De fraterno amore

In this essay Plutarch has arranged his material somewhat more methodically than is his usual practice. In chaps. 1-7 he shows that Brotherly Love is in accordance with nature; in 9-19 he tells us how we should conduct ourselves toward a brother: (a) while our parents are alive, (b) when they are dead, (c) when the brother is our inferior, (d) when our superior; and also the reasons for quarrels and the treatment thereof. He closes with some pleasant tales of affection for brothers’ children.

That Plutarch wrote this work after De Adulatore et Amico, De Amicorum Multitudine,[*](This point was subsequently shown, but with much less care and detail, by G. Hein (Quaestiones Plut., diss. Berlin, 1916, p. 37), who seems to have been ignorant of Brokate’s far superior work.) and the Life of Cato Minor was demonstrated by C. Brokate (De aliquot Plui. libellis, diss. Güttingen, 1913, pp. 17-24, 58; and see the excellent tables on pp. 47, 61). Plutarch appears to have retained a certain amount of more or less irrelevant material on friendship from his recent work on these treatises, and also to have drawn upon some portions of Theophrastus’s treatise On Friendship.[*](Cf. Brokate, op. cit., pp. 7 ff.)

The essay is No. 98 in the Lamprias catalogue.

The ancient representations of the Dioscuri are called by the Spartans beam-figures [*](Cf. M. C. Waites, Amer. Jour. Arch., xxiii., 1919, pp. 1 ff.: this passage is cited by Eustathius on Il., 1125. 60.): they consist of two parallel wooden beams joined by two other transverse beams placed across them; and this common and indivisible character of the offering appears entirely suitable to the brotherly love of these gods. In like manner do I also dedicate this treatise On Brotherly Love to you, Nigrinus and Quietus,[*](The identity of Avidius Nigrinus and Avidius Quietus is not certainly established; see Prosopographia Imp. Rom., i. pp. 189-190.) a joint gift for you both who well deserve it. For as to the exhortations this essay contains, since you are already putting them into practice, you will seem to be giving your testimony in their favour rather than to be encouraged to perform them; and the pleasure you will take in acts which are right will make the perseverance of your judgement more firm, inasmuch as your acts will win approval before spectators, so to speak, who are honourable and devoted to virtue.

Now Aristarchus,[*](Nauck, comparing Suidas, s.v. Theodectes, and Stephanus Byzantius, would correct Aristarchus to Aristandrus, the father of the tragic poet Theodectas of Phaselis.) the father of Theodectes, by way of jeering at the crowd of sophists, used to say that in the old days there were barely seven Sophists, [*](That is, the Seven Wise Men. Plutarch so uses σοφιστής (cf. Moralia, 96 a, where all mss. but one read σοφιστοῦ; 857 f); so also Aristotle, Frag. 5 ed. V. Rose. Cf. the earlier usage of Herodotus, i. 29 (where Wells’s note is hopelessly wrong); ii. 49; iv. 95; Hippocrates, De Vet. Med., 20.) but

And yet the illustration of such common use by brothers Nature has placed at no great distance from us; on the contrary, in the body itself she has contrived to make most of the necessary parts double and brothers and twins[*](Cf. Hierocles, Frag. De Fraterno Amore (Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 663 ed. Hense).): hands, feet, eyes, ears, nostrils; and she has thus taught us that she has divided them in this fashion for mutual preservation and assistance, not for variance and strife. And when she separated the very hands into a number of unequal fingers, she supplied men with the most accurate and skilful of instruments, so that Anaxagoras[*](Diels, Frag. d. Vorsokratiker ⁵, ii. p. 30, 102.) of old assigned the reason for man’s wisdom and intelligence to his having hands. The contrary of this, however, seems to be true[*](Cf. Aristotle, De Partibus Animalium, iv. 10 (687 a 17 ff.).): it is not because man acquired hands that he is wisest of animals;

1. In that kingly rule which makes men
2. Like to gods[*](From Ariphron’s Paean to Health: cf. 450 b, supra. The present passage is paraphrased by Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 658 ed. Hense.) -

Even the base wins honour in a feud[*](Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec., iii. p. 690; Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, ii. p. 284; quoted also in Life of Alexander, liii. (695 e); Life of Nicias, xi. (530 d); Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, i. (475 f).):

It is true that the Arcadian prophet[*](Hegisistratus of Elis in Herodotus, ix. 37. The first sentence of this chapter is paraphrased by Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 675 ed. Hense.) of necessity manufactured for himself, according to Herodotus, a wooden foot, deprived as he was of his own; but the man who quarrels with his brother, and takes as his comrade a stranger from the market-place or the wrestling-floor, appears to be doing nothing but cutting off voluntarily a limb of his own flesh and blood, and taking to himself and joining to his body an extraneous member. Indeed it is our very need, which welcomes and seeks friendship and comradeship, that teaches us to honour and cherish and keep our kin, since we are unable and unfitted by Nature to live friendless, unsocial, hermits’ lives. Wherefore Menander[*](Kock, Com. Att. Frag., iii. p. 169, Frag. 554 (p. 493 ed. Allinson, L.C.L.); v. 4 is quoted in Moralia, 93 c.) rightly says,

1. Not from drink or from daily revelling
2. Do we seek one to whom we may entrust
3. Our life, father. Do we not think we’ve found
4. Great good in but the shadow of a friend?

I remember, for instance, that in Rome I undertook to arbitrate between two brothers, of whom one had the reputation of being a philosopher. But he was, as it appears, not only as a brother but also as a philosopher, masquerading under a false name and appellation; for when I asked him to conduct himself as brother to brother and as philosopher to layman, What you say, said he, as to his being a layman, is correct, but I account it no momentous or important matter to have sprung from the same loins. As for you, said I, it is obvious that you

And surely this fact is quite easy to perceive from the contrary. For when we observe that parents are grieved by sons who maltreat a servant honoured by mother and father, and neglect plants or farm-lands in which their parents took delight, and that remissness in caring for some house-dog or horse hurts elderly persons who feel a jealous affection for them; and when, again, we observe that parents are vexed when their children disparage and hiss at concerts and spectacles and athletes all of which they themselves used to admire; when we observe these things, is it reasonable to suppose that parents are indifferent

For cruel are the wars of brothers,

So Peisistratus,[*](Cf. Moralia, 189 d; related also of Cato Maior in Plutarch’s Life, xxiv. (351 b).) marrying for a second time when his sons were full grown, said that because he considered them to be honourable and good he wished to become the father of more children like them. Excellent and just sons will not only love each other the more because of their parents, but will also love their parents the more because of each other; so will they always both think and say that, though they owe their parents gratitude for many favours, it is most of all for their brothers that they owe it,[*](Paraphrased by Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 658 ed. Hense.) since these are truly the most precious and delightful of all the possessions they have received from them. Well indeed has Homer[*](Od., xvi. 117.) also depicted Telemachus as reckoning his brotherless condition a misfortune:

1. The son of Cronus thus has doomed our race
2. To have one son alone.

Now, as regards parents, brotherly love is of such sort that to love ones brother is forthwith a proof of love for both mother and father; and again, as

Healer of others, full of sores himself,[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. ², p. 703, Euripides, Frag. 1086; quoted also in Moralia, 71 f, 88 d, 1110 e. Cf. Aeschylus, Prometheus, 473; and ἰατρέ, θεράπευσον σεαυτόν.)

1. To where the sun and stars rise would I go,
2. And plunge beneath the earth-if this I could-
3. To hold Dominion, greatest of the gods,

1. Revere Equality, which ever binds
2. Friend to friend, state to state, allies unto
3. Allies: Nature made equal rights secure,

And yet the use of friends, fast joined with ties Of blood, alone brings help when troubles flow?[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. ², p. 912, ades. 384.)

Therefore it is fitting to cleanse away completely hatred of brothers, which is both an evil sustainer of parents in their old age[*](Cf. 480 c, supra.) and a worse nurturer of children in their youth. And it is also a cause of slander and accusations against such brothers; for their fellow-citizens think that, after having been so closely bound together by their common education, their common life together, and their kinship, brothers could not have become deadly enemies unless each were aware of many wicked deeds committed by the other. There must be, they infer, great reasons for the breaking-up of a great goodwill and affection. For this reason it is not easy to effect a reconciliation of brothers; for just as things which have been joined together, even if the glue becomes loose, may be fastened together again and become united, yet if a body which has grown together is broken or split, it is difficult to find means of welding or joining it; so friendships knitted together through long familiarity, even though the friends part company, can be easily resumed again, but when brothers have once broken the bonds of Nature,[*](Cf. Racine, La Thebaïde: Mais, quand de la nature on a brise les chaines, Cher Attale, il n’est rien qui puisse reunir Ceux que des noeuds si forts n’ont pas sceu retenir. L’on hait avec exces lorsque l’on hait un frere. ) they cannot readily come together, and even if they do, their reconciliation bears with it a filthy hidden sore of suspicion. Or rather, every enmity between man and man which steals into the heart in company with the most painful emotions - contentiousness, anger, envy, remembrance of wrongs - causes pain and perturbation of mind; but when the enmity is toward a brother, with whom it is necessary to share sacrifices and the family’s sacred rites, to occupy the same sepulchre, and in life, perhaps, the same or a neighbouring habitation - such an enmity keeps the painful situation ever before our

What then, someone will say, must one who has a bad brother do? [*](Cf. Hierocles in Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 661 ed. Hense.) We must remember this first of all: badness can lay hold on every kind of friendship; and, according to Sophocles,[*](Frag. 853 ed. Pearson, 769 ed. Nauck; cf. 463 d, supra.)

Search out most human traits: you’ll find them base.

Is yoked in honour’s bonds not forged by man,[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. ², p. 549, Euripides, Frag. 595, probably from the Peirithoüs; quoted again in Moralia, 96 c, 533 a, 763 f.)

I cannot leave you in your wretchedness[*](Adapted from Homer, Od., xiii. 331.)

Let this, then, serve as a preamble to my whole discourse. But as the starting-point of my admonitions, let us take, not the division of the father’s goods, as other writers do, but the misguided quarrels and jealousy of the children while the parents are yet alive. The ephors, when Agesilaüs[*](Cf. Life of Agesilaüs, v. (598 b).) used to send an ox as a mark of distinguished service to each member of the gerousia [*](The Spartan Council of Elders.) as he was appointed, fined him, alleging as their reason that by such demagogic means of gaining popular favour he was trying to acquire as his own personal followers men who belonged to the state; but one would advise a son to care for his parents, not with the design of acquiring their goodwill for himself alone or turning it away

1. Not to slackness does he yield or foolishness,
2. But looks to me,

Only after the erring brother has been defended in this manner should the other turn to him and rebuke him somewhat sharply, pointing out with all frankness his errors of commission and of omission. For one should neither give free rein to brothers, nor, again, should one trample on them when they are at fault (for the latter is the act of one who gloats over the sinner, the former that of one who aids and abets him), but should apply his admonition as one who cares for his brother and grieves with him. Otherwise he who has been the most zealous advocate before his parents becomes before the brother himself the most vehement of accusers. But if a brother is guiltless when he is accused, though it is right to be subservient to parents in everything else and to endure all their wrath and displeasure, yet pleas and justifications offered to parents on behalf of a brother who is being undeservedly criticized or punished are honourable and not reprehensible; nor must one be afraid that the words of Sophocles[*](Antigone, 742.) will be addressed to him:

1. Most shameless son, who with his father dare
2. To litigate,

After the father is dead, however, even more

Hearken, Alala, daughter of War,[*](Pindar, Frag. 78; cf. Moralia, 349 c, with the note.)

And some we know who, even with no thought of gain, but merely from the love of contention, deal with their father’s goods with no more decency than they would with spoils taken from an enemy. Of this number were Charicles and Antiochus the Opuntians, who would not part until they had split in two a silver cup and torn apart a cloak,[*](Compare the Judgement of Solomon.) as though driven on by some imprecation from a tragedy to

Divide with whetted sword their heritage.[*](Adapted from Euripides, Phoenissae, 68: the curse of Oedipus on his sons, exemplified by the speech of Eteocles cited in 481 a, supra; and cf. Aeschylus, Septem, 789.)

When Solon,[*](Cf. Life of Solon, xiv. (85 d).) speaking of principles of government, said that equality does not create sedition, he was thought to be playing up too much to the crowd by introducing an arithmetical proportion, a democratic principle,[*](Cf. Moralia, 719 b, 643 c: that is, arithmetical, instead of what Aristotle terms proportionate equality.) instead of the sound geometrical proportion.[*](Cf., for example, Plato, Gorgias, 508 a.) As for a man who gives advice to brothers in the matter of a family estate after the manner of Plato’s[*](Republic, 462 c; cf. Moralia, 140 d, 767 d, and Aristotle’s attempted refutation, Politics, ii. 1. 8 (1261 b 16).) advice to the citizens of his state, to abolish, if possible, the notion of mine and not mine, but if he cannot do this, to cherish equality and cling to it, and thus lays a fair and abiding[*](Perhaps with a reference to Euripides, Phoenissae, 538 (cited 481 a, supra).) foundation of concord and peace, let him also make use of eminent precedents, such as that reply of Pittacus to the king of Lydia[*](Croesus: cf. Diogenes Laertius, i. 75.) who inquired if Pittacus had money: Twice as much, said he, as I would wish, now that my brother is dead. But since it is not only the getting of money and the losing of it that makes less grow hostile to more, [*](Euripides, Phoenissae, 539: τῷ πλέονι δ᾽αἰεὶ πολέμιον καθίσταται.) but in general, as Plato[*](Republic, 547 a.) says, in inequality movement is produced and in equality rest and repose; thus all

But you, fortunate man, one might say, are so

And further, just as there exist inequalities in the natures and the fortunes of brothers, so it is impossible that the one brother should excel at all points and in all ways. They say that the elements come into being from one substance, yet possess the most opposite faculties; but of two brothers sprung from one mother and father, no one ever saw the one, like the wise man of the Stoics,[*](Cf. 472 a, supra, and the note; this Stoic paradox is parodied at length by Horace in Satires, i. 3.) at once handsome, gracious, liberal, eminent, rich, eloquent, learned, philanthropic, and the other ugly, graceless, illiberal, dishonoured, needy, a poor speaker, unlearned, misanthropic. Yet somehow or other there inheres, in even the more disreputable and humble creatures, some portion of grace or faculty or natural aptitude for some good thing:

1. As among urchin’s foot and rough rest-harrow[*](A field shrub with tough roots, also called cammock. )
2. There grow the blossoms of soft snow-drops.[*](Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec., iii. p. 689; Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, ii. p. 282; quoted also in Moralia, 44 e, 621 e.)

Such is the advice, then, which one would give to the superior brother. The inferior brother, on the other hand, must reflect that his brother is not the only one who is richer or more learned or more famous than himself, but that he is frequently inferior to many others-ten thousand times ten thousand,

As many as enjoy the fruit of spacious earth[*](Simonides, Frag. 5, v. 17; cf. 470 d, supra, and the note.);

1. Many Trojans have I and famous allies,
2. And many Achaeans have you[*](Homer, Il., vi. 227, 229: Plutarch points the quotation with envy and so does not retain the Homeric context, in which Diomedes indicates the other Greeks for Glaucus, and the other Trojans for himself, to kill. ) -

But a brother should not, like the pan of a balance, incline the opposite way and be himself lowered when his brother is raised on high; but just

In this spirit Craterus,[*](Half-brother of Antigonus Gonatas (see F. Jacoby and Schoch, Pauly-Wissowa, RE, xi. col. 1617, 1621).) the brother of King Antigonus, and Perlatis, the brother of Cassander, assigned themselves to the management of their brothers’ military and domestic affairs; but men like Antiochus and Seleucus, and again Grypus and Cyzicenus,[*](Antiochus, VIII and IX respectively.) who had not learned to play parts secondary to their brothers, but yearned for the purple and the crown, infected themselves and each other with many horrors, and infected all Asia also.

But since envy and jealousy of those who surpass them in repute and honour are implanted by nature chiefly in men of ambitious character, to guard against these vices it is highly expedient that brothers should not seek to acquire honours or power in the same field, but in quite different fields. Wild beasts, to be sure, which depend for their food upon the same things, war against each other, and athletes who direct their efforts toward one and the same contest are rivals; whereas boxers are friendly to pancratiasts and long-distance runners are well disposed toward wrestlers, and they mutually assist and

And he covered Teucer with gleaming shield.[*](Ajax and Teucer: Il., viii. 272.)

But, over and above these considerations, we should be on our guard against the pernicious talk of relatives, of members of our household, and sometimes even of a wife who joins the rest in challenging our ambition by saying: Your brother carries all before him and is admired and courted, but you are not visited by anybody and enjoy no distinction at all. Not so, a sensible man would reply. I have a brother who is highly esteemed, and most of his influence is mine to share. Socrates, for instance, remarked that he would rather have Darius than a daric as a friend, and for a brother who has good sense it is no less an advantage than the possession of wealth, high office, or eloquence, to have a brother who has attained to fame by virtue of office or wealth or eloquence.

But although these means are the best for smoothing away such inequalities, yet there are the other differences which naturally arise among brothers who lack the proper training, differences due to disparity in their ages. For, generally speaking, elder brothers, when they claim the right always to dominate and to have precedence over the younger and to have the advantage in every matter where reputation and influence are involved, are oppressive and disagreeable; and younger brothers, in turn, being restive under the curb and becoming fractious, make it their practice to despise and belittle the elder. The result is that while the younger, feeling that they are being treated despitefully and are discriminated against, resent and try to avoid their elders’ admonitions, the elder, ever clinging fast to their superiority, fear their brothers’

Furthermore, there are other disturbances which brothers of nearly the same age must guard against; they are but small, to be sure, yet continuous and frequent, and create a vicious practice of offending and exasperating one another on all occasions,

What then? Do not practical affairs bring many

It is worth our while to inquire into a dispute of brothers who were not Greeks, which arose, not about a little patch of land, nor over slaves or flocks, but about the empire of Persia. For when Darius died, some thought it right that Ariamenes should be king, being the eldest of his children; but others chose

But Antiochus[*](Cf. Moralia, 184 a.) might be condemned because of his lust for dominion, yet admired because his love for his brother was not altogether extinguished thereby For he went to war against Seleucus[*](Cf. 508 d, infra.) for the kingdom, though he was the younger brother and had the aid of his mother. But when the war was at its height, Seleucus joined battle with the Galatians and was defeated; he disappeared and was thought to be dead, since practically all his army had been cut to pieces by the barbarians. So when Antiochus learned this, he laid aside his purple and put on a dark robe, and, shutting the gates of the palace, went into mourning for his brother. But a little later, when he heard that his brother was safe and was again collecting another army, he came forth and sacrificed to the gods, and made proclamation to the cities over which he ruled that they should sacrifice and wear garlands of rejoicing.

The Athenians,[*](Cf. Moralia, 740 f - 741 b (Quaest. Symp., ix. 6, which is unfortunately fragmentary); Frazer’s note on Apollodorus, iii. 14. 1 (L.C.L., vol. ii. pp. 78 f.).) though they absurdly invented the tale of the strife of the gods, yet inserted in it no slight correction of its absurdity, for they always omit[*](That is, in Meton’s scheme the day regularly became an ἡμέρα ἐξαιρέσιμος to make the lunar year agree with the solar.) the second day of Boedromion, thinking that on that day occurred Poseidon’s quarrel with Athena.

Eucleides,[*](Cf. 462 c, supra; paraphrased by Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 659 ed. Hense; Hierocles, apud Stob., vol. iv. p. 662. See also Sternbach on Gnomologicum Vaticanum, 278 (Wiener Stud., x. p. 237).) the Socratic, is famous in the schools because, when he heard an inconsiderate and brutal speech from his brother who said, May I be damned if I don’t get even with you, he replied, And so will I, if I don’t persuade you to stop your anger and love me as you used to do.

But in the case of King Eumenes[*](Eumenes II of Pergamum; and cf. Moralia, 184 b, 480 c, supra.) it was not a mere word, but a deed, which revealed a gentleness that no one could surpass. For Perseus, the king of Macedonia, who was his enemy, procured men to kill him. These men set an ambush near Delphi, observing that he was coming on foot from the sea to the

But Cambyses,[*](Cf. Herodotus, iii. 30.) frightened by a dream into the

Then this further matter must be borne in mind and guarded against when differences arise among brothers: we must be careful especially at such times to associate familiarly with our brothers’ friends, but avoid and shun all intimacy with their enemies, imitating in this point, at least., the practice of Cretans, who, though they often quarrelled with and warred against each other, made up their differences and united when outside enemies attacked; and this it was which they called syncretism. [*](Cf. the Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. συγκρητίσαι.) For some there are, fluid as water, who, seeping through those who relax their hold and disagree, overturn affinities and friendships, hating indeed both sides, but attacking the one which yields more readily because of its weakness. For while it is true that when a man is in love his young and guileless friends share his love, it is also true that the most ill-disposed of enemies make a show of sharing the indignation and wrath of one who is angered and at variance with his brother. As, then, Aesop’s[*](Fabulae, 16 and 16 b ed. Halm.) hen said to the cat who inquired, with pretended solicitude, of the sick bird How are you? Very well, if you keep away; so one would say to the sort of person who brings up the subject of the quarrel and makes inquiries and tries to dig up some secrets, But I shall