The Offices, as it is translated in my copy (more often translated as On Duties) is a pleasant enjoyable work.

Cicero was known as a great stylist as well as great orator and the translator has taken pains to try and convey a enjoyable and readable style.

Early on, the author identifies himself as a philosopher. The conceit is that Cicero is writing a letter to his son who is studying with a (then) famous Greek philosopher. While exhorting his son to not ignore the Roman style of philosophy while studying under a Greek, Cicero consistently refers to himself a prominent Roman philosopher.

This sparked in me the contrast between classical Roman philosophy and virtually ever other ‘philosophy.’

Though I have read deeply in philosophy for a dilettante, I am still a dilettante, so I will accept criticism from those who know more. But to me, Roman philosophy has always seemed more of belles lettres than true philosophy in the academic sense. I suppose I could also compare it to drugstore philosophy books that are more pseudo-spiritual self help than any real philosophy, but that would be unkind to a major and influential thinker.

That said, should we look at this particular work by Cicero more kindly? It is, after all, a not unrigorous book of practical ethics? But it’s not all that rigorous, though, is it? The ‘what one ought to do’ is well put, but the ‘why one ought to do it’ is a little more fuzzy, is it not? Or do I, as a contemporary man, simply fail to empathize with Cicero as a man of his times and my failing to respect appeals the gods is, in fact, a real failing on my part?