Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 1.112 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 1.112
Indeed, such diversity of character carries with it so great significance that suicide may be for one man a duty, for another [under the same circumstances] a crime. Did Marcus Cato find himself in one predicament, and were the others, who surrendered to Caesar in Africa, in another? And yet, perhaps, they would have been condemned, if they had taken their lives; for their mode of life had been less austere and their characters more pliable. But Cato had been endowed by nature with an austerity beyond belief, and he himself had strengthened it by unswerving consistency and had remained ever true to his purpose and fixed resolve; and it was for him to die rather than to look upon the face of a tyrant.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 1.112, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/1.112
Cicero, On Duties (De Officiis), tr. Walter Miller (Loeb, 1913). Text: Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesDifferences in character are so significant that the same act, here taking one's own life, can be a duty for one person and a crime for another, as shown by Cato refusing to live under a tyrant while others who surrendered to Caesar lived on.
Older wording
- “austere”
- — strict and severe
- “pliable”
- — easily bent or swayed
Themes and situations
- Virtue and character
- Death and mortality
- Courage
- Freedom