Friends Are Friends for Centuries

Thanks to a humorous McSweeney's feature for linking to Bartleby.com, purveyor of free, public-domain classics. I took the time to read Cicero's treatise on friendship, which he creatively writes in the form of a narrative among Romans considered old in his time. Laelius, whose friend (and Rome's great general) Scipio Africanus had recently passed away, undertakes a "discourse" on friendship for the benefit of and at the urging of his sons-in-law. It could have been written yesterday, save that such probity and practicality are rarely to be found in one modern man.

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...

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 friendship, 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...

Cicero's reason for writing has an echo in the opening of Luke's gospel. Cicero writes to Atticus:

You have often urged me to write something on Friendship, and I quite acknowledged that the subject seemed one worth everybody’s investigation, and specially suited to the close intimacy that has existed between you and me. Accordingly I was quite ready to benefit the public at your request.