Cicero was at this time still active in politics, trying to stop revolutionary forces from taking control of the Roman Republic.

De Officiis is written in the form of a letter to his son Cicero Minor, who studied philosophy in Athens.

[4] He wrote a book On Duties (Greek: Περὶ Καθήκοντος) in which he divided his subject into three parts but had left the work unfinished at the third stage.

"[7] Cicero urged his son Marcus to follow nature and wisdom, as well as politics, and warned against pleasure and indolence.

Cicero's essay relies heavily on anecdotes, much more than his other works, and is written in a more leisurely and less formal style than his other writings, perhaps because he wrote it hastily.

[6] The four constituent parts of virtue are truth, justice, fortitude, and decorum, and our duties are founded in the right perception of these.

Although not a Christian work, in 390 St. Ambrose declared it legitimate for the Church to use (along with everything else Cicero, and the equally popular Roman philosopher Seneca, had written).

[12] Illustrating its importance, some 700 handwritten copies remain extant in libraries around the world dating back to before the invention of the printing press.

Though this does not surpass the Latin grammarian Priscian's 900 extant handwritten copies, it places De Officiis far above many classical works.

[14] Prince Peter, Duke of Coimbra, member of the Order of the Garter, translated the treatise to Portuguese in 1437, signal of the wide spread of the work in medieval courts.

[17] Sir Thomas Elyot, in his popular Governour (1531), lists three essential texts for bringing up young gentlemen: Plato's works, Aristotle's Ethics, and De Officiis.

The chief librarian Adamo Rossi, a well-known scholar, was originally suspected but exonerated after a lengthy administrative and judicial investigation.

De Officiis continues to be one of the most popular of Cicero's works because of its style, and because of its depiction of Roman political life under the Republic.