Treatises on Friendship and Old Age | Page 8

subject of rejoicing to this State to its last hour.
Wherefore, as I said before, all is as well as possible with him. Not so
with me; for as I entered life before him, it would have been fairer for
me to leave it also before him. Yet such is the pleasure I take in
recalling our friendship, that I look upon my life as having been a
happy one because I have spent it with Scipio. With him I was
associated in public and private business; with him I lived in Rome and
served abroad; and between us there was the most complete harmony in

our tastes, our pursuits, and our sentiments, which is the true secret of
friendship. It is not therefore in that reputation for wisdom mentioned
just now by Fannius-especially as it happens to be groundless-that I
find my happiness so much, as in the hope that the memory of our
friendship will be lasting. What makes me care the more about this is
the fact that in all history there are scarcely three or four pairs of
friends on record; and it is classed with them that I cherish a hope of
the friendship of Scipio and Laelius being known to posterity.
Fannius. Of course that must be so, Laelius. But since you have
mentioned the word friendship, and we are at leisure, you would be
doing me a great kindness, and I expect Scaevola also, if you would do
as it is your habit to do when asked questions on other subjects, and tell
us your sentiments about friendship, its nature, and the rules to be
observed in regard to it.
Scaevola. I shall of course be delighted. Fannius has anticipated the
very request I was about to make. So you will be doing us both a great
favour.
5. Laelius. I should ccrtainly have no objection if I felt confidence in
myself. For the theme is a noble one, and we are (as Fannius has said)
at leisure. But who am I? and what ability have I? What you propose is
all very well for professional philosophers, who are used, particularly if
Greeks, to have the subject for discussion proposed to them on the spur
of the moment. It is a task of considerable difficulty, and requires no
little practice. Therefore for a set discourse on friendship you must go, I
think, to professional lecturers. All I can do is to urge on you to regard
friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing which
so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly what we want in prosperity or
adversity.
But I must at the very beginning lay down this principle- friendship can
only exist between good men. I do not, however, press this too closely,
like the philosophers who push their definitions to a superfluous
accuracy. They have truth on their side, perhaps, but it is of no practical
advantage. Those, I mean, who say that no one but the "wise" is
"good." Granted, by all means. But the "wisdom" they mean is one to

which no mortal ever yet attained. We must concern ourselves with the
facts of everyday life as we find it-not imaginary and ideal perfections.
Even Gaius Fannius, Manius Curius, and Tiberius Coruncanius, whom
our ancestors decided to be "wise," I could never declare to be so
according to their standard. Let them, then, keep this word "wisdom" to
themselves. Everybody is irritated by it; no one understands what it
means. Let them but grant that the men I mentioned were "good." No,
they won't do that either. No one but the "wise" can be allowed that title,
say they. Well, then, let us dismiss them and manage as best we may
with our own poor mother wit, as the phrase is.
We mean then by the "good" _those whose actions and lives leave no
question as to their honour, purity, equity, and liberality; who 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 call
them 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-citizens 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