enlarged and improved edition of that before published by Unger. I have found great assistance from his commentary, which leaves few difficulties unnoticed. The Introduction prefixed to this edition is substantially a translation of his Einleitung. However much the possession of these aids and appliances has diminished editorial work, the mere task of selection and compression of materials, easy as it may appear to those who have had no experience of it, is a constant strain upon the judgment which requires no inconsiderable expenditure of time and labour.

Wherever the actual words of the annotator have been quoted, I have given his name: where the derived notes have undergone a change of form, I have not made any special acknowledgment of the original source from which they are taken. In the text I have followed for the most part the recension of Orelli's Cicero by Baiter and Halm, which must at present be considered the standard edition. In some passages, where a different reading has commended itself to my judgment, I have given that of Baiter in the adnotatio critica, and in any variations of importance added the readings of the principal editors.

IPSWICH

January 28 1869

INTRODUCTION

On the date of the work and the circumstances in which it was composed

LIKE the principal of the strictly philosophical works of Cicero1, the de officiis belongs to the close of his life. It was written in the interval between the death of his beloved and only daughter Tullia in Feb. B. C. 45 and the end of B. C. 44.

The probable time of its composition is evident from several allusions in the work itself. The Dictator Julius Caesar has been murdered (I viii 26, II vii 23, III iv 19). The Laelius de amicitia and the two lost books de gloria-neither of which are to be found amongst his philosophical works enumerated in the Introduction to the Second Book of the de divinatione which we know was published after Caesar's death-have already appeared. Cicero is compelled by his dread of Antonius to keep away from Rome and remain in the country, with the avowed object of quitting Italy altogether (III i 1). But towards the end of the third Book he has abandoned this purpose and is e medio cursu clara voce a patria revocatus (III iii 121). This, as Cicero himself explains, alludes to his return journey to Rome on Aug. 31st

1 Those on speculative Philosophy consisting of the Hortensius, de consolatione, de finibus libri v, Academicorum libri IV, Tusculanarum disputationum libri V, Timaeus; those on Theology:—de natura deorum libri III, de divinatione libri II, de fato; those on the Philosophy of Morals: Cato maior de senectute, Laelius de amicitia, de gloria libri 11, de virtutibus; the four first appeared in B.C. 45, the remainder in B.C. 44. See n. to CH. I § 4 1. 17.

B. C. 44, after he had actually started for Greece but been driven back by stress of weather. This allusion, however, does not furnish us with the exact date of the composition of the present work, because Cicero is here speaking only of his disappointment in not having paid his intended visit to his son at Athens. We do not learn from it when the book was actually finished. Evidence of this must be sought elsewhere.

There were two occasions in the year B.C. 44 when Cicero urbe relicta rura peragravit-one from the beginning of April to the end of August, the other from October to the 9th of December. The question arises, which of the two is meant in III i I. His correspondence throws light upon this point. In a letter to Atticus from his villa near Puteoli dated Oct. 25th (Att. xv 13,6) he tells his friend that he is busy with the work: Nos hic φιλοσοφοΫΜΕΝ (quid enim aliud?)—et τὰ περὶ τοῦ καθώ KONTOC magnifice explicamus пРосowNoŶMENque Ciceroni, qua de re enim potius pater filio? deinde alia: quid quaeris? exstabit opera peregrinationis huius. On November the 5th he writes again to Atticus that he had then completed the two first books and was engaged upon the third. To judge from the marvellous rapidity with which Cicero composed his philosophical writings, it is highly probable that the Third Book was completed before his second return to Rome and appearance in open opposition to Antonius.

This supposition will justify and account for the bitterness of spirit to which the writer gives vent without reserve on every opportunity-and opportunities were not wanting in a work so thoroughly practical as this—and his lamentation over the extinction of freedom, and his own particular grievances. In his other works, composed before and just after the murder of Caesar, he expresses

2 Att. XVI II, 4 Tà #EρÌ TOû кaðýкоvтos, quatenus Panaetius, absolvi duobus: illius tres sunt, sed, cum initio divisisset ita, tria genera exquirendi officii esse, unum, cum deliberemus honestum an turpe sit, alterum, utile an inutile, tertium, cum haec inter se pugnare videantur, quomodo iudicandum sit, qualis causa Reguli, redire honestum, manere utile, de duobus primis praeclare disseruit, de tertio pollicetur se deinceps, sed nihil scripsit. Eum locum Posidonius persecutus est, ego autem et eius librum arcessivi et ad Athenodorum Calvum scripsi, ut ad me тà Kepáλaιa mitteret—quae expecto; quem velim cohortere et roges ut quam primum—: in eo est wepì Toû κατὰ περίστασιν καθήκοντος. Cicero appears to have received these τὰ Kepáλaia before the middle of the month; for he writes (14, 3) Athenodorum nihil est quod hortere: misit enim satis bellum iñóμvημа.

himself with greater reserve and constraint, as when he says against his own conviction, de Natur. Deor. I iv 7 cum is esset rei publicae status ut eam unius consilio atque cura gubernari necesse esset, and in a letter to Atticus on the 4th of May (XIV 17,6) minore periculo existimo contra illas nefarias partes vivo tyranno dici potuisse quam mortuo.

It may have been accident but it was more probably immediate political circumstances that determined Cicero's choice of a subject, and his method of treating it. The present work is his first attempt at the paraenetic side of moral philosophy, and the application of its principles to the regulation of conduct and the intercourse of social and political life. Under the dictatorship of Caesar, when he lived in retirement and became resigned to a life of political inaction, Cicero had confined himself to the speculative side of Ethics and Metaphysics. But in a grave political crisis, such as followed the death of Caesar, when he was looked up to as the mainstay of his party against the brutal and undisguised despotism of Antonius, it was natural that his thoughts should be diverted from abstract discussions and questions 'on the chief good' and 'the being of the gods' to those of practical interest. The de officiis is his last farewell to his family and country.

Cicero, as we have seen, resolved to dedicate the work to his son Marcus. Marcus Tullius Cicero, only son of the orator and his wife Terentia, was born in B.C. 653. He had naturally the tastes and instincts of a soldier only, but his father wished to make a philosopher and orator of him. On his return from Cilicia, whither he had accompanied his father in B.C. 51, he crossed to Greece and, being then in his sixteenth year, joined the army of Pompeius, from whom he received the command of a squadron of cavalry, and won the good opinion of his general and the whole army by his skill in military exercises and manly endurance of labour. In B. C. 45 he had a great desire to proceed to Spain and take part in the service of Caesar against his former friends. His father, however, refused to gratify his desire and sent him instead to Athens to prosecute his studies there along with several other young Romans of distinguished family. At Athens, although

3 ad Att. I 2.

♦ de off. 11 § 45 quo in belio, cum te Pompeius alae praefecisset, magnam laudem et a summo viro et ab exercitu consequebare equitando, iaculando, omni militari labore tolerando. ep. ad Att. XII 7.

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