Cicero (on the Stoics) · 106–43 BCE
On Duties 2.78 — Cicero (on the Stoics)
Translation by Walter Miller (1913)
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 2.78
But they who pose as friends of the people, and who for that reason either attempt to have agrarian laws passed, in order that the occupants may be driven out of their homes, or propose that money loaned should be remitted to the borrowers, are undermining the foundations of the commonwealth: first of all, they are destroying harmony, which cannot exist when money is taken away from one party and bestowed upon another; and second, they do away with equity, which is utterly subverted, if the rights of property are not respected. For, as I said above, it is the peculiar function of the state and the city to guarantee to every man the free and undisturbed control of his own particular property.
Cite this passage
Cicero (on the Stoics), On Duties 2.78, tr. Walter Miller (1913)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/on-duties/2.78
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 notesA Roman political argument against land redistribution and cancelling debts: those who pose as friends of the people, it holds, destroy harmony and fairness by taking property from one group to give to another. It is an opinion about state policy rather than personal guidance.
Older wording
- “agrarian laws”
- — laws to redistribute land
- “remitted”
- — cancelled, written off
- “subverted”
- — undermined from within
Themes and situations
- Justice and fairness
- Leadership and power
- Community and our duty to others
- Wealth and poverty
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