Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 1.157 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 1.157
And again, as swarms of bees do not gather for the sake of making honeycomb but make the honeycomb because they are gregarious by nature, so human beings—and to a much higher degree—exercise their skill together in action and thought because they are naturally gregarious. And so, if that virtue [Justice] which centres in the safeguarding of human interests, that is, in the maintenance of human society, were not to accompany the pursuit of knowledge, that knowledge would seem isolated and barren of results. In the same way, courage [Fortitude], if unrestrained by the uniting bonds of society, would be but a sort of brutality and savagery. Hence it follows that the claims of human society and the bonds that unite men together take precedence of the pursuit of speculative knowledge.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 1.157, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/1.157
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 notesPeople cooperate because they are social by nature, just as bees make honeycomb because they live in swarms, not in order to make honey. Knowledge without justice would be sterile and courage without social bonds would be mere savagery, so the claims of society come first.
Older wording
- “gregarious”
- — naturally living in groups
- “speculative”
- — theoretical rather than practical
Themes and situations
- Community and our duty to others
- Nature and the cosmos
- Justice and fairness
- Courage
- Searching for meaning
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