De Amicitia

To proceed then, let us interpret the word virtue by the familiar usage of our everyday life and speech, and not in pompous phrase apply to it the precise standards which certain philosophers use; and let us include in the number of good men those who are so considered—men like Paulus, Cato, Gallus, Scipio, and Philus—who satisfy the ordinary standard of life; but let us pass by such men as are nowhere to be found at all.[*](The ideally perfect men of the Stoics.)

Therefore, among men like those just mentioned, friendship offers advantages[*](Or more literally adaptabilities, occasions when it can be fitly used.) almost beyond my power to describe. In the first place, how can life be what Ennius calls the life worth living, if it does not repose on the mutual goodwill of a friend? What is sweeter than to have someone with whom you may dare discuss anything as if you were communing with yourself? How could your enjoyment in times of prosperity be so great if you did not have someone whose joy in them would be equal to your

Seeing that friendship includes very many and very great advantages, it undoubtedly excels all other things in this respect, that it projects the bright ray of hope into the future, and does not suffer the spirit to grow faint or to fall. Again, he who looks upon a true friend, looks, as it were, upon a sort of image of himself. Wherefore friends, though absent, are at hand; though in need, yet abound; though weak, are strong; and—harder saying still— though dead, are yet alive; so great is the esteem on the part of their friends, the tender recollection and the deep longing that still attends them. These things make the death of the departed seem fortunate and the life of the survivors worthy of praise.

From this it may be judged how great good there is in friendship.

It is said, at any rate, that a certain learned man of Agrigentum[*](Empedocles, according to whom φιλότης (friendship) and νεῖκος (strife) are perpetually at war, causing the four elements to unite or disperse, ἄλλοτε μὲν φιλότητι συνερχόμεν᾽ εἰς ἓν ἅπαντα,ἄλλοτε δ᾽ αὖ δίχ᾽ ἕκαστα φορεύμενα νείκεος ἔχθει.) sang in inspired strain in Greek verse that in nature and the entire universe whatever things are at rest and whatever are in motion are united by friendship and scattered by discord. And indeed this is a statement which all men not only understand but also approve. Whenever, therefore, there comes to light some signal service in undergoing or sharing the dangers of a friend, who does not proclaim it with the loudest praise? What shouts recently rang through the entire theatre during the performance of the new play, written by my guest and friend, Marcus Pacuvius,[*](The title is uncertain, but the subject was that of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris.)at the scene where, the king being ignorant which of the two was Orestes, Pylades, who wished to be put to death instead of his friend, declared, I am Orestes, while Orestes continued steadfastly to assert, as was the fact, I am Orestes! The people in the audience rose to their feet and cheered this incident in fiction; what, think we, would they have done had it occurred in real life? In this case Nature easily asserted her own power, inasmuch as men approved in another as well done that which they could not do themselves.

Within the foregoing limits I have, I think, been able to state my estimate of friendship; if there is anything more to be said—and I believe there is a great deal—inquire, if you please, of those who make a business of such discussions.

FANNIUS. But we prefer to inquire of you. I have, it is true, often questioned those men too, and indeed have not been an unwilling listener, but the thread of your discourse is of a somewhat different texture.

SCAEVOLA. You would say so with greater confidence, Fannius, if you had been present recently in Scipio’s country home during the discussion on the Republic. What an advocate of justice Laelius was then against the elaborate speech of Philus!

FANNIUS. Ah! but it was an easy thing for the most just of men to defend justice.

SCAEVOLA. Well, then, would not the defence of friendship be easy for that man who has preserved it with the utmost fidelity, constancy, and sense of justice, and thereby gained the greatest renown?

LAELIUS. Really you are employing violence; for what matters it what means you take of forcing me? Forcing me you certainly are. For it is not only hard, but not even right, to withstand the earnest requests of one’s sons-in-law, particularly in a good cause.

The oftener, therefore, I reflect on friendship the more it seems to me that consideration should be given to the question, whether the longing for friendship is felt on account of weakness and want, so that by the giving and receiving of favours one may get from another and in turn repay what he is unable to procure of himself; or, although this

Wherefore it seems to me that friendship springs rather from nature than from need, and from an inclination of the soul joined with a feeling of love rather than from calculation of how much profit the friendship is likely to afford. What this feeling is may be perceived even in the case of certain animals, which, up to a certain time, so love their offspring and are so loved by them, that their impulses are easily seen. But this is much more evident in man; first, from the affection existing between children and parents, which cannot be destroyed except by some execrable crime, and again from that kindred impulse of love, which arises when once we have met someone whose habits and character are congenial with our own; because in him we seem to behold, as it were, a sort of lamp of uprightness and virtue.

For there is nothing more lovable than virtue, nothing that more allures us to affection, since on account of their virtue and uprightness we feel a sort of affection even for those whom we have never seen. Is there anyone who does not dwell with some kindly affection on the memory of Gaius Fabricius

Now if the force of integrity is so great that we love it, whether in those we have never seen, or, more wonderful still, even in an enemy, what wonder that men’s souls are stirred when they think they see clearly the virtue and goodness of those with whom a close intimacy is possible? And yet love is further strengthened by the receiving of a kindly service, by the evidence of another’s care for us, and by closer familiarity, and from all these, when joined to the soul’s first impulse to love, there springs up, if I may say so, a marvellous glow and greatness of goodwill.

If people think that friendship springs from weakness and from a purpose to secure someone through whom we may obtain that which we lack, they assign her, if I may so express it, a lowly pedigree indeed, and an origin far from noble, and they would make her the daughter of poverty and want. If this were so, then just in proportion as any man judged his resources to be small, would he be fitted for friendship; whereas the truth is far otherwise.

For to the extent that a man relies upon himself and is so fortified by virtue and wisdom that he is dependent on no one and considers all his possessions to be within himself, in that degree is

For as men of our class are generous and liberal, not for the purpose of demanding repayment—for we do not put our favours out at interest, but are by nature given to acts of kindness—so we believe that friendship is desirable, not because we are influenced by hope of gain, but because its entire profit is in the love itself.

From this view those men who, after the manner of cattle, judge everything by the standard of pleasure, vigorously dissent; nor is it strange; for the raising of the vision to anything lofty, noble and divine is impossible to men who have abased their every thought to a thing so lowly and so mean. Therefore let us dismiss these persons from our conversation and let us for ourselves believe that the sentiments of love and of kindly affection spring from nature, when intimation has been given of moral worth; for when men have conceived a longing for this virtue they bend towards it and move closer to it, so that, by familiar association with him whom they have begun to love, they may enjoy his character, equal him in affection, become readier to deserve than to demand his favours, and vie with

You now have my views on the origin of friendship, unless you have something to say in reply.

FANNIUS. Pray go on, Laelius, and I answer for my friend here, as I have the right to do, since he is my junior.

SCAEVOLA. Well said, Fannius. Therefore, let us hear.

LAELIUS. Then listen, most worthy gentlemen, to the points very frequently mentioned between Scipio and me in our discussions of friendship. Now he, indeed, used to say that nothing was harder than for a friendship to continue to the very end of life; for it often happened either that the friendship ceased to be mutually advantageous, or the parties to it did not entertain the same political views; and that frequently, too, the dispositions of men were changed, sometimes by adversity and sometimes by the increasing burdens of age. And then he would draw an illustration of this principle from the analogy of early life.

For, said he, the most ardent attachments of boyhood are often laid aside with the boyish dress; but if continued to the time of manhood, they are broken off, sometimes by rivalry in courtship or sometimes by a contest for some advantage, in which both of the parties to the friendship cannot be successful at the same time.

Then, too, disagreements of a very serious nature, and usually justifiable, arise from a demand upon friends to do something that is wrong, as, for example, to become agents of vice or abettors in violence, and when the demand is refused, however honourable the refusal, it is nevertheless charged by those to whom the compliance was denied that the laws of friendship have been disregarded; besides, those who dare demand anything and everything of a friend, by that very demand profess a willingness to do anything whatever for the sake of a friend. By their ceaseless recriminations not only are social intimacies usually destroyed, but also everlasting enmities are produced. So many dangers of this kind, he would say, hover like evil fates over friendships, that it seems to me to require both wisdom and good luck to escape them all.

Wherefore, let us first consider, if you please, how far love ought to go in friendship. Supposing Coriolanus to have had friends, were those friends in duty bound to bear arms with him against their country? Or ought the friends of Vecellinus, or of Maelius, to have supported them in their attempts to gain regal power?

As to Tiberius Gracchus, when he began to stir up revolution against the

Therefore it is no justification whatever of your sin to have sinned in behalf of a friend; for, since his belief in your virtue induced the friendship, it is hard for that friendship to remain if you have forsaken virtue.

But if we should resolve that it is right, either to grant our friends whatever they wish, or to get from them whatever we wish, then, assuming that we were endowed with truly faultless wisdom, no harm would result; but I am speaking of the friends before our eyes, of those whom we see, or of men of whom we have record, and who

We read that Aemilius Papus was an intimate friend of Gaius Luscinus (so we have received it from our forefathers), that they served together twice as consuls and were colleagues in the censor ship.[*](They were consuls together, 282 and 278 B.C. and censors, 275 B.C.)Again the tradition is that Manius Curius and Tiberius Coruncanius were most closely associated with them and with each other. Well, then, it is impossible for us even to suspect any one of these men of importuning a friend for anything contrary to good faith or to his solemn oath, or inimical to the commonwealth. What is the need of asserting in the case of men like these, that if such a request had been made it would not have been granted, seeing that they were the purest of men, and moreover, regarded it equally impious to grant and to make such a request? But Tiberius Gracchus did find followers in Gaius Carbo and Gaius Cato,[*](i.e. because they were of a different and less noble character.)and he found a follower also in his own brother Gaius, who though not very ardent then is now intensely so.

Therefore let this law be established in friendship: neither ask dishonourable things, nor do them, if asked. And dishonourable it certainly is, and not to be allowed, for anyone to plead in defence of sins in general and especially of those against the State, that he committed them for the sake of a friend. For, my dear Fannius and Scaevola, we Romans are now placed in such a situation that it is our duty to keep a sharp look-out for the troubles that may befall our State. Our political practice has already swerved far from the track and course