wont to do on other subjects when your opinion is asked, you will
discourse to us on friendship, and tell us what you think about it, in
what estimation you hold it, and what rules you would give for it.

SCAEVOLA. This will indeed be very gratifying to me, and had not Fannius
anticipated me, I was about to make the same request. You thus will
bestow a great kindness on both of us.

5. LAELIUS. I certainly would not hesitate, if I had confidence in my
own powers; for the subject is one of the highest importance, and, as
Fannius says, we are at leisure. It is the custom of philosophers,
especially among the Greeks, to have subjects assigned to them, which
they discuss even without premeditation. [Footnote: This was the boast
and pride of the Greek sophists.] This is a great accomplishment, and
requires no small amount of exercise. I therefore think that you ought
to seek the treatment of friendship by those who profess this art. I can
only advise you to prefer friendship to all things else within human
attainment, insomuch as nothing beside is so well fitted to nature,--so
well adapted to our needs whether in prosperous or in adverse
circumstances. But I consider this as a first principle--that friendship
can exist only between good men. In thus saying, I would not be so rigid
in definition [Footnote: Latin. _Neque ut ad ilium reseco_, literally,
nor in this matter do I cut to the quick.] as those who establish
specially subtle distinctions, [Footnote: The Stoics of the more rigid
type, who maintained that the wise man alone is good, but denied that
the truly wise man had yet made his appearance on the earth.] with
literal truth it may be, but with little benefit to the common mind; for
they will not admit that any man who is not wise is a good man. This may
indeed be true. But they understand by wisdom a state which no mortal
has yet attained; while we ought to look at those qualities which are to