human and divine with mutual good-will and affection; (1) and I doubt
whether anything better than this, wisdom alone excepted, has been given
to, man by the immortal gods Some prefer riches to it, some, sound
health, some, power, some, posts of honor, many, even sensual
gratification. This last properly belongs to beasts, the others are
precarious and uncertain, dependent not on our own choice so much as on
the caprice of Fortune. Those, indeed, who regard virtue as the supreme
good are entirely in the right, but it is virtue itself that produces
and sustains friendship, not without virtue can friendship by any
possibility exist. In saying this, however I would interpret virtue in
accordance with our habits of speech and of life, not defining it, as
some philosophers do, by high-sounding words, but numbering on the list
of good men those who are commonly so regarded,--the Pauli, the Catos,
the Galli, the Scipios, the Phili Mankind in general [1 It may be
doubted whether this close conformity of opinion and feeling is
essential, or even favorable to friendship. The amicable comparison and
collision of thought and sentiment are certainly consistent with, and
often conducive to the most friendly intimacy. Friends are not
infrequently the complements, rather than the likeness, of each other.
Cicero and Atticus were as close friends as Scipio and Laelius; but they
were at many points exceedingly unlike. Atticus had the tact and skill
in worldly matters, which Cicero lacked. Atticus kept aloof from public
affairs while Cicero was unhappy whenever he could not imagine himself
as taking a leading part in them. Atticus was an Epicurean, and Cicero
never lost an opportunity of attacking the Epicurean philosophy.] are
content with these. Let us then leave out of the account such good men
as are nowhere to be found. Among such good men as there really are,
friendship has more advantages than I can easily name. In the first,
place, as Ennius says;--
"How can life be worth living, if devoid of the calm trust reposed by
friend in friend? What sweeter joy than in the kindred soul? Whose
converse differs not from self-communion?"
How could you have full enjoyment of prosperity, unless with one whose
pleasure in it was equal to your own? Nor would it be easy to bear
adversity, unless with the sympathy of one on whom it rested more
heavily than on your own soul. Then, too, other objects of desire are,
in general, adapted, each to some specific purpose,--wealth, that you
may use it; power, that you may receive the homage of those around you;
posts of honor, that you may obtain reputation; sensual gratification,
that you may live in pleasure; health, that you may be free from pain,
and may have full exercise of your bodily powers and faculties. But
friendship combines the largest number of utilities. Wherever you turn,
it is at hand. No place shuts it out. It is never unseasonable, never
annoying. Thus, as the proverb says, "You cannot put water or fire to
more uses than friendship serves." I am not now speaking of the common
and moderate type of friendship, which yet yields both pleasure and
profit, but, of true and perfect friendship, like that which existed in
the few instances that are held in special remembrance. Such friendship
at once enhances the lustre of prosperity, and by dividing and sharing
adversity lessens its burden.
7. Moreover, while friendship comprises the greatest number and variety
of beneficent offices, it certainly has this special prerogative, that
it lights up a good hope for the time to come, and thus preserves the
minds that it sustains from imbecility or prostration in misfortune. For
he, indeed, who looks into the face of a friend beholds, as it were, a
copy of himself. Thus the absent are present, and the poor are rich, and
the weak are strong, and--what seems stranger still [Footnote:
Literally, _what is harder to say_.]--the dead are alive, such is the
honor, the enduring remembrance, the longing love, with which the dying
are followed by the living; so that the death of the dying seems happy,
the life of the living full of praise. [Footnote: The sense of this
sentence is somewhat overlaid by the rhetoric; yet it undoubtedly means
that an absent friend is esteemed and honored in the person of the
friend who not only loves him, but is regarded as representing him; that
a poor friend enjoys the prosperity of his rich friend as if it were his
own; that a weak friend feels his feebleness energized by the friend who
in need will fight his battles for him; and that no man is suffered to
lapse from the kind and reverent remembrances of those who see his
likeness in the friend who keeps his memory green.] But if from the
condition of human life you were to exclude all kindly union, no house,
no city, could stand, nor, indeed, could the tillage of the field
survive. If it is not perfectly understood what virtue there is in
friendship and concord, it may be learned from dissension and discord.
For what house is so stable, what state so firm, that it cannot be
utterly overturned by hatred and strife? Hence it may be ascertained how
much good there is in friendship. It is said that a certain philosopher
of Agrigentum [Footnote: Empedocles. Only a few fragments of his great
poem are extant. His theory seems like a poetical version of Newton's
law of universal gravitation. The analogy between physical attraction
and the mutual attraction of congenial minds and souls has its record in
the French word _aimant_, denoting _loadstone_ or _magnet_.] sang in
Greek verse that it is friendship that draws together and discord that
parts all things which subsist in harmony, and which have their various
movements in nature and in the whole universe. The worth and power of
friendship, too, all mortals understand, and attest by their approval in
actual instances. Thus, if there comes into conspicuous notice an
occasion on which a friend incurs or shares the perils of his friend,
who can fail to extol the deed with the highest praise? What shouts
filled the whole theatre at the performance of the new play of my guest
[Footnote: Or _host_; for the word _hospes_ may have either meaning. It
denotes not the fact of giving or receiving hospitality, but the
permanent and sacred relation established between host and guest. This
relation has lost much of its character in modern civilization, and I
doubt whether it has a name in any modern European language.] and friend
Marcus Pacuvius, when--the king not knowing which of the two was
Orestes--Pylades said that he was Orestes, while Orestes persisted in
asserting that he was, as in fact he was, Orestes! [Footnote: Among the
many and conflicting legends about Orestes is that which seems to have
been the theme of the lost tragedy of Pacuvius. Orestes, after avenging
on his mother and her paramour the murder of his father, in order to
expiate the guilt of matricide, was directed by the Delphian oracle to
go to Tauris, and to steal and transport to Athens an image of Artemis
that had fallen from heaven. His friend Pylades accompanied him on this
expedition. They were seized by Thoas the king, and Orestes, as the
principal offender, was to be sacrificed to Artemis. His sister,
Iphigeneia, priestess of Artemis, contrived their escape, and the three
arrived safe at Athens with the sacred image.] The whole assembly rose
in applause at this mere fictitious representation. What may we suppose
that they would have done, had the same thing occurred in real life? In
that case Nature herself displayed her power, when men recognized that
as rightly done by another, which they would not have had the courage to
do themselves. Thus far, to the utmost of my ability as it seems to me,
I have given you my sentiments concerning friendship. If there is more
to be said, as I think that there is, endeavor to obtain it, if you see
fit, of those who are wont to discuss such subjects.
FANNIUS. But we would rather have it from you. Although I have often
consulted those philosophers also, and have listened to them not
unwillingly, yet the thread of your discourse differs somewhat from that
of theirs.
SCAEVOLA. You would say so all the more, Fannius, had you been present
in Scipio's garden at that discussion about the republic, and heard what
an advocate of justice he showed himself in answer to the elaborate
speech of Philus. [Footnote: Carneades, when on an embassy to Rome, for
the entertainment of his Roman hosts, on one day delivered a discourse
in behalf of justice as the true policy for the State, and on the next
day delivered an equally subtile and eloquent discourse maintaining the
opposite thesis. In the third Book of the _De Republica_ Philus is made
the "devil's advocate," and has assigned to him the championship of what
we are wont to call a Machiavelian policy, and, in general, of the
morally wrong as the politically right. He is represented as taking the
part reluctantly, saying that one consents to soil his hands in order to
find gold, and he professes to give the substance of the famous
discourse of Carneades. Laelius answers him, and, so far as we can
judge from the fragments of his reply that are extant, with the
preponderance of reason, which Cicero intended should incline on the
better side. There was perhaps a sublatent irony in making Philus play
this part; for he was an eminently upright man. Valerius Maximus
eulogizes him for his rigid integrity and impartiality, and relates that
when at the expiration of his consulship he was sent to take command of
the army against Numantia, he chose for his lieutenants Metellus and
Pompeius, both his intensely bitter enemies, but the men best fitted for
the service.]
FANNIUS. It was indeed easy for the man pre-eminently just to defend
justice.
SCAEVOLA. As to friendship, then, is not its defence easy for him who
has won the highest celebrity on the ground of friendship maintained
with pre-eminent faithfulness, consistency, and probity?
8. LAELIUS. This is, indeed, the employing of force; for what matters
the way in which you compel me? You at any rate do compel me; for it is
both hard and unfair not to comply with the wishes of one's sons-in-law,
especially in a case that merits favorable consideration.
In reflecting, then, very frequently on friendship, the foremost
question that is wont to present itself is, whether friendship is craved
on account of conscious infirmity and need, so that in bestowing and
receiving the kind offices that belong to it each may have that done for
him by the other which he is least able to do for himself, reciprocating
services in like manner; or whether, though this relation of mutual
benefit is the property, of friendship it has yet another cause; more
sacred and more noble, and derived more genuinely from the very nature
of man. Love, which in our language gives name to friendship, [Footnote:
_Amor,--amicitia._] bears a chief part in unions of mutual benefit; for
a revenue of service is levied even on those who are cherished in
pretended friendship, and are treated with regard from interested
motives. But in friendship there is nothing feigned, nothing pretended,
and whatever there is in it is both genuine and spontaneous. Friendship,
therefore, springs from nature rather than from need,--from an
inclination of the mind with a certain consciousness of love rather than
from calculation of the benefit to be derived from it. Its real quality
may be discerned even in some classes of animals, which up to a certain
time so love their offspring, and are so loved by them, that the mutual
feeling is plainly seen,--a feeling which is much more clearly manifest
in man, first, in the affection which exists between children and
parents, and which can be dissolved only by atrocious guilt; and in the
next place, in the springing up of a like feeling of love, when we find
some one of manners and character congenial with our own, who becomes
dear to us because we seem to see in him an illustrious example of
probity and virtue. For there is nothing more lovable than virtue,--nothing
which more surely wins affectionate regard, insomuch that on the
score of virtue and probity we love even those whom we have never seen.
Who is there that does not recall the memory of Caius Fabricius, of
Manius Curius, of Tiberius Coruncanras, whom he never saw, with some
good measure of kindly feeling? On the other hand, who is there that can
fail to hate Tarquinius Superbus, Spurius Cassius, Spurius Maelius? Our
dominion in Italy was at stake in wars under two commanders, Pyrrhus and
Hannibal. On account of the good faith of the one, we hold him in no
unfriendly remembrance; [Footnote: Pyrrhus, after the only victory that
he obtained over the Romans, treated his prisoners with signal humanity,
and restored them without ransom. See _De Officiis_, i. 12] the other
because of his cruelty our people must always hate. [Footnote: It may be
doubted whether Hannibal deserved the reproach here implied. The Roman
historians ascribe to him acts of cruelty no worse than their own
generals were chargeable with: while nothing of the kind is related by
either Polybius, or Plutarch. It is certain that after the battle of
Cannae he checked the needless slaughter of the Roman fugitives, and
Livy relates several instances in which he paid funeral honors, to
distinguished Romans slain in battle. The intense hostility of the
Romans to Carthage may have led to an unfair estimate of the great
general's character, and to the invention or exaggeration of reports to
his discredit.]
9. But if good faith has such attractive power that we love it in those
whom we have never seen, or--what means still more--in an enemy, what
wonder is it if the minds of men are moved to affection when they behold
the virtue and goodness of those with whom they can become intimately
united?
Love is, indeed, strengthened by favors received, by witnessing
assiduity in one's service, and by habitual intercourse; and when these
are added to the first impulse of the mind toward love, there flames
forth a marvellously rich glow of affectionate feeling. If there are any
who think that this proceeds from conscious weakness and the desire to
have some person through whom one can obtain what he lacks, they assign,
indeed, to friendship a mean and utterly ignoble origin, born, as they
would have it, of poverty and neediness. If this were true, then the
less of resource one was conscious of having in himself, the better
fitted would he be for friendship. The contrary is the case; for the
more confidence a man has in himself, and the more thoroughly he is
fortified by virtue and wisdom, so that he is in need of no one, and
regards all that concerns him as in his own keeping, the more noteworthy
is he for the friendships which he seeks and cherishes. What? Did
Africanus need me? Not in the least by Hercules. As little did I need
him. But I was drawn to him by admiration of his virtue while he, in
turn, loved me, perhaps from some favorable estimate of my character,
and intimacy increased our mutual affection. But though utilities many
and great resulted from our friendship, the cause of our mutual love did
not proceed from the hope of what it might bring. For as we are
beneficent and generous, not in order to exact kindnesses in return (for
we do not put our kind offices to interest), but are by nature inclined
to be generous, so, in my opinion, friendship is not to be sought for
its wages, but because its revenue consists entirely in the love which
it implies. Those, however, who, after the manner of beasts, refer
everything to pleasure, [Footnote: The Epicureans] think very
differently. Nor is it wonderful that they do, for men who have degraded
all their thoughts to so mean and contemptible an end can rise to the
contemplation of nothing lofty, nothing magnificent and divine. We may,
therefore, leave them out of this discussion. But let us have it well
understood that the feeling of love and the endearments of mutual
affection spring from nature, in case there is a well-established
assurance of moral worth in the person thus loved. Those who desire to
become friends approach each other, and enter into relation with each
other, that each may enjoy the society and the character of him whom he
has begun to love, and they are equal in love, and on either side are
more inclined to bestow obligations than to claim a return, so that in
this matter there is an honorable rivalry between them. Thus will the
greatest benefits be derived from friendship, and it will have a more
solid and genuine foundation as tracing its origin to nature than if it
proceeded from human weakness. For if it were utility that cemented
friendships, an altered aspect of utility would dissolve them. But
because nature cannot be changed, therefore true friendships are
eternal. This may suffice for the origin of friendship, unless you have,
perchance, some objection to what I have said.
FANNIUS. Go on, Laelius. I answer by the right of seniority for Scaevola
who is younger than I am.
SCAEVOLA. I am of the same mind with you. Let us then, hear farther.
10 LAELIUS. Hear then, my excellent friends the substance of the
frequent discussions on friendship between Scipio and me. He indeed,
said [Footnote: The construction of this entire section is in the
subjective imperfect depending on the _dicebat_ in the second sentence.
It has seemed to me that the direct form of constiution which I have
adopted is more consonant with the genius of our language.] that nothing
is more difficult than for friendship to last through life; for friends
happen to have conflicting interests, or different political opinions.
Then, again, as he often said, characters change, sometimes under
adverse conditions, sometimes with growing years. He cited also the
analogy of what takes place in early youth, the most ardent loves of
boyhood being often laid aside with its robe. But if friendships last on
into opening manhood, they are not infrequently broken up by rivalry in
quest of a wife, or in the pursuit of some advantage which only one can
obtain. [Footnote: Had Cicero not been personating Laelius, who died
long before the quarrel occurred, he would undoubtedly have cited the
case of Servilius Caepio and Livius Diusus. They married each other's
sisters, and were united in the closest intimacy, and seemingly in the
dearest mutual love; but as rivals in bidding for a ring at an
auction-sale they had their first quarrel, which grew into intense mutual
hatred, led almost to a civil war between their respective partisans,
and bore no small part in starting the series of dissentions which
issued in the Social War, and the destruction of not far from three
hundred thousand lives. I refer to this in a note, because it must have
been fresh in Cicero's memory, and had annotation been the habit of his
time, he would most assuredly have given it the place which I now give
it.] Then, if friendships are of longer duration, they yet, as Scipio
said, are liable to be undermined by competition for office; and indeed
there is nothing more fatal to friendship than, in very many cases, the
greed of gain, and among some of the best of men the contest for place
and fame, which has often engendered the most intense enmity between
those who had been the closest friends. Strong and generally just
aversion, also, springs up when anything morally wrong is required of a
friend; as when he is asked to aid in the gratification of impure
desire, or to render his assistance in some unrighteous act,--in which
case those who refuse, although their conduct is highly honorable, are
yet charged by the persons whom they will not serve with being false to
the claims of friendship, while those who dare to make such a demand of
a friend profess, by the very demand, that they are ready to do anything
and everything for a friend's sake. By such quarrels, not only are old
intimacies often dissolved, but undying hatreds generated. So many of
these perils hang like so many fates over friendship, that to escape
them all seemed to Scipio, as he said, to indicate not wisdom alone, but
equally a rare felicity of fortune.
11. Let us then, first, if you please, consider how far the love of
friends ought to go. If Coriolanus had friends, ought they to have
helped him in fighting against his country, or should the friends of
Viscellinus [Footnote: Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, the author of the
earliest agrarian law, passed, but never carried into execution. He was
condemned to death,--probably a victim to the rancorous opposition of
the patrician order, of which he was regarded as a recreant member by
virtue of his advocacy of the rights or just claims of the _plebs_.
Cicero in early life was by no means so hostile to the principle
underlying the agrarian laws, and to the memory of the Gracchi, as he
was after he had reached the highest offices in the gift of the people.]
or those of Spurius Maelius [Footnote: Maelius, of the equestrian order,
but of a plebeian family, obtained unbounded popularity with the _plebs_
by selling corn at a low price, and giving away large quantities of it,
in a time of famine. He was charged with seeking kingly power, and, on
account of his alleged movements with that purpose, Cincinnatus was
appointed dictator, and Maelius, resisting a summons to his tribunal,
was killed by Ahala, his master of the horse. There seems to have been
little evidence of his actual guilt.] have aided them in the endeavor to
usurp regal power? We saw, indeed, Tiberius Gracchus, when he was
disturbing the peace of the State, deserted by Quintus Tubero and others
with whom he had been on terms of intimacy. But Caius Blossius, of
Cumae, the guest, [Footnote: _Hospes,_ guest, host, or both.] Scaevola,
of your family, coming to me, when I was in conference with the Consuls
Laenas and Rupilius, to implore pardon, urged the plea that he held
Tiberius Gracchus in so dear esteem that he felt bound to do whatever he
desired. I then asked him, "Even if he had wanted you to set fire to the
Capitol, would you have done it?" He replied, "He never would have made
such a request." "But if he had?" said I. "I would have obeyed him," was
the answer. And, by Hercules, he did as he said, or even more; for he
did not so much yield obedience to the audacious schemes of Tiberius
Gracchus, as he was foremost in them; he was not so much the companion
of his madness, as its leader. Therefore, in consequence of this folly,
alarmed by the appointment of special judges for his trial, he fled to
Asia, entered the service of our enemies, and finally met the heavy and
just punishment for his disloyalty to his country. [Footnote: He took
refuge with Aristonicus, King of Pergamus, then at war with Rome; and
when Aristonicus was conquered, Blossius committed suicide for fear of
being captured by the Roman army.]
It is, then, no excuse for wrong-doing that you do wrong for the sake of
a friend. Indeed, since it may have been a belief in your virtue that
has made one your friend, it is hard for friendship to last if you fall
away from virtue. But if we should determine either to concede to
friends whatever they may ask, or to exact from them whatever we may
desire, we and they must be endowed with perfect wisdom, in order for
our friendship to be blameless. We are speaking, however, of such
friends as we have before our eyes, or as we have seen or have known by
report,--of such as are found in common life. It is from these that we
must take our examples, especially from such of them as make the nearest
approach to perfect wisdom. We have learned from our fathers that Papus
Aemilius was very intimate with Caius Luscinus, they having twice been
consuls together, as well as colleagues in the censorship; and it is
said also that Manius Curius and Tiberius Coruncanius lived in the
closest friendship both with them and with each other. Now we cannot
suspect that either of these men would have asked of one of his friends
anything inconsistent with good faith, or with an engagement sanctioned
by oath, or with his duty to the State. Indeed, to what purpose is it to
say that among such men if one had asked anything wrong, he would not
have obtained it? For they were men of the most sacred integrity; while
to ask anything wrong of a friend and to do it when asked are alike
tokens of deep depravity. But Caius Carbo and Caius Cato were the
followers of Tiberius Gracchus, as was his brother Caius, at first with
little ardor, but now [Footnote: _Now_, that is, at the time at which
this dialogue has its assumed date, immediately after Scipio's death. At
that time Caius Gracchus was acting as a commissioner under his
brother's agrarian law.] most zealously.