De Officiis is a 44 BC treatise by Marcus Tullius Cicero divided into three books, in which Cicero expounds his conception of the best way to live, behave, and observe moral obligations. The work discusses what is honorable, what is to one's advantage, and what to do when the honorable and private gain apparently conflict. For the first two books Cicero was dependent on the Stoic philosopher Panaetius, but wrote more independently for the third book.
Title page of De Officiis. Christopher Froschouer – 1560.
From a German edition – 1531
Henry VIII's childhood copy of De Officiis, bearing the inscription "Thys boke is myne" in his hand, from the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library
Panaetius of Rhodes was an ancient Greek Stoic philosopher. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus in Athens, before moving to Rome where he did much to introduce Stoic doctrines to the city, thanks to the patronage of Scipio Aemilianus. After the death of Scipio in 129 BC, he returned to the Stoic school in Athens, and was its last undisputed scholarch. With Panaetius, Stoicism became much more eclectic. His most famous work was his On Duties, the principal source used by Cicero in his own work of the same name.
Panaetius, depicted as a medieval scholar in the Nuremberg Chronicle
