Cicero On DutiesEdited by M.T. Griffin and E.M. Atkins Cambridge University Pres Read Free | Download Free | Buy Cicero On Duties
Edited by M.T. Griffin and E.M. Atkins
Cambridge University Pres Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Though
Cicero: On Duties
On Duties (De Officiis) was Cicero's last philosophical work. In it he made use of greek thought to formulate the political and ethical values of Roman Republican society as he saw them, revealing incidentally a great deal about actual practice. Writing at a time of political crisis after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, when it was not clear how musch of the old Republican order would survive, Cicero here handed on the insights of an elder statesman, adept at political theory and practice, to his son, and through him to the younger often generation general.
The work has often been treated merely as a key to the lost Greek works thet Cicero used. This volume containing a new annotated translation and an Introduction, as well as information on chronology, vocabulary, bibliography and persons mentioned in the text, aims to make De Officiis, which had such an important influence on later masterpieces of Western political thought, more intelligible by explaining its relation to its own time and place.
