De Amicitia

But as in that book I wrote as one old man to another old man on the subject of old age, so now in this book I have written as a most affectionate friend to a friend on the subject of friendship. In the former work the speaker was Cato, whom scarcely any in his day exceeded in age and none surpassed in wisdom; in the present treatise the speaker on friendship will be Laelius, a wise man (for he was so esteemed), and a man who was distinguished by a glorious friendship. Please put me out of your mind for a little while and believe that Laelius himself is talking. Gaius Fannius and Quintus Mucius Scaevola have come to their father-in-law’s house just after the death of Africanus[*](The death of Africanus occurred 129 B.C.); the conversation is begun by them and reply is made by Laelius, whose entire discourse is on friendship, and as you read it you will recognize in it a portrait of yourself.

FANNIUS. What you say is true, Laelius; for there was no better man than Africanus, and no one more illustrious. But you should realize that all men have fixed their eyes on you alone; you it is whom they both call and believe to be wise. Recently[*](Cato died in 149 B.C., hence Fannius by recently means twenty years ago. The date of Cato’s imagined discourse on old age was 150 B.C.)this title was given to Marcus Cato and we know that Lucius Acilius was called the Wise in our

But as to yourself, men are wont to call you wise in a somewhat different way, not only because of your mental endowments and natural character, but also because of your devotion to study and because of your culture, and they employ the term in your case, not as the ignorant do, but as learned men employ it. And in this sense we have understood that no one in all Greece was wise except one in Athens, and he,[*](The reference is to Socrates. Cicero often quotes this oracle: infra, 2. 10; ib. 4. 13; C.M. 21. 78; Acad. i. 4. 16.)I admit, was actually adjudged most wise by the oracle of Apollo—for the more captious critics refuse to admit those who are called The Seven into the category of the wise. Your wisdom, in public estimation, consists in this: you consider all your possessions to be within yourself and believe human fortune of less account than virtue. Hence the question is put to me and to Scaevola here, too, I believe, as to how you bear the death of Africanus, and the inquiry is the more insistent because, on the last Nones,[*](The Augurs regularly met in their college on the Nones (i.e. the 7th of March, May, July, and October, the 5th of other months).)when we had met as usual for the practice[*](Commentandi, i.e. practising the augural art under the open sky. Cf. Cic. N.D. ii. 11; De rep. i. 14.)of our augural art in the country home of Decimus Brutus, you were not present, though it had been your custom always to observe that day and to discharge its duties with the most scrupulous care.

SCAEVOLA. There is indeed a great deal of questioning,

LAELIUS. Your reply was excellent, Scaevola, and it was correct; for no personal inconvenience of any kind ought to have kept me from the discharge of the duty you mentioned, and which I have always performed when I was well, nor do I think it possible for any event of this nature to cause a man of strong character to neglect any duty.