency to repetition" in the work.8 Deficiencies like
3. M. Winterbottom, De officiis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). All Latin quotationsfrom De officiis will be taken from this edition. 4. M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins, Cicero On Duties (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1991). 5. P. G. Walsh, On Obligations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). All English quotations from De officiis used in this essay will be taken from Walsh's translation. 6. Andrew R. Dyck, A Commentaryon Cicero, De Officiis (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996). 7. Dyck, Commentary on Cicero,pp. 39 and 37. 8. GriffinandAtkins, Cicero on Duties, p. xix.

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these were not likely to matter, though, for Marcus was a profligate young man of twenty-one who was more interested in pursuing pleasures than studies anyway (he eventually became a degenerate alcoholic). Worst of all, we are told that Cicero himself did not bother to be very innovative in De officiis, for he was pretty much just passing on the teaching of another work, one written in Greek by Panaetius. Panaetius's book is lost, but some commentators still tend to be remarkably confident that the goal of Cicero's project was primarily to dress up Panaetius's book in Roman garb so that it might speak to a Roman audience. Ultimately, Dyck's judgment on the philosophical value of De officiis is that, "It shows us less of Cicero the philosopher than Cicero the father and politician," but perhaps we should not be distraught at this, since Cicero pursued philosophical questions only "in the amateur way he considered suitable to a Roman gentleman and statesman."9 Griffin and Atkins are a little more kind: "Even if Cicero did not always succeed, he did at least try to use
the tools of Greek philosophy ... to live and act rationally."10

Walsh's assessment is not exactly negative, but he speaks of Cicero's enthusiasm for philosophy rather than his skill at it, and he emphasizes Cicero's ability to communicate to a popular audience rather than to a more sophisticated one.1 The recent commentatorshave much to say that is not reflected in the previousparagraph, of course, but it is still the case that these new volumes, for all their merits, may well not move students of political philosophy to return to the work that so inspired their predecessors. What is still wanting is not so much more information on De officiis but rather an interpretation-an interpretation that argues for its timeless significance and the enduring benefits to be gained from its study. The present essay is more modest in scope, but it will begin to establish the outlines of such an interpretation by consideringthe basic intentionof Cicero in composing De officiis. Three particularproblems will be analyzed in order to arof Cicero's intention:the work's intended gue for this understanding audience and genre; the work's imputed Stoicism; and the perplexing nature of the work's third and final book. As a result of such analysis, De officiis reveals itself to be a much more subtle philosophical project than has been generally understoodand one whose potential contributions are much greater than is usually acknowledged in our time.
9. Dyck, Commentary on Cicero, p. 39.

10. Griffinand Atkins, Ciceroon Duties, p. xxviii.

11. Walsh, On Obligations, p. xvi.

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Genre and Intended Audience

As already indicated, De officiis is formally addressed to Cicero's son, a young man of twenty-one years who was studying in Athens. It seems that the immediate purpose of the aborted trip during the summer of 44 B.C. was to exhort young Marcus to pursue his studies more diligently, for letters from those watching over Marcus's progress were not at all encouraging. Consequently, De officiis has sometimes been viewed as a sort of extended personal letter sent in lieu of an actual visit, and indeed Cicero suggests at the very end of the work that if he had made his way to Athens he would have spoken to Marcus in person about officia (3.121). At the same time, one wonders just how much should be made of the father and son relationship in reading De officiis. For one thing, Cicero addresses most of his works to one person or another, and it is far from obvious that the choice of addressee seriously impacts the content of the work as a whole. Would the works addressed to Brutus, for example, be substantially different if they had been addressed to some other prominent senator? Besides, Cicero could certainly have exhorted Marcus to study harder via private correspondence; why was there a need to say these things publicly? Indeed, at the end of the preface to the third book, Cicero breaks off an exhortation to Marcus by stating that he has already written such things in private correspondence: "But enough of this, for I have exhorted you by letter at length and often. Now let us get back to the remaining section of the work before us" (3.6). Most importantly, Cicero clearly says at one point that De officiis is meant to have a wider audience than Marcus: "[T]he discussion on which I have embarked is concerned not with you personally, but with the whole category of youths [non de te, sed de toto genere]" (2.45).12 A few paragraphs later, Cicero refers in passing to other famous letters from fathers to sons: "Letters have survived composed by three men who we are told were masters of practical wisdom: the first was sent by Philip to Alexander, the second by Antipater to Cassander, and the third by Antigonus to his son Philip" (2.48). From the context, it seems that Cicero has read these letters or at least knows their contents. Unfortunately, these letters have not come down to us. It is necessary to avoid falling into the trap of assuming that one knows the contents of ancient documents that
12. AlthoughDyck, Commentary on Cicero, emphasizesDe officiis as an act of parenting by Cicero, he does note (p. 16) that the work was also addressed to a larger audience.

CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 379 do not survive,but one can at least wonderwhetherDe officiis should be read as belonging to a tradition of letters from fathers to sons that contain fatherly advice to young statesmen. Perhaps it would be a little presumptuous for Cicero indirectly to liken himself to Philip, Antipater, and Antigonus; certainly it is quite presumptuor Philip. Furthermore, ous to liken his son to Alexander,Cassander, the monarchical overtones of the literary tradition or genre would presumably require alteration by the republican Cicero. Still, the literary precedent provided by such letters would give Cicero an opportunityto address himself not only to Marcus but also to the young aristocracy of Rome, which would explain the work's frequent references to contemporary political events, including the recent assassination of Julius Caesar. Yet another clue about the genre of De officiis is found in the letter to Atticus in which Cicero first tells Atticus about the new project he is working on: "Here I philosophize (what else?) and expound the subject of Duty on a magnificent scale. I am addressing the book to Marcus. From father to son what better theme [qua de re enimpotius pater filio]?"13 What is noteworthy about this brief passage for our purposes is Cicero's suggestion that his goal is not to speak directly to Marcus, but that addressing the book to Marcus will give the project its "theme"or, we might even say, its "conceit." Given these various considerations, it seems best to conclude that De officiis should not be read as the personal letter of a father trying to exhort a not-too-promising son. Rather, the intended audience of the work is aspiring young statesmen and the father and son aspect of the work provides the form or genre. If this is the audience and genre, though, one wonders about the relationship of the De officiis to Cicero'sphilosophicalproject.Certainlythe form of the work cannot be said to be the philosophical dialogue that Cicero often employed in his philosophical writings. Moreover, in the famous passage in De divinatione in which Cicero explains the sequence and purpose of his philosophical works, De officiis is not It is hardlynecessaryto conclude, however, that Cicero mentioned.14 has nothing to say to philosophers in De officiis. While De officiis may well not have been planned by the time of the writing of De divinatione,there is no reason to think that it could not have grown out of the ethical reflections that were undertaken in writing De
13. Letters to Atticus, trans.D. R. ShackletonBailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 15.13a.2, #417. Cicero also connects the theme of duty to the theme of fatherand son early on in De officiis:"I intendto begin with the subject most suited to both your years and my paternal authority"(1.4).
14. De divinatione 2.1.

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finibus. Moreover,even if the intendedaudienceof De officiis is primarily young republican aristocrats rather than philosophers, studying what Cicero says to young statesmen may well tell us a great deal about his understanding of political philosophy. Machiavelli's Prince is also a book written in the form of an extended exhortation to a young "statesman,"but few commentators conclude that Machiavelli has nothing to say to serious philosophers in it. Finally, in the letter to Atticus cited at the end of the previous paragraph,Cicero quite clearly links the activity of philosophizing to De officiis. It is thereforeentirelypossible that Cicero intendsDe officiis to speak not only to the youth of the Romanworld but also to the more philosophically inclined.

Stoic Posturing
At the beginning of De officiis, Cicero says that he will adopt the general viewpoint of Stoicism, and indeed, even more particularly, that of the Stoic philosopher Panaetius. The manner in which he declares himself to be a Stoic, however, is most curious. For starters, he begins the work by reminding young Marcus that he is studying with the Peripatetic Cratippus, "the outstanding philosopher of our day," and Cicero continues on to say that his own views "do not differ markedly from those of the Peripatetics" (1.2). In the preface to the second book, he mentions Cratippus again and speaks of the similarity of his own views with those of Cratippus's tradition of philosophy (2.8). He speaks of Cratippus also in the preface to Book 3, saying that he is "the outstanding philosopher in our recollection" (3.5), and later in the book suggests that Marcus himself belongs to the Peripatetic school (3.20). One might, then, expect a discussion on officia-obligations or duties-that would be in accord with Peripatetic principles rather than Stoic ones. On the other hand, Cicero himself always claimed to be an adherent to one branch of the ancient Academy, the socalled new or skeptical Academy, and in fact in De officiis he forthrightly says that he belongs to the philosophical school of the Academy (3.20; also 2.7-8). We might, then, expect an exposition of duties that would be in accord with Academic principles, especially since Cicero thinks that the Peripatetics and the Academics were once the same school and still hold very similar views with respect to the matter at hand (3.20; 1.2). Initially,in statinghis intentionto follow the Stoics, Cicero claims that all three schools-the Academics, the Peripatetics,and the Stoics-are able rightfully to speak with authority about obligations,

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for "only those who maintain that right behavior alone is worth seeking, or those who claim that it should be our chief aim for its own sake, can enunciate principles of obligation which are steady and unshifting and inherent in nature"(1.6). Since the Stoics claim that "rightbehavior"or virtue or honestum is the only good and the Peripatetics and the Academics claim that such is the highest or chief good (although not the only one), all three schools meet the stated criterion. In a seemingly arbitrarychoice, however, Cicero then simply states, without explanation, that he will follow the teachings of the Porch over the other two alternatives: "So at this particulartime in my enquiry I follow the Stoics chiefly" (1.6). Indeed, the choice of Stoicism is stranger than merely being Not only is Marcus a Peripateticand Cicero an Academic, arbitrary. but the Stoics are often the targets of criticism and sometimes even ridicule by Academic skepticism in general and Cicero in particular. This is clearly the case with respect to physics and theology, as can be seen in De natura deorum,De divinatione, and De fato, but Cicero is also quite willing to criticize Stoic ethics, as is clearly evident in De finibus. In Book 3 of the latter work, he places in the mouth of Cato Uticensis what is generally understood to be the most thorough statement on early Stoic ethics that has come down to us, but in Book 4 he articulatesin his own name a rathersevere criticismof the ethicalprinciplesof Stoicism.In Pro Murena,a speech in which Cicero found himself at odds with Cato, Cicero was even willing to criticize publicly Cato's Stoic ethical principles.15It is, therefore, at the very least certainly odd that Cicero is suddenly willing to wrap himself in the mantle of Stoic ethics in De officiis.'6 WalterNicgorski states this paradox very bluntly: "If at all serious about philosophy, how can Cicero be both a skeptic and a stoic?"17 But Cicero gives his readersplenty of hints that De officiis is not as Stoic as it professes to be. This begins right with his first announcement, mentioned above, that he will be following the teachings of the Porch: "So at this particulartime in my enquiry I follow the Stoics chiefly, not translating them, but following my usual procedure of drawing from their wells as much as, and in whatever way, my judgement and inclination dictate" (1.6). The
15. Pro Murena 29.61-31, 66; cf. Definibus 4.74.

16. Other texts in which Cicero is often thoughtto assume the position of the Stoicsincludehis De legibusandhis ParadoxaStoicorum. Thereis not spaceto comment thoroughly on those works in this article, but they are addressed obliquely in the conclusion of the present essay. 17. WalterNicgorski, "Cicero's Paradoxes and His Idea of Utility," Political
Theory 12 (1984): 559.

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passage is of course ambiguous.It tells us both that Cicero will and will not be writing in accord with Stoic principles. Immediately after this enigmatic statement, he tells his readers that Panaetius, the famous Stoic whom he is supposedly following, made two egregious mistakes. First, he did not define officium, which is a serious oversight, because "every rational approach to instruction on any subject ought to begin with a definition"(1.7). Second, in classifying officia, Panaetius neglected to treat two importantpoints, and in classification, "the most grievous fault is to leave somethingout" (1.10). Cicero proceeds similarly in the preface to Book 3. First, he says that, "Panaetius,then, discussed obligations in the most scrupulous manner without provoking disagreement, and I have followed him very closely though with some amendments"(3.7). What does the qualifying clause "though with some amendments" mean? Cicero then proceeds with another implicit criticism of Panaetius, telling the readerthat this Panaetiuswhom he is following has failed to discuss the most important question of all concerningofficia, namely, what conclusions one should draw about apparentconflicts between the honestumand the utile. Most importantly, Cicero never tells us in his essay that the ethical theory of the Stoics is true, or even most probably true. What he says is that questions about duties or officia "will be more nobly [splendidius] expounded"(3.20) by the Stoics, because they claim that everything honorable is useful and nothing is useful which is not honorable, whereas the Academics and Peripatetics (Cicero's and Marcus's schools) admit that there are some honorable things that are not useful and some useful things that are not honorable, even if they insist that the honorable things are higher. Here Cicero admits forthrightly that, at least on one level, De officiis does not aim at directly stating what is true but rather what is noble. The extent to which the work might indirectly state what is true while ostensibly treating only what sounds noble will be taken up below.

The Crux of the Problem: Book III

Cicero's remarkson why he chooses to write under the guise of Stoicism lead us straight into the crux of the problem explored in De officiis. The first book of the work treats what is honestum or honorable; the second book considers what is utile or useful. The immediate and obvious question that arises concerns the relation between the two, for a moment's reflection seems to indicate that what is honorable or virtuous might conflict with what is at least

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thought to be useful. Statesmen especially face difficult choices where the two do not always appearto go hand in hand. The stated theme of Book 3 of Cicero's work is precisely this problem. Cicero tells us that Panaetius's book, Peri tou kathekontos,announced that it would take up the problemof the honestumfirst, the utile second, and then treatthe questionof seeming conflicts between the two (since Panaetius wrote in Greek, presumably he used the In any event, Cicero says, Panaetius words kalon and sympheron).18 treatedthe first two topics (albeit incompletely) but the third not at all.19Cicero goes to some length to try to explain Panaetius'sfailure to completethe work, thus calling the reader'sattentionto Panaetius's omission. Panaetius'sfailing turns out to be all the more remarkable because, says Cicero, Panetius's student Posidonius tells us that Panaetiuslived for thirty years after he finished his treatmentof the first two topics in the series. Moreover, we learn that neither did Posidonius,who became a famous Stoic philosopherof no small ability himself, attemptto answer the questionthat Panaetiushad asked, despite the fact that Posidonius had written that "no topic in the whole of philosophyis as vital as this" (3.8). If we are not alreadyperplexedat why Panaetiusand Posidonius, the most famous names of what has come to be known as the "middle" Stoa, abandonedthe crucial third question, Cicero draws the reader's attentionto two possible explanations.The first is that Panaetius had deliberately not addressed the question. Cicero protests against this explanation in such a way and to such an extent that he seems to protest too much. He assures the reader that Panaetius did intend to treat the matter because he promised to do so at the end of the last completedbook, not mentioningas a possibility that perhaps Panaetius wanted to draw attention to the seriousness of the problem by noting that it needed to be taken up but then walking away from it. In an apparentaside, Cicero goes on to tell his readersthat Posidoniushad said that anotherof Panaetius's students, Publius Rutilus Rufus, drew a comparison between
18. Dyck, Commentary on Cicero, p. 17; Walsh, On Obligations, p. xxix.

19. Dyck's commentary emphasizes "source-criticism" as an appropriate to De officiis, and so he emphasizesCicero'srelianceon Panaetius. He gives approach an argumentto justify his approachon pp. 18-21 (Commentary on Cicero). I have that Cicero seems criticalof Panaetius,which would mean suggested,to the contrary, that source-criticism to Cicero'sbook, especially since it may not be a good approach is impossible to compareit with Panaetius'slost work. Whateverone decides about for Books 1 and 2 of De officiis, it seems that source-criticism using source-criticism will not work well for Book 3, since Cicero himself indicatesthat he is not following Panaetiusin this final book: "So now I shall completethe remaining partof this work with no props to lean on, battlingit out by myself, as the saying goes" (3.34).

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Panaetius's unfinished work and a famous unfinished painting, The Venusof Cos. Just as this painting by Apelles had not been finished because no one could hope to match the excellence of the parts that had been finished,so no one had daredto finish the work of Panaetius because of the excellence of the earlier books. Cicero, of course, is undeterredand will soon boldly offer to finish Panaetius'swork! Rejecting the explanationthat Panaetius'sbook was deliberately left unfinished because it was unfinishable, Cicero offers instead a second possible explanationfor Panaetius'sfailure to treat the topic of the relationbetween the honestumand the utile-one that is more in accordwith Stoic principlesthemselves. In the strict Stoic view of the matter,there is no differencebetween the honestumand the utile, and even to think that they might be differentis a sign of a lack of wisdom on the part of the questioner. A fundamentalprinciple of the Porch was the view that only virtue can make a human being happy,and happinessis generallyconcededto be the goal of all right living. If this is so, then there can be nothing "useful"that is outside of the "virtuous,"but rather only the virtuous is useful. Since the honestumand the utile can never conflict, so the argument goes, there would be no reason for Panaetiuseven to raise this question, and he was therefore correct not to record any teaching on this point; indeed, he should not even have raised the matter as a topic for discussion (3.9-13). Cicero says that there is somethingto this interpretation of Panaetius's silence, but that it needs qualification. On the one hand, he grants that there can be no real comparisonof the honestumand the utile for the Stoic sage; the conflict simply does not exist for sages. Such people, however, are very rare-apparently Socratesand Hercules were true sages, but the Scipios and the Decii were not (3.15-16).20 On the other hand, most people have a sort of virtuethat is imperfect,and Cicero says that his own book De officiis is devotednot to the sort of virtuethat is the highest but ratherto the "intermediate" duties, as they are called by the Stoics.21The "intermediate"moralityis a semblanceof the real thing, and for that reason the many mistake the intermediate for the highest (3.14-16). As a
20. Cicero begins Book 3 with praise of Scipio Africanusand even says that he is Cicero's superior.But by paragraph16 even this Scipio is demoted to the status of being common or at least to being inferiorto the Stoic sage. 21. See also 1.8. For analysis of this aspect of the teachingof Stoicism, see I.G. and the End of Man,"in Problems in Stoicism,ed. A. A. Kidd, "Stoic Intermediates Long (London: The Athlone Press, 1971), pp. 150-72. (Originally published under a differenttitle in Classical Quarterly[1955]: 181-94); also "Moral Actions and Rules in Stoic Ethics," in The Stoics, ed. John M. Rist (Berkeley,Universityof California Press, 1978), pp. 247-49 ff: See also John M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1969), esp. chaps. 5, 6, and 10.

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result of this confusion, many people may become perplexedat what seem to be differences between the honorable and the useful, and Cicero presumes that explaining such problems for people who are still working toward true virtue is what Panaetius must have been planning for the conclusion of his work. At any rate, such is what Cicero will provide, he says, in the final book of De officiis, since Panaetius must have been preventedby "some accident or pressure of work"from completingthe job himself (3.33).22In completingthe project by descending to the intermediatemorality, Cicero says he will be offering a "defense of Panaetius"against those who find it unseemly that Panaetius would ever have thought of juxtaposing the honorableand the useful (3.34). Cicero's admission that De officiis is devoted not to the highest plane of morality but only an intermediate one must not be overlooked, for it implies that there is something about the morality of De officiis that Cicero knows is inadequate, and the discerningreader should wonder what that inadequacy might be. Indeed, Cicero's confession that he will not be treating the highest themes places everythingin the final book of De officiis under a sort of suspicion. He begins his exposition by indicating that he will need a rule to dissolve all apparentconflicts between the honestum and the utile. The rule or principle seems to become more strict as Cicero discusses it. First, it is simply that it is "wrongto harma neighbourfor one's own profit" (3.23), but it soon grows into the principle that "what is useful to the individual is identical with what is useful to the community" (3.27), and this is not simply Cicero's principle but even "the law of nature" (3.27). The rationale given for this principle is that the fellowship of the human race is the highest or supremegood. If this is so, then all individualgoods, such as external goods, must yield to the common good of the whole race. This highest or common good is identified with honestum and the individual good-one should say "apparent"good-is identified with utile. It thereforefollows that there can be no true conflict between the honestumand the utile. All conflicts are only apparentones because the truly useful is the honorableand the honorableis what is truly useful. Cicero does not give much of an argumentfor this principle or rule. He begins with an assertion regarding the superiority of the fellowship of humanity to individual concerns and moves without much trouble to the complete or absolute hegemony of the com22. Cicero's generous stance in Book 3 toward those who are confused about the honorableand the useful conflicts with his harsh remarkstowardthem in Book 2 (2.10).

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munity.The conflict between the honestumand the utile, which is a conflict only for the vast majority of human beings who are not sages, is thus resolved, but only if the individual is completely politicized. In this connection Cicero appeals to the analogy regarding the body and its individual parts. Just as the individual members of the human body only achieve their function and end when they subordinatethemselves to the overall purpose of the body, so individual human beings can only achieve their function and end when they are completely subordinatedto the common good.23 Thus, the rule that began with an injunction against harming other human beings becomes restated as a rule that what is useful to the individual is identical with what is useful to the community, but it is restatedagain as an identifiable Stoic premise that the only good is the honorableor honestum(3.33). Here Cicero more or less admits that his argumentfor the principle is thin:
Now that I am putting the finishing touches, so to say, to this work which has been launched but is not quite complete, I model myself on those geometricians who tend not to demonstrate everything but ask us to allow them to take certain things for grantedso that they may more readily explain the points which they wish to put across. In the same way, if you approve, my dear [Marcus] Cicero, I am asking you to allow me to claim that nothing is worth seeking on its own account except the honourable. If Cratippus does not permit you to accept this, you can at any rate concede that the honourable is what is chiefly worth seeking on its own account (3.33).

Cicero gives the discerning reader two importantpieces of information here. The first is that he recognizes that his argument is hypothetical and thus unproven. If the Stoic principle is granted, then it is not hard to point out that the only useful reality is the honestum. Indeed, the rest of Book 3 is devoted to raising many cases in which the honestumand the utile do not seem to coincide, but Cicero always appeals to the unestablished principle about the identity of the two.24 More subtle, though, is the quotation's com23. This analogyis, of course,not as perfectas it mightbe. An arm cut off from a body cannot be even an arm any longer, for its very function is to be a part of a greaterbody. An arm has no end outside of the body to which it belongs. Yet, even if one admits that a human being can only be perfected in and through a political community,it does not follow that a human being is only a part that can have no functionor end outsideof the city. Given what he says aboutthe Peripatetic insistence that human ends are not reducible to virtue only, one wonders if Cicero does not know the limitations of the analogy he is using. 24. The serious analysis these cases deserve is not possible here, but they generally involve a pattern whereby a case implying the need for a distinction between honor and utility is proposed and Cicero vigorously appeals to his rule and reassertsthe lack of such a distinction.

CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 387 ment on Aristotle. Cratippus, the Peripatetic, will not admit the Stoic principle regardingthe chief good, but will instead insist that there are other goods, including external goods, that are also to be sought for their own sake. Cicero suggests that whether the Stoic or the Peripateticprinciple is supposed, the result will be the same for the question about the relationship between the utile and the honestum.But, of course, if the Peripateticposition is once granted, if one concedes that not all goods are reducible to one final good, but that there is a collection of goods for human beings, then it follows that the various goods might come into conflict and the honestumand the utile might not coincide. My understandingof Cicero's intention in De officiis, then, is that he wants to communicate two different messages to two different readerships.On the one hand, there is his rhetoricalmessage addressed to the young republican aristocrats. This aspect of the work is Stoic in that it treats moral matters as if virtue is the only good, and thus the moral code it articulates is quite demanding, involving as it does the complete subordination of the private to the political good. On the other hand, there is Cicero's subtle message addressed to the more philosophically sophisticated of his readers. This aspect of the work is Peripateticin that it grasps that not all ends are reducibleto a unity, and thus it points to the potential conflict between virtue and external goods, a conflict that may be endemic to political life.

Confirmation from De Finibus

If there is somethingto be said for this interpretation of Cicero's intentionin De officiis, one might anticipatefinding confirmingevidence for it in De finibus.25 De officiis is the last writing project on but De finibus was writphilosophicalethics that Cicero produced,26
25. There are also rich new resourcesfor studentsof De finibus, namely a new critical text in the Oxford Classical Texts series as well as a new translationin the Texts in the Historyof Philosophyseries. See L. D. Reynolds,De Finibus Cambridge Bonorumet Malorum Libri Quinque(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 1998);Raphael Woolf, trans., and Julia Annas, ed., Cicero: On Moral Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 26. Withthe exceptionof the laterPhillipics,De officiisis the last workof Cicero's pen. De finibus was completed during the summerof 45 B.C.; the abortedvisit to Athens was to take place duringthe summerof 44. Cicero enteredRome to confront Antony in Septemberof 44 but soon recognized Antony's growing political power and withdrew. Work on De officiis began in late October and the first two books were completedby November 5, even as Cicero was beginning the series of attacks on Antony that would ultimately culminate in his death in December of 43.

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ten only about a year and a half earlier and is, by Cicero's own account, his chief statement on ethics.27 Of course, philosophers sometimes change their minds, but one would anticipate that the teaching of De officiis might well conform to, or at least not be inconsistent with, De finibus. As is well-known, this latter work is comprised of five books divided into three dialogues. The first book is a statementof Epicuand the second a critique of his philosophical reanism by Torquatus In De finibus, Epicureanism is clearly ranked Cicero. position by but it does at least receive serious discussion. low by Cicero, very In De officiis it is occasionally alluded to, but it is considered too mean even to bother with. Books 3 and 4 of De finibus are devoted to the second dialogue of the work. As noted earlier,Cato Uticensis delivers a statementof Stoicism in Book 3 that is generally thought to be the most complete account of pre-imperial Stoicism that has come down to us. In Book 4, Cicero gives in his own name a pointed critique of Cato's philosophy, the primary thrust of which is that Stoicism views human beings not as comprised of body and soul or body and mind, but as bodiless beings. The Stoics therefore say that the only good is virtue, which they attach not to body but to reason, and thus they neglect external goods or goods of the body. Since they have a distorted view of human nature, happiness for them consists only in the rational good of virtue. Given this critique of Stoicism from Book 4 of De finibus, which is delivered in Cicero's own name, it would seem odd if Cicero's adoption of Stoicism in De officiis is meantto be taken at face value. But the really interesting part of De finibus for understanding De officiis is Book 5. Most of the book is devoted to a speech by Piso, who delivers the philosophical position associated with Antiochus of Ascalon, the position sometimes referred to as that of the "old" Academy. Piso claims that there is an unbroken tradition of philosophy stemming from Plato and his Academy. This tradition includes the Peripatetics, especially Aristotle and Theophrastus, and indeed Piso says that he is relying especially on the Nicomachean Ethics in articulatingthe position that he and Antiochus share. The Nicomachean Ethics seems to be even more importantthan Plato to Piso's understandingof the ethical teaching of the Academy. As Piso describes it, one of the important teachings of that work is the existence of both internal goodssuch as virtue-and external ones. If this teaching is true, then it follows that a virtue such as wisdom, while it may be the high27. See De divinatione 2.1.

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est perfection available to human beings, is still not, all by itself, sufficient to guarantee perfect happiness.28 What is especially strangeabout Piso's position is that he claims that the "old" Academic position is actually shared by the Stoics. To be sure, the Stoics have changed the terminology of the Academy, so much so that they might appearto hold somethingradically different, but Piso insists that in fact they teach the same doctrine with different words. They say that only virtue is good, so that all who are virtuous are happy, and they do not want to talk about external "goods"because, of course, they are not virtues and hence not true goods. Still, the Stoics admit that a life including external advantages is preferable to one that does not include such advantages. Piso thus concludes that the Academy, the Peripatetics, and the Stoics hold the same view, although they may express it with different words. Cicero himself (that is, the characterof Cicero in the dialogue) delivers a relativelybrief critiqueof Piso's speech at the end of Book 5, but the critique is sharp and Julia Annas describes it well when Cicero finds Piso's position with she says that it is "devastating."29 respect to the Stoics thoroughly incoherent. Cicero asserts that, granted the fundamental Stoic principle identifying virtue as the sole good, the Stoics are completely logical in their conclusion that virtue alone confers happiness.30 He insists, however, that such a conclusion clearly contradicts the teaching of the Peripatetics. In running together the positions of the Peripatetics and the Stoics,
28. 5.9-23. Piso is not sure whether Aristotle or Nicomachus is the author of the NicomacheanEthics (5.12), but of course we do not know for sure whetherthe work Cicero would have known by that name was the same as the work we know by that name. On the importantquestion of what Aristotle's texts were like during Cicero's time, see the recent treatmentby JonathanBarnes, "RomanAristotle," in Philosophia Togata, ed. JonathanBarnes and Mariam Griffin. (Oxford: Clarendon Ethics as it presentlyexists thatwould Press, 1997), 2: 1-69. Textsin the Nicomachean support Piso's interpretation of Peripatetic ethics include 1.8.1099a31-b8; cf. alsothe 1.10.1100b22-1101a20; 1178b33-1179a17; 10.7.1177a28-35; 10.8.1178a24-68, implicationsof 4.1-2. 29. Cicero: On Moral Ends, 143, n. 55. It should be noted that Cicero himself employs an argumentvery much like that of Piso as one part of his refutation of Cato in Book 4 (4.3-15). In Cicero's eyes, it seems that the argumentof Piso's Old Academy, while unsound, might still be useful for refuting Stoicism. 30. Of course, Cicero has alreadyrejectedthe fundamental premise of the Stoic position in Book 4 of De finibus. His point here in Book 5 is that if the premise is once accepted,the Stoics accurately reasonaboutwhat it implies. To use the language of introductorylogic, Cicero thinks that the position of the Stoics is valid (that is, their conclusion follows from their premises) but unsound (their premises are not all true).

THE REVIEWOF POLITICS 390 Piso has obscuredthe important distinctionbetween the two regardingthe role played by externalgoods in attaininghappiness. so thatit In fact, he has distorted the Stoic definitionof happiness now seems to requireexternalgoods. In the end, Piso's view that the Stoic principleon virtueand happiness can be reconciledwith of goods that includesexthe Peripatetic teachingon a hierarchy of happiness Piso's ternalsas one component is simplyinconsistent; failure to see this only obfuscatesa properanalysis of the argumentbetweenthe Stoics and theircritics,such as the Peripatetics. of the De finibus How does this admittedly superficial summary in De What Piso does the former work is to help explain officiis? the to the views of the and reconcile Stoics, Peripatetics attempt is immediately and thoroughly refutedin but such a reconciliation Cicero's own name. Yet, the reconciliationunwisely pursuedby insistson in De ofPiso is preciselywhatCicerohimselfostensibly on is questionable ficiis, even while he hintsthatthe reconciliation in De philosophicgrounds.Thus, the surfaceteachingarticulated if not identical to the one articulated officiis is most similar by Piso, but the teaching hintedat in De officiisis most similarif not identical to Cicero'sown criticism of Piso. in De officiis a positionthathe has WhywouldCiceroarticulate in De finibus?A clue thatmighthelp us answer criticized this question emergesfromconsidering the roles playedby youngpeople in bothworks.In the firstdialogueof De finibus, the youthTriarius is for the first and then to conversation, present listening Torquatus to Cicero's lambastingof Epicureanism. At the end of Book 2, a seriousyoung man who was apparently Triarius, always ill-distoward the school of posed philosophical says that Epicureanism, him to be harshagainstthe philosophyof Cicerohas emboldened the Garden. The seconddialogueof De finibusis set in the privacy of a library, so no youngpersonis presentto hearCicerocriticize In the thirddialogue, Cato'sStoicism.31 for youngLuciusis present Piso's speech,andhe says thathe is convinced by it (5.76). This is into his attackon Piso, but when Piso priorto Cicero'slaunching thenaccusesCicero of trying to stealLucius forhis ownpupil,Cicero merelysays thatLuciuscan makeup his own mind:"Youcan take him if he will follow,"he says to Piso, but he thenaddscryptically, "By being at your side he will be at mine"(5.86). It seems, then, that Ciceroteachesin De finibus that a politicallyastutephilosopher should criticize Epicureanism harshlyin front of the young
31. Cicero calls attention to this fact by including a short discussion of the education of the absent young Lucullus at the beginning of the conversation(3.9).

CICERO'S DE OFFICIIS 391 but shouldcriticize Stoicismwhen the young are not present.He of Antiochus andPiso beforeyoung may criticizethe OldAcademy if but he should still be satisfied the people, young follow the Old This is in De is Academy. officiis. Epicureanism pattern repeated of as beneath and not of spoken being contempt really worthy a I serioustreatment. have is indeedsubtlycritiStoicism, suggested, cized in De officiis, but not openly,for in speakingwith Marcus, Cicerodoes not subjectStoicismto anythinglike the severetreatment it receiveswhen the young are absentin De finibus. Finally, whatis openlyadvocated in De officiisis a philosophically inconsistent positionnot unlike that of the Old Academy.This positionis weak in the eyes of real philosophers, but it is not a bad one for youngpeople like Marcus,Lucius,and otheryoung Romanrepublicans to accept. The young who are unphilosophical, then, shouldlearnof the wickednessof the Garden, but they shouldnot learnof the ineptitude of the Porch, or at least they should learn of it only in a circumspectmanner.The more philosophicallyinclined, though, shouldlearnto recognizethe weaknesses of the Porchandthe Old The Academy. positive philosophicalposition that emergesfrom bothDe finibusandDe officiisis thatof the Peripatetics. Thatview is characterized both a certain subordination of external by goods to the claims of virtueas well as the recognition that externalgoods still play a role in the attainment of happiness. In adoptingsuch a position, Ciceropoints to a fundamental problemof political life ratherthanto an easy solution.Virtueand the honorable must be the highestends of politics,but the recalcitrance of external goods and utility preventstheir lower claims frombeing completelyabsorbedby the higherones. Conclusion If thereis something to be said for the preceding some remarks, common aboutCicero's in De officiisneed intention ways of thinking to be revised. The goal of Ciceroin the work is not primarily to exhorthis wayward son to amendhis ways (although he does that) nor to criticize Caesar,Antony, and other would-be tyrants(alto providea thoughhe does thatalso). Even less is it his intention book on duties for a Romanaudisimple recastingof Panaetius's ence. Rather, De officiiswouldseem to be a workintended for two audiences. First, it is a sort of handbookof duties or obligations,based loosely on Stoicism,that would be suitableto aspiringrepublican

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statesmen. Cicero found in the teachings of Zeno's disciples a doctrine both good and bad. The moral severity of Stoicism would be of assistance to any regime, particularlyone that, in Cicero's view, was in a state of moral decline. At the same time, Stoicism's unyielding attachmentto principle even when principle conflicted with reality was hardly helpful for politics, nor could Stoicism refute the philosophical argumentsmade against it by the Peripatetics.Cicero thus uses Stoicism rather as a civil religion. He does not want to destroy it, but he does want to reform it along more politically salutary lines, and this is one of the purposes of De officiis. The work gives its readers noble words in defense of a noble cause. In it we find praised those qualities that Cicero thinks importantfor republicans, for it exhorts the young to aspire to honestum and to subordinate any individual concerns they might have about their individual utile to preeminent concerns about republican virtue. It is this exhortation to virtue in general that presumably endeared the De officiis to Christiansfrom Ambrose to ThomasAquinas, and specifically its exhortation to republican virtue that endeared it to Renaissance humanists. Second, Cicero's last philosophical project also poses a serious question for political philosophers. His ironical treatment of the problem of the relationship between the honestum and the utile is perhaps not immediately transparentto the young republicans, but it is not opaque to the more philosophically-inclined.Among those scholars who have grasped the problem best are Marcia Colish and WalterNicgorski. Colish is willing to say that, "Cicero's argument in the De officiis, for all its dependence on Stoicism, ends by substantially reversing the direction of Panaetius' ethics."32Nicgorski comments that,
Cicero's emphasis throughout De Officiis as well as elsewhere in his writings is on making stoicism come down to earth, on forcing it to face the urgent claims of necessity and utility. ... He works to open the stoic moral teaching to an explicit acknowledgement of the peripatetic view that there are other goods besides the highest good.33

If anything,the readingproposed here goes even further,suggesting that De officiis should be understood as a serious criticism of Stoicism-even as anti-Stoicism. In Cicero's view, the Stoics have not attendedto the problem presentedby external goods. The moral severity of a Cato Uticensis is most helpful in the battle for the
32. Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Traditionfrom Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. vol. I, Stoicism in Classical Latin Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), p. 151.

33. Nicgorski, "Cicero'sParadoxesand His Idea of Utility,"p. 570.

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republic, but it is not a philosophically adequateposition. With this implicit criticism, Cicero points to a morality that seems more adequate to himself, the morality of the Peripatetics which, while holding moral virtue to be the highest good for man, recognizes the exigencies of political life that renderman a problem or tension to himself. To conclude, I would like to return to the image, mentioned above, of the unfinished Venusof Cos, to which Cicero says that Posidonius says that Publius Rutilius Rufus likened Panaetius's
unfinished work, Peri tou kathekontos: [J]ustas no artisthad been foundto fill in thatpartof the paintingof The Venusof Cos which Apelles had left unfinished (for the beauty of her it with the rest of her body), features madeit hopelessto thinkof matching so no one had completed what Panaetius had left out, because of the excellence of the partswhich he had finished (3.10). consummate It becomes clear as one reads De officiis that the problem that makes

it impossible for the painting to be finished is precisely the problem that makes it impossible for a Stoic treatise on duty to be finished, and that this must be Cicero's reason for referring to the painting in his work. The Stoics paint officia or kathekontabeautifully, so beautifully that they paint them as if human beings had no

bodies, the needs and desires of which might genuinely conflict with officia or kathekonta. By making the most attractivepart of the whole too attractive, they make it impossible to depict the whole.