Cicero’s Laelius de Amicitia ("Laelius on Friendship")
Dedication to Atticus
The augur Quintus Mucius Scaevola used to recount a number of stories about his
father-in-law, Gaius Laelius, accurately remembered and charmingly told; and
whenever he talked about him always gave him the title of "the wise" without any
hesitation. I had been introduced by my father to Scaevola as soon as I had
assumed the toga virilis, and I took advantage of the introduction never to quit
the venerable man's side as long as I was able to stay and he was spared to us.
The consequence was that I committed to memory many disquisitions of his, as
well as many short pointed apophthegms, and, in short, took as much advantage of
his wisdom as I could. When he died, I attached myself to Scaevola the Pontifex,
whom I may venture to call quite the most distinguished of our countrymen for
ability and uprightness. But of this latter I shall take other occasions to
speak. To return to Scaevola the augur: Among many other occasions I
particularly remember one. He was sitting on a semicircular garden-bench, as was
his custom, when I and a very few intimate friends were there, and he chanced to
turn the conversation upon a subject which about that time was in many people's
mouths. You must remember, Atticus, for you were very intimate with Publius
Sulpicius, what expressions of astonishment, or even indignation, were called
forth by his mortal quarrel, as tribune, with the consul Quintus Pompeius, with
whom he had formerly lived on terms of the closest intimacy and affection. Well,
on this occasion, happening to mention this particular circumstance, Scaevola
detailed to us a discourse of Laelius on friendship delivered to himself and
Laelius' other son-in-law, Gaius Fannius, son of Marcus Fannius, a few days
after the death of Africanus. The points of that discussion I committed to
memory, and have arranged them in this book at my own discretion. For I have
brought the speakers, as it were, personally on to my stage to prevent the
constant "said I" and "said he" of a narrative, and to give the discourse the
air of being orally delivered in our hearing.
You have often urged me to write something on Friendship, and I quite
acknowledged that the subject seemed one worth everybody's investigation, and
specially suited to the close intimacy that has existed between you and me.
Accordingly I was quite ready to benefit the public at your request.
As to the dramatis personae: In the treatise On Old Age, which I dedicated to
you, I introduced Cato as chief speaker. No one, I thought, could with greater
propriety speak on old age than one who had been an old man longer than any one
else, and had been exceptionally vigorous in his old age. Similarly, having
learnt from tradition that of all friendships that between Gaius Laelius and
Publius Scipio was the most remarkable, I thought Laelius was just the person to
support the chief part in a discussion on friendship which Scaevola remembered
him to have actually taken. Moreover, a discussion of this sort gains somehow in
weight from the authority of men of ancient days, especially if they happen to
have been distinguished. So it comes about that in reading over what I have
myself written I have a feeling at times that it is actually Cato that is
speaking, not I.
Finally, as I sent the former essay to you as a gift from one old man to
another, so I have dedicated this On Friendship as a most affectionate friend to
his friend. In the former Cato spoke, who was the oldest and wisest man of his
day; in this Laelius speaks on friendship - Laelius, who was at once a wise man
(that was the title given him) and eminent for his famous friendship. Please
forget me for a while; imagine Laelius to be speaking.
Gaius Fannius and Quintus Mucius come to call on their father-in-law after the
death of Africanus. They start the subject; Laelius answers them. And the whole
essay on friendship is his. In reading it you will recognise a picture of
yourself.
The Dialogue
Questions regarding Laelius' health and grief for his friend, Scipio Africanus.
Fannius. You are quite right, Laelius! there never was a better or more
illustrious character than Africanus. But you should consider that at the
present moment all eyes are on you. Everybody calls you "the wise" par
excellence, and thinks you so. The same mark of respect was lately paid Cato,
and we know that in the last generation Lucius Atilius was called "the wise."
But in both cases the word was applied with a certain difference. Atilius was so
called from his reputation as a jurist; Cato got the name as a kind of honorary
title and in extreme old age because of his varied experience of affairs, and
his reputation for foresight and firmness, and the sagacity of the opinions
which he delivered in senate and forum. You, however, are regarded as "wise" in
a somewhat different sense - not alone on account of natural ability and
character, but also from your industry and learning; and not in the sense in
which the vulgar, but that in which scholars, give that title. In this sense we
do not read of any one being called wise in Greece except one man at Athens; and
he, to be sure, had been declared by the oracle of Apollo also to be "the
supremely wise man." For those who commonly go by the name of the Seven Sages
are not admitted into the category of the wise by fastidious critics. Your
wisdom people believe to consist in this, that you look upon yourself as
self-sufficing and regard the changes and chances of mortal life as powerless to
affect your virtue. Accordingly they are always asking me, and doubtless also
our Scaevola here, how you bear the death of Africanus. This curiosity has been
the more excited from the fact that on the Nones of this month, when we augurs
met as usual in the suburban villa of Decimus Brutus for consultation, you were
not present, though it had always been your habit to keep that appointment and
perform that duty with the utmost punctuality.
Scaevola. Yes, indeed, Laelius, I am often asked the question mentioned by
Fannius. But I answer in accordance with what I have observed: I say that you
bear in a reasonable manner the grief which you have sustained in the death of
one who was at once a man of the most illustrious character and a very dear
friend. That of course you could not but be affected - anything else would have
been wholly unnatural in a man of your gentle nature - but that the cause of
your non-attendance at our college meeting was illness, not melancholy.
Laelius. Thanks, Scaevola! You are quite right; you spoke the exact truth. For
in fact I had no right to allow myself to be withdrawn from a duty which I had
regularly performed, as long as I was well, by any personal misfortune; nor do I
think that anything that can happen will cause a man of principle to intermit a
duty. As for your telling me, Fannius, of the honourable appellation given me
(an appellation to which I do not recognise my title, and to which I make no
claim), you doubtless act from feelings of affection; but I must say that you
seem to me to do less than justice to Cato. If any one was ever "wise," - of
which I have my doubts - he was. Putting aside everything else, consider how he
bore his son's death! I had not forgotten Paulus; I had seen with my own eyes
Gallus. But they lost their sons when mere children; Cato his when he was a
full-grown man with an assured reputation. Do not therefore be in a hurry to
reckon as Cato's superior even that same famous personage whom Apollo, as you
say, declared to be "the wisest." Remember the former's reputation rests on
deeds, the latter's on words.
Laelius describes his feelings about the death of Scipio: Scipio’s life was so
successful that he had no regrets at the end; Scipio’s death was so quick that
he did not suffer; the immortality of the soul.
3. Now, as far as I am concerned (I speak to both of you now), believe me, the
case stands thus: If I were to say that I am not affected by regret for Scipio,
I must leave the philosophers to justify my conduct, but in point of fact I
should be telling a lie. Affected of course I am by the loss of a friend as I
think there will never be again, such as I can fearlessly say there never was
before. But I stand in no need of medicine. I can find my own consolation, and
it consists chiefly in my being free from the mistaken notion which generally
causes pain at the departure of friends. To Scipio I am convinced no evil has
befallen: mine is the disaster, if disaster there be; and to be severely
distressed at one's own misfortunes does not show that you love your friend, but
that you love yourself.
As for him, who can say that all is not more than well? For, unless he had taken
the fancy to wish for immortality, the last thing of which he ever thought, what
is there for which mortal man may wish that he did not attain? In his early
manhood he more than justified by extraordinary personal courage the hopes which
his fellow-citizens had conceived of him as a child. He never was a candidate
for the consulship, yet was elected consul twice: the first time before the
legal age; the second at a time which, as far as he was concerned, was soon
enough, but was near being too late for the interests of the State. By the
overthrow of two cities which were the most bitter enemies of our Empire, he put
an end not only to the wars then raging, but also to the possibility of others
in the future. What need to mention the exquisite grace of his manners, his
dutiful devotion to his mother, his generosity to his sisters, his liberality to
his relations, the integrity of his conduct to every one? You know all this
already. Finally, the estimation in which his fellow-citizens held him has been
shown by the signs of mourning which accompanied his obsequies. What could such
a man have gained by the addition of a few years? Though age need not be a
burden, - as I remember Cato arguing in the presence of myself and Scipio two
years before he died, - yet it cannot but take away the vigour and freshness
which Scipio was still enjoying. We may conclude therefore that his life, from
the good fortune which had attended him and the glory he had obtained, was so
circumstanced that it could not be bettered, while the suddenness of his death
saved him the sensation of dying. As to the manner of his death it is difficult
to speak; you see what people suspect. Thus much, however, I may say: Scipio in
his lifetime saw many days of supreme triumph and exultation, but none more
magnificent than his last, on which, upon the rising of the Senate, he was
escorted by the senators and the people of Rome, by the allies, and by the
Latins, to his own door. From such an elevation of popular esteem the next step
seems naturally to be an ascent to the gods above, rather than a descent to
Hades.
4. For I am not one of these modern philosophers who maintain that our souls
perish with our bodies, and that death ends all. With me ancient opinion has
more weight: whether it be that of our own ancestors, who attributed such solemn
observances to the dead, as they plainly would not have done if they had
believed them to be wholly annihilated; or that of the philosophers who once
visited this country, and who by their maxims and doctrines educated Magna
Graecia, which at that time was in a flourishing condition, though it has now
been ruined; or that of the man who was declared by Apollo's oracle to be "most
wise," and who used to teach without the variation which is to be found in most
philosophers that "the souls of men are divine, and that when they have quitted
the body a return to heaven is open to them, least difficult to those who have
been most virtuous and just." This opinion was shared by Scipio. Only a few days
before his death - as though he had a presentiment of what was coming - he
discoursed for three days on the state of the republic. The company consisted of
Philus and Manlius and several others, and I had brought you, Scaevola, along
with me. The last part of his discourse referred principally to the immortality
of the soul; for he told us what he had heard from the elder Africanus in a
dream. Now if it be true that in proportion to a man's goodness the escape from
what may be called the prison and bonds of the flesh is easiest, whom can we
imagine to have had an easier voyage to the gods than Scipio? I am disposed to
think, therefore, that in his case mourning would be a sign of envy rather than
of friendship. If, however, the truth rather is that the body and soul perish
together, and that no sensation remains, then though there is nothing good in
death, at least there is nothing bad. Remove sensation, and a man is exactly as
though he had never been born; and yet that this man was born is a joy to me,
and will be a subject to rejoicing to this State to its last hour.
Wherefore, as I said before, all is as well as possible with him. Not so with
me; for as I entered life before him, it would have been fairer for me to leave
it also before him. Yet such is the pleasure I take in recalling our friendship,
that I look upon my life as having been a happy one because I have spent it with
Scipio. With him I was associated in public and private business; with him I
lived in Rome and served abroad; and between us there was the most complete
harmony in our tastes, our pursuits, and our sentiments, which is the true
secret of friendship. It is not therefore in that reputation for wisdom
mentioned just now by Fannius - especially as it happens to be groundless - that
I find my happiness so much, as in the hope that the memory of our friendship
will be lasting. What makes me care the more about this is the fact that in all
history there are scarcely three or four pairs of friends on record; and it is
classed with them that I cherish a hope of the friendship of Scipio and Laelius
being known to posterity.
Fannius. Of course that must be so, Laelius. But since you have mentioned the
word friendship, and we are at leisure, you would be doing me a great kindness,
and I expect Scaevola also, if you would do as it is your habit to do when asked
questions on other subjects, and tell us your sentiments about friendship, its
nature, and the rules to be observed in regard to it.
Scaevola. I shall of course be delighted. Fannius has anticipated the very
request I was about to make. So you will be doing us both a great favour.
Laelius’ definition of friendship: Friendship can only exist between good men; a
definition of "good men"; companionship is part of human nature.
5. Laelius. I should certainly have no objection if I felt confidence in myself.
For the theme is a noble one, and we are (as Fannius has said) at leisure. But
who am I? and what ability have I? What you propose is all very well for
professional philosophers, who are used, particularly if Greeks, to have the
subject for discussion proposed to them on the spur of the moment. It is a task
of considerable difficulty, and requires no little practice. Therefore for a set
discourse on friendship you must go, I think, to professional lecturers. All I
can do is to urge on you to regard friendship as the greatest thing in the
world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly
what we want in prosperity or adversity.
But I must at the very beginning lay down this principle - friendship can only
exist between good men. I do not, however, press this too closely, like the
philosophers who push their definitions to a superfluous accuracy. They have
truth on their side, perhaps, but it is of no practical advantage. Those, I
mean, who say that no one but the "wise" is "good." Granted, by all means. But
the "wisdom" they mean is one to which no mortal ever yet attained. We must
concern ourselves with the facts of everyday life as we find it - not imaginary
and ideal perfections. Even Gaius Fannius, Manius Curius, and Tiberius
Coruncanius, whom our ancestors decided to be "wise," I could never declare to
be so according to their standard. Let them, then, keep this word "wisdom" to
themselves. Everybody is irritated by it; no one understands what it means. Let
them but grant that the men I mentioned were "good." No, they won't do that
either. No one but the "wise" can be allowed that title, say they. Well, then,
let us dismiss them and manage as best we may with our own poor mother wit, as
the phrase is.
We mean then by the "good" those whose actions and lives leave no question as to
their honour, purity, equity, and liberality; who are free from greed, lust, and
violence; and who have the courage of their convictions. The men I have just
named may serve as examples. Such men as these being generally accounted "good,"
let us agree to call them so, on the ground that to the best of human ability
they follow nature as the most perfect guide to a good life.
Now this truth seems clear to me, that nature has so formed us that a certain
tie unites us all, but that this tie becomes stronger from proximity. So it is
that fellow-citizens are preferred in our affections to foreigners, relations to
strangers; for in their case Nature herself has caused a kind of friendship to
exist, though it is one which lacks some of the elements of permanence.
Friendship excels relationship in this, that whereas you may eliminate affection
from relationship, you cannot do so from friendship. Without it relationship
still exists in name, friendship does not. You may best understand this
friendship by considering that, whereas the merely natural ties uniting the
human race are indefinite, this one is so concentrated, and confined to so
narrow a sphere, that affection is ever shared by two persons only, or at most
by a few.
A definition of friendship: complete sympathy in all matters of importance, plus
goodwill and affection. Without virtue friendship cannot exist.
6. Now friendship may be thus defined: a complete accord on all subjects human
and divine, joined with mutual good will and affection. And with the exception
of wisdom, I am inclined to think nothing better than this has been given to man
by the immortal gods. There are people who give the palm to riches or to good
health, or to power and office, many even to sensual pleasures. This last is the
ideal of brute beasts; and of the others we may say that they are frail and
uncertain, and depend less on our own prudence than on the caprice of fortune.
Then there are those who find the "chief good" in virtue. Well, that is a noble
doctrine. But the very virtue they talk of is the parent and preserver of
friendship, and without it friendship cannot possibly exist.
Let us, I repeat, use the word virtue in the ordinary acceptation and meaning of
the term, and do not let us define it in high-flown language. Let us account as
good the persons usually considered so, such as Paulus, Cato, Gallus, Scipio,
and Philus. Such men as these are good enough for everyday life; and we need not
trouble ourselves about those ideal characters which are nowhere to be met with.
Well, between men like these the advantages of friendship are almost more than I
can say. To begin with, how can life be worth living, to use the words of Ennius,
which lacks that repose which is to be found in the mutual good will of a
friend? What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say
everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself? Is not prosperity
robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy? On the other
hand, misfortunes would be hard to bear if there were not some one to feel them
even more acutely than yourself. In a word, other objects of ambition serve for
particular ends - riches for use, power for securing homage, office for
reputation, pleasure for enjoyment, health for freedom from pain and the full
use of the functions of the body. But friendship embraces innumerable
advantages. Turn which way you please, you will find it at hand. It is
everywhere; and yet never out of place, never unwelcome. Fire and water
themselves, to use a common expression, are not of more universal use than
friendship. I am not now speaking of the common or modified form of it, though
even that is a source of pleasure and profit, but of that true and complete
friendship which existed between the select few who are known to fame. Such
friendship enhances prosperity, and relieves adversity of its burden by halving
and sharing it.
The Blessings of Friendship
7. And great and numerous as are the blessings of friendship, this certainly is
the sovereign one, that it gives us bright hopes for the future and forbids
weakness and despair. In the face of a true friend a man sees as it were a
second self. So that where his friend is he is; if his friend be rich, he is not
poor; though he be weak, his friend's strength is his; and in his friend's life
he enjoys a second life after his own is finished. This last is perhaps the most
difficult to conceive. But such is the effect of the respect, the loving
remembrance, and the regret of friends which follow us to the grave. While they
take the sting out of death, they add a glory to the life of the survivors. Nay,
if you eliminate from nature the tie of affection, there will be an end of house
and city, nor will so much as the cultivation of the soil be left. If you don't
see the virtue of friendship and harmony, you may learn it by observing the
effects of quarrels and feuds. Was any family ever so well established, any
State so firmly settled, as to be beyond the reach of utter destruction from
animosities and factions? This may teach you the immense advantage of
friendship.
They say that a certain philosopher of Agrigentum, in a Greek poem, pronounced
with the authority of an oracle the doctrine that whatever in nature and the
universe was unchangeable was so in virtue of the binding force of friendship;
whatever was changeable was so by the solvent power of discord. And indeed this
is a truth which everybody understands and practically attests by experience.
For if any marked instance of loyal friendship in confronting or sharing danger
comes to light, every one applauds it to the echo. What cheers there were, for
instance, all over the theatre at a passage in the new play of my friend and
guest Pacuvius; where, the king not knowing which of the two was Orestes,
Pylades declared himself to be Orestes, that he might die in his stead, while
the real Orestes kept on asserting that it was he. The audience rose en masse
and clapped their hands. And this was at an incident in fiction: what would they
have done, must we suppose, if it had been in real life? You can easily see what
a natural feeling it is, when men who would not have had the resolution to act
thus themselves, shewed how right they thought it in another.
I don't think I have any more to say about friendship. If there is any more, and
I have no doubt there is much, you must, if you care to do so, consult those who
profess to discuss such matters.
Fannius. We would rather apply to you. Yet I have often consulted such persons,
and have heard what they had to say with a certain satisfaction. But in your
discourse one somehow feels that there is a different strain.
Scaevola. You would have said that still more, Fannius, if you had been present
the other day in Scipio's pleasure-grounds when we had the discussion about the
State. How splendidly he stood up for justice against Philus' elaborate speech!
Fannius. Ah! it was naturally easy for the justest of men to stand up for
justice.
Scaevola, Well, then, what about friendship? Who could discourse on it more
easily than the man whose chief glory is a friendship maintained with the most
absolute fidelity, constancy, and integrity?
Laelius speaks on the origin of friendship
8. Laelius. Now you are really using force. It makes no difference what kind of
force you use: force it is. For it is neither easy nor right to refuse a wish of
my sons-in-law, particularly when the wish is a creditable one in itself.
Well, then, it has very often occurred to me when thinking about friendship,
that the chief point to be considered was this: is it weakness and want of means
that make friendship desired? I mean, is its object an interchange of good
offices, so that each may give that in which he is strong, and receive that in
which he is weak? Or is it not rather true that, although this is an advantage
naturally belonging to friendship, yet its original cause is quite other, prior
in time, more noble in character, and springing more directly from our nature
itself? The Latin word for friendship - amicitia - is derived from that for love
- amor; and love is certainly the prime mover in contracting mutual affection.
For as to material advantages, it often happens that those are obtained even by
men who are courted by a mere show of friendship and treated with respect from
interested motives. But friendship by its nature admits of no feigning, no
pretence: as far as it goes it is both genuine and spontaneous. Therefore I
gather that friendship springs from a natural impulse rather than a wish for
help: from an inclination of the heart, combined with a certain instinctive
feeling of love, rather than from a deliberate calculation of the material
advantage it was likely to confer. The strength of this feeling you may notice
in certain animals. They show such love to their offspring for a certain period,
and are so beloved by them, that they clearly have a share in this natural,
instinctive affection. But of course it is more evident in the case of man:
first, in the natural affection between children and their parents, an affection
which only shocking wickedness can sunder: and next, when the passion of love
has attained to a like strength - on our finding, that is, some one person with
whose character and nature we are in full sympathy, because we think that we
perceive in him what I may call the beacon-light of virtue. For nothing inspires
love, nothing conciliates affection, like virtue. Why, in a certain sense we may
be said to feel affection even for men we have never seen, owing to their
honesty and virtue. Who, for instance, fails to dwell on the memory of Gaius
Fabricius and Manius Curius with some affection and warmth of feeling, though he
has never seen them? Or who but loathes Tarquinius Superbus, Spurius Cassius,
Spurius Maelius? We have fought for empire in Italy with two great generals,
Pyrrhus and Hannibal. For the former, owing to his probity, we entertain no
great feelings of enmity: the latter, owing to his cruelty, our country has
detested and always will detest.
Admiration for virtue must be accompanied by shared kindnesses in order to
become friendship.
9. Now, if the attraction of probity is so great that we can love it not only in
those whom we have never seen, but, what is more, actually in an enemy, we need
not be surprised if men's affections are roused when they fancy that they have
seen virtue and goodness in those with whom a close intimacy is possible. I do
not deny that affection is strengthened by the actual receipt of benefits, as
well as by the perception of a wish to render service, combined with a closer
intercourse. When these are added to the original impulse of the heart, to which
I have alluded, a quite surprising warmth of feeling springs up. And if any one
thinks that this comes from a sense of weakness, that each may have some one to
help him to his particular need, all I can say is that, when he maintains it to
be born of want and poverty, he allows to friendship an origin very base, and a
pedigree, if I may be allowed the expression, far from noble. If this had been
the case, a man's inclination to friendship would be exactly in proportion to
his low opinion of his own resources. Whereas the truth is quite the other way.
For when a man's confidence in himself is greatest, when he is so fortified by
virtue and wisdom as to want nothing and to feel absolutely self-dependent, it
is then that he is most conspicuous for seeking out and keeping up friendships.
Did Africanus, for example, want anything of me? Not the least in the world!
Neither did I of him. In my case it was an admiration of his virtue, in his an
opinion, maybe, which he entertained of my character, that caused our affection.
Closer intimacy added to the warmth of our feelings. But though many great
material advantages did ensue, they were not the source from which our affection
proceeded. For as we are not beneficent and liberal with any view of extorting
gratitude, and do not regard an act of kindness as an investment, but follow a
natural inclination to liberality; so we look on friendship as worth trying for,
not because we are attracted to it by the expectation of ulterior gain, but in
the conviction that what it has to give us is from first to last included in the
feeling itself.
Far different is the view of those who, like brute beasts, refer everything to
sensual pleasure. And no wonder. Men who have degraded all their powers of
thought to an object so mean and contemptible can of course raise their eyes to
nothing lofty, to nothing grand and divine. Such persons indeed let us leave out
of the present question. And let us accept the doctrine that the sensation of
love and the warmth of inclination have their origin in a spontaneous feeling
which arises directly the presence of probity is indicated. When once men have
conceived the inclination, they of course try to attach themselves to the object
of it, and move themselves nearer and nearer to him. Their aim is that they may
be on the same footing and the same level in regard to affection, and be more
inclined to do a good service than to ask a return, and that there should be
this noble rivalry between them. Thus both truths will be established. We shall
get the most important material advantages from friendship; and its origin from
a natural impulse rather than from a sense of need will be at once more
dignified and more in accordance with fact. For if it were true that its
material advantages cemented friendship, it would be equally true that any
change in them would dissolve it. But nature being incapable of change, it
follows that genuine friendships are eternal.
So much for the origin of friendship. But perhaps you would not care to hear any
more.
Fannius. Nay, pray go on; let us have the rest, Laelius. I take on myself to
speak for my friend here as his senior.
Scaevola. Quite right! Therefore, pray let us hear.
Laelius’ friendship with Scipio
The difficulty of maintaining a life-long friendship
10. Laelius. Well, then, my good friends, listen to some conversations about
friendship which very frequently passed between Scipio and myself. I must begin
by telling you, however, that he used to say that the most difficult thing in
the world was for a friendship to remain unimpaired to the end of life. So many
things might intervene: conflicting interests; differences of opinion in
politics; frequent changes in character, owing sometimes to misfortunes,
sometimes to advancing years. He used to illustrate these facts from the analogy
of boyhood, since the warmest affections between boys are often laid aside with
the boyish toga; and even if they did manage to keep them up to adolescence,
they were sometimes broken by a rivalry in courtship, or for some other
advantage to which their mutual claims were not compatible. Even if the
friendship was prolonged beyond that time, yet it frequently received a rude
shock should the two happen to be competitors for office. For while the most
fatal blow to friendship in the majority of cases was the lust of gold, in the
case of the best men it was a rivalry for office and reputation, by which it had
often happened that the most violent enmity had arisen between the closest
friends.
Friendships ends when a friend asks for something immoral
Again, wide breaches and, for the most part, justifiable ones were caused by an
immoral request being made of friends, to pander to a man's unholy desires or to
assist him in inflicting a wrong. A refusal, though perfectly right, is attacked
by those to whom they refuse compliance as a violation of the laws of
friendship. Now the people who have no scruples as to the requests they make to
their friends, thereby allow that they are ready to have no scruples as to what
they will do for their friends; and it is the recriminations of such people
which commonly not only quench friendships, but give rise to lasting enmities.
"In fact," he used to say, "these fatalities overhang friendship in such numbers
that it requires not only wisdom but good luck also to escape them all."
How far should a friend go to help a friend?
11. With these premises, then, let us first, if you please, examine the question
- how far ought personal feeling to go in friendship? For instance: suppose
Coriolanus to have had friends, ought they to have joined him in invading his
country? Again, in the case of Vecellinus or Spurius Maelius, ought their
friends to have assisted them in their attempt to establish a tyranny? Take two
instances of either line of conduct. When Tiberius Gracchus attempted his
revolutionary measures he was deserted, as we saw, by Quintus Tubero and the
friends of his own standing. On the other hand, a friend of your own family,
Scaevola, Gaius Blossius of Cumae, took a different course. I was acting as
assessor to the consuls Laenas and Rupilius to try the conspirators, and
Blossius pleaded for my pardon on the ground that his regard for Tiberius
Gracchus had been so high that he looked upon his wishes as law. "Even if he had
wished you to set fire to the Capitol?" said I. "That is a thing," he replied,
"that he never would have wished." "Ah, but if he had wished it?" said I. "I
would have obeyed." The wickedness of such a speech needs no comment. And in
point of fact he was as good and better than his word; for he did not wait for
orders in the audacious proceedings of Tiberius Gracchus, but was the head and
front of them, and was a leader rather than an abettor of his madness. The
result of his infatuation was that he fled to Asia, terrified by the special
commission appointed to try him, joined the enemies of his country, and paid a
penalty to the republic as heavy as it was deserved. I conclude, then, that the
plea of having acted in the interests of a friend is not a valid excuse for a
wrong action. For, seeing that a belief in a man's virtue is the original cause
of friendship, friendship can hardly remain if virtue be abandoned. But if we
decide it to be right to grant our friends whatever they wish, and to ask them
for whatever we wish, perfect wisdom must be assumed on both sides if no
mischief is to happen. But we cannot assume this perfect wisdom; for we are
speaking only of such friends as are ordinarily to be met with, whether we have
actually seen them or have been told about them - men, that is to say, of
everyday life. I must quote some examples of such persons, taking care to select
such as approach nearest to our standard of wisdom. We read, for instance, that
Papus Aemilius was a close friend of Gaius Luscinus. History tells us that they
were twice consuls together, and colleagues in the censorship. Again, it is on
record that Manius Curius and Tiberius Coruncanius were on the most intimate
terms with them and with each other. Now, we cannot even suspect that any one of
these men ever asked of his friend anything that militated against his honour or
his oath or the interests of the republic. In the case of such men as these
there is no point in saying that one of them would not have obtained such a
request if he had made it; for they were men of the most scrupulous piety, and
the making of such a request would involve a breach of religious obligation no
less than the granting it. However, it is quite true that Gaius Carbo and Gaius
Cato did follow Tiberius Gracchus; and though his brother Gaius Gracchus did not
do so at the time, he is now the most eager of them all.
A law of friendship: Never ask a wrongful thing of a friend.
12. We may then lay down this rule of friendship - neither ask nor consent to do
what is wrong. For the plea "for friendship's sake" is a discreditable one, and
not to be admitted for a moment. This rule holds good for all wrong-doing, but
more especially in such as involves disloyalty to the republic. For things have
come to such a point with us, my dear Fannius and Scaevola, that we are bound to
look somewhat far ahead to what is likely to happen to the republic. The
constitution, as known to our ancestors, has already swerved somewhat from the
regular course and the lines marked out for it. Tiberius Gracchus made an
attempt to obtain the power of a king, or, I might rather say, enjoyed that
power for a few months. Had the Roman people ever heard or seen the like before?
What the friends and connexions that followed him, even after his death, have
succeeded in doing in the case of Publius Scipio I cannot describe without
tears. As for Carbo, thanks to the punishment recently inflicted on Tiberius
Gracchus, we have by hook or by crook managed to hold out against his attacks.
But what to expect of the tribuneship of Gaius Gracchus I do not like to
forecast. One thing leads to another; and once set going, the downward course
proceeds with ever-increasing velocity. There is the case of the ballot: what a
blow was inflicted first by the lex Gabinia, and two years afterwards by the lex
Cassia! I seem already to see the people estranged from the Senate, and the most
important affairs at the mercy of the multitude. For you may be sure that more
people will learn how to set such things in motion than how to stop them. What
is the point of these remarks? This: no one ever makes any attempt of this sort
without friends to help him. We must therefore impress upon good men that,
should they become inevitably involved in friendships with men of this kind,
they ought not to consider themselves under any obligation to stand by friends
who are disloyal to the republic. Bad men must have the fear of punishment
before their eyes: a punishment not less severe for those who follow than for
those who lead others to crime. Who was more famous and powerful in Greece than
Themistocles? At the head of the army in the Persian war he had freed Greece; he
owed his exile to personal envy: but he did not submit to the wrong done him by
his ungrateful country as he ought to have done. He acted as Coriolanus had
acted among us twenty years before. But no one was found to help them in their
attacks upon their fatherland. Both of them accordingly committed suicide.
We conclude, then, not only that no such confederation of evilly disposed men
must be allowed to shelter itself under the plea of friendship, but that, on the
contrary, it must be visited with the severest punishment, lest the idea should
prevail that fidelity to a friend justifies even making war upon one's country.
And this is a case which I am inclined to think, considering how things are
beginning to go, will sooner or later arise. And I care quite as much what the
state of the constitution will be after my death as what it is now.
Only ask friends to do what is honorable.
13. Let this, then, be laid down as the first law of friendship, that we should
ask from friends, and do for friends, only what is good. But do not let us wait
to be asked either: let there be ever an eager readiness, and an absence of
hesitation. Let us have the courage to give advice with candour. In friendship,
let the influence of friends who give good advice be paramount; and let this
influence be used to enforce advice not only in plain-spoken terms, but
sometimes, if the case demands it, with sharpness; and when so used, let it be
obeyed.
I give you these rules because I believe that some wonderful opinions are
entertained by certain persons who have, I am told, a reputation for wisdom in
Greece. There is nothing in the world, by the way, beyond the reach of their
sophistry. Well, some of them teach that we should avoid very close friendships,
for fear that one man should have to endure the anxieties of several. Each man,
say they, has enough and to spare on his own hands; it is too bad to be involved
in the cares of other people. The wisest course is to hold the reins of
friendship as loose as possible; you can then tighten or slacken them at your
will. For the first condition of a happy life is freedom from care, which no
one's mind can enjoy if it has to travail, so to speak, for others besides
itself. Another sect, I am told, gives vent to opinions still less generous. I
briefly touched on this subject just now. They affirm that friendships should be
sought solely for the sake of the assistance they give, and not at all from
motives of feeling and affection; and that therefore just in proportion as a
man's power and means of support are lowest, he is most eager to gain
friendships: thence it comes that weak women seek the support of friendship more
than men, the poor more than the rich, the unfortunate rather than those
esteemed prosperous. What noble philosophy! You might just as well take the sun
out of the sky as friendship from life; for the immortal gods have given us
nothing better or more delightful.
But let us examine the two doctrines. What is the value of this "freedom from
care"? It is very tempting at first sight, but in practice it has in many cases
to be put on one side. For there is no business and no course of action demanded
from us by our honour which you can consistently decline, or lay aside when
begun, from a mere wish to escape from anxiety. Nay, if we wish to avoid anxiety
we must avoid virtue itself, which necessarily involves some anxious thoughts in
showing its loathing and abhorrence for the qualities which are opposite to
itself - as kindness for ill nature, self-control for licentiousness, courage
for cowardice. Thus you may notice that it is the just who are most pained at
injustice, the brave at cowardly actions, the temperate at depravity. It is then
characteristic of a rightly ordered mind to be pleased at what is good and
grieved at the reverse. Seeing then that the wise are not exempt from the
heart-ache (which must be the case unless we suppose all human nature rooted out
of their hearts), why should we banish friendship from our lives, for fear of
being involved by it in some amount of distress? If you take away emotion, what
difference remains I don't say between a man and a beast, but between a man and
a stone or a log of wood, or anything else of that kind?
Neither should we give any weight to the doctrine that virtue is something rigid
and unyielding as iron. In point of fact it is in regard to friendship, as in so
many other things, so supple and sensitive that it expands, so to speak, at a
friend's good fortune, contracts at his misfortunes. We conclude then that
mental pain which we must often encounter on a friend's account is not of
sufficient consequence to banish friendship from our life, any more than it is
true that the cardinal virtues are to be dispensed with because they involve
certain anxieties and distresses.
The pleasure of enjoying the friendship of a living soul endowed with virtue
14. Let me repeat then, "the clear indication of virtue, to which a mind of like
character is naturally attracted, is the beginning of friendship." When that is
the case the rise of affection is a necessity. For what can be more irrational
than to take delight in many objects incapable of response, such as office,
fame, splendid buildings, and personal decoration, and yet to take little or
none in a sentient being endowed with virtue, which has the faculty of loving
or, if I may use the expression, loving back? For nothing is really more
delightful than a return of affection, and the mutual interchange of kind
feeling and good offices. And if we add, as we may fairly do, that nothing so
powerfully attracts and draws one thing to itself as likeness does to
friendship, it will at once be admitted to be true that the good love the good
and attach them to themselves as though they were united by blood and nature.
For nothing can be more eager, or rather greedy, for what is like itself than
nature. So, my dear Fannius and Scaevola, we may look upon this as an
established fact, that between good men there is, as it were of necessity, a
kindly feeling, which is the source of friendship ordained by nature. But this
same kindliness affects the many also. For that is no unsympathetic or selfish
or exclusive virtue, which protects even whole nations and consults their best
interests. And that certainly it would not have done had it disdained all
affection for the common herd.
Again, the believers in the "interest" theory appear to me to destroy the most
attractive link in the chain of friendship. For it is not so much what one gets
by a friend that gives one pleasure, as the warmth of his feeling; and we only
care for a friend's service if it has been prompted by affection. And so far
from its being true that lack of means is a motive for seeking friendship, it is
usually those who, being most richly endowed with wealth and means, and above
all with virtue (which, after all, is a man's best support), are least in need
of another, that are most open-handed and beneficent. Indeed I am inclined to
think that friends ought at times to be in want of something. For instance, what
scope would my affections have had if Scipio had never wanted my advice or
co-operation at home or abroad? It is not friendship, then, that follows
material advantage, but material advantage friendship.
Those weakened by luxurious living (Epicureans) are not good models for
friendship
15. We must not therefore listen to these superfine gentlemen when they talk of
friendship, which they know neither in theory nor in practice. For who, in
heaven's name, would choose a life of the greatest wealth and abundance on
condition of neither loving or being be loved by any creature? That is the sort
of life tyrants endure. They, of course, can count on no fidelity, no affection,
no security for the good will of any one. For them all is suspicion and anxiety;
for them their is no possibility of friendship. Who can love one whom he fears,
or by whom he knows that he is feared? Yet such men have a show of friendship
offered them, but it is only a fair-weather show. If it ever happen that they
fall, as it generally does, they will at once understand how friendless they
are. So they say Tarquin observed in his exile that he never knew which of his
friends were real and which sham, until he had ceased to be able to repay
either. Though what surprises me is that a man of his proud and overbearing
character should have a friend at all. And as it was his character that
prevented his having genuine friends, so it often happens in the case of men of
unusually great means - their very wealth forbids faithful friendships. For not
only is Fortune blind herself; but she generally makes those blind also who
enjoy her favours. They are carried, so to speak, beyond themselves with
self-conceit and self-will; nor can anything be more perfectly intolerable than
a successful fool. You may often see it. Men who before had pleasant manners
enough undergo a complete change on attaining power of office. They despise
their old friends: devote themselves to new.
Now, can anything be more foolish than that men who have all the opportunities
which prosperity, wealth, and great means can bestow, should secure all else
which money can buy - horses, servants, splendid upholstering, and costly plate
- but do not secure friends, who are, if I may use the expression, the most
valuable and beautiful furniture of life? And yet, when they acquire the former,
they know not who will enjoy them, nor for whom they may be taking all this
trouble; for they will one and all eventually belong to the strongest: while
each man has a stable and inalienable ownership in his friendships. And even if
those possessions, which are, in a manner, the gifts of fortune, do prove
permanent, life can never be anything but joyless which is without the
consolations and companionship of friends.
The false limits of friendship
16. To turn to another branch of our subject: We must now endeavour to ascertain
what limits are to be observed in friendship - what is the boundary-line, so to
speak, beyond which our affection is not to go. On this point I notice three
opinions, with none of which I agree. One is that we should love our friend just
as much as we love ourselves, and no more; another, that our affection to
friends, should exactly correspond and equal theirs to us; a third, that a man
should be valued at exactly the same rate as he values himself. To not one of
these opinions do I assent. The first, which holds that our regard for ourselves
is to be the measure of our regard for our friend, is not true; for how many
things there are which we would never have done for our own sakes, but do for
the sake of a friend! We submit to make requests from unworthy people, to
descend even to supplication; to be sharper in invective, more violent in
attack. Such actions are not creditable in our own interests, but highly so in
those of our friends. There are many advantages too which men of upright
character voluntarily forgo, or of which they are content to be deprived, that
their friends may enjoy them rather than themselves.
The second doctrine is that which limits friendship to an exact equality in
mutual good offices and good feelings. But such a view reduces friendship to a
question of figures in a spirit far too narrow and illiberal, as though the
object were to have an exact balance in a debtor and creditor account. True
friendship appears to me to be something richer and more generous than that
comes to; and not to be so narrowly on its guard against giving more than it
receives. In such a matter we must not be always afraid of something being
wasted or running over in our measure, or of more than is justly due being
devoted to our friendship.
But the last limit proposed is the worst, namely, that a friend's estimate of
himself is to be the measure of our estimate of him. It often happens that a man
has too humble an idea of himself, or takes too despairing a view of his chance
of bettering his fortune. In such a case a friend ought not to take the view of
him which he takes of himself. Rather he should do all he can to raise his
drooping spirits, and lead him to more cheerful hopes and thoughts.
We must then find some other limit. But I must first mention the sentiment which
used to call forth Scipio's severest criticism. He often said that no one ever
gave utterance to anything more diametrically opposed to the spirit of
friendship than the author of the dictum, "You should love your friend with the
consciousness that you may one day hate him." He could not be induced to believe
that it was rightfully attributed to Bias, who was counted as one of the Seven
Sages. It was the sentiment of some person with sinister motives or selfish
ambition, or who regarded everything as it affected his own supremacy. How can a
man be friends with another, if he thinks it possible that he may be his enemy?
Why, it will follow that he must wish and desire his friend to commit as many
mistakes as possible, that he may have all the more handles against him; and,
conversely, that he must be annoyed, irritated, and jealous at the right actions
or good fortune of his friends. This maxim, then, let it be whose it will, is
the utter destruction of friendship. The true rule is to take such care in the
selection of our friends as never to enter upon a friendship with a man whom we
could under any circumstances come to hate. And even if we are unlucky in our
choice, we must put up with it - according to Scipio - in preference to making
calculations as to a future breach.
The true limits of friendship: friends should be without character blemish;
friends should share all concerns and plans with friends.
17. The real limit to be observed in friendship is this: the characters of two
friends must be stainless. There must be complete harmony of interests, purpose,
and aims, without exception. Then if the case arises of a friend's wish (not
strictly right in itself) calling for support in a matter involving his life or
reputation, we must make some concession from the straight path on condition,
that is to say, that extreme disgrace is not the consequence. Something must be
conceded to friendship. And yet we must not be entirely careless of our
reputation, nor regard the good opinion of our fellow-citizens as a weapon which
we can afford to despise in conducting the business of our life, however
lowering it may be to tout for it by flattery and smooth words. We must by no
means abjure virtue, which secures us affection.
But to return again to Scipio, the sole author of the discourse on friendship:
He used to complain that there was nothing on which men bestowed so little
pains: that every one could tell exactly how many goats or sheep he had, but not
how many friends; and while they took pains in procuring the former, they were
utterly careless in selecting friends, and possessed no particular marks, so to
speak, or tokens by which they might judge of their suitability for friendship.
Now the qualities we ought to look out for in making our selection are firmness,
stability, constancy. There is a plentiful lack of men so endowed, and it is
difficult to form a judgment without testing. Now this testing can only be made
during the actual existence of the friendship; for friendship so often precedes
the formation of a judgment, and makes a previous test impossible. If we are
prudent then, we shall rein in our impulse to affection as we do chariot horses.
We make a preliminary trial of horses. So we should of friendship; and should
test our friends' characters by a kind of tentative friendship. It may often
happen that the untrustworthiness of certain men is completely displayed in a
small money matter; others who are proof against a small sum are detected if it
be large. But even if some are found who think it mean to prefer money to
friendship, where shall we look for those who put friendship before office,
civil or military promotions, and political power, and who, when the choice lies
between these things on the one side and the claims of friendship on the other,
do not give a strong preference to the former? It is not in human nature to be
indifferent to political power; and if the price men have to pay for it is the
sacrifice of friendship, they think their treason will be thrown into the shade
by the magnitude of the reward. This is why true friendship is very difficult to
find among those who engage in politics and the contest for office. Where can
you find the man to prefer his friend's advancement to his own? And to say
nothing of that, think how grievous and almost intolerable it is to most men to
share political disaster. You will scarcely find any one who can bring himself
to do that. And though what Ennius says is quite true, - "the hour of need shews
the friend indeed," - yet it is in these two ways that most people betray their
untrustworthiness and inconstancy, by looking down on friends when they are
themselves prosperous, or deserting them in their distress. A man, then, who has
shewn a firm, unshaken, and unvarying friendship in both these contingencies we
must reckon as one of a class the rarest in the world, and all but superhuman.
Trust as the foundation of lasting friendship.
18. Now what is the quality to look out for as a warrant for the stability and
permanence of friendship? It is loyalty. Nothing that lacks this can be stable.
We should also in making our selection look out for simplicity, a social
disposition, and a sympathetic nature, moved by what moves us. These all
contribute to maintain loyalty. You can never trust a character which is
intricate and tortuous. Nor, indeed, is it possible for one to be trustworthy
and firm who is unsympathetic by nature and unmoved by what affects ourselves.
We may add, that he must neither take pleasure in bringing accusations against
us himself, nor believe them when they are brought. All these contribute to form
that constancy which I have been endeavouring to describe. And the result is,
what I started by saying, that friendship is only possible between good men.
Now there are two characteristic features in his treatment of his friends that a
good (which may be regarded as equivalent to a wise) man will always display.
First, he will be entirely without any make-believe or pretence of feeling; for
the open display even of dislike is more becoming to an ingenuous character than
a studied concealment of sentiment. Secondly, he will not only reject all
accusations brought against his friend by another, but we will not be suspicious
himself either, nor be always thinking that his friend has acted improperly.
Besides this, there should be a certain pleasantness in word and manner which
adds no little flavour to friendship. A gloomy temper and unvarying gravity may
be very impressive; but friendship should be a little less unbending, more
indulgent and gracious, and more inclined to all kinds of good-fellowship and
good nature.
Should new friends ever be put before old friends?
19. But here arises a question of some little difficulty. Are there any
occasions on which, assuming their worthiness, we should prefer new to old
friends, just as we prefer young to aged horses? The answer admits of no doubt
whatever. For there should be no satiety in friendship, as there is in other
things. The older the sweeter, as in wines that keep well. And the proverb is a
true one, "You must eat many a peck of salt with a man to be thorough friends
with him." Novelty, indeed, has its advantage, which we must not despise. There
is always hope of fruit, as there is in healthy blades of corn. But age too must
have its proper position; and, in fact, the influence of time and habit is very
great. To recur to the illustration of the horse which I have just now used:
Every one likes ceteris paribus to use the horse to which he has been
accustomed, rather than one that is untried and new. And it is not only in the
case of a living thing that this rule holds good, but in inanimate things also;
for we like places where we have lived the longest, even though they are
mountainous and covered with forest. But here is another golden rule in
friendship: put yourself on a level with your friend. For it often happens that
there are certain superiorities, as for example Scipio's in what I may call our
set. Now he never assumed any airs of superiority over Philus, or Rupilius, or
Mummius, or over friends of a lower rank still. For instance, he always shewed a
deference to his brother Quintus Maximus because he was his senior, who, though
a man no doubt of eminent character, was by no means his equal. He used also to
wish that all his friends should be the better for his support. This is an
example we should all follow. If any of us have any advantage in personal
character, intellect, or fortune, we should be ready to make our friends sharers
and partners in it with ourselves. For instance, if their parents are in humble
circumstances, if their relations are powerful neither in intellect nor means,
we should supply their deficiencies and promote their rank and dignity.
You know the legends of children brought up as servants in ignorance of their
parentage and family. When they are recognised and discovered to be the sons of
gods or kings, they still retain their affection for the shepherds whom they
have for many years looked upon as their parents. Much more ought this to be so
in the case of real and undoubted parents. For the advantages of genius and
virtue, and in short of every kind of superiority, are never realised to their
fullest extent until they are bestowed upon our nearest and dearest.
Friends should never be jealous of the success and status of friends.
20. But the converse must also be observed. For in friendship and relationship,
just as those who possess any superiority must put themselves on an equal
footing with those who are less fortunate, so these latter must not be annoyed
at being surpassed in genius, fortune, or rank. But most people of that sort are
for ever either grumbling at something, or harping on their claims; and
especially if they consider that they have services of their own to allege
involving zeal and friendship and some trouble to themselves. People who are
always bringing up their services are a nuisance. The recipient ought to
remember them; the performer should never mention them. In the case of friends,
then, as the superior are bound to descend, so are they bound in a certain sense
to raise those below them. For there are people who make their friendship
disagreeable by imagining themselves undervalued. This generally happens only to
those who think that they deserve to be so; and they ought to be shewn by deeds
as well as by words the groundlessness of their opinion. Now the measure of your
benefits should be in the first place your own power to bestow, and in the
second place the capacity to bear them on the part of him on whom you are
bestowing affection and help. For, however great your personal prestige may be,
you cannot raise all your friends to the highest offices of the State. For
instance, Scipio was able to make Publius Rupilius consul, but not his brother
Lucius. But granting that you can give any one anything you choose, you must
have a care that it does not prove to be beyond his powers.
As a general rule, we must wait to make up our mind about friendships till men's
characters and years have arrived at their full strength and development. People
must not, for instance, regard as fast friends all whom in their youthful
enthusiasm for hunting or football they liked for having the same tastes. By
that rule, if it were a mere question of time, no one would have such claims on
our affections as nurses and slave-tutors. Not that they are to be neglected,
but they stand on a different ground. It is only these mature friendships that
can be permanent. For difference of character leads to difference of aims, and
the result of such diversity is to estrange friends. The sole reason, for
instance, which prevents good men from making friends with bad, or bad with
good, is that the divergence of their characters and aims is the greatest
possible.
Another good rule in friendship is this: do not let an excessive affection
hinder the highest interests of your friends. This very often happens. I will go
again to the region of fable for an instance. Neoptolemus could never have taken
Troy if he had been willing to listen to Lycomedes, who had brought him up, and
with many tears tried to prevent his going there. Again, it often happens that
important business makes it necessary to part from friends: the man who tries to
baulk it, because he thinks that he cannot endure the separation, is of a weak
and effeminate nature, and on that very account makes but a poor friend. There
are, of course, limits to what you ought to expect from a friend and to what you
should allow him to demand of you. And these you must take into calculation in
every case.
The demands of friends must be watched carefully. Sometimes friendships must be
broken.
21. Again, there is such a disaster, so to speak, as having to break off
friendship. And sometimes it is one we cannot avoid. For at this point the
stream of our discourse is leaving the intimacies of the wise and touching on
the friendship of ordinary people. It will happen at times that an outbreak of
vicious conduct affects either a man's friends themselves or strangers, yet the
discredit falls on the friends. In such cases friendships should be allowed to
die out gradually by an intermission of intercourse. They should, as I have been
told that Cato used to say, rather be unstitched than torn in twain; unless,
indeed, the injurious conduct be of so violent and outrageous a nature as to
make an instance breach and separation the only possible course consistent with
honour and rectitude. Again, if a change in character and aim takes place, as
often happens, or if party politics produces an alienation of feeling (I am now
speaking, as I said a short time ago, of ordinary friendships, not of those of
the wise), we shall have to be on our guard against appearing to embark upon
active enmity while we only mean to resign a friendship. For there can be
nothing more discreditable than to be at open war with a man with whom you have
been intimate. Scipio, as you are aware, had abandoned his friendship for
Quintus Pompeius on my account; and again, from differences of opinion in
politics, he became estranged from my colleague Metellus. In both cases he acted
with dignity and moderation, shewing that he was offended indeed, but without
rancour.
Our first object, then, should be to prevent a breach; our second, to secure
that, if it does occur, our friendship should seem to have died a natural rather
than a violent death. Next, we should take care that friendship is not converted
into active hostility, from which flow personal quarrels, abusive language, and
angry recriminations. These last, however, provided that they do not pass all
reasonable limits of forbearance, we ought to put up with, and, in compliment to
an old friendship, allow the party that inflicts the injury, not the one that
submits to it, to be in the wrong. Generally speaking, there is but one way of
securing and providing oneself against faults and inconveniences of this sort -
not to be too hasty in bestowing our affection, and not to bestow it at all on
unworthy objects.
Now, by "worthy of friendship" I mean those who have in themselves the qualities
which attract affection. This sort of man is rare; and indeed all excellent
things are rare; and nothing in the world is so hard to find as a thing entirely
and completely perfect of its kind. But most people not only recognise nothing
as good in our life unless it is profitable, but look upon friends as so much
stock, caring most for those by whom they hope to make most profit. Accordingly
they never possess that most beautiful and most spontaneous friendship which
must be sought solely for itself without any ulterior object. They fail also to
learn from their own feelings the nature and the strength of friendship. For
every one loves himself, not for any reward which such love may bring, but
because he is dear to himself independently of anything else. But unless this
feeling is transferred to another, what a real friend is will never be revealed;
for he is, as it were, a second self. But if we find these two instincts shewing
themselves in animals, - whether of the air or the sea or the land, whether wild
or tame, first, a love of self, which in fact is born in everything that lives
alike; and, secondly, an eagerness to find and attach themselves to other
creatures of their own kind; and if this natural action is accompanied by desire
and by something resembling human love, how much more must this be the case in
man by the law of his nature? For man not only loves himself, but seeks another
whose spirit he may so blend with his own as almost to make one being of two.
The need for mutual respect in friendship.
22. But most people unreasonably, not to speak of modesty, want such a friend as
they are unable to be themselves, and expect from their friends what they do not
themselves give. The fair course is first to be good yourself, and then to look
out for another of like character. It is between such that the stability in
friendship of which we have been talking can be secured; when, that is to say,
men who are united by affection learn, first of all, to rule those passions
which enslave others, and in the next place to take delight in fair and
equitable conduct, to bear each other's burdens, never to ask each other for
anything inconsistent with virtue and rectitude, and not only to serve and love
but also to respect each other. I say "respect"; for if respect is gone,
friendship has lost its brightest jewel. And this shews the mistake of those who
imagine that friendship gives a privilege to licentiousness and sin. Nature has
given us friendship as the handmaid of virtue, not as a partner in guilt: to the
end that virtue, being powerless when isolated to reach the highest objects,
might succeed in doing so in union and partnership with another. Those who enjoy
in the present, or have enjoyed in the past, or are destined to enjoy in the
future such a partnership as this, must be considered to have secured the most
excellent and auspicious combination for reaching nature's highest good. This is
the partnership, I say, which combines moral rectitude, fame, peace of mind,
serenity: all that men think desirable because with them life is happy, but
without them cannot be so. This being our best and highest object, we must, if
we desire to attain it, devote ourselves to virtue; for without virtue we can
obtain neither friendship nor anything else desirable. In fact, if virtue be
neglected, those who imagine themselves to possess friends will find out their
error as soon as some grave disaster forces them to make trial of them.
Wherefore, I must again and again repeat, you must satisfy your judgment before
engaging your affections: not love first and judge afterwards. We suffer from
carelessness in many of our undertakings: in none more than in selecting and
cultivating our friends. We put the cart before the horse, and shut the stable
door when the steed is stolen, in defiance of the old proverb. For, having
mutually involved ourselves in a long-standing intimacy or by actual
obligations, all on a sudden some cause of offence arises and we break off our
friendships in full career.
Friendship is something which nearly everyone agrees is worthwhile in life.
23. It is this that makes such carelessness in a matter of supreme importance
all the more worthy of blame. I say "supreme importance," because friendship is
the one thing about the utility of which everybody with one accord is agreed.
That is not the case in regard even to virtue itself; for many people speak
slightingly of virtue as though it were mere puffing and self-glorification. Nor
is it the case with riches. Many look down on riches, being content with a
little and taking pleasure in poor fare and dress. And as to the political
offices for which some have a burning desire - how many entertain such a
contempt for them as to think nothing in the world more empty and trivia!
And so on with the rest; things desirable in the eyes of some are regarded by
very many as worthless. But of friendship all think alike to a man, whether
those who have devoted themselves to politics, or those who delight in science
and philosophy, or those who follow a private way of life and care for nothing
by their own business, or those lastly who have given themselves body and soul
to sensuality - they all think, I say, that without friendship life is no life,
if they want some part of it, at any rate, to be noble. For friendship, in one
way or another, penetrates into the lives of us all, and suffers no career to be
entirely free from its influence. Though a man be of so churlish and unsociable
a nature as to loathe and shun the company of mankind, as we are told was the
case with a certain Timon at Athens, yet even he cannot refrain from seeking
some one in whose hearing he may disgorge the venom of his bitter temper. We
should see this most clearly, if it were possible that some god should carry us
away from these haunts of men, and place us somewhere in perfect solitude, and
then should supply us in abundance with everything necessary to our nature, and
yet take from us entirely the opportunity of looking upon a human being. Who
could steel himself to endure such a life? Who would not lose in his loneliness
the zest for all pleasures? And indeed this is the point of the observation of,
I think, Archytas of Tarentum. I have it third hand; men who were my seniors
told me that their seniors had told them. It was this: "If a man could ascend to
heaven and get a clear view of the natural order of the universe, and the beauty
of the heavenly bodies, that wonderful spectacle would give him small pleasure,
though nothing could be conceived more delightful if he had but had some one to
whom to tell what he had seen." So true it is that Nature abhors isolation, and
ever leans upon something as a stay and support; and this is found in its most
pleasing form in our closest friend.
No one likes being alone. Hypersensitivity should be avoided in friendship.
24. But though Nature also declares by so many indications what her wish and
object and desire is, we yet in a manner turn a deaf ear and will not hear her
warnings. The intercourse between friends is varied and complex, and it must
often happen that causes of suspicion and offence arise, which a wise man will
sometimes avoid, at other times remove, at others treat with indulgence. The one
possible cause of offense that must be faced is when the interests of your
friend and your own sincerity are at stake. For instance, it often happens that
friends need remonstrance and even reproof. When these are administered in a
kindly spirit they ought to be taken in good part. But somehow or other there is
truth in what my friend Terence says in his Andria:
Compliance gets us friends, plain speaking hate.
Plain speaking is a cause of trouble, if the result of it is resentment, which
is poison of friendship; but compliance is really the cause of much more
trouble, because by indulging his faults it lets a friend plunge into headlong
ruin. But the man who is most to blame is he who resents plain speaking and
allows flattery to egg him on to his ruin. On this point, then, from first to
last there is need of deliberation and care. If we remonstrate, it should be
without bitterness; if we reprove, there should be no word of insult. In the
matter of compliance (for I am glad to adopt Terence's word), though there
should be every courtesy, yet that base kind which assists a man in vice should
be far from us, for it is unworthy of a free-born man, to say nothing of a
friend. It is one thing to live with a tyrant, another with a friend. But if a
man's ears are so closed to plain speaking that he cannot bear to hear the truth
from a friend, we may give him up in despair. This remark of Cato's, as so many
of his did, shews great acuteness: "There are people who owe more to bitter
enemies than to apparently pleasant friends: the former often speak the truth,
the latter never." Besides, it is a strange paradox that the recipients of
advice should feel no annoyance where they ought to feel it, and yet feel so
much where they ought not. They are not at all vexed at having committed a
fault, but very angry at being reproved for it. On the contrary, they ought to
be grieved at the crime and glad of the correction.
Friends need to accept criticism from friends.
25. Well, then, if it is true that to give and receive advice - the former with
freedom and yet without bitterness, the latter with patience and without
irritation - is peculiarly appropriate to genuine friendship, it is no less true
that there can be nothing more utterly subversive of friendship than flattery,
adulation, and base compliance. I use as many terms as possible to brand this
vice of light-minded, untrustworthy men, whose sole object in speaking is to
please without any regard to truth. In everything false pretence is bad, for it
suspends and vitiates our power of discerning the truth. But to nothing is it so
hostile as to friendship; for it destroys that frankness without which
friendship is an empty name. For the essence of friendship being that two minds
become as one, how can that ever take place if the mind of each of the separate
parties to it is not single and uniform, but variable, changeable, and complex?
Can anything be so pliable, so wavering, as the mind of a man whose attitude
depends not only on another's feeling and wish, but on his very looks and nods?
If one says "No," I answer "No"; if "Yes," I answer "Yes." In fine, I've laid
this task upon myself, To echo all that's said
to quote my old friend Terence again. But he puts these words into the mouth of
a Gnatho. To admit such a man into one's intimacy at all is a sign of folly. But
there are many people like Gnatho, and it is when they are superior either in
position or fortune or reputation that their flatteries become mischievous, the
weight of their position making up for the lightness of their character. But if
we only take reasonable care, it is as easy to separate and distinguish a
genuine from a specious friend as anything else that is coloured and artificial
from what is sincere and genuine. A public assembly, though composed of men of
the smallest possible culture, nevertheless will see clearly the difference
between a mere demagogue (that is, a flatterer and untrustworthy citizen) and a
man of principle, standing, and solidity. It was by this kind of flattering
language that Gaius Papirius the other day endeavoured to tickle the ears of the
assembled people, when proposing his law to make the tribues re-eligible. I
spoke against it. But I will leave the personal question. I prefer speaking of
Scipio. Good heavens! how impressive his speech was, what a majesty there was in
it! You would have pronounced him, without hesitation, to be no mere henchman of
the Roman people, but their leader. However, you were there, and moreover have
the speech in your hands. The result was that a law meant to please the people
was by the people's votes rejected. Once more to refer to myself, you remember
how apparently popular was the law proposed by Gaius Licinius Crassus "about the
election to the College of Priests" in the consulship of Quintus Maximus,
Scipio's brother, and Lucius Mancinus. For the power of filling up their own
vacancies on the part of the colleges was by this proposal to be transferred to
the people. It was this man, by the way, who began to practice of turning
towards the forum when addressing the people. In spite of this, however, upon my
speaking on the conservative side, religion gained an easy victory over his
plausible speech. This took place in my praetorship, five years before I was
elected consul, which shows that the cause was successfully maintained more by
the merits of the case than by the prestige of the highest office.
If truth can be seen even in politics, true friends can also be recognized.
26. Now, if on a stage, such as a public assembly essentially is, where there is
the amplest room for fiction and half-truths, truth nevertheless prevails if it
be but fairly laid open and brought into the light of day, what ought to happen
in the case of friendship, which rests entirely on truthfulness? Friendship, in
which, unless you both see and shew an open breast, to use a common expression,
you can neither trust nor be certain of anything - no, not even of mutual
affection, since you cannot be sure of its sincerity. However, this flattery,
injurious as it is, can hurt no one but the man who takes it in and likes it.
And it follows that the man to open his ears widest to flatterers is he who
first flatters himself and is fondest of himself. I grant you that Virtue
naturally loves herself; for she knows herself and perceives how worthy of love
she is. But I am not now speaking of absolute virtue, but of the belief men have
that they possess virtue. The fact is that fewer people are endowed with virtue
than wish to be thought to be so. It is such people that take delight in
flattery. When they are addressed in language expressly adapted to flatter their
vanity, they look upon such empty persiflage as a testimony to the truth of
their own praises. It is not then properly friendship at all when the one will
not listen to the truth, and the other is prepared to lie. Nor would the
servility of parasites in comedy have seemed humorous to us had there been no
such things as braggart captains. "Is Thais really much obliged to me?" It would
have been quite enough to answer "Much," but he must needs say "Immensely." Your
servile flatterer always exaggerates what his victim wishes to be put strongly.
Wherefore, though it is with those who catch at and invite it that this
flattering falsehood is especially powerful, yet men even of solider and
steadier character must be warned to be on the watch against being taken in by
cunningly disguised flattery. An open flatterer any one can detect, unless he is
an absolute fool: the covert insinuation of the cunning and the sly is what we
have to be studiously on our guard against. His detection is not by any means
the easiest thing in the world, for he often covers his servility under the
guise of contradiction, and flatters by pretending to dispute, and then at last
giving in and allowing himself to be beaten, that the person hoodwinked may
think himself to have been the clearer-sighted. Now what can be more degrading
than to be thus hoodwinked? You must be on your guard against this happening to
you, like the man in the Heiress:
How have I been befooled! no drivelling dotards On any stage were e'er so played
upon.
For even on the stage we have no grosser representation of folly than that of
short-sighted and credulous old men. But somehow or other I have strayed away
from the friendship of the perfect, that is, of the "wise" (meaning, of course,
such "wisdom" as human nature is capable of), to the subject of vulgar,
unsubstantial friendships. Let us then return to our original theme, and at
length bring that, too, to a conclusion.
Virtue initiates and preserves friendship.
27. Well, then, Fannius and Mucius, I repeat what I said before. It is virtue,
virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it depends harmony of
interest, permanence, fidelity. When Virtue has reared her head and shewn the
light of her countenance, and seen and recognised the same light in another, she
gravitates towards it, and in her turn welcomes that which the other has to
shew; and from it springs up a flame which you may call love or friendship as
you please. Both words are from the same root in Latin; and love is just the
cleaving to him whom you love without the prompting of need or any view to
advantage - though this latter blossoms spontaneously on friendship, little as
you may have looked for it. It is with such warmth of feeling that I cherished
Lucius Paulus, Marcus Cato, Gaius Gallus, Publius Nasica, Tiberius Gracchus, my
dear Scipio's father-in-law. It shines with even greater warmth when men are of
the same age, as in the case of Scipio and Lucius Furius, Publius Rupilius,
Spurius Mummius, and myself. En revanche, in my old age I find comfort in the
affection of young men, as in the case of yourselves and Quintus Tubero: nay
more, I delight in the intimacy of such a very young man as Publius Rutilius and
Aulus Verginius. And since the law of our nature and of our life is that a new
generation is for ever springing up, the most desirable thing is that along with
your contemporaries, with whom you started in the race, you may also reach what
is to us the goal. But in view of the instability and perishableness of mortal
things, we should be continually on the look-out for some to love and by whom to
be loved; for if we lose affection and kindliness from our life, we lose all
that gives it charm. For me, indeed, though torn away by a sudden stroke, Scipio
still lives and ever will live. For it was the virtue of the man that I loved,
and that has not suffered death. And it is not my eyes only, because I had all
my life a personal experience of it, that never lose sight of it: it will shine
to posterity also with undimmed glory. No one will ever cherish a nobler
ambition or a loftier hope without thinking his memory and his image the best to
put before his eyes. I declare that of all the blessings which either fortune or
nature has bestowed upon me I know none to compare with Scipio's friendship. In
it I found sympathy in public, counsel in private business; in it too a means of
spending my leisure with unalloyed delight. Never, to the best of my knowledge,
did I offend him even in the most trivial point; never did I hear a word from
him I could have wished unsaid. We had one house, one table, one style of
living; and not only were we together on foreign service, but in our tours also
and country sojourns. Why speak of our eagerness to be ever gaining some
knowledge, to be ever learning something, on which we spent all our leisure
hours far from the gaze of the world? If the recollection and memory of these
things had perished with the man, I could not possibly have endured the regret
for one so closely united with me in life and affection. But these things have
not perished; they are rather fed and strengthened by reflexion and memory. Even
supposing me to have been entirely bereft of them, still my time of life of
itself brings me no small consolation: for I cannot have much longer now to bear
this regret; and everything that is brief ought to be endurable, however severe.
This is all I had to say on friendship. One piece of advice on parting. Make up
your minds to this: Virtue (without which friendship is impossible) is first;
but next to it, and to it alone, the greatest of all things is Friendship.
Sources:
Translation by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh
Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero, with his treatises on friendship and old age;
translated by E. S. Shuckburgh. And Letters of Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus,
translated by William Melmoth, rev. by... New York, P. F. Collier [c1909].
Series title: The Harvard classics v.9.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius: Laelius; a dialogue on friendship, by M. Tullius Cicero;
ed., with notes, vocabulary, and biographical index by E. S. Shuckburgh ... New
ed. rev. and enl., for use in American colleges, by Henry Clark Johnson ... New
York,
London, Macmillan and co., 1913. Series title: Elementary classics.
Editor:
This material has been published on the web by Prof. Tom Sienkewicz for his
students at Monmouth College. If you have any questions, you can contact him
at toms@monm.edu.