l6 CICERO

are free from greed, lust, and violence; and who have the courage of
their convictions. The men I have just named may serve as examples.
Such men as these being generally accounted "good," let us agree
to callthem so, on the ground that to the best of human ability they
follow nature as the most perfect guide to a good life.
Now this truth seems clear to me, that nature has so formed us
that a certain tie unites us all, but that this tie becomes stronger
from proximity. So it is that fellow<itizens are preferred in our
affections to foreigners, relations to strangers; for in their case Nature
herself has caused a kind of friendship to exist, though it is one
which lacks some of the elements of permanence. Friendship excels
relationship in this, that whereas you may eliminate affection from
relationship, you cannot do so from friendship. Without it relation-
ship still exists in name, friendship does not. You may best under-
stand this friendship by considering that, whereas the merely natural
ties uniting the human race are indefinite, this one is so concentrated,

and confined to so narrow a sphere, that affection is ever shared by

two persons only, or at most by a few.
6. Now friendship may be thus defined: a complete accord on all

subjects human and divine, joined with mutual good will and
affection. And with the exception of wisdom, I am inclined to think
nothing better than this has been given to man by the immortal gods.
There are people who give the palm to riches or to good health,
or to power and office, many even to sensual pleasures. This last is
the ideal of brute beasts; and of the others we may say that they are
frail and uncertain, and def)end less on our own prudence than on the

caprice of fortune. Then there are those who find the "chief good"
in virtue. Well, that is a noble doctrine. But the very virtue they
talk of is the parent and preserver of friendship, and without it

friendship cannot possibly exist.

Let us, I repeat, use the word virtue in the ordinary acceptation and
meaning of the term, and do not let us define it in high-flown lan-
guage. Let us account as good the persons usually considered so, such
as Paulus, Cato, Gallus, Scipio, and Philus. Such men as these are
good enough for everyday life; and we need not trouble ourselves
about those ideal characters which are nowhere to be met with.
Well, between men like these the advantages of friendship are
 ON FRIENDSHIP VJ
almost more than I can say. To begin with, how can life be worth
words of Ennius, which lacks that repose which is to
living, to use the
be found in the mutual good will of a friend? What can be more
delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything
with the same absolute confidence as to yourself? Is not prosperity
robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy? On
the other hand, misfortunes would be hard to bear if there were not
some one to feel them even more acutely than yourself. In a word,
other objects of ambition serve for particular ends —riches for use,
power homage, office for reputation, pleasure for enjoy-
for securing
ment, health for freedom from pain and the full use of the functions
of the body. But friendship embraces innumerable advantages. Turn
which way you please, you will find it at hand. It is everywhere; and
yet never out of place, never unwelcome. Fire and water themselves,
to use a common expression, are not of more universal use than
friendship. I am not now speaking of the common or modified
form of it, though even that is a source of pleasure and profit, but of
and complete friendship which existed between the select
that true
few who are known to fame. Such friendship enhances prosperity,
and reheves adversity of its burden by halving and sharing it.
7. And great and numerous as are the blessings of friendship, this
certainly is the sovereign one, that it gives us bright hopes for the
future and forbids weakness and despair. In the face of a true friend
a man sees as it were a second self. So that where his friend is he is;
if his friend be rich, he is not poor; though he be weak, his friend's

strength is his; and in his friend's hfe he enjoys a second life after
his own is finished. This last is perhaps the most difficult to conceive.
But such is the effect of the respect, the loving remembrance, and
the regret of friends which follow us to the grave. While they take
the sting out of death, they add a glory to the life of the survivors.
Nay, if you eliminate from nature the tie of affection, there will be
an end of house and city, nor will so much as the cultivation of the
soil be left. If you don't see the virtue of friendship and harmony,

you may learn it by observing the effects of quarrels and feuds. Was
any family ever so well established, any State so firmly settled, as to
be beyond the reach of utter destruction from animosities and fac-
tions? This may teach you the immense advantage of friendship.
l8 CICERO
They say that a certain philosopher of Agrigentum, in a Greek
poem, pronounced with the authority of an oracle the doctrine that
whatever in nattire and the universe was unchangeable was so in
virtue of the binding force of friendship; whatever was changeable
was so by the solvent power of discord. And indeed this is a truth
which everybody understands and practically attests by experience.
For if any marked instance of loyal friendship in confronting or
sharing danger comes to light, every one applauds it to the echo.
What cheers there were, for instance, all over the theatre at a passage
in the new play of my friend and guest Pacuvius; where, the king
not knowing which of the two was Orestes, Py lades declared himself
to be Orestes, that he might die in his stead, while the real Orestes
kept on asserting that it was he. The audience rose en masse and
clapped their hands. And this was at an incident in fiction: what
would they have done, must we suppose, if it had been in real Ufe?
You can easily see what a natural feeling it is, when men who would
not have had the resolution to act thus themselves, shewed how right
they thought it in another.
I don't think I have any more to say about friendship. If there

isany more, and I have no doubt there much, you must, if is

you care to do so, consult those who profess to discuss such

matters.
Fanntus. We would rather apply to you. Yet I have often con-
sulted such persons, and have heard what they had to say with a cer-
tain sadsfaction. But in your discourse one somehow feels that there

is a different strain.
Sccevola. You would have said that still more, Fannius, if you
had been present the other day in Scipio's pleasure-grounds when
we had the discussion about the State. How splendidly he stood up
for justice against Philus's elaborate speech!
Fannius. Ah! it was naturally easy for the justest of men to stand
up for justice.
Scavola. Well, then, what about friendship? Who could discourse
on it more easily than the man whose chief glory is a friendship
maintained with the most absolute fidelity, constancy, and integrity?
8. Lcelius. Now you are really using force. It makes no difference

what kind of force you use: force it is. For it is neither easy nor
 — —

ON FRIENDSHIP I9
right to refuse a wish of my sons-in-law, particularly when the wish
is a creditable one in itself.

Well, then, it has very often occurred to me when thinking about

friendship, that the chief point to be considered was
is it weak- this:

ness and want of means that make friendship desired ? I mean, is its
object an interchange of good offices, so that each may give that in
which he is strong, and receive that in which he is weak? Or is it
not rather true that, although this is an advantage naturally belong-
ing to friendship, yet its original cause is quite other, prior in time,
more noble in character, and springing more directlyfrom our nature
itself? The Latin word for friendship amicitia— derived from
is

that for love amor; and love is certainly the prime mover in con-
tracting mutual affection. For as to material advantages, it often
happens that those are obtained even by men who are courted by a
mere show of friendship and treated with respect from interested
motives. But friendship by its nature admits of no feigning, no pre-
tence: as far as it goes it is both genuine and spontaneous. Therefore
I gather that friendship springs from a natural impulse rather than a

wish for help: from an inclination of the heart, combined with a

certain instinctive feeling of love, rather than from a deliberate
calculation of the material advantage it was likely to confer. The
strength of this feeling you may notice in certain animals. They show
such love to their offspring for a certain period, and are so beloved
by them, that they clearly have a share in this natural, instinctive
affection. But of course it is more evident in the case of man: first,
in the natural affection between children and their parents, an
affection which only shocking wickedness can sunder; and next,
when the passion of love has attained to a like strength on our —
finding, that is, some one person with whose character and nature we
are in full sympathy, because we think that we perceive in him what
I may call the beacon-light of virtue. For nothing inspires love,
nothing conciliates affection, like virtue. Why, in a certain sense we
may be said to feel affection even for men we have never seen, owing
to their honestyand virtue. Who, for instance, fails to dwell on the
memory of Gaius Fabricius and Manius Curius with some affection
and warmth of feeling, though he has never seen them? Or who
but loathes Tarquinius Superbus, Spurius Cassius, Spurius Melius?
20 CICERO
We have fought for empire in Italy with two great generals, Pyrrhus
and Hannibal. For the former, owing to his probity, we entertain
no great feelings of enmity the latter, owing to his cruelty, our coun-
:

try has detested and always will detest.

9. Now, if the attraction of probity is so great that we can love it

not only in those whom we have never seen, but, what is more,
actually in an enemy, we need
men's affections are
not be surprised if

roused when they fancy that they have seen virtue and goodness
in those with whom a close intimacy is possible. I do not deny
that affection is strengthened by the actual receipt of benefits, as well
as by the f>erception of a wish to render service, combined with a
closer intercourse. When these are added to the original impulse
of the heart, to which I have alluded, a quite surprising warmth of
feeling springs up. And if any one thinks that this comes from a

sense of weakness, that each may have some one to help him to
his particular need, all I can say is that, when he maintains it to be
born of want and poverty, he allows to friendship an origin very
base, and a pedigree, if I may be allowed the expression, far from
noble. If this had been the case, a man's inclination to friendship

would be exactly in proportion to his low opinion of his own re-

sources. Whereas the truth is quite the other way. For when a man's
confidence in himself is greatest, when he is so fortified by virtue and
wisdom as to want nothing and to feel absolutely self-dependent, it is

then that he is most conspicuous for seeking out and keeping up

friendships. Did Africanus, for example, want anything of me?
Not the least in the world! Neither did I my case it was
of him. In
an admiration of his virtue, in his an opinion, maybe, which he
entertained of my character, that caused our affection. Closer inti-

macy added to the warmth of our feelings. But though many great
material advantages did ensue, they were not the source from
which our affection proceeded. For as we are not beneficent and
liberal with any view of extorting gratitude, and do not regard an act
of kindness as an investment, but follow a natural inclination to
liberality; so we look on friendship as worth trying for, not because
we by the expectation of ulterior gain, but in the
are attracted to it

conviction that what it has to give us is from first to last included

in the feeling itself.
 ON FRIENDSHIP 21
Far different is the view of those who, Uke brute beasts, refer every-
thing to sensual pleasure. And no wonder. Men who have degraded
all their powers of thought an object so mean and contemptible
to
can of course raise their eyes to nothing lofty, to nothing grand and
divine. Such persons indeed let us leave out of the present question.
And let us accept the doctrine that the sensation of love and the
warmth of inclination have their origin in a spontaneous feeling
which arises directly the presence of probity is indicated. When once
men have conceived the inclination, they of course try to attach
themselves to the object of and move themselves nearer and nearer
it,

to him. Their aim is may be on the same footing and the

that they
same level in regard to affection, and be more inclined to do a good
service than to ask a return, and that there should be this noble
rivalry between them. Thus both truths will be established. We
shall get the most important material advantages from friendship;

and its origin from a natural impulse rather than from a sense of
need will be at once more dignified and more in accordance with
fact. For if it were true that its material advantages cemented

friendship, it would be equally true that any change in them would

dissolve it. But nature being incapable of change, it follows that
genuine friendships are eternal.
So much for the origin of friendship. But perhaps you would not
care to hear any more.
Fannius. Nay, pray go on; let us have the rest, Laclius. I take
on myself to speak for my friend here as his senior.
Sccevola. Quite right! Therefore, pray let us hear.
ID. Lalius. Well, then, my good some conversa-
friends, listen to
tions about friendship which very frequently passed between Scipio
and myself. I must begin by telling you, however, that he used to
say that the most difficult thing in the world was for a friendship to
remain unimpaired to the end of life. So many things might inter-
vene: conflicting interests; differences of opinion in politics; fre-
quent changes in character, owing sometimes to misfortunes, some-
times to advancing years. He used to illustrate these facts from the
analogy of boyhood, since the warmest affections between boys are
often laid aside with the boyish toga; and even if they did manage
to keep them up to adolescence, they were sometimes broken by a
22 CICERO
rivalry in courtship, or for some other advantage to which their
mutual claims were not compatible. Even if the friendship was
prolonged beyond that time, yet it frequently received a rude shock
should the two happen to be competitors for office. For while the
most fatal blow to friendship in the majority of cases was the lust
of gold, in the case of the best men it was a rivalry for office and
reputation, by which it had often happened that the most violent
enmity had arisen between the closest friends.
Again, wide breaches and, for the most part, justifiable ones were
caused by an immoral request being made of friends, to pander to
a man's unholy desires or to assist him in inflicting a wrong. A
refusal, though perfectly right, is attacked by those to whom they
refuse compliance as a violation of the laws of friendship. Now the
people who have no scruples as to the requests they make to their
friends, thereby allow that they are ready to have no scruples as to
what they do jor their friends; and it is the recriminations of
will
such people which commonly not only quench friendships, but give
rise to lasting enmities. "In fact," he used to say, "these fatalities
overhang friendship in such numbers that it requires not only wis-
dom but good luck also to escape them all."

II. With these premises, then, let us you please, examine

first, if

the question —how far ought personal feeling go in friendship?

to
For instance: suppose Coriolanus to have had friends, ought they
tohave joined him in invading his country? Again, in the case of
VeceUinus or Spurius Mselius, ought their friends to have assisted
them in their attempt to estabUsh a tyranny ? Take two instances of
either line of conduct. When Tiberius Gracchus attempted his
revolutionary measures he was deserted, as we saw, by Quintus
Tubero and the friends of his own standing. On the other hand,
a friend of your own family, Scsevola, Gaius Blossius of Cumz,
took a different course. I was acting as assessor to the consuls
Lacnas and Rupilius to try the conspirators, and Blossius pleaded
for my pardon on the ground that his regard for Tiberius Gracchus
had been so high that he looked upon his wishes as law. "Even if he
had wished you to set fire to the Capitol?" said I. "That is a thing,"
he replied, "that he never would have wished." "Ah, but if he had
wished it?" said I. "I would have obeyed." The wickedness of such
 —

ON FRIENDSHIP 23
a speech needs no comment. And in point of fact he was as good and
better than his word; for he did not wait for orders in the audacious
proceedings of Tiberius Gracchus, but was the head and front of
them, and was a leader rather than an abettor of his madness.
The result of his infatuation was that he fled to Asia, terrified by the
special commission appointed to try him, joined the enemies of his
country, and paid a penalty to the repubUc as heavy as it was
deserved. I conclude, then, that the plea of having acted in the
interests of a friend is not a valid excuse for a wrong action. For,
seeing that a belief in a man's virtue is the original cause of friend-
ship, friendship can hardly remain if virtue be abandoned. But if

we decide it to be right to grant our friends whatever they wish,

and to ask them for whatever we wish, perfect wisdom must be
assumed on both sides if no mischief is to happen. But we cannot
assume this perfect wisdom; for we are speaking only of such friends
as are ordinarily to be met with, whether we have actually seen
—
them or have been told about them men, that is to say, of everyday
life. I must quote some examples of such persons, taking care to

select such as approach nearest to our standard of wisdom. We

read, for instance, that Papus i^milius was a close friend of Gaius
Luscinus. History tells us that they were twice consuls together,
and colleagues in the censorship. Again, it is on record that Manius
Curius and Tiberius Coruncanius were on the most intimate terms
with them and with each other. Now, we cannot even suspect that
any one of these men ever asked of his friend anything that militated
against his honour or his oath or the interests of the republic. In
the case of such men as these there is no pwint in saying that one of
them would not have obtained such a request if he had made it;

for they were men of the most scrupulous piety, and the making
of such a request would involve a breach of religious obligation no
less it. However, it is quite true that Gaius Carbo
than the granting
and Gaius Cato did follow Tiberius Gracchus; and though his
brother Gaius Gracchus did not do so at the time, he is now the most
eager of them all.
12. We may then lay down this rule of friendship neither as\ nor
consent to do what is wrong. For the plea "for friendship's sake"
is a discreditable one, and not to be admitted for a moment. This rule
24 CICERO
holds good for all wrong-doing, but more especially in such as
involves disloyalty to the republic. For things have come to such a
point with us, my dear Fannius and Scxvola, that we are bound to
look somewhat far ahead to what is likely to happen to the republic.
The constitution, as known to our ancestors, has already swerved
somewhat from the regular course and the lines marked out for it.
Tiberius Gracchus made an attempt to obtain the power of a king,
or, I might rather say, enjoyed that power for a few months. Had
the Roman people ever heard or seen the like before? What the
friends and connexions that followed him, even after his death,
have succeeded in doing in the case of Publius Scipio I cannot
describe without tears. As punishment
for Carbo, thanks to the
recently inflicted on Tiberius Gracchus, we have by hook or by
crook managed to hold out against his attacks. But what to expect
of the tribuneship of Gaius Gracchus I do not like to forecast. One
thing leads to another; and once set going, the downward course
proceeds with ever-increasing velocity. There is the case of the
ballot: what a blow was inflicted first by the lex Gabinia, and two
years afterwards by the lex Cassia! I seem already to see the people
estranged from the Senate, and the most important affairs at the
mercy of the multitude. For you may be sure that more people
will learn how to set such things in motion than how to stop them.
What is the point of these remarks? This: no one ever makes any
attempt of this sort without friends to help him. We must therefore
impress upon good men that, should they become inevitably involved
in friendships with men of this kind, they ought not to consider
themselves under any obligation to stand by friends who are disloyal
to the republic. Bad men must have the fear of punishment before
their eyes: a punishment not less severe for those who follow than
for those who lead others to crime. Who was more famous and
powerful in Greece than Themistocles? At the head of the army
in the Persian war he had freed Greece; he owed his exile to personal
envy: but he did not submit to the wrong done him by his ungrate-
ful country as he ought to have done. He acted as Coriolanus had
acted among us twenty years before. But no one was found to help
them in their attacks upon their fatherland. Both of them accord-
ingly committed suicide.
 ON FRIENDSHIP 25
We conclude, then, not only that no such confederation of evilly
disposed men must be allowed to shelter itself under the plea of
friendship, but that, on the contrary, it must be visited with the
severest punishment, lest the idea should prevail that fidelity to a
friend justifies even making war upon one's country. And this is a
case which I am inclined to think, considering how things are
beginning to go, will sooner or later arise. And I care quite as much
what the state of the constitution will be after my death as what it is

now.
13. Let this, then, be laid down as the first law of friendship, that
we should asf(^ from friends, and do for friends, only what is good.
But do not let us wait to be asked either: let there be ever an eager

readiness, and an absence of hesitation. Let us have the courage

to give advice with candour. In friendship, let the influence of
friends who give good advice be paramount; and let this influence
be used to enforce advice not only in plain-spoken terms, but
sometimes, if the case demands it, with sharpness; and when so used,
let it be obeyed.
I give you these rules because I believe that some wonderful
opinions are entertained by certain persons who have, I am told, a
reputation for wisdom in Greece. There is nothing in the world, by
the way, beyond the reach of their sophistry. Well, some of them
teach that we should avoid very close friendships, for fear that one
man should have to endure the anxieties of several. Each man, say
they, has enough and to spare on his own hands; it is too bad to be
involved in the cares of other people. The wisest course is to hold
the reins of friendship as loose as possible; you can then tighten or
slacken them atwill. For the first condition of a happy life is
your
freedom from which no one's mind can enjoy if it has to travail,
care,
so to speak, for others besides itself. Another sect, I am told, gives
vent to opinions still less generous. I briefly touched on this subject
just now. They affirm that friendships should be sought solely for

the sake of the assistance they give, and not at all from motives of
feeling and affection; and that therefore just in proportion as a man's
power and means of support are lowest, he is most eager to gain
friendships: thence it comes that weak women seek the support of
friendship more than men, the poor more than the rich, the unfor-
26 CICERO
tunate rather than those esteemed prosperous. What noble philoso-
phy! You might just as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship
from life; for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or
more delightful.
But let us examine the two doctrines. What is the value of this
"freedom from care"? It is very tempting at first sight, but in
practice it has in many cases to be put on one side. For there is no
business and no course of action demanded from us by our honour
which you can consistently decline, or lay aside when begun, from a
mere wish to escape from anxiety. Nay, if we wish to avoid anxiety
we must avoid virtue itself, which necessarily involves some anxious
thoughts in showing its loathing and abhorrence for the qualities
—
which are opposite to itself as kindness for ill nature, self-control
for licentiousness, courage for cowardice. Thus you may notice
that it is the just who are most pained at injustice, the brave at
cowardly actions, the temperate at depravity. It is then characteristic
of a rightly ordered mind to be pleased at what is good and grieved
at the reverse. Seeing then that the wise are not exempt from the
heart-ache (which must be the case unless we suppose all human
nature rooted out of their hearts), why should we banish friendship
from our of being involved by it in some amount of
lives, for fear

distress? you take away emotion, what difference remains I

If

don't say between a man and a beast, but between a man and a stone
or a log of wood, or anything else of that kind?
Neither should we give any weight to the doctrine that virtue is
something rigid and unyielding as iron. In point of fact it is in
regard to friendship, as in so many other things, so supple and
sensitive that it expands, so to speak, at a friend's good fortune, con-
tracts at his misfortunes. We conclude then that mental pain which
we must often encounter on a friend's account is not of sufficient
consequence to banish friendship from our any more than it
life,

is true that the cardinal virtues are to be dispensed with because they
involve certain anxieties and distresses.
14. Let me repeat then, "the clear indication of virtue, to which
a mind of like character is naturally attracted, is the beginning of
friendship." When that is the case the rise of affection is a necessity.
For what can be more irrational than to take delight in many objects