Cicero on Humor (IV): De Officiis (On Duties)

Caesar insists that laughter is –and should only be—provoked by the presentation of deformity, either physical or ethical flaws, as long as those defects have nothing to do with outstanding wickedness or wretchedness, because in those cases we would—or should—rather be moved to repulsion or compassion. Excluding bad taste is the basic rule for an orator who wants to use humour, because he must avoid the danger of behaving as a scurra (buffoon) or a mimum (mime, mummer).

—Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 37



[W]hat excites laughter is disappointing expectations and ridiculing other people’s characters and imitating a baser person and dissembling and saying things that are rather silly and criticizing points that are foolish.

--De Oratore, lxxi, 289.

“Nature has not brought us into the world to act as if we were created for play or jest, but rather for earnestness and for some more serious and important pursuits.”

“We may, of course, indulge in sport and jest, but in the same way as we enjoy sleep or other relaxations, and only when we have satisfied the claims of our earnest, serious tasks.”

“[Jesting] ought not to be extravagant or immoderate, but refined and witty.” (The way humor is exercised shows the personality, education, and social class of the person who exercises it.)

(Two types of jests:) “the one, coarse, rude, vicious, indecent; the other, refined, polite, clever, witty.”

“[T]he distinction between the elegant and the vulgar jest is an easy matter: the one kind, if well timed (for instance, in hours of mental relaxation), is becoming to the most dignified person; the other is unfit for any gentleman, if the subject is indecent and the words obscene.”

--De Officiis Book I

Some words Cicero used in related discussion: urbanus (polite), elegans (elegant), illiberale (coarse).