About Tully’s Offices: In Three Books (De Officiis)

By Cicero

Published in 1680

This beautifully translated edition of Marcus Tullius Cicero’s, (sometimes anglicized as Tully) treatises on The Offices, is comprised of three books, discussing and instructing on a variety of matters of life. The books were originally written to Cicero’s son, Marcus, as a training manual in the study and exercise of Knowledge and Virtue. It had become, however, much more than a guide for his son; it had become a guide to all humanity, and would prove influential in the scope of all of history. This aspect is expressed well in the translator’s “Advertisement to the Reader,” which serves as the introduction to the translated works. “The excellency of the work itself; which has ever been esteemed, both for the method, and matter of it, [is] one of the most exact pieces of the kind that ever was written, and the most instructive of Human life.”