[Illustration: MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO] De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream By Cicero Translated, with an Introduction and Notes By Andrew P. Peabody SYNOPSIS. * * * * * DE AMICITIA 1. Introduction. 2. Reputation of Laelius for wisdom. The curiosity to know how he borethe death of Scipio. 3. His grounds of consolation in his bereavement 4. He expresses his faith in immortality. Desires perpetual memory inthis world of the friendship between himself and Scipio. 5. True friendship can exist only among good men. 6. Friendship defined. 7. Benefits derived from friendship. 8. Friendship founded not on need, but on nature. 9. The relation of utility to friendship. 10. Causes for the separation of friends. 11. How far love for friends may go. 12. Wrong never to be done at a friend's request. 13. Theories that degrade friendship 14. How friendships are formed. 15. Friendlessness wretched. 16. The limits of friendship. 17. In what sense and to what degree friends are united. How friends areto be chosen and tested. 18. The qualities to be sought in a friend. 19. Old friends not to be forsaken for new. 20. The duties of friendship between persons differing in ability, rank, or position. 21. How friendships should be dissolved, and how to guard against thenecessity of dissolving them. 22. Unreasonable expectations of friends. Mutual respect necessary intrue friendship. 23. Friendship necessary for all men. 24. Truth-telling, though it often gives offence, an essential duty fromfriend to friend. 25. The power of truth. The arts of flattery. 26. Flattery availing only with the feeble-minded. 27. Virtue the soul of friendship. Laelius describes the intimacy of thefriendship between himself and Scipio. * * * * * SCIPIO'S DREAM. 1. Scipio's visit to Masinissa. Circumstances under which the dreamoccurred. 2. Appearance of the elder Africanus, and of his own father, to Scipio. Prophecy of Scipio's successes and honors, with an intimation of hisdeath by the hands of his kindred. 3. Conditions on which heaven may be won. 4. The nine spheres that constitute the universe. 5. The music of the spheres. 6. The five zones of the earth. 7. Brevity and worthlessness of earthly fame. 8. All souls eternal. 9. The soul to be trained for immortality. The fate of those who mergetheir souls in sense. INTRODUCTION DE AMICITIA. The _De Amicitia_, inscribed, like the _De Senectute_, to Atticus, wasprobably written early in the year 44 B. C. , during Cicero's retirement, after the death of Julius Caesar and before the conflict with Antony. The subject had been a favorite one with Greek philosophers, from whomCicero always borrowed largely, or rather, whose materials he madefairly his own by the skill, richness, and beauty of his elaboration, Some passages of this treatise were evidently suggested by Plato; andAulus Gellius says that Cicero made no little use of a now lost essay ofTheophrastus on Friendship. In this work I am especially impressed by Cicero's dramatic power. Butfor the mediocrity of his poetic genius, he might have won pre-eminenthonor from the Muse of Tragedy. He here so thoroughly enters into thefeelings of Laelius with reference to Scipio's death, that as we read weforget that it is not Laelius himself who is speaking. We find ourselvesin close sympathy with him, as if he were telling us the story of hisbereavement, giving utterance to his manly fortitude and resignation andportraying his friend's virtues from the unfading image phototyped onhis own loving memory. In other matters too Cicero goes back to the timeof Laelius and assumes his point of view assigning to him just thedegree of foresight which he probably possessed and making not theslightest reference to the very different aspect in which he himself hadlearned to regard and was wont to represent the personages and events ofthat earlier period. Thus while Cicero traced the downfall of therepublic to changes in the body politic that had taken place or wereimminent and inevitable when Scipio died he makes Laelius perceive onlya slight though threatening deflection from what had been in the earliertime [Footnote 1]. So too though Cicero was annoyed more than by almostany other characteristic of his age by the prevalence of the Epicureanphilosophy and ascribed to it in a very large degree the demoralizationof men in public life with Laelius the doctrines of this school arerepresented as they must have been in fact as new and unfamiliar. Intime Laelius is here made to say not a word which he being the man thathe was and at the date assumed for this dialogue might not have saidhimself; and it may be doubted whether a report of one of his actualconversations would have seemed more truly genuine. This is a rare gift often sought indeed yet sought in vain not only bydramatists who have very [Footnote 1 _Deflexit jam aliquantul im_]seldom attained it but by authors of a very great diversity of type andculture. One who undertakes to personate a character belonging to an agenot his own hardly ever fails of manifest anachronisms. The author findsit utterly impossible to fit the antique mask so closely as not now andthen to show through its chinks his own more modern features, while thisform of internal evidence never fails to betray an intended forgeryhowever skilfully wrought. On the other hand there is no surer proof ofthe genuineness ot a work purporting to be of an earlier but alleged tobe of a later origin than the absence of all tokens of a time subsequentto the earliest date claimed for it. [Footnote: Thus among the manyproofs of the genuineness of our canonical Gospels perhaps none is moreconclusive than the fact that though evidently written by unskilled menthey contain not a trace or token of certain opinions known to have beenrife even before the close of the first Christian century; while the (socalled) apocryphal Gospels bear, throughout, such vestiges of theirlater origin as would neutralize the strongest testimony imaginable inbehalf of their primitive antiquity. ] In connection with this work it should be borne in mind that the specialduties of friendship constituted an essential department of ethics inthe ancient world and that the relation of friend to friend was regardedas on the same plane with that of brother to brother. No treatise onmorals would have been thought complete had this subject been omitted. Not a few modern writers have attempted the formal treatment offriendship but while the relation of kindred minds and souls has lostnone of its sacredness and value, the establishment of a code of rulesfor it ignores on the one hand the spontaneity of this relation, and onthe other hand, its entire amenableness to the laws and principles thatshould restrict and govern all human intercourse and conduct. Shaftesbury, in his 'Characteristics, ' in his exquisite vein of ironysneers at Christianity for taking no cognizance of friendship either inits precepts or in its promises. Jeremy Taylor, however, speaks of thisfeature of Christianity as among the manifest tokens of its divineorigin, and Soame Jenyns takes the same ground in a treatise expresslydesigned to meet the objections and cavils of Shaftesbury and otherdeistical writers of his time. These authors are all in the right andall in the wrong, as to the matter of fact. There is no reason whyChristianity should prescribe friendship which is a privilege, not aduty, or should essay to regulate it, for its only ethical rule ofstrict obligation is the negative rule which would lay out for it atrack that shall never interfere with any positive duty selfward, manward or Godward. But in the life of the Founder of Christianity, whoteaches, most of all, by example, friendship has its apogee, --itssupreme pre-eminence and honor. He treats his apostles and speaks of andto them, not as mere disciples but as intimate and dearly belovedfriends, among these there are three with whom he stands in peculiarlynear relations, and one of the three was singled out by him in dying forthe most sacred charge that he left on the earth, while at the same timethat disciple shows in his Gospel that he had obtained an inside view soto speak, of his Master's spiritual life and of the profounder sense ofhis teachings which is distinguished by contrast rather than bycomparison from the more superficial narratives of the otherevangelists. But Christianity has done even more than this for friendship. It hassuperseded its name by fulfilling its offices to a degree of perfectnesswhich had never entered into the ante-Christian mind. Man shrinks fromsolitude. He feels inadequate to bear the burdens, meet the trials, andwage the conflicts of this mortal life, alone. Orestes always needed andcraved a Pylades, but often failed to find one. This inevitableyearning, when it met no human response found still less to satisfy itin the objects of worship. Its gods, though in great part deified men, could not be relied on for sympathy, support or help. The strongerspirits did not believe in them, the feebler looked upon them only withawe and dread. But Christianity, in its anthropomorphism, which is itsstrongest hold on faith and trust, insures for the individual man in aDivine Humanity precisely what friends might essay to do yet could dobut imperfectly for him. It proffers the tender sympathy and helpfulnessof Him who bears the griefs and carries the sorrows of each and all;while the near view that it presents of the life beyond death inspiresthe sense of unbroken union with friends in heaven, and of the fellow-feeling of "a cloud of witnesses" beside. Thus while friendship inordinary life is never to be spurned when it may be had withoutsacrifice of principle, it is less a necessity than when man's relationswith the unseen world gave no promise of strength, aid, or comfort. Experience has deepened my conviction that what is called a freetranslation is the only fit rendering of Latin into English; that is, the only way of giving to the English reader the actual sense of theLatin writer. This last has been my endeavor. The comparison is, indeed, exaggerated; but it often seems to me, in unrolling a compact Latinsentence, as if I were writing out in words the meaning of an algebraicformula. A single word often requires three or four as its Englishequivalent. Yet the language is not made obscure by compression. On thecontrary, there is no other language in which it is so hard to burythought or to conceal its absence by superfluous verbiage. I have used Beier's edition of the _De Amicitia_, adhering to it in thevery few cases in which other good editions have a different reading. There are no instances in which the various readings involve anyconsiderable diversity of meaning. LAELIUS. Caius Laelius Sapiens, the son of Caius Laelius, who was the life-longfriend of Scipio Africanus the Elder, was born B. C. 186, a littleearlier in the same year with his friend Africanus the Younger. He wasnot undistinguished as a military commander, as was proved by hissuccessful campaign against Viriathus, the Lusitanian chieftain, who hadlong held the Roman armies at bay, and had repeatedly gained signaladvantages over them. He was known in the State, at first as leaning, though moderately and guardedly, to the popular side, but after thedisturbances created by the Gracchi, as a strong conservative. He was alearned and accomplished man, was an elegant writer, --though while theLatin tongue retained no little of its archaic rudeness, --and waspossessed of some reputation as an orator. Though bearing his part inpublic affairs, holding at intervals the offices of Tribune, Praetor, and Consul, and in his latter years attending with exemplary fidelity tosuch duties as belonged to him as a member of the college of Augurs, heyet loved retirement, and cultivated, so far as he was able, studiousand contemplative habits. He was noted for his wise economy of time. Toan idle man who said to him, "I have sixty years" [_Sexaginta annoshabeo. _] (that is, I am sixty years old), he replied, "Do you mean thesixty years which you have not?" His private life was worthy of allpraise for the virtues that enriched and adorned it; and its memory wasso fresh after the lapse of more than two centuries, that Seneca, whowell knew the better way which he had not always strength to tread, advises his young friend Lucilius to "live with Laelius;" [_Vire cumLaelio. _] that is, to take his life as a model. The friendship of Laelius and the younger Scipio Africanus well deservesthe commemoration which it has in this dialogue of Cicero. It began intheir boyhood, and continued without interruption till Scipio's death. Laelius served in Africa, mainly that he might not be separated from hisfriend. To each other's home was as his own. They were of one mind as topublic men and measures, and in all probability the more pliant natureof Laelius yielded in great measure to the stern and uncompromisingadherence of Scipio to the cause of the aristocracy. While they wereunited in grave pursuits and weighty interests, we have the mostcharming pictures of their rural and seaside life together, even oftheir gathering shells on the shore, and of fireside frolics in whichthey forgot the cares of the republic, ceased to be stately old Romans, and played like children in vacation-time. FANNIUS. Caius Fannius Strabo in early life served with high reputation inAfrica, under the younger Africanus, and afterward in Spain, in the warwith Viriathus. Like his father-in-law, he was versed in the philosophyof the Stoic school, under the tuition of Panaetius. He was an orator, as were almost all the Romans who aimed at distinction; but we have noreason to suppose that he in this respect rose above mediocrity. Hewrote a history, of which Cicero speaks well, and which Sallust commendsfor its accuracy; but it is entirely lost, and we have no directinformation even as to the ground which it covered. It seems probable, however, that it was a history either of the third of the Punic wars, orof all of them; for Plutarch quotes from him--probably from his History--the statement that he, Fannius, and Tiberius Gracchus were the first tomount the walls of Carthage whent he city was taken. SCAEVOLA. Quintus Mucius Scaevola filled successively most of the importantoffices of the State, and was for many years, and until death, a memberof the college of Augurs. He was eminent for his legal learning, and toa late and infirm old age was still consulted in questions of law, neverrefusing to receive clients at any moment after daylight. But while hewas regarded as foremost among the jurists of his time, he professedhimself less thoroughly versed in the laws relating to mortgages thantwo of his coevals, to whom he was wont to send those who brought casesof this class for his opinion or advice. He was remarkable for earlyrising, constant industry, and undeviating punctuality, --at the meetingsof the Senate being always the first on the ground. No man held a higher reputation than Scaevola for rigid and scrupulousintegrity. It is related of him that when as a witness in court he hadgiven testimony full, clear, strong, and of the most damnatory characteragainst the person on trial, he protested against the conviction of thedefendant on his testimony, if not corroborated, on the principle, heldsacred in the Jewish law, that it would be a dangerous precedent tosuffer the issue of any case to depend on the intelligence and veracityof a single witness. When, after Marius had been driven from the city, Sulla asked the Senate to declare him by their vote a public enemy, Scaevola stood in a minority of one; and when Sulla urged him to givehis vote in the affirmative, his reply was: "Although you show me themilitary guard with which you have surrounded the Senate-house, althoughyou threaten me with death, yon will never induce me, for the littleblood still in an old man's veins, to pronounce Marius--who has been thepreserver of the city and of Italy--an enemy. " His daughter married Lucius Licinius Crassus, who had such reverence torhis father-in-law, that, when a candidate for the consulship, he couldnot persuade himself in the presence of Scaevola to cringe to thepeople, or to adopt any of the usual self-humiliating methods ofcanvassing for the popular vote. SCIPIO'S DREAM. PALIMPSESTS[Footnote: _Rubbed again_, --the parchment, or papyrus, havingbeen first polished for use, and then rubbed as clean as possible, to beused a second time. ]--the name and the thing--are at least as old asCicero. In one of his letters he banters his friend Trebatius forwriting to him on a palimpsest, [Footnote: _In palimpsesto_. ] and marvelswhat there could have been on the parchment which he wanted to erase. This was a device probably resorted to in that age only in the way inwhich rigid economists of our day sometimes utilize envelopes andhandbills. But in the dark ages, when classical literature was under acloud and a ban, and when the scanty demand for writing materials madethe supply both scanty and precarious, such manuscripts of profaneauthors as fell into the hands of ecclesiastical copyists were notunusually employed for transcribing the works of the Christian Fathersor the lives of saints. In such cases the erasion was so clumsilyperformed as often to leave distinct traces of the previous letters. Thepossibility of recovering lost writings from these palimpsests was firstsuggested by Montfaucon in the seventeenth century; but the earliestsuccessful experiment of the kind was made by Bruns, a German scholar, in the latter part of the eighteenth, century. The most distinguishedlaborer in this field has been Angelo Mai, who commenced his work in1814 on manuscripts in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, of which he wasthen custodian. Transferred to the Vatican Library at Rome, hediscovered there, in 1821, a considerable portion of Cicero's _DeRepublica_, which had been obliterated, and replaced by SaintAugustine's Commentary on the Psalms. This latter being removed byappropriate chemical applications, large portions of the originalwriting remained legible, and were promptly given to the public. This treatise Cicero evidently considered, and not without reason, ashis master-work. It was written in the prime of his mental vigor, in thefifty-fourth year of his age, after ample experience in the affairs ofState, and while he still hoped, more than he feared for the future ofRome. His object was to discuss in detail the principles and forms ofcivil government, to define the grounds of preference for a republiclike that of Rome in its best days, and to describe the duties andresponsibilities of a good citizen, whether in public office or inprivate life. He regarded this treatise, in its ethics, as his owndirectory in the government of his province of Cilicia, and as bindinghim, by the law of self-consistency, to unswerving uprightness andfaithfulness, He refers to these six books on the Republic as so manyhostages [Footnote: _Praedibus_. ] for his uncorrupt integrity anduntarnished honor, and makes them his apology to Atticus for decliningto urge an extortionate demand on the city of Salamis. The work is in the form of Dialogues, in which, with severalinterlocutors beside, the younger Africanus and Laelius are the chiefspeakers; and it is characterized by the same traits of dramatic geniusto which I have referred in connection with the _De Amicitia_. The _De Republica_ was probably under interdict during the reigns of theAugustan dynasty; men did not dare to copy it, or to have it known thatthey possessed it; and when it might have safely reappeared, therepublic had faded even from regretful memory, and there was no desireto perpetuate a work devoted to its service and honor. Thus the worldhad lost the very one of all Cicero's writings for which he most cravedimmortality. The portions of it which Mai has brought to light fullyconfirm Cicero's own estimate of its value, and feed the earnest--it isto be feared the vain--desire for the recovery of the entire work. Scipio's Dream, which, is nearly all that remains of the Sixth Book ofthe _De Republica_, had survived during the interval for which the restof the treatise was lost to the world. Macrobius, a grammarian of thefifth century, made it the text of a commentary of little presentinterest or value, but much prized and read in the Middle Ages. TheDream, independently of the commentary, has in more recent times passedthrough unnumbered editions, sometimes by itself, sometimes withCicero's ethical writings, sometimes with the other fragments of the _DeRepublica_. In the closing Dialogue of the _De Republica_ the younger Africanussays: "Although to the wise the consciousness of noble deeds is a mostample reward of virtue, yet this divine virtue craves, not indeedstatues that need lead to hold them to their pedestals, nor yet triumphsgraced by withering laurels, but rewards of firmer structure and moreenduring green. " "What are these?" says Laelius. Scipio replies bytelling his dream. The time of the vision was near the beginning of theThird Punic War, when Scipio, no longer in his early youth, was justentering upon the career in which he gained pre-eminent fame, thenceforward to know neither shadow nor decline. * * * * * I have used for Scipio's Dream, Creuzer and Moser's edition of the _DeRepublica_. CICERO DE AMICITIA * * * * * 1 Quintus Mucius, the Augur, used to repeat from memory, and in the mostpleasant way, many of the sayings of his father-in-law Caius Laelius, never hesitating to apply to him in all that he said his surname of TheWise. When I first put on the robe of manhood [Footnote: In the earliesttime a boy put on the _toga virilis_ when he had completed his sixteenthyear, in Cicero's time pupilage ceased a year earlier and by Justinin'scode the period at which it legally ceased was the commencement of thefifteenth year. The Scaevola to whom Cicero was thus taken was QuintusMucius (Scaevola) the Augur, already named. ] my father took me toScaevola and so commended me to his kind offices, that thenceforward, sofar as was possible and fitting I kept my place at the old man's side. [Footnote: It was customary for youth in training for honorablepositions in the State to attach themselves especially to men ofestablished character and reputation, to attend them to public places, and to remain near them whenever anything w«as to be learned from theirconversation, their legal opinions, their public harangues, or theirpleas before the courts. Distinguished citizens deemed themselveshonored by a retinue of such attendants. Cicero, in the _De Officiis_, says that a young man may best commend himself to the early esteem andconfidence of the community by such an intimacy. ] I thus laid up in mymemory many of his elaborate discussions of important subjects, as wellas many of his utterances that had both brevity and point, and myendeavor was to grow more learned by his wisdom. After his death I stoodin a similar relation to the high-priest Scaevola, [Footnote: As Cicerosays, the most eloquent of jurists, and the most learned jurist amongthe eloquent. He was at the same time pre-eminent for moral purity andintegrity. It was he, who, as Cicero (_De Officiis_, iii. 15) relates, insisted on paying for an estate that he bought a much larger sum thanwas asked for it, because its price had been fixed far below its actualvalue. ] whom I venture to call the foremost man of our city both inability and in uprightness. But of him I will speak elsewhere. I returnto the Augur. While I recall many similar occasions, I remember inparticular that at a certain time when I and a few of his more intimateassociates were sitting with him in the semicircular apartment[Footnote: Latin, _hemicyclio, _ perhaps, a semicircular seat. ] in hishouse where he was wont to receive his friends, the conversation turnedon a subject about which almost every one was then talking, and whichyou, Atticus, certainly recollect, as you were much in the society ofPublius Sulpicius; namely, the intense hatred with which Sulpicius, whenTribune of the people, opposed Quintus Pompeius, then Consul, [Footnote:The quarrel arose from the zelous espousal of the Marian faction bySulpicius, who resorted to arms, in order to effect the incorporation ofthe new citizens from without the city among the previously existingtribes. Hence a series of tumults and conflicts, in one of which a sonof Pompeius lost his life. ] with whom he had lived in the closest andmost loving union, --a subject of general surprise and regret. Havingincidentally mentioned this affair, Scaevola proceeded to give us thesubstance of a conversation on friendship, which Laelius had with himand his other son-in-law, Caius Fannius, the son of Marcus, a few daysafter the death of Africanus. I committed to memory the sentimentsexpressed in that discussion, and I bring them out in the book which Inow send you. I have put them into the form of a dialogue, to avoid thetoo frequent repetition of "said I" and "says he, " and that thediscussion may seem as if it were held in the hearing of those who readit. While you, indeed, have often urged me to write something aboutfriendship, the subject seems to me one of universal interest, and atthe same time specially appropriate to our intimacy. I have thereforebeen very ready to seek the profit of many by complying with yourrequest. But as in the _Cato Major_, the work on Old Age inscribed toyou, I introduced the old man Cato as leading the discussion, becausethere seemed to be no other person better fitted to talk about old agethan one who had been an aged man so long, and in his age had been soexceptionally vigorous, so, as we had heard from our fathers of thepeculiarly memorable intimacy of Caius Laelius and Publius Scipio, itappeared appropriate to put into the mouth of Laelius what Scaevolaremembered as having been said by him when friendship was the subject inon the authority of men of an earlier generation, and illustrious intheir time, seems somehow to be of specially commanding influence on thereader's mind. Thus, as I read my own book on Old Age, I am sometimes soaffected that I feel as if not I, but Cato, were talking. But as I thenwrote as an old man to an old man about old age, so in this book I writeas the most loving of friends to a friend about friendship. [Footnote:In the Latin we have here two remarkable series of assonances, rhythmical to the ear, and though translatable in sense not so ineuphony. "Ut tum _senex_ ad _senem_ de _senectute, _ sic hoc libro ad_amicum amicissimus_, de _amicitia_ scripsi. "] Then Cato was the chiefspeaker, than whom there was in his time scarcely any one older, and noone his superior in intellect, now Laelius shall hold the first place, both as a wise man (for so he was regarded), and as excelling in allthat can do honor to friendship. I want you for the while to turn yourmind away from me, and to imagine that it is Laelius who is speaking. Caius Fannius and Quintus Mucius come to their father-in-law after thedeath of Africanus. They commence the conversation, Laelius answersthem. In reading all that he says about friendship, you will recognizethe picture of your own friendship for me. 2 FANNIUS It is as you say, [Footnote: The reference is to what Laeliusis supposed to have said already. The dialogue, as given here, is madeto commence in the midst of a conversation. ] Laelius, for there neverwas a better man, or one more justly renowned, than Africanus, But youought to bear it in mind that the eyes of all are turned upon you atthis time, for they both call you and think you wise. This distinctionhas been latterly given to Cato, and you know that in the days of ourfathers Lucius Atilius [Footnote: The first Roman known to have bornethe surname of Sapiens He was one of the earliest of the juriconsultswho took pupils. ] was in like manner surnamed The Wise, but both of themwere so called for other reasons than those which have given you thisname, --Atilius, for his reputation as an adept in municipal law, Cato, for the versatility of his endowments for there were reported to hishonor many measures wisely planned and vigorously carried through in theSenate, and many cases skilfully defended in the courts, so that in hisold age The Wise was generally applied to him as a surname. But you areregarded as wise on somewhat different grounds, not only for yourdisposition and your moral worth, but also for your knowledge andlearning, and not in the estimation of the common people, but in that ofmen of advanced culture, you are deemed wise in a sense in which thereis reason to suppose that in Greece--where those who look into thesethings most discriminatingly do not reckon the seven who bear the nameas on the list of wise men--no one was so regarded except the man inAthens whom the oracle of Apollo designated as the wisest ofmen. [Footnote: Socrates. ] In fine, you are thought to be wise in thissense, that you regard all that appertains to your happiness as withinyour own soul, and consider the calamities to which man is liable as ofno consequence in comparison with virtue. I am therefore asked, and so, I believe, is Scaevola, who is now with us, how you bear the death ofAfricanus; and the question is put to us the more eagerly, because onthe fifth day of the mouth next following, [Footnote: Latin, _proxumisnonis_. The _nones_, the ninth day before the _ides_, fell on the fifthof the month, except in March. May, July, and October, when the _ides_were two days later. We have elsewhere intimation that the Augurs helda meeting for business on the _nones_ of each month. ] when we met, asusual, in the garden of Decimus Brutus the Augur, to discuss ourofficial business, you were absent, though it was your habit always onthat day to give your most careful attendance to the duties of youroffice. SCAEVOLA. As Fannius says, Caius Laelius, many have asked me thisquestion. But I answered in accordance with what I have seen, that youwere bearing with due moderation your sorrow for the death of this yourmost intimate friend, though you, with your kindly nature, could notfail to be moved by it; but that your absence from the monthly meetingof the Augurs was due to illness, not to grief. LAELIUS. You were in the right, Scaevola, and spoke the truth; for itwas not fitting, had I been in good health, for me to be detained by myown sad feeling from this duty, which I have never failed to discharge;nor do I think that a man of firm mind can be so affected by anycalamity as to neglect his duty. It is, indeed, friendly in you, Fannius, to tell me that better things are said of me than I feel worthyof or desire to have said; but it seems to me that you underrate Cato. For either there never was a wise man (and so I am inclined to think), or if there has been such a man, Cato deserves the name. To omit otherthings, how nobly did he bear his son's death! I remembered Paulus, [Footnote: Paulus Aemilius, who lost two sons, one a few days before, the other shortly after, the triumph decreed to him for the conquest ofthe Macedonian King Perseus. ] I had seen Gallus, [Footnote: GaiusSulpicius Gallus, mentioned as an astronomer by Cicero, _De Officiis_, i. 6, and _De Senectute_, 14. ] in their bereavements. But they lostboys; Cato, a man in his prime and respected by all. [Footnote: Theyounger Cato had won fame as a soldier and distinguished eminence as ajurist. At the time of his death he was praetor elect. ] Beware how youplace in higher esteem than Cato even the man whom Apollo, as you say, pronounced superlatively wise; for it is the deeds of Cato, the sayingsof Socrates, that are held in honor. Thus far in reply to Fannius. Asregards myself, I will now answer both of you. 3. Were I to deny that I feel the loss of Scipio, while I leave it tothose who profess themselves wise in such matters to say whether I oughtto feel it, I certainly should be uttering a falsehood. I do indeed feelmy bereavement of such a friend as I do not expect ever to have again, and as I am sure I never had beside. But I need no comfort from without, I console myself, and, chief of all, I find comfort in my freedom fromthe apprehension that oppresses most men when their friends die, for Ido not think that any evil has befallen Scipio. If evil has befallen, itis to me. But to be severely afflicted by one's own misfortunes is thetoken of self-love, not of friendship. As for him, indeed who can denythat the issue has been to his pre-eminent glory? Unless he had wished--what never entered into his mind--an endless life on earth what wasthere within human desire that did not accrue to the man who in his veryearliest youth by his incredible ability and prowess surpassed thehighest expectations that all had formed of his boyhood, who neversought the consulship, yet was made consul twice, the first time beforethe legal age, [Footnote: He left the army in Africa B. C. 147 for home tooffer himself as a candidate for the aedileship, for which he had justreached the legal age of thirty seven; but such accounts of his abilityefficiency, and courage had preceded him and followed him from the army, that he was chosen Consul, virtually by popular acclamation. ] the secondtime in due season as to himself, but almost too late for hiscountry, [Footnote: The war in Spain had been continued for severalyears, with frequent disaster and disgrace to the Roman army, whenScipio, B. C. 134, was chosen Consul with a special view to this war, which he closed by the capture and destruction of Numantia, inconnectionwith which, it must he confessed, his record is rather that of arelentless and sanguinary enemy than of a generous and placableantagonist. ] who by the overthrow of two cities implacably hostile tothe Roman empire put a period, not only to the wars that were but towars that else must have been? What shall I say of the singularaffability of his manners, of his filial piety to his mother, [Footnote:He was the son of Paulus Aemilius, and the adopted son of PubliusCornelius Scipio Africanus. His mother, divorced for no assignablereason, was left very poor, and her son, on the death of the widow ofhis adopting father, gave her the entire patrimony that came into hispossession. ] of his generosity to his sisters, [Footnote: After hismother's death, law and custom authorized him to resume what he hadgiven her, but he bestowed it on his sisters, thus affording them themeans of living comfortably and respectably. ] of his integrity in hisrelations with all men? How dear he was to the community was shown bythe grief at his funeral. What benefit, then, could he have derived froma few more years? For, although old age be not burdensome, --as Iremember that Cato, the year before he died, maintained in aconversation with me and Scipio, [Footnote: The _De Senectute_]--it yetimpairs the fresh vigor which Scipio had not begun to lose. Thus hislife was such that nothing either in fortune or in fame could be addedto it, while the suddenness of his death must have taken away the painof dying. Of the mode of his death it is hard to speak with certainty, you are aware what suspicions are abroad. [Footnote: He retired to hissleeping apartment apparently in perfect health, and was found dead onhis couch in the morning, --as was rumored, with marks of violence on hisneck. His wife was Sempronia, the sister of the Gracchi whose agrarianschemes he had vehemently opposed. She was suspected of having at leastgiven admission to the assassin, and even her mother, the Cornelia whohas been regarded as unparelleled among Roman women for the virutesappertaining to a wife and mother, did not escape the charge ofcomplicity. Her son Caius was also among those suspected, but the moreprobable opinion is that Papirius Carbo was alone answerable for thecrime. Carbo had been Scipio's most bitter enemy and had endeavoured toinflame the people against him as their enemy. ] But this may be saidwith truth that of the many days of surpassing fame and happiness whichPublius Scipio saw in his lifetime, the most glorious was the day beforehis death when on the adjournment of the Senate he was escorted home bythe Conscript Fathers, the Roman people, the men of Latium and theallies, [Footnote): Scipio had at that session of the senate proposed ameasure in the utmost degree offensive to Caius Gracchus and his party. The law of Tiberius Gracchus would have disposed, at the hands of thecommissioners appointed under it, of large tracts of land belonging tothe Italian allies. Scipio's plan provided that such lands should betaken out of the jurisdiction of the commissioners, and that mattersrelating to them should be adjudged by a different board to be speciallyappointed--a measure which would have been a virtual abrogation of theagrarian law. On this account he had his honorable escort home, and onthis account, in all probability, he was mudered. ]--so that from sohigh a grade of honor he seems to have passed on into the assembly ofthe gods rather than to have gone down into the underworld. 4 For I am far from agreeing with those who have of late promulgated theopinion that the soul perishes with the body and that death blots outthe whole being. [Footnote: The reference here is of course to theEpicurians. This school of philosophy had grown very rapidly, andnumbered many disciples when this essay was written; but in the time ofLaelius it had but recently invaded Rome, and Amafanius, who must havebeen his contemporary, was the earliest Roman writer who expounded itsdoctrine] I on the other hand attach superior value to the authority ofthe ancients whether that of our ancestors who established religiousrites for the dead which they certainly would not have done if they hadthought the dead wholly unconcerned in such observances [Footnote: Thisis sound reasoning as these rites were annually renewed and consisted ingreat part of the invocation of ancestors--a custom which could not haveoriginated if those ancestors were supposed to be utterly dead. Thispassage may remind the reader of the answer of Jesus Christ to theSadducees, who denied that the Pentateuch contained any intimation ofimmortality. He quotes the passage in which God is represented assaying, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God ofJacob, " and adds, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, "implying that ancestors whom the writer of that record supposed to bedead could not have been thus mentioned. ] or thatof the former Greekcolonists in this country who by their schools and teaching madeSouthern Italy [Footnote: Latin _Magna Graecia_-the name given to thecluster of Greek colonies that were scattered thick along the shore ofSouthern Italy. At Croton in Magna Graecia Pythagoras established hisschool and the colonies were the chief seat and seminary of hisphilosophy which taught the immortality of the soul. ]--now in itsdecline, then flourishing--a seat of learning, or that of him whom theoracle of Apollo pronounced the wisest of men who said not one thingto-day, another to-morrow, as many do, but the same thing always, maintaining that the souls of men are divine, and that when they go outfrom the body, the return to heaven is open to them, and direct and easyin proportion to their integrity and excellence. This was also theopinion of Scipio, who seemed prescient of the event so near, when, avery short time before his death, he discoursed for three successivedays about the republic in the presence of Philus, Manilius, and severalothers, --you, Scaevola, having gone with me to the conferences, --andnear the close of the discussion he told us what he said that he hadheard from Africanus in a vision during sleep. [Footnote: The _DeRepublica_ consists of dialogues on three successive days in Scipio'sgarden, and Scipio is the chief speaker. The work was supposed to beirrecoverably lost, with the exception of this Dream of Scipio and a fewfragments, but considerable portions of it were discovered in apalimpsest in 1822. The Dream of Scipio will be found in the latter partof this volume. ] If it is true that the soul of every man of surpassingexcellence takes flight, as it were, from the custody and bondage of thebody, to whom can we imagine the way to the gods more easy than toScipio? I therefore fear to mourn for this his departure, lest in suchgrief there be more of envy than of friendship. But if truth incline tothe opinion that soul and body have the same end, and that there is noremaining consciousness, then, as there is nothing good in death, therecertainly is nothing of evil For if consciousness be lost, the case isthe same with Scipio as if he had never been born, though that he wasborn I have so ample reason to rejoice, and this city will be glad solong as it shall stand Thus in either event, with him, as I have said, all has issued well, though with great discomfort for me, who morefittingly, as I entered into life before him ought to have left itbefore him. But I so enjoy the memory of our friendship, that I seem tohave owed the happiness of my life to my having lived with Scipio, withwhom I was united in the care of public interests and of privateaffairs, who was my companion at home and served by my side in the army[Footnote: Laelus went with Scipio on the campaign which resulted in thedestruction of Carthage. ] and with whom--and therein lies the specialvirtue of friendship--I was in perfect harmony of purpose, taste, andsentiment. Thus I am now not so much delighted by the reputation forwisdom of which Fannius has just spoken, especially as I do not deserveit, as by the hope that our friendship will live in eternal remembrance, and this I have the more at heart because from all ages scarce three orfour pairs of friends are on record, [Footnote: Those referred toprobably Theseus and Peirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes andPylades, Damon and Phintius, --all but the last, perhaps the last also, mythical] on which list I cannot but hope that the friendship of Scipioand Laelius will be known to posterity. FANNIUS. It cannot fail, Laelius, to be as you desire. But since youhave made mention of friendship, and we are at leisure, you will conferon me a very great favor, and, I trust, on Scaevola too, if, as you arewont to do on other subjects when your opinion is asked, you willdiscourse to us on friendship, and tell us what you think about it, inwhat estimation you hold it, and what rules you would give for it. SCAEVOLA. This will indeed be very gratifying to me, and had not Fanniusanticipated me, I was about to make the same request. You thus willbestow a great kindness on both of us. 5. LAELIUS. I certainly would not hesitate, if I had confidence in myown powers; for the subject is one of the highest importance, and, asFannius says, we are at leisure. It is the custom of philosophers, especially among the Greeks, to have subjects assigned to them, whichthey discuss even without premeditation. [Footnote: This was the boastand pride of the Greek sophists. ] This is a great accomplishment, andrequires no small amount of exercise. I therefore think that you oughtto seek the treatment of friendship by those who profess this art. I canonly advise you to prefer friendship to all things else within humanattainment, insomuch as nothing beside is so well fitted to nature, --sowell adapted to our needs whether in prosperous or in adversecircumstances. But I consider this as a first principle--that friendshipcan exist only between good men. In thus saying, I would not be so rigidin definition [Footnote: Latin. _Neque ut ad ilium reseco_, literally, nor in this matter do I cut to the quick. ] as those who establishspecially subtle distinctions, [Footnote: The Stoics of the more rigidtype, who maintained that the wise man alone is good, but denied thatthe truly wise man had yet made his appearance on the earth. ] withliteral truth it may be, but with little benefit to the common mind; forthey will not admit that any man who is not wise is a good man. This mayindeed be true. But they understand by wisdom a state which no mortalhas yet attained; while we ought to look at those qualities which are tobe found in actual exercise and in common life, not at those which existonly in fancy or in aspiration. Caius Fabricius, Manius Curius, TiberiusCoruncanius, wise as they were in the judgment of our fathers, I willconsent not to call wise by the standard of these philosophers. Let themkeep for themselves the name of wisdom, which is invidious and ofdoubtful meaning, if they will only admit that these may have been goodmen. But they will not grant even this; they insist on denying the nameof good to any but the wise. I therefore adopt the standard of commonsense. [Footnote: Latin _agamus igitur piagui (ut aiunt) Minerva_, thatis with a less refined, a grosser wisdom more nearly conformed to thesound, if somewhat crass, common-sensFe of the majority. ] Those whointegrity, equity, and kindness win approval, who are entirely free fromavarice, lust and the infirmities of a hasty temper, and in whom thereis perfect consistency of character, in fine men like those whom I havenamed while they are regarded as good, ought to be so called, because tothe utmost of human capacity they follow Nature who is the best guide inliving well. Indeed, it seems to me thoroughly evident that there shouldbe a certain measure of fellowship among all, but more intimate thenearer we approach one another. Thus this feeling has more power betweenfellow-citizens than toward foreigners, between kindred than betweenthose of different families. Toward our kindred, Nature herself producesa certain kind of friendship. But this lacks strength, and indeedfriendship in its full sense, has precedence of kinship in thisparticular, that good-will may be taken away from kinship, not fromfriendship, for when good will is removed, friendship loses its name, while that of kinship remains. How great is the force of friendship wemay best understand from this, --that out of the boundless society of thehuman race which Nature has constituted, the sense of fellowship is socontracted and narrowed that the whole power of loving is bestowed onthe union of two or a very few friends. 6 Friendship is nothing else than entire fellow feeling as to all thingshuman and divine with mutual good-will and affection; [1] and I doubtwhether anything better than this, wisdom alone excepted, has been givento, man by the immortal gods Some prefer riches to it, some, soundhealth, some, power, some, posts of honor, many, even sensualgratification. This last properly belongs to beasts, the others areprecarious and uncertain, dependent not on our own choice so much as onthe caprice of Fortune. Those, indeed, who regard virtue as the supremegood are entirely in the right, but it is virtue itself that producesand sustains friendship, not without virtue can friendship by anypossibility exist. In saying this, however I would interpret virtue inaccordance with our habits of speech and of life, not defining it, assome philosophers do, by high-sounding words, but numbering on the listof good men those who are commonly so regarded, --the Pauli, the Catos, the Galli, the Scipios, the Phili Mankind in general [1 It may bedoubted whether this close conformity of opinion and feeling isessential, or even favorable to friendship. The amicable comparison andcollision of thought and sentiment are certainly consistent with, andoften conducive to the most friendly intimacy Friends are notinfrequently the complements, rather than the likeness, of each otherCicero and Atticus were as close friends as Scipio and Laelius; but theywere at many points exceedingly unlike. Atticus had the tact and skillin worldly matters, which Cicero lacked. Atticus kept aloof from publicaffairs while Cicero was unhappy whenever he could not imagine himselfas taking a leading part in them. Atticus was an Epicurran, and Ciceronever lost an opportunity of attacking the Epicurean philosophy. ] arecontent with these. Let us then leave out of the account such good menas 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 byfriend in friend? What sweeter joy than in the kindred soul, Whoseconverse differs not from self-communion?" How could you have full enjoyment of prosperity, unless with one whosepleasure in it was equal to your own? Nor would it be easy to bearadversity, unless with the sympathy of one on whom it rested moreheavily than on your own soul. Then, too, other objects of desire are, in general, adapted, each to some specific purpose, --wealth, that youmay 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. Butfriendship combines the largest number of utilities. Wherever you turn, it is at hand. No place shuts it out. It is never unseasonable, neverannoying. Thus, as the proverb says, "You cannot put water or fire tomore uses than friendship serves. " I am not now speaking of the commonand moderate type of friendship, which yet yields both pleasure andprofit, but, of true and perfect friendship, like that which existed inthe few instances that are held in special remembrance. Such friendshipat once enhances the lustre of prosperity, and by dividing and sharingadversity lessens its burden. 7. Moreover, while friendship comprises the greatest number and varietyof beneficent offices, it certainly has this special prerogative, thatit lights up a good hope for the time to come, and thus preserves theminds that it sustains from imbecility or prostration in misfortune. Forhe, indeed, who looks into the face of a friend beholds, as it were, acopy of himself. Thus the absent are present, and the poor are rich, andthe weak are strong, and--what seems stranger still [Footnote:Literally, _what is harder to say_. ]--the dead are alive, such is thehonor, the enduring remembrance, the longing love, with which the dyingare 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 thissentence is somewhat overlaid by the rhetoric; yet it undoubtedly meansthat an absent friend is esteemed and honored in the person of thefriend who not only loves him, but is regarded as representing him; thata poor friend enjoys the prosperity of his rich friend as if it were hisown; that a weak friend feels his feebleness energized by the friend whoin need will fight his battles for him; and that no man is suffered tolapse from the kind and reverent remembrances of those who see hislikeness in the friend who keeps his memory green. ] But if from thecondition of human life you were to exclude all kindly union, no house, no city, could stand, nor, indeed, could the tillage of the fieldsurvive. If it is not perfectly understood what virtue there is infriendship and concord, it may be learned from dissension and discord. For what house is so stable, what state so firm, that it cannot beutterly overturned by hatred and strife? Hence it may be ascertained howmuch good there is in friendship. It is said that a certain philosopherof Agrigentum [Footnote: Empedocles. Only a few fragments of his greatpoem are extant. His theory seems like a poetical version of Newton'slaw of universal gravitation. The analogy between physical attractionand the mutual attraction of congenial minds and souls has its record inthe French word _aimant_, denoting _loadstone_ or _magnet_. ] sang inGreek verse that it is friendship that draws together and discord thatparts all things which subsist in harmony, and which have their variousmovements in nature and in the whole universe. The worth and power offriendship, too, all mortals understand, and attest by their approval inactual instances. Thus, if there comes into conspicuous notice anoccasion on which a friend incurs or shares the perils of his friend, who can fail to extol the deed with the highest praise? What shoutsfilled the whole theatre at the performance of the new play of my guest[Footnote: Or _host_; for the word _hospes_ may have either meaning. Itdenotes not the fact of giving or receiving hospitality, but thepermanent and sacred relation established between host and guest. Thisrelation has lost much of its character in modern civilization, and Idoubt whether it has a name in any modern European language. ] and friendMarcus Pacuvius, when--the king not knowing which of the two wasOrestes--Pylades said that he was Orestes, while Orestes persisted inasserting that he was, as in fact he was, Orestes! [Footnote: Among themany and conflicting legends about Orestes is that which seems to havebeen the theme of the lost tragedy of Pacuvius. Orestes, after avengingon his mother and her paramour the murder of his father, in order toexpiate the guilt of matricide, was directed by the Delphian oracle togo to Tauris, and to steal and transport to Athens an image of Artemisthat had fallen from heaven. His friend Pylades accompanied him on thisexpedition. They were seized by Thoas the king, and Orestes, as theprincipal offender, was to be sacrificed to Artemis. His sister, Iphigeneia, priestess of Artemis, contrived their escape, and the threearrived safe at Athens with the sacred image. ] The whole assembly rosein applause at this mere fictitious representation. What may we supposethat they would have done, had the same thing occurred in real life? Inthat case Nature herself displayed her power, when men recognized thatas rightly done by another, which they would not have had the courage todo 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 moreto be said, as I think that there is, endeavor to obtain it, if you seefit, of those who are wont to discuss such subjects. FANNIUS. But we would rather have it from you. Although I have oftenconsulted those philosophers also, and have listened to them notunwillingly, yet the thread of your discourse differs somewhat from thatof theirs. SCAEVOLA. You would say so all the more, Fannius, had you been presentin Scipio's garden at that discussion about the republic, and heard whatan advocate of justice he showed himself in answer to the elaboratespeech of Philus. [Footnote: Carneades, when on an embassy to Rome, forthe entertainment of his Roman hosts, on one day delivered a discoursein behalf of justice as the true policy for the State, and on the nextday delivered an equally subtile and eloquent discourse maintaining theopposite thesis. In the third Book of the _De Republica_ Philus is madethe "devil's advocate, " and has assigned to him the championship of whatwe are wont to call a Machiavelian policy, and, in general, of themorally wrong as the politically right. He is represented astaking thepart reluctantly, saying that one consents to soil his hands in order tofind gold, and he professes to give the substance of the famousdiscourse of Carneades. Laelius answers him, and, so far as we canjudge from the fragments of his reply that are extant, with thepreponderance of reason, which Cicero intended should incline on thebetter side. There was perhaps a sublatent irony in making Philus playthis part; for he was an eminently upright man. Valerius Maximuseulogizes him for his rigid integrity and impartiality, and relates thatwhen at the expiration of his consulship he was sent to take command ofthe army against Numantia, he chose for his lieutenants Metellus andPompeius, both his intensely bitter enemies, but the men best fitted forthe service. ] FANNIUS. It was indeed easy for the man pre-eminently just to defendjustice. SCAEVOLA. As to friendship, then, is not its defence easy for him whohas won the highest celebrity on the ground of friendship maintainedwith pre-eminent faithfulness, consistency, and probity? 8. LAELIUS. This is, indeed, the employing of force; for what mattersthe way in which you compel me? You at any rate do compel me; for it isboth 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 foremostquestion that is wont to present itself is, whether friendship is cravedon account of conscious infirmity and need, so that in bestowing andreceiving the kind offices that belong to it each may have that done forhim by the other which he is least able to do for himself, reciprocatingservices in like manner; or whether, though this relation of mutualbenefit is the property, of friendship it has yet another cause; moresacred and more noble, and derived more genuinely from the very natureof man. Love, which in our language gives name to friendship, [Footnote:_Amor, --amicitia. _] bears a chief part in unions of mutual benefit; fora revenue of service is levied even on those who are cherished inpretended friendship, and are treated with regard from interestedmotives. 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 aninclination of the mind with a certain consciousness of love rather thanfrom calculation of the benefit to be derived from it. Its real qualitymay be discerned even in some classes of animals, which up to a certaintime so love their offspring, and are so loved by them, that the mutualfeeling is plainly seen, --a feeling which is much more clearly manifestin man, first, in the affection which exists between children andparents, and which can he dissolved only by atrocious guilt; and in thenext place, in the springing up of a like feeling of love, when we findsome one of manners and character congenial with our own, who becomesdear to us because we seem to see in him an illustrious example ofprobity and virtue For there is nothing more lovable than virtue, --nothing which more surely wins affectionate regard, insomuch that on thescore 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, ofManius Curius, of Tiberius Coruncanras, whom he never saw, with somegood measure of kindly feeling? On the other hand, who is there that canfail to hate Tarquinius Superbus, Spurius Cassius, Spurius Maelius? Ourdominion in Italy was at stake in wars under two commanders, Pyrrhus andHannibal. On account of the good faith of the one, we hold him in nounfriendly remembrance; [Footnote: Pyrrhus, after the only victory thathe obtained over the Romans, treated his prisoners with signal humanity, and restored them without ransom. See _De Officiis_, i. 12] the otherbecause of his cruelty our people must always hate. [Footnote: It may bedoubted wheter Hannibal deserved the reproach here implied. The Romanhistorians ascribe to him acts of cruelty no worse than their owngenerals were chargeable with: while nothing of the kind is related byeither Polybius, or Plutarch. It is certain that after the battle ofCannae he checked the needless slaughter of the Roman fugitives, andLivy relates several instances in which he paid funeral honors, todistinguished Romans slain in battle. The intense hostility of theRomans to Carthage may have led to an unfair estimate of the greatgeneral's character, and to the invention or exaggeration of reports tohis discredit. ] 9. But if good faith has such attractive power that we love it in thosewhom we have never seen, or--what means still more--in an enemy, whatwonder is it if the minds of men are moved to affection when they beholdthe virtue and goodness of those with whom they can become intimatelyunited? Love is, indeed, strengthened by favors received, by witnessingassiduity in one's service, and by habitual intercourse; and when theseare added to the first impulse of the mind toward love, there flamesforth a marvellously rich glow of affectionate feeling. If there are anywho think that this proceeds from conscious weakness and the desire tohave some person through whom one can obtain what he lacks, they assign, indeed, to friendship a mean and utterly ignoble origin, born, as theywould have it, of poverty and neediness. If this were true, then theless of resource one was conscious of having in himself, the betterfitted would he be for friendship. The contrary is the case; for themore confidence a man has in himself, and the more thoroughly he isfortified by virtue and wisdom, so that he is in need of no one, andregards all that concerns him as in his own keeping, the more noteworthyis he for the friendships which he seeks and cherishes. What? DidAfricanus need me? Not in the least by Hercules. As little did I needhim. But I was drawn to him by admiration of his virtue while he, inturn, loved me, perhaps from some favorable estimate of my character, and intimacy incieased our mutual affection. But though utilities manyand great resulted from our friendship, the cause of our mutual love didnot proceed from the hope of what it might bring. For as we arebeneficent and generous, not in order to exact kindnesses in return (forwe do not put our kind offices to interest), but are by nature inclinedto be generous, so, in my opinion, friendship is not to be sought forits wages, but because its revenue consists entirely in the love whichit implies. Those, however, who, after the manner of beasts, refereverything to pleasure, [Footnote: The Epicureans] think verydifferently. Nor is it wonderful that they do, for men who have degradedall their thoughts to so mean and contemptible an end can rise to thecontemplation of nothing lofty, nothing magnificent and divine. We may, therefore, leave them out of this discussion. But let us have it wellunderstood that the feeling of love and the endearments of mutualaffection spring from nature, in case there is a well-establishedassurance of moral worth in the person thus loved. Those who desire tobecome friends approach each other, and enter into relation with eachother, that each may enjoy the society and the character of him whom hehas begun to love, and they are equal in love, and on either side aremore inclined to bestow obligations than to claim a return, so that inthis matter there is an honorable rivalry between them. Thus will thegreatest benefits be derived from friendship, and it will have a moresolid and genuine foundation as tracing its origin to nature than if itproceeded from human weakness. For if it were utility that cementedfriendships, an altered aspect of utility would dissolve them. Butbecause nature cannot be changed, therefore true friendships areeternal. 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 Scaevolawho 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 thefrequent discussions on friendship between Scipio and me. He indeed, said [footnote: The construction of this entire section is in thesubjective imperfect depending on the _dicebat_ in the second sentence. It has seemed to me that the direct form of constiution which I haveadopted is more consonant with the genius of our language. ] that nothingis more difficult than for friendship to last through life; for friendshappen to have conflicting interests, or different political opinions. Then, again, as he often said, characters change, sometimes underadverse conditions, sometimes with growing years. He cited also theanalogy of what takes place in early youth, the most ardent loves ofboyhood being often laid aside with its robe. But if friendships last oninto opening manhood, they are not infrequently broken up by rivalry inquest of a wife, or in the pursuit of some advantage which only one canobtain. [Footnote: Had Cicero not been personating Laelius, who diedlong before the quarrel occurred, he would undoubtedly have cited thecase of Servilius Caepio and Livius Diusus. They married each other'ssisters, and were united in the closest intimacy, and seemingly in thedearest mutual love; but as rivals in bidding for a ring at an auction-sale they had their first quarrel, which grew into intense mutualhatred, led almost to a civil war between their respective partisans, and bore no small part in starting the series of dissentions whichissued in the Social War, and the destruction of not far from threehundred thousand lives. I refer to this in a note, because it must havebeen fresh in Cicero's memory, and had annotation been the habit of histime, he would most assuredly have given it the place which I now giveit. ] Then, if friendships are of longer duration, they yet, as Scipiosaid, are liable to be undermined by competition for office; and indeedthere is nothing more fatal to friendship than, in very many cases, thegreed of gain, and among some of the best of men the contest for placeand fame, which has often engendered the most intense enmity betweenthose who had been the closest friends. Strong and generally justaversion, also, springs up when anything morally wrong is required of afriend; as when he is asked to aid in the gratification of impuredesire, or to render his assistance in some unrighteous act, --in whichcase those who refuse, although their conduct is highly honorable, areyet charged by the persons whom they will not serve with being false tothe claims of friendship, while those who dare to make such a demand ofa friend profess, by the very demand, that they are ready to do anythingand everything for a friend's sake. By such quarrels, not only are oldintimacies often dissolved, but undying hatreds generated. So many ofthese perils hang like so many fates over friendship, that to escapethem all seemed to Scipio, as he said, to indicate not wisdom alone, butequally a rare felicity of fortune. 11. Let us then, first, if you please, consider how far the love offriends ought to go. If Coriolanus had friends, ought they to havehelped him in fighting against his country, or should the friends ofViscellinus [Footnote: Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, the author of theearliest agrarian law, passed, but never carried into execution. He wascondemned to death, --probably a victim to the rancorous opposition ofthe patrician order, of which he was regarded as a recreant member byvirtue of his advocacy of the rights or just claims of the _plebs_. Cicero in early life was by no means so hostile to the principleunderlying the agrarian laws, and to the memory of the Gracchi, as hewas 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, onaccount of his alleged movements with that purpose, Cincinnatus wasappointed dictator, and Maelius, resisting a summons to his tribunal, was killed by Ahala, his master of the horse. There seems to have beenlittle evidence of his actual guilt. ] have aided them in the endeavor tousurp regal power? We saw, indeed, Tiberius Gracchus, when he wasdisturbing the peace of the State, deserted by Quintus Tubero and otherswith whom he had been on terms of intimacy. But Caius Blossius, ofCumae, the guest, [Footnote: _Hospes, _ guest, host, or both. ] Scaevola, of your family, coming to me, when I was in conference with the ConsulsLaenas and Rupilius, to implore pardon, urged the plea that he heldTiberius Gracchus in so dear esteem that he felt bound to do whatever hedesired. I then asked him, "Even if he had wanted you to set fire to theCapitol, would you have done it?" He replied, "He never would have madesuch a request. " "But if he had?" said I. "I would have obeyed him, " wasthe answer. And, by Hercules, he did as he said, or even more; for hedid not so much yield obedience to the audacious schemes of TiberiusGracchus, as he was foremost in them; he was not so much the companionof his madness, as its leader. Therefore, in consequence of this folly, alarmed by the appointment of special judges for his trial, he fled toAsia, entered the service of our enemies, and finally met the heavy andjust punishment for his disloyalty to his country. [Footnote: He tookrefuge with Aristonicus, King of Pergamus, then at war with Rome; andwhen Aristonicus was conquered, Blossius committed suicide for fear ofbeing captured by the Roman army. ] It is, then, no excuse for wrong-doing that you do wrong for the sake ofa friend. Indeed, since it may have been a belief in your virtue thathas made one your friend, it is hard for friendship to last if you fallaway from virtue. But if we should determine either to concede tofriends whatever they may ask, or to exact from them whatever we maydesire, we and they must be endowed with perfect wisdom, in order forour friendship to be blameless. We are speaking, however, of suchfriends as we have before our eyes, or as we have seen or have known byreport, --of such as are found in common life. It is from these that wemust take our examples, especially from such of them as make the nearestapproach to perfect wisdom. We have learned from our fathers that PapusAemilius was very intimate with Caius Luscinus, they having twice beenconsuls together, as well as colleagues in the censorship; and it issaid also that Manius Curius and Tiberius Coruncanius lived in theclosest friendship both with them and with each other. Now we cannotsuspect that either of these men would have asked of one of his friendsanything inconsistent with good faith, or with an engagement sanctionedby oath, or with his duty to the State. Indeed, to what purpose is it tosay that among such men if one had asked anything wrong, he would nothave obtained it? For they were men of the most sacred integrity; whileto ask anything wrong of a friend and to do it when asked are aliketokens of deep depravity. But Caius Carbo and Caius Cato were thefollowers of Tiberius Gracchus, as was his brother Caius, at first withlittle ardor, but now [Footnote: _Now_, that is, at the time at whichthis dialogue has its assumed date, immediately after Scipio's death. Atthat time Caius Gracchus was acting as a commissioner under hisbrother's agrarian law. ] most zealously. 12. As to friendship, then, let this law be enacted, that we neither askof a friend what is wrong, nor do what is wrong at a friend's request. The plea that it was for a friend's sake is a base apology, --one thatshould never be admitted with regard to other forms of guilt, andcertainly not as to crimes against the State. We, indeed, Fannius andScaevola, are so situated that we ought to look far in advance for theperils that our country may incur. Already has our public policydeviated somewhat from the method and course of our ancestors. TiberiusGracchus attempted to exercise supreme power; nay, he really reigned fora few months. What like this had the Roman people ever heard or seenbefore? What, after his death, the friends and kindred who followed himdid in their revenge on Publius Scipio [Footnote: Publius CorneliusScipio Nasica, who took the lead of the Senate in the assassination ofTiberius Gracchus, and incurred such popular odium that he could notsafely stay in Rome. He was sent on a fictitious mission to Asia to gethim out of the way of the people, and not daring to return, wanderedwith no settled habitation till his death at Pergamum not long beforethe assumed date of this dialogue. ] I cannot say without tears. We putup with Carbo [Footnote: Carbo succeeded Tiberius Gracchus on thecommission for carrying the agrarian law into execution, and was shortlyafterward chosen Tribune. He then proposed a law, permitting a tribuneto be re-elected for an indefinite number of years. This law wasvehemently opposed by Scipio Africanus the Younger, and if he was reallykilled by Carbo, it was probably on account of his hostility to Carbo'sambitious schemes. ] as well as we could in consideration of the recentpunishment of Tiberius Gracchus; but I am in no mood to predict what isto be expected from the tribuneship of Caius Gracchus. Meanwhile theevil is creeping upon us, from its very beginning fraught with threatsof ruin. Before recent events, [Footnote: The reference undoubtedly hereis to the Papirian law which had just been passed before the assumeddate of this dialogue, having been proposed and carried through by(Caius _Papirius_) Carbo. By this law the use of the ballot wasestablished in all matters of popular legislation. ] you perceive howmuch degeneracy was indicated in the legalization of the ballot, firstby Gabinian, [Footnote: By which magistrates were to be chosen byballot. ] then two years later by the Cassian law. [Footnote: By whichthe judges were to be chosen by ballot. With reference to the use of theballot the parties in Rome were prototypes of like parties in England. The voice of the people was for the ballot, on the ground that it madesuffrage free, as it could not be when employers or patrons coulddictate to their dependents and make them suffer for failure to vote infavor of their own candidates or measures. The aristocratic partyopposed the ballot as fatal to their controlling influence, which manysincere patriots, like Cicero, regarded as essential to the publicsafety, while patrician demagogues, intriguers, and office-seekers madeit subservient to their own selfish or partisan interests. ] I seemalready to see the people utterly alienated from the Senate, and themost important affairs determined by the will of the multitude; for morepersons will learn how these things are brought about than how they maybe resisted. To what purpose am I saying this? Because no one makes suchattempts without associates. It is therefore to be enjoined on good menthat they must not think themselves so bound that they cannot renouncetheir friends when they are guilty of crimes against the State. Butpunishment must be inflicted on all who are implicated in such guilt, --on those who follow, no less than on those who lead. Who in Greece wasmore renowned than Themistocles? Who had greater influence than he had?When as commander in the Persian war he had freed Greece from bondage, and for envy of his fame was driven into exile, he did not bear as heought the ill treatment of his ungrateful country. He did whatCoriolanus had done with us twenty years before. Neither of these menfound any helper against his country; [Footnote: No one of his ownfellow-countrymen. ] they therefore both committed suicide. [Footnote: Ifthe story of Coriolanus be not a myth, as Niebuhr supposes it to be, hissuicide forms no part of the story as Livy tells it. The suicide ofThemistocles is related as a supposition, not as an established fact. Ifhe died of poison, as was said, it may have been administered by a rivalin the favor of Artaxerxes. ] Association with depraved men for such anend is not, then, to be shielded by the plea of friendship, but ratherto be avenged by punishment of the utmost severity, so that no one mayever think himself authorized to follow a friend to the extent of makingwar upon his country, --an extremity which, indeed, considering thecourse that our public affairs have begun to take, may, for aught Iknow, be reached at some future time. I speak thus because I feel noless concern for the fortunes of the State after my death than as to itspresent condition. 13. Let this, then, be enacted as the first law of friendship, that wedemand of friends only what is right, and that we do for the sake offriends only what is right. [Footnote: This is a virtual repetition ofthe law of friendship announced at the beginning of the previoussection, and Cicero probably so intended it. He states the rule, thendemonstrates its validity, then repeats it in an almost identical form, implying what the mathematician expresses when he puts at the end of ademonstration _Quod èrat demonstrandum. _] This understood, let us notwait to be asked. Let there be constant assiduity and no loitering in afriend's service. Let us also dare to give advice freely; for infriendship the authority of friends who give good counsel may be of thegreatest value. Let admonition be administered, too, not only in plainterms, but even with severity, if need be, and let heed be given to suchadmonition. On this subject some things that appear to me strange have, as I am told, been maintained by certain Greeks who are accounted asphilosophers, and are so skilled in sophistry that there is nothingwhich they cannot seem to prove. Some of them hold that very intimatefriendships are to be avoided; that there is no need that one feelsolicitude for others; that it is enough and more than enough to takecare of your own concerns, and annoying to be involved to anyconsiderable extent in affairs not belonging to you; that the best wayis to have the reins of friendship as loose as possible, so that you cantighten them or let them go at pleasure; for, according to them, ease isthe chief essential to happy living, and this the mind cannot enjoy, ifit bears, as it were, the pains of travail in behalf of a larger orsmaller circle of friends. [Footnote: This passage seems to be aparaphrase of a passage in the _Hippolytus_ of Euripides, in which theNurse says: "It behooves mortals to form moderate friendships with oneanother, and not to the very marrow of the soul, and the affections ofthe mind should be held loosely, so that we may slacken or tighten them. That one soul should be in travail for two is a heavy burden. " Euripideswas regarded, and rightly, as no less a philosopher than a tragedian, and was not infrequently styled [Greek: sophos]. Cicero here veils histhorough conversance with Greek literature and philosophy, and assumesthe part of Laelius, in whose time, though Greek was not omitted in theeducation of cultivated men, the study was comparatively new, and wasnot carried to any great extent. ] Others, [Footnote: The Epicureans. ] I am told, with even much less oftrue human feeling, teach what I touched upon briefly a little whileago, that friendships are to be sought for defence and help, not onaccount of good-will and affection. The less of self-confidence and theless of strength one has, the more is he inclined to make friends. Thusit is that women [Footnote: Latin, _mulierculae_, a diminutive, meaning, however, not _little women_, but denoting the feebleness and dependenceof women in comparison with men. It must be confessed, too, that theterm is sometimes used, and perhaps here, semi-contemptuously; for theRoman man felt an overweening pride in mere manhood. ] seek the supportof friendship more than men do, the poor more than the rich, theunfortunate more than those who seem happy. Oh, pre-eminent wisdom! Itis like taking the sun out of the world, to bereave human life offriendship, than which the immortal gods have given man nothing better, nothing more gladdening. What is the ease of which they speak? It isindeed pleasing in aspect, but on many occasions it is to be renounced;for it is not fitting, in order to avoid solicitude, either to refuse toundertake any right cause or act, or to drop it after it is undertaken. If we flee from care, we must flee from virtue, which of necessity withno little care spurns and abhors its opposites, as goodness spurns andabhors wickedness; temperance, excess; courage, cowardice. Thus you maysee that honest men are excessively grieved by the dishonest, the braveby the pusillanimous, those who lead sober lives by the dissolute. It isindeed characteristic of a well-ordered mind to rejoice in what is goodand to be grieved by the opposite. If then, pain of mind fall to the lotof a wise man as it must of necessity unless we imagine his minddivested of its humanity, why should we take friendship wholly out oflife, lest we experience some little trouble on account of it? Yet more, if emotion be eliminated, what difference is there, I say not between aman and a brute, but between a man and a rock, or the trunk of a tree, or any inanimate object? Nor are those to be listened to, who regardvirtue as something hard and iron-like. [Footnote: Here, undoubtedly, Cicero refers to the sterner type of Stoicism, which in his time wasalready obsolescent, and was yielding place to the milder, while no lessrigid, ethics of which the _De Officiis_ may be regarded as the manual. ]As in many other matters, so in friendship, it is tender and flexible sothat it expands, as it were, with a friend's well being, and shrinkswhen his peace is disturbed. Therefore the pain which must often beincurred on a friend's account is not of sufficient moment to banishfriendship from human life, any more than the occasional care andtrouble which the virtues bring should be a reason for renouncing them. 14. Since virtue attracts friendship, as I have said, if there shinesforth any manifestation of virtue with which a mind similarly disposedcan come into contact and union from such intercourse love must ofnecessity spring. For what is so absurd as to be charmed with manythings that have no substantial worth, as with office, fame, architecture, dress, and genteel appearance, but not to be in any wisecharmed by a mind endowed with virtue, and capable of either loving or--if I may use the word--re-loving? [Footnote: Latin, _redamare_, a wordcoined by Cicero, and used with the apology, _ut ita dicam_] Nothingindeed yields a richer revenue than kind affections, nothing gives moredelight than the interchange of friendly cares and offices. Then if weadd, as we rightly may, that there is nothing which so allures andattracts aught else to itself as the likeness of character does tofriendship it will certainly be admitted that good men love good men andadopt them into fellowship as if united with them by kindred and bynature. By nature I say, for nothing is more craving or greedy of itslike than nature. This, then as I think, is evident, Fannius andScaevola that among the good toward the good there cannot but be mutualkind feeling and in this we have a fountain of friendship established bynature. But the same kind feeling extends to the community at large. For virtueis not unsympathetic, nor unserviceable, [Footnote: Latin, _immunis_, literally--without office. ] nor proud. It is wont even to watch over thewell-being of whole nations, and to give them the wisest counsel, whichit would not do if it had no love for the people. Now those who maintain that friendships are formed from motives ofutility annul, as it seems to me, the most endearing bond of friendship;for it is not so much benefit obtained through a friend as it is thevery love of the friend that gives delight. What comes from a friendconfers pleasure, only in case it bears tokens of his interest in us, and so far is it from the truth that friendships are cultivated from asense of need, that those fully endowed with wealth and resources, especially with virtue, which is the surest safeguard, and thus in noneed of friends, are the very persons who are the most generous andmunificent. Indeed, I hardly know whether it may not be desirable thatour friends should never have need of our services. Yet in the case ofScipio and myself, what room would there have been for the activeexercise of my zeal in his behalf, had he never needed my counsel orhelp at home or in the field? In this instance, however, the servicecame after the friendship, not the friendship after the service. 15. If these things are so, men who are given up to pleasure are not tobe listened to when they express their opinions about friendship, ofwhich they can have no knowledge either by experience or by reflection. For, by the faith of gods and men, who is there that would be willing tohave a superabundance of all objects of desire and to live in the utmostfulness of wealth and what wealth can bring, on condition of neitherloving any one nor being loved by any one? This, indeed, is the life oftyrants, in which there is no good faith, no affection, no fixedconfidence in kindly feeling, perpetual suspicion and anxiety, and noroom for friendship; for who can love either him whom he fears, or himby whom he thinks that he is feared? Yet they receive the show ofhomage, but only while the occasion for it lasts. [Footnote: Latin, _dumtaxat ad tempus_, that is, while the homage rendered is in close contactwith the occasion, --with the immunity or profit to be purchased by it. ]If they chance to fall, as they commonly have fallen, they thenascertain how destitute of friends they have been, as Tarquin isreported to have said that he learned what faithful and what unfaithfulfriends he had, when he could no longer render back favors to those ofeither class, --although I wonder whether pride and insolence like hiscould have had any friends. Moreover, as his character could not havewon real friends, so is the good fortune of many who occupy foremostplaces of influence so held as to preclude faithful friendships. Notonly is Fortune blind, but she generally makes those blind whom sheembraces. Thus they are almost always beside themselves under theinfluence of haughtiness and waywardness; nor can there be createdanything more utterly insupportable than a fortune-favored fool. Thereare to be seen those who previously behaved with propriety who arechanged by station, power, or prosperity, and who spurn their oldfriendships and lavish indulgence on the new. But what is more foolishthan when men have resources, means, wealth at their fullest command, and can obtain horses, servants, splendid raiment, costly vases, whatever money can buy, for them not to procure friends, who are, if Imay so speak, the best and the most beautiful furniture of human life?Other things which a man may procure know not him who procures them, nordo they labor for his sake, --indeed, they belong to him who can makethem his by the right of superior strength. But every one has his ownfirm and sure possession of his friendships, while even if those thingswhich seem the gifts of fortune remain, still life unadorned anddeserted by friends cannot be happy. But enough has been said on thisbranch of our subject. 16. We must now determine the limits or bounds of friendship. On thissubject I find three opinions proposed, neither of which has myapproval, --the first, that we should do for our friends just what wewould do for ourselves, the second, that our good offices to our friendsshould correspond in quantity and quality to those which they performfor us, the third, that one's friends should value him according to hisown self-estimate. I cannot give unqualified assent to either of theseopinions. The first--that one should be ready to do for his friendsprecisely what he would do for himself--is inadmissible. How many thingsthere are that we do for our friends which we should never do on our ownaccount!--such as making a request even an entreaty, of a man unworthyof respect or inveighing against some person with a degree ofbitterness, nay, in terms of vehement reproach. In fine, we areperfectly right in doing in behalf of a friend things that in our owncase would be decidedly unbecoming. There are also many ways in whichgood men detract largely from their own comfort or suffer it to beimpaired, that a friend may have the enjoyment which they sacrifice. Thesecond opinion is that which limits kind offices and good will by therule of equality. This is simply making friendship a matter ofcalculation with the view of keeping a debtor and creditor accountevenly balanced. To me friendship seems more affluent and generous andnot disposed to keep strict watch lest it may give more than it receivesand to fear that a part of its due may be spilled over or suffered toleak out or that it may heap up its own measure over full in return. [Footnote: We have here, first, a figure drawn from pecuniary accounts, then one from liquid measure, then one from dry measure--all designed toaffix the brand of the most petty meanness on the (so called) friendshipwhich makes it a point neither to leave nor to brook a preponderance ofobligation on either side. ] But worst of all is the third limit whichprescribes that friends shall take a man's opinion of himself as ameasure for their estimate and treatment of him. There are some personswho are liable to fits of depression, or who have little hope of betterfortune than the present. In such a case, it is the part of a friend, not to hold the position toward his friend which he holds towardhimself, but to make the efficient endeavor to rouse him from hisdespondency, and to lead him to better hope and a more cheerful train ofthought. It remains for me then, to establish another limit offriendship. But first let me tell you what Scipio was wont to speak ofwith the severest censure. He maintained that no utterance could havebeen invented more inimical to friendship [Footnote: Latin, _inimciorem_(that is, _in amiciorem_) _amicitiae_. ] than that of him who said thatone ought to love as if he were going at some future time to hate, norcould he be brought to believe that this maxim came, as was reportedfrom Bias, who was one of the seven wise men, but he regarded it ashaving proceeded from some sordid person, who was either inordinatelyambitious or desirous of bringing everything under his own control. Forhow can one be a friend to him to whom he thinks that he may possiblybecome an enemy? In this case one would of necessity desire and choosethat his friend should commit offences very frequently, so as to givehim, so to speak, the more numerous handles for fault-finding, and onthe other hand one would be vexed, pained, aggrieved by all the rightand fitting things that friends do. This precept then from whomsoever itcame, amounts to the annulling of friendship. The proper rule should be, that we exercise so much caution in forming friendships, that we shouldnever begin to love a friend whom it is possible that we should everhate; but even in case we should have been unfortunate in our choice, Scipio thought that it would be wiser to bear the disappointment when itcomes than to keep the contingency of future alienation in view. 17. I would then define the terms of friendship by saying that wherefriends are of blameless character, there may fittingly be between thema community of all interests, plans, and purposes without any exceptioneven so far that, if perchance there be occasion for furthering the notentirely right wishes of friends when life or reputation is at stake, one may in their behalf deviate somewhat from a perfectly straightcourse [1] yet not so far as to [1 This at first sight appears like a license to yield up moralconsiderations to friendship, though the qualification, in the sequel, "not so far as to incur absolute dishonor, " and "virtue is by no meansto be sacrificed, " seem saving clauses. But Cicero certainly has aright to be his own interpreter since in the _De Officiis_ as I think, he explains in full and in accordance with the highest moral principle, what he means here, and we have a double right to insist on thisinterpretation first, because the _De Officiis_ was written so verylittle while after the _De Amicitia_, and both at so ripe an age, that achange of opinion on important matters was improbable and secondly, because in the later treatise he expressly refers to the former asgiving in full his views on friendship, and thus virtually sanctionsthat treatise. Now in the _De Officiis_ he says A good man will donothing against the State, or in violation of his oath of good faith, for the sake of his friend, not even if he were a judge in his friend'scase. . . . He will yield so far to friendship as to wish his friend'scase to be worthy of succeeding, and to accommodate him as to the timeof trial, within legal limits. But inasmuch as he must give sentenceupon his oath, he will bear it in mind that he has "God for a witness. "In another passage of the _De Officiis, _ Cicero asserts, somewhathesitatingly, yet on the authority of Panaetius as the strictest ofStoics, the moral rightfulness of "defending on some occasions a guiltyman, if he be not utterly depraved and false to all human relations. " Asin the passage on which I am commenting special reference is made to theperil of life or reputation, what Cicero contends for, as it seems tome, is the right of defending a guilty friend as advocate, or offavoring him as to time and mode of trial as a judge. Aulius Gellius, inconnection with this passage in _De Amicitia, _ tells the following storyof Chilo, who was on some of the lists of the seven wise men. Chilo, onthe last day of his life, said that the only thing that gave him uneasythought, and was burdensome to his conscience, was that once when he andtwo other men were judges in a case in which a friend of his was triedfor a capital crime, he, in accordance with his own conviction, votedhis friendy guilty, but so influenced the minds of his two associatesthat they gave their voice for his acquittal. ] incur absolute dishonor. There is a point up to which a concession madeto friendship is venial. But we are not bound to be careless of our ownreputation, nor ought we to regard the esteem of our fellow-citizens asan instrument of such affairs as devolve upon us, --an esteem which it isbase to conciliate [footnote: Latin, _colligere, _ to collect, or gatherup, one by one, the good-will of each individual citizen. ] by flatteryand fawning. Virtue, which has the sincere regard of the people as itsconsequence, is by no means to be sacrificed to friendship. But, to return to Scipio, who was all the time talking about friendship, he often complained that men exercised greater care about all othermatters; that one could always tell how many goats and sheep he had, butcould not tell how many friends he had; and that men were careful inselecting their beasts, but were negligent in the choice of friends, andhad nothing like marks and tokens [footnote: Latin, _signa et notas, _the marks and tokens by which the quality and worth of goats and sheepwere estimated. ] by which to determine the fitness of friends. Firm, steadfast, self-consistent men are to be chosen as friends, and ofthis kind of men there is a great dearth. It is very difficult to judgeof character before we have tested it; but we can test it only afterfirendship is begun. Thus friendship is prone to outrun judgment, and torender a fair trial impossible. It is therefore the part of a wise manto arrest the impulse of kindly feeling, as we check a carriage in itscourse, that, as we use only horses that have been tried, so we mayavail ourselves of friendships in which the characters of our friendshave been somehow put to the test. Some readily show how fickle theirfriendship is in paltry pecuniary matters; others, whom a slightconsideration of that kind cannot influence, betray themselves when alarge amount is involved. But if some can be found who think it mean toprefer money to friendship, where shall we come upon those who do notput honors, civic offices, military commands, places of power and trust, before friendship, so that when these are offered on the one hand, andthe claims of friendship on the other, they will much rather make choiceof the objects of ambition? For nature is too feeble to despise acommanding station, and even though it be obtained by the violation offriendship men think that this fault will be thrown into obscurity, because it was not without a weighty motive that they held friendship inabeyance. Thus true friendships are rare among those who are in publicoffice, and concerned in the affairs of the State. For where will youfind him who prefers a friend's promotion to his own? What more shall Isay? Not to dwell longer on the influence of ambition upon friendship, how burdensome how difficult does it seem to most men to sharemisfortunes to which it is not easy to find those who are willing tostoop. Although Ennius is right in saying "In unsure fortune a sure friend is seen, " yet one of these two things convicts most persons of fickleness andweakness, --either their despising their friends when they themselves areprosperous, or deserting their friends in adversity. 18 Him, then, who alike in either event shall have shown himselfunwavering, constant, firm in friendship we ought to regard as of anexceedingly rare and almost divine order of men. Still further good faith is essential to the maintenance of thestability and constancy which we demand in friendship, for nothing thatis unfaithful is stable. It is, moreover, fitting to choose tor a friendone who is frank, affable, accommodating, interested in the same thingswith ourselves, --all which qualities come under the head of fidelity, for a changeful and wily disposition cannot be faithful, nor can he whohas not like interests and a kindred nature with his friend be eitherfaithful or stable. I ought to add that a friend should neither takepleasure in finding fault with his friend, nor give credit to thecharges which others may bring against him, --all which is implied in theconstancy of which I have been speaking. Thus we come back to the truthwhich I announced at the beginning of our conversation, that friendshipcan exist only between the good. It is, indeed, the part of a good or--what is the same thing--a wise man [Footnote: Wisdom and goodness wereidentical with the Stoics. ] to adhere to these two principles infriendship, --first, that he tolerate no feigning or dissembling (for aningenuous man will rather show even open hatred than hide his feeling byhis face), and, secondly, that he not only repel charges made againsthis friend by others, but that he be not himself suspicious, and alwaysthinking that his friend has done something unfriendly. To these requisites there may well be added suavity of speech andmanners, which is of no little worth as giving a relish to theintercourse of friendship. Rigidness and austerity of demeanor on everyoccasion indeed carry weight with them, but friendship ought to be moregentle and mild, and more inclined to all that is genial and affable. 19 There occurs here a question by no means difficult, [Footnote: Latin, _subdifficilis_ which I should render _somewhat difficult_ had notCicero treat that question as one that presents no difficulty. In theancient tongues, as in our own or even more than in our own, a word isoften better defined by its use than in the dictionary. ] whether at anytime new friends worthy of our love are to be preferred to the old, aswe are wont to prefer young horses to those that have passed theirprime. Shame that there should be hesitation as to the answer! Thereought to be no satiety of friendships, as there is rightly of many otherthings. The older a friendship is, the more precious should it be as isthe case with wines that will bear keeping, [Footnote: Some of the bestItalian wines will not "bear keeping, " and it was probably true of moreof them in Cicero's time than now that wines are so often vitiated bystrong alcoholic mixtures in order to preserve them. Cato, in his _De ReRustica_, prescribes a method of determining whether the wine of anygiven vintage will "keep". ] and there is truth in the proverb that manypecks of salt must be eaten together to bring friendship to perfection. [Footnote: Aristotle quotes this as a proverbial saying, so that it mustbe of very great antiquity. ] If new friendships offer the hope of fruit, like the young shoots in the grain-field that give promise of harvest, they are not indeed to be spurned, yet the old are to be kept in theirplace. There is very great power in long habit. To recur to the horsethere is no one who would not rather use the horse to which he hasbecome accustomed, if he is still sound, than one unbroken and new. Norhas habit this power merely as to the movements of an animal, itprevails no less as to inanimate objects. We are charmed with the placesthough mountainous and woody, [Footnote: Therefore uninviting, formountain and forest had not in early time the charm which we find inthem. Indeed the love of nature uncultivated and unadorned is for themost part, of modern growth. ] where we have made a long sojourn. Butwhat is most remarkable in friendship is that it puts a man on anequality with his inferior. For there often are in a circle of friendsthose who excel the rest, as was the case with Scipio in our flock, if Imay use the word. He never assumed superiority over Philus, never overRupilius, never over Mummius, never over friends of an order lower thanhis own. Indeed he always reverenced as a superior, because older thanhimself, his brother Quintus Maximus [Footnote: Quintus Fabius MaximusAemilianus, the eldest son of Aemilius Paulus, and the adopted son ofFabius Maximus. ] a thoroughly worthy man, but by no means his equal, andin fact he wanted to make all his friends of the more consequence bywhatever advantages he himself possessed. This example all ought toimitate, that if they have attained any superiority of virtue, genius, fortune, they may impart it to and share it with those with whom theyare the most closely connected; and that if they are of humbleparentage, and have kindred of slender ability or fortune, they mayincrease their means of well-being, and reflect honor and worth uponthem, --as in fable those who were long in servile condition throughignorance of their parentage and race, when they were recognized andfound to be sons either of gods or of kings, retained their love for theshepherds whom for many years they supposed to be their fathers. Muchmore ought the like to be done in the case of real and well-knownfathers; for the best fruit of genius, and virtue, and every kind ofexcellence is reaped when it is thus bestowed on near kindred andfriends. 20. Moreover, as among persons bound by ties of friendship and intimacythose who hold the higher place ought to bring themselves down to thesame plane with their inferiors, so ought these last not to feelaggrieved because they are surpassed in ability, or fortune, or rank bytheir friends. Most of them, however, are always finding some ground ofcomplaint, or even of reproach, especially if they can plead any servicethat they have rendered faithfully, in a friendly way, and with acertain amount of painstaking on their part. Such men, indeed, arehateful when they reproach their friends on the score of services whichhe on whom they were bestowed ought to bear in mind, but which it isunbecoming for him who conferred them to recount. Those who are superior ought, undoubtedly, not only to waive allpretension in friendly intercourse, but to do what they can to raisetheir humbler friends to their own level. [l] There are some who givetheir friends trouble by imagining that they are held in low esteem, which, however, is not apt to be the case except with those who thinkmeanly of themselves. Those who feel thus ought to be raised to a justself-esteem, not only by kind words, but by substantial service. Butwhat you do for any one must be measured, first by your own ability, andthen by the capacity of him whom you would favor and help. For, howevergreat your influence may be, you cannot raise all your friends to thehighest positions. Thus Scipio could effect the election of PubliusRupilius to the consulship; but he could not do the same for his brotherLucius. [2] In general, friendships that are properly so called areformed between persons of mature years and established character; nor ifyoung men have been fond of hunting or of ball-playing, is there anyneed of permanent attachment to those whom they then liked as associatesin the same sport. On this principle our nurses and the slaves that ledus to school will demand by right of priority the highest grade [1 Or, as it might be rendered by supplying a _se_ "so ought the humblerto do what they can to raise themselves. " Some of the commentatorsprefer this sense; but if Cicero meant _se, _ I think that he would havewritten it. ] [2 The brother of Publius Rupilius, not his own brother. ] of affectionate regard, --persons, indeed, who are not to be neglected, but who are on a somewhat different footing from that of friends. Friendships formed solely from early associations cannot last; fordifferences of character grow out of a diversity of pursuits, andunlikeness of character dissolves friendships. Nor is there any reasonwhy good men cannot be the friends of bad men, or bad men of good, except that the dissiliency of pursuits and of character between them isas great as it can be. It is also a counsel worthy of heed, that excessive fondness be notsuffered to interfere, as it does too often, with important servicesthat a friend can render. To resort again to fable, Neoptolemus couldnot have taken Troy [Footnote: Or rather, could not have borne theindispensable part which it was predicted that he should bear in thetaking of Troy. ]if he had chosen to comply with the wishes of Lycomedes, who brought him up, and who with many tears attempted to dissuade himfrom his expedition. Equally in actual life there are not infrequentlyimportant occasions on which the society of friends must be for a timeabandoned; and he who would prevent this because he cannot easily bearthe separation, is of a weak and unmanly nature, and for that veryreason unfit to fill the place of a friend. In fine, in all matters youshould take into consideration both what you may reasonably demand ofyour friend, and what you can fitly suffer him to obtain from you. 21. The misfortune involved in the dissolution of friendships issometimes unavoidable; for I am now coming down from the intimacies ofwise men to common friendships. Faults of friends often betraythemselves openly--whether to the injury of their friends themselves, orof strangers--in such a way that the disgrace falls back upon theirfriends. Such friendships are to be effaced by the suspension ofintercourse, and, as I have heard Cato say, to be unstitched rather thancut asunder, unless some quite intolerable offence flames out to fullview, so that it can be neither right nor honorable not to effect animmediate separation and dissevering. But if there shall have been somechange either in character or in the habits of life, or if there havesprung up some difference of opinion as to public affairs, --I amspeaking, as I have just said, of common friendships, not of thosebetween wise men, --care should be taken lest there be the appearance, not only of friendship dropped, but of enmity taken up; for nothing ismore unbecoming than to wage war with a man with whom you have lived onterms of intimacy. Scipio, as you know, had withdrawn from thefriendship of Quintus Pompeius [Footnote: Laelius intending to presenthimself as a candidate for the consulship, Scipio asked Pompeius whetherhe was going to be a candidate, and when he replied in the negative, asked him to use his influence in behalf of Laelius. This Pompeiuspromised, and then, instead of being true to his word, offered himselffor the consulship, and was elected. ] on my account, he became alienatedfrom Metellus [Footnote: Scipio and Metellus, though their intimacy wassuspended for political reasons, held each other in the highest regard, and no person in Rome expressed profounder sorrow than Metellus forScipio's death or was more warm in his praise as a man of unparalleledability, worth, and patriotism. ] because of their different views as tothe administration of the State. In both cases he conducted himself withgravity and dignity, and without any feeling of bitterness. The endeavorthen, must first be, to prevent discord from taking place among friends, and if anything of the kind occurs, to see that the friendship may seemto be extinguished rather than crushed out. Care must thus be taken lestfriendships lapse into violent enmities, whence are generated quarrels, slanders, insults, which yet, if not utterly intolerable, are to beendured and this honor tendered to old friendship that the blame mayrest with him who does not with him who suffers the wrong. The one surety and preventive against these mistakes and misfortunes is, not to form attachments too soon, nor for those unworthy of such regard. But it is those in whose very selves there is reason why they should beloved, that are worthy of friendship. A rare class of men! Indeed, superlatively excellent objects of every sort are rare, nor is anythingmore difficult than to discover that which is in all respects perfect inits kind. But most persons have acquired the habit of recognizingnothing as good in human relations and affairs that does not producesome revenue, and they most love those friends, as they do those cattle, that will yield them the greatest gain. Thus they lack that mostbeautiful and most natural friendship, which is to be sought in itselfand for its own sake, nor can they know from experience what and howgreat is the power of such friendship. One loves himself, not in orderto exact from himself any wages for such love, but because he is inhimself dear to himself. Now, unless this same property be transferredto friendship, a true friend will never be found, for such a friend is, as it were, another self. But if it is seen in beasts, birds, fishes, animals tame and wild, that they first love themselves (for self-love isborn with everything that lives) and that they then require and seekthose of their kind to whom they may attach themselves, and do so withdesire and with a certain semblance of human love, how much more is thisnatural in man, who both loves himself, and craves another whose soul hemay so blend with his own as almost to make one out of two. 22 But men in general are so perverse, not to say shameless, as to wisha friend to be in character what they themselves could not be and theyexpect of friends what they do not give them in return. The propercourse however, is for one first to be himself a good man, and then toseek another like himself. In such persons the stability of friendship, of which I have been speaking, can be made sure, since, united in mutuallove, they will, in the first place, hold in subjection the desires towhich others are enslaved; then they will find delight in whatever isequitable and just, and each will take upon himself any labor or burdenin the other's stead, while neither will ever ask of the other aughtthat is not honorable and right. Nor will they merely cherish and love, they will even reverence each other. But he who bereaves friendship ofmutual respect [1] takes from it its greatest ornament. Therefore thoseare in fatal error who think that in friendship there is free licensefor all lusts and evil practices. Friendship is given by nature, not asa companion of the vices, but as a helper of the virtues, that, assolitary virtue might not be able to attain the summit of excellence, united and associated with another it might reach that eminence. As tothose between whom there is, or has been, or shall be such an alliance, the fellowship is to be regarded as the best and happiest possible, inasmuch as it leads to the highest good that nature can bestow. This isthe alliance, I say, in which are included all things that men thinkworthy their endeavor, --honor, fame, peace of mind, and pleasure, sothat if these be present life is happy, and cannot be happy withoutthem. Such a life being the best [1 Latin, _verecundio, _ an indefinite word; for it may have almost anygood meaning. I have rendered it _respect_, because I have no doubt thatit derives its meaning here from _verebuntur_, which I have rendered_reverence_, in the preceding sentence. ] and greatest boon, if we wish to make it ours, we must devote ourselvesto the cultivation of virtue, without which we can attain neitherfriendship nor anything else desirable. But if virtue be left out of theaccount, those who think that they have friends perceive that they aremistaken when some important crisis compels them to put their friends tothe test. Therefore--for it is worth reiterating--you ought to loveafter having exercised your judgment on your friends, instead of formingyour judgment of them after you have begun to love them. But while inmany things we are chargeable with carelessness, we are most so inchoosing and keeping our friends. We reverse the old proverb, [Footnote:What this proverb may have been we cannot determine with precision fromits opposite; but the caution based upon it might remind one of ourproverb about shutting the barn door after the horse is stolen. Thewords, _acta agimus, _ so terse that they can be translated only by aparaphrase, are probably the converse of the proverb, which may havebeen something like _non agenda sunt acta_. ] take counsel after acting, and attempt to do over again what we have done; for after having becomeclosely connected by long habit and even by mutual services, someoccasion of offence springs up, and we suddenly break in sunder afriendship in full career. 23. The more blameworthy are they who are so very careless in a matterof so essential importance. Indeed, among things appertaining to humanlife, it is friendship alone that has the unanimous voice of all men asto its capacity of service. By many even virtue is scorned, and is saidto be a mere matter of display and ostentation. Many despise wealth, andcontented with little take pleasure in slender diet and inexpensiveliving. Though some are inflamed with desire for office, many there arewho hold it in so low esteem that they can imagine nothing more inane orworthless. Other things too, which seem to some admirable, very manyregard as of no value. But all have the same feeling as to friendship, --alike those who devote themselves to the public service, those who takedelight in learning and philosophy, those who manage their own affairsin a quiet way, and, lastly, those who are wholly given up to sensualpleasure. They all agree that without friendship life cannot be, if oneonly means to live in some form or measure respectably. [Footnote: Latin_liberaliter_ that is, worthily of a free man. ] For friendship somehowtwines through all lives and leaves no mode of being without itspresence. Even if one be of so rude and savage a nature as to shun andhate the society of men, as we have learned was the case with that Timonof Athens, [Footnote: Plutarch says that Timon had an associate, virtually a friend, not unlike himself, Apemantus, on whom he freelyvented his spite and scorn for all the world beside and that he alsotook a special liking to Alcibiades in his youth, perhaps as to onefitted and destined to do an untold amount of mischief. ] if there everwas such a man [Footnote: Latin, _nescio, quem_, I know not whom, or ofwhom I am ignorant, that is, there may or may not have been such a man. ]he yet cannot help seeking some one in whose presence he may vomit thevenom of his bitterness. The need of friendship would be best shown, were such a thing possible, if some god should take us away from thishuman crowd, and place us anywhere in solitude, giving us there anabundant supply of all things that nature craves but depriving usutterly of the sight of a human countenance. Who could be found of soiron make that he could endure [Footnote: Latin, tam . .. _ferreus, _ qiu. .. _ferre_ posset, --an assonance which cannot be represented bycorresponding English words. ] such a life, and whom solitude would notrender incapable of enjoying any kind of pleasure? That is true thenwhich, if I remember aright, our elders used to say that they had heardfrom their seniors in age as having come from Archytas of Tarentum--"Ifone had ascended to heaven and had obtained a full view of the nature ofthe universe and the beauty of the stars, yet his admiration would bewithout delight, if there were no one to whom he could tell what he hadseen" Thus Nature has no love for solitude, and always leans as it were, on some support, and the sweetest support is found in the most intimatefriendship. 24 But while Nature declares by so many tokens what she desires, craves, needs, we--I know not how--grow deaf, and fail to hear her counsel. Intercourse among friends assumes many different forms and modes, andthere frequently arise causes of suspicion and offence, which it is thepart of a wise man sometimes to avoid, sometimes to remove, sometimes tobear. One ground of offence, namely, freedom in telling the truth, mustbe put entirely away, in order that friendship may retain itsserviceableness and its good faith, for friends often need to beadmonished and reproved, and such offices, when kindly performed, oughtto be received in a friendly way. Yet somehow we witness in actual life, what my friend [Footnote: Terence with whom Laelius was so intimate thathe was reported probably on no sufficient ground to have aided in thecomposition of some of the plays that bear Terence's name. This verse isfrom the _Andria. _] says in his play of _Andria_-- "Complacency *[Footnote: _Obsequium_] wins friends, but truth givesbirth to hatred. " Truth is offensive, if hatred, the bane of friendship is indeed born ofit, but much more offensive is complacency, when in its indulgence forwrong doing it suffers a friend to go headlong to ruin. The greatestblame, however, rests on him who both spurns the truth when it is toldhim and is driven by the complacency of friends to self-deception. Inthis matter therefore there should be the utmost discretion and care, first, that admonition be without bitterness, then, that reproof bewithout invective. But in complacency--for I am ready to use the wordwhich Terence furnishes--let pleasing truth be told, let flattery, thehandmaid of the vices be put far away, as unworthy, not only of afriend, but of any man above the condition of a slave, for there is oneway of living with a tyrant, another with a friend. We may well despairof saving him whose ears are so closed to the truth that he cannot hearwhat is true from a friend. Among the many pithy sayings of Cato wasthis 'There are some who owe more to their bitter enemies than to thefriends that seem sweet, for those often tell the truth, these never'. It is indeed ridiculous for those who are admonished not to be annoyedby what ought to trouble them, and to be annoyed by what ought to givethem no offence. Their faults give them no pain, they take it hard thatthey are reproved, --while they ought, on the contrary, to be grieved fortheir wrong-doing, to rejoice in their correction. 25 As, then, it belongs to friendship both to admonish and to beadmonished, and to do the former freely, yet not harshly, to receive thelatter patiently not resentfully, so it is to be maintained thatfriendship has no greater pest than adulation, flattery, subserviency, for under its many names [Footnote: Latin _multis nominibus, _ which somecommentators render "on many accounts" with reference to matters ofpurchase and sale, debit and credit. But I think that Cicero brings in_adulatio, blanditia, and assentatio, _ as so many synonyms of_obsequtum, _ intending to comprehend in his indictment whatever aliasthe one vice may assume. ] a brand should be put on this vice of fickleand deceitful men, who say everything with the view of giving pleasure, without any reference to the truth. While simulation is bad on everyaccount, inasmuch as it renders the discernment of the truth which itdefaces impossible, it is most of all inimical to friendship; for it isfatal to sincerity, without which the name of friendship ceases to haveany meaning. For since the essence of friendship consists in this, thatone mind is, as it were, made out of seveial, how can this be, if in oneof the several there shall be not always one and the same mind, but amind varying, changeful, manifold? And what can be so flexible, so farout of its rightful course, as the mind of him who adapts himself, notonly to the feelings and wishes, but een to the look and gesture, ofanother? "Does one say No or Yes? I say so too My rule is to assent toeverything, " as Terence, whom I have just quoted, says, but he says it in the personof Gnatho, [Footnote: A parasite in Terence's play of _Eunuchus_, fromwhich these verses are quoted. ]--a sort of friend which only a frivolousmind can tolerate. But as there are many like Gnatho, who stand higherthan he did in place, fortune, and reputation, then subserviency is themore offensive, because then position gives weight to their falsehood. But a flattering friend may be distinguished and discriminated from atrue friend by proper care, as easily as everything disguised andfeigned is seen to differ from what is genuine and real. The assembly ofthe people, though consisting of persons who have the least skill injudgment, yet always knows the difference between him who, merelyseeking popularity, is sycophantic and fickle, and a firm inflexible, and substantial citizen. With what soft words did Caius Papirius[Footnote: Caius Papirius Carbo, the suspected murderer of Scipio. ]steal [Footnote: Latin _influebat_ flowed in, a figure beautifullyappropriate, but hardly translatable. ] into the ears of the assembly alittle while ago, when he brought forward the law about the re-electionof the tribunes of the people! [Footnote: There was an old law, whichprohibited the re-election of a citizen to the same office till after aninterval of ten years. In the law here referred to, Carbo--then tribune--sought to provide for the re-election of tribunes as soon and as oftenas the people might choose, thus undoubtedly hoping to secure forhimself a permanent tenure of office. ] I opposed the law. But, to saynothing of myself, I will rather speak of Scipio. How great, ye immortalgods, was his dignity of bearing! What majesty of address! So that youmight easily call him the leader of the Roman people, rather than one oftheir number. But you were there, and you have copies of his speech. Thus the law was rejected by vote of the people. But, to return tomyself, you remember, when Quintus Maximus, Scipio's brother, and LuciusMancinus were Consuls, how much the people seemed to favor the law ofCaius Licinius Crassus about the priests. The law proposed to transferthe election of priests from their own respective colleges to thesuffrage of the people; [Footnote: The several pontifical colleges hadbeen close corporations, filling their own vacancies. The law whichLaelius defeated proposed transferring the election of priests to thepeople. ] and he on that occasion introduced the custom of facing thepeople in addressing them [Footnote: It had been customary, when theSenate was in session, for him who harangued the people to face thetemple where the Senate sat, thus virtually recognizing the supremeauthority of that body. ] Yet under my advocacy the religion of theimmortal gods obtained the ascendancy over his plausible speech. Thatwas during my praetorship, five years before I was chosen Consul. Thusthe cause was gained by its own merits rather than by officialauthority. 26. But if on the stage, or--what is the same thing--in the assembly ofthe people, in which there is ample scope for false and distortedrepresentations, the truth only needs to be made plain and clear inorder for it to prevail, what ought to be the case in friendship, whichis entirely dependent for its value on truth, --in which unless, as thephrase is, you see an open bosom and show your own, you can have nothingworthy of confidence, nothing of which you can feel certain, not eventhe fact of your loving or being loved, since you are ignorant of whateither really is? Yet this flattery of which I have spoken, harmful asit is, can injure only him who takes it in and is delighted with it. Thus it is the case that he is most ready to open his ear to flattery, who flatters himself and finds supreme delight in himself. Virtue indeedloves itself; for it has thorough knowledge of itself, and understandshow worthy of love it is. But it is reputed, not real, virtue of which Iam now speaking; for there are not so many possessed of virtue as thereare that desire to seem virtuous. These last are delighted withflattery, and when false statements are framed purposely to satisfy andplease them, they take the falsehood as valid testimony to their merit. That, however, is no friendship, in which one of the (so-called) friendsdoes not want to hear the truth, and the other is ready to lie. Theflattery of parasites on the stage would not seem amusing, were therenot in the play braggart soldiers [Footnote: Latin, _milites gloriosi. Miles Gloriosus_ is the title of one of the comedies of Plautus; and oneof the stock characters of the ancient comedy is a conceited, swaggering, brainless soldier, who is perpetually boasting of his ownvalor and exploits, and who takes the most fulsome and ridiculousflattery as the due recognition of his transcendent merit. The versehere quoted is from Terence's _Eunuchus_. Thraso, a _miles gloriosus_(from whom is derived our adjective _thrasonical_), asks this questionof Gnatho, the parasite, one of whose speeches is quoted in § 25. _Magnus_ is the word in the question; _ingentes_, in the answer. ] to beflattered. "Great thanks indeed did Thais render to me?" "Great" was a sufficient answer; but the answer in the play is"Prodigious. " The flatterer always magnifies what he whom he is aimingto please wishes to have great. But while this smooth falsehood takeseffect only with those who themselves attract and invite it; evenpersons of a more substantial and solid character need to be warned tobe on their guard, lest they be ensnared by flattery of a more cunningtype. No one who has a moderate share of common-sense fails to detectthe open flatterer; but great care must be taken lest the wily andcovert flatterer may insinuate himself; for he is not very easilyrecognized, since he often assents by opposing, plays the game ofdisputing in a smooth, caressing way, and at length submits, and suffershimself to be outreasoned, so as to make him on whom he is practisinghis arts appear to have had the deeper insight. But what is moredisgraceful than to be made game of? One must take heed not to puthimself in the condition of the character in the play of _The Heiress:_[Footnote: _Epicleros_, a comedy by Caecilius Statius, of whose worksonly a few fragments, like this, are extant. Next to the braggartsoldier, a credulous old man-generally a father-who could have allmanner of tricks played upon him without detecting their import, was thefavorite butt for ridicule in the ancient comedy. ] "Of an old fool one never made such sport As you have made of me thisvery day;" for there is no character on the stage so foolish as that of theseunwary and credulous old men. But I know not how my discourse hasdigressed from the friendships of perfect, that is, of wise men, --wise, I mean, so far as wisdom can fall to the lot of man, --to friendships ofa lighter sort. Let us then return to our original subject, and bring itto a speedy conclusion. 27. Virtue, I say to you, Caius Fannius, and to you, Quintus Mucius, --virtue both forms and preserves friendships. In it is mutual agreement;in it is stability; in it is consistency of conduct and character. Whenit has put itself forth and shown its light, and has seen and recognizedthe same light in another, it draws near to that light, and receives inreturn what the other has to give; and from this intercourse love, orfriendship, --call it which you may, --is kindled. These terms are equallyderived in our language from loving; [Footnote:_Amor_. .. _amicitia_. .. _ab amando_. ] and to love is nothing else than tocherish affection for him whom you love, with no felt need of hisservice, with no quest of benefit to be obtained from him; while, nevertheless, serviceableness blooms out from friendship, however littleyou may have had it in view. With this affection I in my youth lovedthose old men, --Lucius Paulus, Marcus Cato, Caius Gallus, PubliusNasica, Tiberius Gracchus, the father-in-law of my friend Scipio. Thisrelation is more conspicuous among those of the same age, as betweenmyself and Scipio, Lucius Furius, Publius Rupilius, Spurius Mummius. Butin my turn, as an old man, I find repose in the attachment of young men, as in yours, and in that of Quintus Tubero, and I am delighted with theintimacy of Publius Rutilius and Aulus Virginius, who are just emergingfrom boyhood. While the order of human life and of nature is such thatanother generation must come upon the stage, it would be most desirable, could such a thing be, to reach the goal, so to speak, with those of ourown age with whom we started on the race; but since man's life is frailand precarious, we ought always to be in quest of some younger personswhom we may love, and who will love us in return; for when love andkindness cease all enjoyment is taken out of life. For me indeed, Scipio, though suddenly snatched away, still lives andwill always live; for I loved the virtue of the man, which is notextinguished. Nor does it float before my eyes only, as I have alwayshad it at hand; it will also be renowned and illustrious withgenerations to come. No one will ever enter with courage and hope on ahigh and noble career, without proposing to himself as a standard thememory and image of his virtue. Indeed, of all things which fortune ornature ever gave me, I have nothing that I can compare with thefriendship of Scipio. In this there was a common feeling as to theaffairs of the State; in this, mutual counsel as to our privateconcerns; in this, too, a repose full of delight. Never, so far as Iknow, did I offend him in the least thing; never did I hear from him aword which I would not wish to hear. We had one home; [Footnote: Thismay refer to their living together on their campaigns, journeys, andrural sojourns; but more probably to the fact that each felt as much athome in the other's house as in his own. ] the same diet, and thatsimple; [Footnote: Latin, _communis_. I do not find that this word hasin Latin the sense of _cheap_ and _mean_ which our word _common_ has. But here it cannot mean that Laelius and Scipio fed together, which issufficiently said in the preceding _idem victus_. It must thereforedenote such fare as was common to them with their fellow-citizens ingeneral, and that is simple and not luxurious fare. ] we were together, not only in military service, but also in journeying and in our ruralsojourns. And what shall I say of our unflagging zeal in the pursuit ofknowledge, and in learning everything now within our reach, --anemployment in which, when not under the eyes of the public, we passedall our leisure time together? Had the recollection and remembrance ofthese things died with him, I could not anyhow bear the loss of a man, thus bound to me in the closest intimacy and holding me in the dearestlove. But they are not blotted out, they are rather nourished andincreased by reflection and memory; and were I entirely bereft of them, my advanced age would still be my great comfort, for I can miss hissociety but for a brief season, and all sorrows, however heavy, if theycan last but a little while, ought to be endured. I had these things to say to you about friendship; and I exhort you thatyou so give the foremost place to virtue without which friendship cannotbe, that with the sole exception of virtue, you may think nothing to bepreferred to friendship. SCIPIO'S DREAM. 1. When I arrived in Africa, to serve, as you know, in the office ofmilitary Tribune of the fourth Legion, under Manius [Footnote: Thepraenomen _Marcus_ is given to Manilius in the manuscript of the _DeRepublics_ discovered by Angelo Mai; but Manius is the reading in allprevious authorities as to this special fragment. ] Manilius as consul, Idesired nothing so much as to meet Masinissa [Footnote: King ofNumidia, --a country nearly identical in extent with the present provinceof Algeria. Its name defines its people, being derived from [Greek:nomades], _nomads. _ Its inhabitants were a wild, semi-savage cluster oftribes, black and white. Masinissa, though faithful to the Romans afterhe had convinced himself that theirs must be the ascendant star, was acrafty, treacherous, cruel prince, probably with enough of civilizationto have acquired some of its vices, while he had not lost those of thesavage. ] the king, who for sufficient reasons [Footnote: The elderAfricanus had confirmed him in the possession of his own Numidia, andhad added to it the adjoining kingdom of Cirta. ] stood in the mostfriendly relation to our family. When I came to him, the old manembraced me with tears, and shortly afterward looked up to heaven andsaid: "I thank thee, sovereign Sun, [Footnote: The Numidians worshippedthe heavenly bodies. ] and all of you lesser lights of heaven, thatbefore I pass away from this life I behold in my kingdom and beneaththis roof Publius Cornelius Scipio, whose very name renews my strength, so utterly inseparable from my thought is the memory of that best andmost invincible of men who first bore it. " Then I questioned him abouthis kingdom, and he asked me about our republic; and with the manythings that we had to communicate to each other, the day wore away. At a later hour, after an entertainment of royal magnificence, weprolonged our conversation far into the night, while the old man talkedto me about nothing else but Africanus, rehearsing not only all that hehad done, but all that he had said. When we parted to go to our rest, sleep took a stronger hold on me than usual, on account both of thefatigue of my journey and of the lateness of the hour. In my sleep, Isuppose in consequence of our conversation (for generally our thoughtsand utterances by day have in our sleep an effect like that which Enniusdescribes in his own case as to Homer, [Footnote: The first verse of the_Annales_ of Ennius was:-- "In somnis mihi visus Homerus adesse poeta. "] about whom in his waking hours he was perpetually thinking and talking), Africanus appeared to me, with an aspect that reminded me more of hisbust than of his real face. I shuddered when I saw him. But he said:"Preserve your presence of mind, Scipio; be not afraid, and commit tomemory what I shall say to you. 2. "Do you see that city, which was brought through me into subjectionto the Roman people, but now renews its old hostility, and cannot remainquiet, "--and he showed me Carthage from a high place full of stars, shining and splendid, --"against which you, being little more than acommon soldier, are coming to fight? In two years from now you as Consulwill overthrow this city, and you will obtain of your own right thesurname which up to this time you hold as inherited from me. When youshall have destroyed Carthage, shall have celebrated your triumph overit, shall have been Censor, and shall have traversed, as an ambassador, Egypt, Syria, Asia, and Greece, you will be chosen a second time Consulin your absence, and will put an end to one of the greatest of wars byextirpating Numantia. But when you shall be borne to the Capitol in yourtriumphal chariot after this war, you will find the State disturbed bythe machinations of my grandson. [Footnote: Tiberius Gracchus, whosemother, Cornelia, was the daughter of the elder Africanus. ] "In this emergency, Africanus, it will behoove you to show your countrythe light of your energy, genius, and wisdom. But I see at that time, asit were, a double way of destiny. For when your age shall have followedthe sun for eight times seven revolutions, and these two numbers[Footnote: The Pythagoreans regarded seven as the number representinglight, and eight as representing love. Seven was also a perfect number, as corresponding to the number of celestial orbits (including the sun, the moon, and the five known planets), the number of days in the quarterof the moon's revolution, and the number of the gates of sense (so tospeak), mouth, eyes, ears, and nostrils. Eight was a perfect number, asbeing first after unity on the list of cubes; and Plato in the _Timaeus_speaks of eight celestial revolutions--including that of the earth--asunequal in duration and velocity, but as forming, in some unexplainedway, a cycle synchronous with the year. ]--each perfect, though fordifferent reasons--shall have completed for you in the course of naturethe destined period, to you alone and to your name the whole city willturn; on you the Senate will look, on you all good citizens, on you theallies, on you the Latini. You will he the one man on whom the safety ofthe city will rest; and, to say no more, you, as Dictator, must re-establish the State, if you escape the impious hands of your kindred. "[Footnote: See _De Amicitia_ § 3, note. ] Here, when Laelius had criedout, and the rest of the company had breathed deep sighs, Scipio, smiling pleasantly upon them, said, "I beg you not to rouse me fromsleep and break up my vision. Hear the remainder of it. " 3. "But that you, Africanus, may be the more prompt in the defence ofthe State, know that for all who shall have preserved, succored, enlarged their country, there is a certain and determined place inheaven where they enjoy eternal happiness; for to the Supreme God whogoverns this whole universe nothing is more pleasing than thosecompanies and unions of men that are called cities. Of these the rulersand preservers, going hence, return hither. " Here I, although I had been alarmed, not indeed so much by the fear ofdeath as by that of the treachery of my own kindred, yet asked whetherPaulus, my father, and others whom we supposed to be dead were living. "Yes, indeed, " he replied, "those who have fled from the bonds of thebody, like runners from the goal, live; while what is called your lifeis death. But do you see your father Paulus coming to you?" When I sawhim, I shed a flood of tears; but he, embracing and kissing me, forbademy weeping. Then as soon as my tears would suffer me to speak, I began by saying, "Most sacred and excellent father, since this is life, as Africanustells me, why do I remain on the earth, and not rather hasten to come toyou?" "Not so, " said he; "for unless the God who has for his temple allthat you now behold, shall have freed you from this prison of the body, there can be no entrance for you hither. Men have indeed been broughtinto being on this condition, that they should guard the globe which yousee in the midst of this temple, which is called the earth; and a soulhas been given to them from those eternal fires which you callconstellations and stars, which, globed and round, animated with god-derived minds, complete their courses and move through their orbits withamazing speed. You, therefore, Publius, and all rightly disposed men arebound to retain the soul in the body's keeping, nor without the commandof him who gave it to you to depart from the life appointed for man, lest you may seem to have taken flight from human duty as assigned byGod. But, Scipio, like this your grandfather, [Footnote: By adoption. The younger Africanus was adopted by a son of the elder. ] like me, yourfather, cherish justice and that sacred observance of duty to your kind, which, while of great worth toward parents and family, is of supremevalue toward your country. Such a life is the way to heaven, and to thisassembly of those who have already lived, and, released from the body, inhabit the place which you now see, "--it was that circle that shinesforth among the stars in the most dazzling white, --"which you havelearned from the Greeks to call the Milky Way. " And as I looked on everyside I saw other things transcendently glorious and wonderful. Therewere stars which we never see from here below, and all the stars werevast far beyond what we have ever imagined. The least of them was thatwhich, farthest from heaven, nearest to the earth, shone with a borrowedlight. But the starry globes very far surpassed the earth in magnitude. The earth itself indeed looked to me so small as to make me ashamed ofour empire, which was a mere point on its surface. 4. While I was gazing more intently on the earth, Africanus said: "Howlong, I pray you, will your mind be fastened on the ground? Do you notsee into the midst of what temples you have come? In your sight are nineorbs, or rather globes, by which all things are held together. One isthe celestial, the outermost, embracing all the rest, --the Supreme Godhimself, [Footnote: Here crops out the Pantheism--the non-detachment orsemi-detachment of God from nature--which casts a penumbra aroundmonotheism and the approaches to it, almost always, except under Hebrewand Christian auspices. ] who governs and keeps in their places the otherspheres. In this are fixed those stars which ever roll in an unchangingcourse. Beneath this are seven spheres which have a retrograde movement, opposite to that of the heavens. One of these is the domain of the starwhich on earth they call Saturn. Next is the luminary which bears thename of Jupiter, of prosperous and healthful omen to the human race;then, the star of fiery red which you call Mars, and which men regardwith terror. Beneath, the Sun holds nearly the midway space, [Footnote:The middle, as the fifth of the nine spheres, enclosed by four; andenclosing four. ] leader, prince, and ruler of the other lights, the mindand regulating power of the universe, so vast as to illuminate and floodall things with his light. Him, as his companions, Venus and Mercuryfollow on their different courses; and in a sphere still lower the moonrevolves, lighted by the rays of the sun. Beneath this there is nothingthat is not mortal and perishable, except the souls bestowed upon thehuman race by the gift of the gods. Above the moon all things areeternal. The earth, which is the central and ninth sphere, has nomotion, and is the lowest [Footnote: The lowest because central, andtherefore farthest from the outermost or celestial sphere. ] of all, andall heavy bodies gravitate spontaneously toward it. " 5. When I had recovered from my amazement at these things I asked, "Whatis this sound so strong and so sweet that fills my ears?" "This, " hereplied, "is the melody which, at intervals unequal, yet differing inexact proportions, is made by the impulse and motion of the spheresthemselves, which, softening shriller by deeper tones, produce adiversity of regular harmonies. Nor can such vast movements be urged onin silence; and by the order of nature the shriller notes sound from oneextreme of the universe, the deeper from the other. Thus yonder supremecelestial sphere with its clustered stars, as it revolves more rapidly, moves with a shrill and quick strain; this lower sphere of the moonsends forth deeper notes; while the earth, the ninth sphere, remainingmotionless, [Footnote: Therefore without sound. ] always stands fixed inthe lowest place, occupying the centre of the universe. But these eightrevolutions, of which two, those of Mercury and Venus, are in unison, make seven distinct tones, with measured intervals between, and almostall things are arranged in sevens. [Footnote: Latin, _qui numerus_ (thatis, _septem_) _rerum omnium fere nodus est_. Literally, "which number isthe knot of almost everything. " The more intelligible form in which Ihave rendered these words seems to me to convey their true meaning, andmy belief to that effect is confirmed by reading what severalcommentators say about the passage. ] Skilled men, copying this harmonywith strings and voice, have opened for themselves a way back to thisplace, as have others who with excelling genius have cultivated divinesciences in human life. But the ears of men are deafened by being filledwith this melody; nor is there in you mortals a duller sense than thatof hearing. As where the Nile at the Falls of Catadupa pours down fromthe loftiest mountains, the people who live hard by lack the sense ofhearing because of the loudness of the cataract, so this harmony of thewhole universe in its intensely rapid movement is so loud that men'sears cannot take it in, even as you cannot look directly at the sun, andthe keenness and visual power of the eye are overwhelmed by its rays. "While I marvelled at these things, I ever and anon cast my eyes againupon the earth. 6. Then Africanus said: "I perceive that you are now fixing your eyes onthe abode and home of men, and if it seems to you small, as it reallyis, then look always at these heavenly things, and despise thoseearthly. For what reputation from the speech of men, or what fame worthseeking, can you obtain? You see that the inhabited places of the earthare scattered and of small extent, that in the spots [Footnote: Latin, _maculis_, --a figure so bold in Cicero's time as to need an apology forits use, but now employed with no consciousness of its being otherwisethan strictly literal. ]--so to speak--where men dwell there are vastsolitary tracts interposed, and that those who live on the earth are notonly so separated that no communication can pass from place to place, but stand, in part at an oblique angle, in part at a right angle withyou, in part even in an opposite direction; [Footnote: It hardly needsto be said, that the reference here is to the convex surface of theearth, on which those remote from one another may hold all the variousangles to each other that are borne by the spokes of a wheel. ] and fromthese you certainly can anticipate no fame. "You perceive also that this same earth is girded and surrounded bybelts, two of which--the farthest from each other, and each resting atone extremity on the very pole of the heavens--you see entirely frost-bound; while the middle and largest of them burns under the sun'sintensest heat. Two of them are habitable, of which the southern, whoseinhabitants are your antipodes, bears no relation to your people; andsee how small a part they occupy in this other northern zone, in whichyou dwell. For all of the earth with which you have any concern--narrowat the north and south, broader in its central portion--is a mere littleisland, surrounded by that sea which you on earth call the Atlantic, theGreat Sea, the Ocean, while yet, with such a name, you see how small itis. To speak only of these cultivated and well-known regions, could yourname even cross this Caucasus which you have in view, or swim beyondthat Ganges? Who, in what other lands may lie in the extreme east orwest, or under northern or southern skies, will ever hear your name? Allthese cut off, you surely see within what narrow bounds your fame canseek to spread. Then, too, as regards the very persons who tell of yourrenown, how long will they speak of it? 7. "But even if successive generations should desire to transmit thepraise of every one of us from father to son in unbroken succession, yetbecause of devastations by flood and fire, which will of necessity takeplace at a determined time, we must fail of attaining not only eternalfame, but even that of very long duration. Now of what concern is itthat those who shall be born hereafter should speak of you, when youwere spoken of by none who were born before you, who were not fewer, andcertainly were better men?--especially, too, when among those who mighthear our names there is not one that can retain the memories of a singleyear. Men, indeed, ordinarily measure the year only by the return of thesun, that is, one star, to its place; but when all the stars, after longintervals, shall resume their original places in the heavens, then thatcompleted revolution may be truly called a year. As of old the sunseemed to be eclipsed and blotted out when the soul of Romulus enteredthese temples, so when the sun shall be again eclipsed in the same partof his course, and at the same period of the year and day, with all theconstellations and stars recalled to the point from which they startedon their revolutions, then count the year as brought to a close. [Footnote: The Stoics maintained that the visible universe would lastthrough such a cycle as is here described, which in their conjecturalastronomy comprehended many thousands of years, and then would beconsumed by fire, or somehow be reduced to chaos, and a new universetake its place. ] But be assured that the twentieth part of this year hasnot yet come round. "Therefore, should you renounce the hope of returning to this place inwhich are all things that great and excellent men can desire, of whatworth is that human glory which can scarcely extend to a small part of asingle year? If, then, you shall determine to look high up, and tobehold continuously this dwelling and eternal home, you will neithergive yourself to the flattery of the people, nor place your hope ofwell-being on rewards that man can bestow. Let Virtue herself by her owncharms draw you to true honor. What others may say of you, regard astheir concern, not yours. They will doubtless talk about you, but allthat they say is confined within the narrow limits of the regions whichyou now see; nor did such speech as to any one ever last on intoeternity, --it is buried with those who die, and lost in oblivion forthose who may come afterward. " 8. When he had spoken thus, I said, "O Africanus, if indeed for thosewho have deserved well of their country there is, as it were, an openroad by which they may enter heaven, though from boyhood treading in myfather's steps and yours, I have done no discredit to your fame, I yetshall now strive to that end with a more watchful diligence. " And hereplied: "Strive [Footnote: Or, you will strive indeed. ] indeed, andbear this in mind, that it is not you that are mortal, but your bodyonly. Nor is it you whom this outward form makes manifest; but everyman's mind is he, --not the bodily shape which can be pointed at by thefinger. Know also that you are a god, if he indeed is a god who lives, who perceives, who remembers, who foresees, who governs and restrainsand moves the body over which he is made ruler even as the Supreme Godholds the universe under his sway; and in truth as the eternal Godhimself moves the universe which is mortal in every part, so does theeverlasting soul move the corruptible body. "That, indeed, which is in perpetual movement is eternal; but thatwhich, while imparting motion to some other substance, derives its ownmovement from some other source, must of necessity cease to live when itceases to move. Then that alone which is the cause of its own motion, because it is never deserted by itself, never has its movementsuspended. But for other substances that are moved this is the source, the first cause, [Footnote: Latin, _principium_. ] of movement. But thefirst cause has no origin; for all things spring from the first cause:itself, from nothing. That indeed would not be a first cause whichderived its beginning from anything else; and if it has no beginning, itnever ceases to be. For the first cause, if extinct, will neither itselfbe born again from aught else, nor will it create aught else fromitself, if indeed all things must of necessity originate from the firstcause. Thus it is that the first cause of motion is derived from thatwhich is in its nature self-moving; but this can neither be born nordie. Were it to die, the whole heaven would of necessity collapse, andall nature would stand still, nor could it find any force which could beset in movement anew from a primitive impulse. [Footnote: From a firstcause; the first cause, by hypothesis, having ceased to be. ] 9. "Since, then, that which is the source of its own movement ismanifestly eternal, who is there that can deny that this nature has beengiven to the soul? For whatever is moved by external impulse issoulless; [Footnote: Latin, _inanimum. _] but whatever has a soul[Footnote: Latin, _animal. _ My renderings of _inanimum_ and _animal_here, if not justified by any parallel instances (and I know not whetherthey are), are required by the obvious meaning of the sentence. ] isstirred to action by movement inward and its own; for this is thepeculiar nature and virtue of the soul. Moreover, if it is this alone ofall things that is the source of its own movement, it certainly did notbegin to be, and is eternal. "This soul I bid you to exercise in thebest pursuits, and the best are your cares for your country's safety, bywhich if your soul be kept in constant action and exercise, it will havethe more rapid flight to this its abode and home. This end it willattain the more readily, if, while it shall be shut up in the body, itshall peer forth, and, contemplating those things that are beyond, abstract itself as far as possible from the body. For the souls of thosewho have surrendered themselves to the pleasures of the body, haveyielded themselves to their service, and, obeying them under the impulseof sensual lusts, have transgressed the laws of gods and men, when theypass out of their bodies are tossed to and fro around the earth, norreturn to this place till they have wandered in banishment for manyages. " He departed; I awoke from sleep.