De Amicitia
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Cicero. De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione. Falconer, William Armistead, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1923 (printing).
Tiberius Gracchus tried to obtain regal power—or rather, he actually did reign for a few months. Had the Roman people ever heard of or experienced such a thing before? What his friends and relatives, who followed him even after his death, did in the case of Publius Scipio[*](Seyffert and Lahmeyer say that this Scipio is probably not Africanus the Younger, the friend of Laelius, as contended by Nauck and others, but P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapis, consul 138 B.C., pontifex maximus, who led the Senators in an attack on Tiberius Gracchus when the latter was killed in 133. Scipio Serapis fled from Rome and died soon after in Pergamum.)I cannot describe without tears. As for Carbo, because of the short time since the punishment of Tiberius Gracchus,[*](i.e. on account of the recent killing of Tiberius Gracchus and the consequent excitement of the people.)we have borne with him as best we could. Now what is to be expected when Gaius Gracchus[*](Gaius Gracchus, though in 129 (the time of the dialogue) the leader of the popular party, did not become tribune until 123.)becomes tribune, I am not inclined to prophecy; however, revolution creeps on imperceptibly at first but once it has acquired momentum, rushes headlong to ruin.[*](Reid translates, Affairs soon (deinde) move on, for they glide readily down the path of ruin when once they have taken a start.) You see how much mischief has been caused already in the matter of the ballot, first by the Gabinian law,[*](Introduced voting by ballot and so called from its author, A. Gabinius, plebeian tribune, 139 B.C.)and two years later by the Cassian law.[*](The Cassian law extended the ballot to juries in criminal cases; it was passed in 137 and named from its author, L. Cassius Ravilla.)I seem now to see the people estranged from the Senate and the weightiest affairs of state determined by the caprice of the mob. For more people will learn how to start a revolution than how to withstand it.
Why do I say these things? Because without
associates[*](e.g. as in the friendship between Carbo and Tiberius Gracchus.)no one attempts any such mischiefs. It must, therefore, be enjoined upon good men[*](Good men, in political parlance were the members of the aristocratic party.)that if by any chance they should inadvisedly fall into friendships of this kind, they must not think themselves so bound that they cannot withdraw from friends who are sinning in some important matter of public concern; for wicked men, on the other hand, a penalty must be enacted, and assuredly it will not be lighter for the followers than for the leaders in treason. Who was more eminent in Greece than Themistocles, who more powerful? But he, after having saved Greece from slavery by his leadership in the war with Persia, and after having been banished because of his unpopularity, would not submit to the injustice of an ungrateful country, as he was in duty bound to do: he did the same thing that Coriolanus had done among our people twenty years before. Not one single supporter could be found to aid these men against their country; therefore, each took his own life.[*](The treason of Themistocles was in 471 B.C.; that of Coriolanus in 491. Thucydides, i. 68, says that Themistocles died a natural death at Magnesia, in Asia Minor, and Livy ii. 40 quotes Pictor as saying that Coriolanus lived to an advanced age among the Volscians; see also Cic. Att. ix. 10. 3; Plut. Them. 31.)Hence such alliances of wicked men not only should not be protected by a plea of friendship, but rather they should be visited with summary punishment of the severest kind, so that no one may think it permissible to follow even a friend when waging war against his country. And yet this very thing, considering the course affairs have begun to take, will probably happen at some future time; as for me, I am no less concerned for what the condition of the commonwealth will be after my death, than I am for its condition to-day.
Therefore let this be ordained as the first law of friendship: Ask of friends only what is honourable; do for friends only what is honourable and
without even waiting to be asked; let zeal be ever present, but hesitation absent; dare to give true advice with all frankness; in friendship let the influence of friends who are wise counsellors be paramount, and let that influence be employed in advising, not only with frankness, but, if the occasion demands, even with sternness, and let the advice be followed when given.