On Duties by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero [Cicero, Marcus Tullius]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781501706523
Publisher: CornellUP
Published: 2016-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Book Three

(1) Marcus, my son, Cato1 once wrote that the Publius Scipio who was first called Africanus,2 his near contemporary, was accustomed to say that he was never less at leisure than when he was at leisure, nor less alone than when he was alone.3 A truly magnificent remark and one worthy of a great and wise man! Such a remark reveals that he was accustomed to reflect upon business in his leisure and talk with himself in his solitude, so that he was never inactive and sometimes did not need the colloquy of another. And so these two things that produce languor in others, leisure and solitude, whetted him.

I truly wish I could say the same thing about myself. But if I am less able to follow so excellent a character by imitation, I can certainly come close by effort of will. For since I am prohibited from the commonwealth and forensic business by impious arms and force, I pursue leisure, and since I have abandoned the city and now scour the countryside, often I am alone. (2) But my leisure must not be compared with the leisure of Africanus, nor my solitude with his. For whereas he took his leisure sometimes, as a rest from the most beautiful of duties to the commonwealth, and occasionally withdrew in solitude from the gatherings and crowds of human beings, as if to a refuge, my leisure was arranged owing to a scarcity of business, not an eagerness for rest. For with the Senate extinguished and the law courts destroyed, what is there worthy of me that I can do either in the Senate or in the forum? (3) Thus I who once lived in the greatest of renown and under the eyes of citizens, now flee the gaze of criminals, with whom every place overflows, hiding myself as much as possible, and often I am alone.

But because we have heard from learned human beings not only that from among ills we ought to choose the least,4 but also to extract from these things anything that might be inherently good, therefore, even though it is not the leisure that it ought to be for one who once procured leisure for his political community, I am enjoying my leisure, and I am not permitting myself to languish in that solitude that necessity occasions, not choice.5 (4) Still, in my judgment, Africanus achieved the greater praise; for no monuments to his character have been committed to writing; no work of his leisure, no offering6 of his solitude, survives. Consequently, we ought to understand that in his intellectual activity and in his investigation of such things as follow from reflection, never was he either at leisure or alone. But I, who do not possess such strength that I can extricate myself from solitude with silent reflection, I turn all my devotion and care to this present effort of writing. And so I have written more in the brief time since the overthrow of the commonwealth than in the many years while it still stood.

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