Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 2.14 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 2.14
Think of the aqueducts, canals, irrigation works, breakwaters, artificial harbours; how should we have these without the work of man? From these and many other illustrations it is obvious that we could not in any way, without the work of man's hands, have received the profits and the benefits accruing from inanimate things. Finally, of what profit or service could animals be, without the co-operation of man? For it was men who were the foremost in discovering what use could be made of each beast; and to-day, if it were not for man's labour, we could neither feed them nor break them in nor take care of them nor yet secure the profits from them in due season. By man, too, noxious beasts are destroyed, and those that can be of use are captured.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 2.14, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/2.14
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 notesMore examples of human cooperation, from aqueducts and harbours to the use of animals, showing that the benefits of the natural world reach us only through other people's work.
Older wording
- “noxious”
- — harmful
- “breakwaters”
- — sea walls that shelter a harbour
Themes and situations
- Community and our duty to others
- Nature and the cosmos
Quote cards
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