Treatises on Friendship and Old Age
his very looks and nods?
If one says "No," I answer "No";
If "Yes," I answer "Yes."
In fine, I've laid this task upon myself
To echo all that's said--
to quote my old friend Terence again. But he puts these words into the mouth of
a Gnatho. To admit such a man into one's intimacy at all is a sign of
folly. But there are many people like Gnatho, and it is when they
are superior either in position or fortune or reputation that their
flatteries become mischievous, the weight of their position making up
for the lightness of their character. But if we only take reasonable
care, it is as easy to separate and distinguish a genuine from a
specious friend as anything else that is coloured and artificial from
what is sincere and genuine. A public assembly, though composed of men
of the smallest possible culture, nevertheless will see clearly
the difference between a mere demagogue (that is, a flatterer and
untrustworthy citizen) and a man of principle, standing, and solidity.
It was by this kind of flattering language that Gaius Papirius the
other day endeavoured to tickle the ears of the assembled people, when
proposing his law to make the tribunes re-eligible. I spoke against it.
But I will leave the personal question. I prefer speaking of Scipio.
Good heavens! how impressive his speech was, what a majesty there was
in it! You would have pronounced him, without hesitation, to be no mere
henchman of the Roman people, but their leader. However, you were there,
and moreover have the speech in your hands. The result was that a law
meant to please the people was by the people's votes rejected. Once
more to refer to myself, you remember how apparently popular was the law
proposed by Gaius Licinius Crassus "about the election to the College
of Priests" in the consulship of Quintus Maximus, Scipio's brother, and
Lucius Mancinus. For the power of filling up their own vacancies on
the part of the colleges was by this proposal to be transferred to the
people. It was this man, by the way, who began the practice of turning
towards the forum when addressing the people. In spite of this, however,
upon my speaking on the conservative side, religion gained an easy
victory over his plausible speech. This took place in my praetorship,
five years before I was elected consul, which shows that the cause
was successfully maintained more by the merits of the case than by the
prestige of the highest office.
26. Now, if on a stage, such as a public assembly essentially is,
where there is the amplest room for fiction and half-truths, truth
nevertheless prevails if it be but fairly laid open and brought into
the light of day, what ought to happen in the case of friendship, which
rests entirely on truthfulness? Friendship, in which, unless you both
see and show an open breast, to use a common expression, you can neither
trust nor be certain of anything--no, not even of mutual affection,
since you cannot be sure of its sincerity. However, this flattery,
injurious as it is, can hurt no one but the man who takes it in and
likes it. And it follows that the man to open his ears widest to
flatterers is he who first flatters himself and is fondest of himself. I
grant you that Virtue naturally loves herself; for she knows herself
and perceives how worthy of love she is. But I am not now speaking of
absolute virtue, but of the belief men have that they possess virtue.
The fact is that fewer people are endowed with virtue than wish to be
thought to be so. It is such people that take delight in flattery.
When they are addressed in language expressly adapted to flatter their
vanity, they look upon such empty persiflage as a testimony to the truth
of their own praises. It is not then properly friendship at all when the
one will not listen to the truth, and the other is prepared to lie. Nor
would the servility of parasites in comedy have seemed humorous to us
had there been no such things as braggart captains. "Is Thais really
much obliged to me?" It would have been quite enough to answer "Much,"
but he must needs say "Immensely." Your servile flatterer always
exaggerates what his victim wishes to be put strongly. Wherefore,
though it is with those who catch at and invite it that this flattering
falsehood is especially powerful, yet men even of soldier and steadier
character must be warned to be on the watch against being taken in by
cunningly disguised flattery. An open flatterer any one can detect,
unless he is an absolute fool the covert insinuation of the cunning
and the sly is what we have to be studiously on our guard against. His
detection is not by any means the easiest thing in the world, for
he often covers his servility under the guise of contradiction, and
flatters by pretending to dispute, and then at last giving in and
allowing himself to be beaten, that the person hoodwinked may think
himself to have been the clearer-sighted. Now what can be more degrading
than to be thus hoodwinked? You must be on your guard against this
happening to you, like the man in the _Heiress_:
How have I been befooled! no drivelling dotards
On any stage were e'er so p1ayed upon.
For even on the stage we have no grosser representation of folly than
that of short-sighted and credulous old men. But somehow or other I have
strayed away from the friendship of the perfect, that is of the "wise"
(meaning, of course, such "wisdom" as human nature is capable of), to
the subject of vulgar, unsubstantial friendships. Let us then return to
our original theme, and at length bring that, too, to a conclusion.
27. Well, then, Fannius and Mucius, I repeat what I said before. It
is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On
it depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity. When Virtue has
reared her head and shewn the light of her countenance, and seen and
recognised the same light in another, she gravitates towards it, and in
her turn welcomes that which the other has to shew; and from it springs
up a flame which you may call love or friendship as you please. Both
words are from the same root in Latin; and love is just the cleaving
to him whom you love without the prompting of need or any view to
advantage--though this latter blossoms spontaneously on friendship,
little as you may have looked for it. It is with such warmth of feeling
that I cherished Lucius Paulus, Marcus Cato, Galus Gallus, Publius
Nasica, Tiberius Gracchus, my dear Scipio's father-in-law. It shines
with even greater warmth when men are of the same age, as in the case of
Scipio and Lucius Furius, Publius Rupilius, Spurius Mummius, and myself.
_En revanche_, in my old age I find comfort in the affection of young
men, as in the case of yourselves and Quintus Tubero: nay more, I
delight in the intimacy of such a very young man as Publius Rutilius and
Aulus Verginius. And since the law of our nature and of our life is that
a new generation is for ever springing up, the most desirable thing is
that along with your contemporaries, with whom you started in the
race, you may also teach what is to us the goal. But in view of
the instability and perishableness of mortal things, we should be
continually on the look-out for some to love and by whom to be loved;
for if we lose affection and kindliness from our life, we lose all that
gives it charm. For me, indeed, though torn away by a sudden stroke,
Scipio still lives and ever wilt live. For it was the virtue of the man
that I loved, and that has not suffered death. And it is not my eyes
only, because I had all my life a personal experience of it, that never
lose sight of it: it will shine to posterity also with undimmed glory.
No one will ever cherish a nobler ambition or a loftier hope without
thinking his memory and his image the best to put before his eyes. I
declare that of all the blessings which either fortune or nature has
bestowed upon me I know none to compare with Scipio's friendship. In
it I found sympathy in public, counsel in private business; in it too a
means of spending my leisure with unalloyed delight. Never, to the best
of my knowledge, did I offend him even in the most trivial point; never
did I hear a word from him I could have wished unsaid. We had one house,
one table, one style of living; and not only were we together on foreign
service, but in our tours also and country sojourns. Why speak of
our eagerness to be ever gaining some knowledge, to be ever learning
something, on which we spent all our leisure hours far from the gaze of
the world? If the recollection and memory of these things had perished
with the man, I could not possibly have endured the regret for one so
closely united with me in life and affection. But these things have not
perished; they are rather fed and strengthened by reflexion and memory.
Even supposing me to have been entirely bereft of them, still my time
of life of itself brings me no small consolation: for I cannot have much
longer now to bear this regret; and everything that is brief ought to be
endurable, however severe.
This is all I had to say on friendship. One piece of advice on parting.
Make up your minds to this. Virtue (without which friendship is
impossible) is first; but next to it, and to it alone, the greatest of
all things is Friendship.
ON OLD AGE
1. And should my service, Titus, ease the weight
Of care that wrings your heart, and draw the sting
Which rankles there, what guerdon shall there be?
FOR I may address you, Atticus, in the lines in which Flamininus was
addressed by the man,
who, poor in wealth, was rich in honour's gold,
though I am well assured that you are not, as Flamininus was,
kept on the rack of care by night and day.
For I know how well ordered and equable your mind is, and am fully aware
that it was not a surname alone which you brought home with you from
Athens, but its culture and good sense. And yet I have an idea that you
are at times stirred to the heart by the same circumstances as myself.
To console you for these is a more serious matter, and must be put off
to another time. For the present I have resolved to dedicate to you an
essay on Old Age. For from the burden of impending or at least advancing
age, common to us both, I would do something to relieve us both though
as to yourself I am fully aware that you support and will support it,
as you do everything else, with calmness and philosophy. But directly I
resolved to write on old age, you at once occurred to me as deserving
a gift of which both of us might take advantage. To myself, indeed, the
composition of this book has been so delightful, that it has not only
wiped away all the disagreeables of old age, but has even made it
luxurious and delightful too. Never, therefore, can philosophy be
praised as highly as it deserves considering that its faithful disciple
is able to spend every period of his life with unruffled feelings.
However, on other subjects I have spoken at large, and shall often speak
again: this book which I herewith send you is on Old Age. I have put the
whole discourse not, as Alisto of Cos did, in the mouth of Tithonus--for
a mere fable would have lacked conviction--but in that of Marcus Cato
when he was an old man, to give my essay greater weight. I represent
Laelius and Scipio at his house expressing surprise at his carrying
his years so lightly, and Cato answering them. If he shall seem to shew
somewhat more learning in this discourse than he generally did in his
own books, put it down to the Greek literature of which it is known that
he became an eager student in his old age. But what need of more? Cato's
own words will at once explain all I feel about old age.
M. Cato. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (the younger). Gaius
Laelius.