The second book to be printed on Gutenberg’s press.
Roman Roads Classics
Marcus Tullius Cicero · 44 BC · Philosophy & history
On Duties
Translated by Walter Miller · Foreword by Wesley J. Callihan
Cicero’s own choice for his magnum opus: the question of the well-lived life.
A slightly dinged copy is available for $9.09“No one will ever write anything more wise, more true, or more useful.”
About the book
The question of the well-lived life
On Duties deserves more attention than it gets, and it rewards the attention it receives, because it deals with the question of the well-lived life in a clear, thoughtful, accessible, and compelling manner. Cicero believed On Duties to be his magnum opus, and much of history has agreed with him on this.
The three books that make up On Duties are full of historical examples which are worth their weight in gold. Like Homeric similes, they are marvelous windows into an age that is not described in any ancient texts. They also give us Cicero’s own culturally conservative interpretations of the events of his time, and this is very valuable indeed.
A long shadow
Read by printers, poets, bishops and reformers
Parts of it served as inspiration for the Divine Comedy.
Modelled his On the Duties of the Clergy on it, and refers to it throughout.
“Let those who wish to see a true philosophy read Cicero.”
Taught in Old Western Culture
The Historians · from $74.75Year Two, Unit 2: The Historians
Wes Callihan lectures on Cicero’s Against Verres, Against Antony and On Duties, alongside Livy, Sallust, Caesar, Tacitus and Plutarch.
The audiobook
Read by Joffre Swait
Joffre Swait, also known as Joffre the Giant, lives in Idaho with his wife and five children. He is the author of two poetry collections, Well Met: Poems of Companionship, and Made In the Image: Plain Poems, and is co-author of Christian Pipe-Smoking: an Introduction to Holy Incense. Joffre has a deep love for the poetry of the West, and is more ambivalent about the Norman invasion than Tolkien was. He is also the author of Word Hoard: The Rhetoric of Poetry, published by Roman Roads Press.
Publishing information
- Author
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
- Translator
- Walter Miller
- Foreword
- Wesley J. Callihan
- Editor
- George Callihan
- Illustrator
- George Harrell
- Format
- Paperback, 4.75 × 7 in, 298 pages
- ISBN
- 978-1944482114
- Audiobook
- Read by Joffre Swait
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