But the same kind disposition belongs also to the multitude; for virtue is not inhuman, or cruel, or haughty, since she is accustomed to protect even whole nations, and to adopt the best measures for their welfare, which assuredly she would not do did she shrink from the affection of the vulgar. And to myself, indeed, those who form friendships with a view to advantage seem to do away with its most endearing bond; for it is not so much the advantage obtained through a friend as the mere love of that friend which delights; and then only what has proceeded from a friend becomes delightful if it has proceeded from zealous affection; and that friendship should be cultivated from a sense of necessity is so far from being the case that those who, being endowed with power and wealth, and especially with virtue (in which is the strongest support of friendship), have least need of another, are most liberal and generous. Yet I am not sure whether it is requisite that friends should never stand in any need; for wherein would any devotedness of mine to him have been exerted if Scipio had never stood in need of my advice or assistance at home or abroad? Wherefore friendship has not followed upon advantage, but advantage on friendship.
Persons, therefore, who are wallowing in indulgence will not need to be listened to if ever they shall descant upon friendship, which they have known neither by experience nor by theory. For who is there, by the faith of gods and men, who would desire, on the condition of his loving no one, and himself being loved by none, to roll in affluence, and live in a superfluity of all things? For this is the life of tyrants, in which undoubtedly there can be no confidence, no affection, no steady dependence on attachment; all is perpetually mistrust and disquietude—there is no room for friendship. For who can love either him whom he fears or him by whom he thinks he himself is feared? Yet are they courted, solely in hypocrisy, for a time; because, if perchance (as it frequently happens) they have been brought low, then it is perceived how destitute they were of friends. And this, they say, Tarquin[32] exprest; that when going into exile, he found out whom he had as faithful friends, and whom unfaithful ones, since then he could no longer show gratitude to either party; altho I wonder that, with such haughtiness and impatience of temper, he could find one at all. And as the character of the individual whom I have mentioned could not obtain true friends, so the riches of many men of rank exclude all faithful friendship; for not only is Fortune blind herself, but she commonly renders blind those whom she embraces. …
He who, therefore, shall have shown himself in both cases, as regards friendship, worthy, consistent, and stedfast; such a one we ought to esteem of a class of persons extremely rare—nay, almost godlike. Now, the foundation of that stedfastness and constancy, which we seek in friendship, is sincerity. For nothing is stedfast which is insincere. Besides, it is right that one should be chosen who is frank and good-natured, and congenial in his sentiments; one, in fact, who is influenced by the same motives, all of which qualities have a tendency to create sincerity. For it is impossible for a wily and tortuous disposition to be sincere. Nor in truth can the man who has no sympathy from nature, and who is not moved by the same considerations, be either attached or steady. To the same requisites must be added that he shall neither take delight in bringing forward charges nor believe them when they arise, all of which causes belong to that consistent principle of which now for some time I have been treating. Thus the remark is true which I made at first that friendship can exist only among the good; for it is the part of a good man (whom at the same time we may call a wise man) to observe these two rules in friendship: first, that there shall be nothing pretended or simulated (for even to hate openly better becomes the ingenuous man than by his looks to conceal his sentiments); in the next place, that not only does he repel charges when brought (against his friends) by any one, but is not himself suspicious, ever fancying that some infidelity has been committed by his friend. To all this there should be added a certain suavity of conversation and manners, affording, as it does, no inconsiderable zest to friendship. Now solemnity and gravity on all occasions, certainly, carry with them dignity; but friendship ought to be easier and more free and more pleasant, and tending more to every kind of politeness and good nature. …
FOOTNOTES:
[4] From the "Cato Major, an Essay on Old Age." Translated by Cyrus R. Edmonds. This work is composed in the form of a dialog, in which, in the person of Cato the Censor as speaker, the benefits of old age are pointed out.
[5] A famous athlete who was many times crowned at the Pythian and Olympian games.
[6] Cneius Scipio was Consul in 222, and with Marcellus completed the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul. He served with his brother Publius Cicero against the Carthaginians in Spain, where, after several victories, both were slain in 212 b.c.
[7] Lucius Metellus, a Roman general who defeated the Carthaginians at Panormus, now Palermo, Sicily, in 250 b.c.
[8] Masinissa, king of a small territory in northern Africa, was at first an ally of Carthage against Rome, but afterward became an ally of Rome against Carthage.
[9] The translator explains that the speeches here referred to, as collected and published by Cato, numbered about 150. Cato was known to his contemporaries as "the Roman Demosthenes." Later writers often referred to him as "Cato the orator."
[10] Archytas was a Greek philosopher, eminent also as statesman, mathematician, and general. He lived about 400 b.c., and is credited with having saved the life of Plato through his influence with Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse. He was seven times general of the army of Tarentum and successful in all his campaigns; eminent also for domestic virtues. He is pronounced by a writer in Smith's "Dictionary" to have been "among the very greatest men of antiquity." He was drowned while making a voyage in the Adriatic.
[11] Caudium was a Samnite town near which the Romans were defeated by Pontius Herennius.
[12] Not the Appius Claudius from whom the Appian Way and one of the great aqueducts were named. The older Appius Claudius, here referred to, lived in the century that followed Plato.
[13] Titus Flaminius, general and statesman, was Consul in 198 b.c. It was not Titus, but Caius Flaminius, who built the famous circus and road bearing his name. Caius lived at an earlier period.
[14] Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, the eminent military genius, who several times defeated the Romans before he was finally overthrown by them at Beneventum in 275 b.c.
[15] Livius Andronicus, who lived in Rome about 240 b.c.
[16] A small island (now a peninsula), lying off the coast of Spain. It is to-day called Cadiz, but anciently was known as Erythia, Tartessus, and Gades. It was founded about 1100 b.c., by the Phenicians, of whose western commerce it was the center.
[17] The tyrant of Athens who reigned thirty-three years and died about 527 b.c.