said [footnote: The construction of this entire section is in the
subjective imperfect depending on the _dicebat_ in the second sentence.
It has seemed to me that the direct form of constiution which I have
adopted is more consonant with the genius of our language.] that nothing
is more difficult than for friendship to last through life; for friends
happen to have conflicting interests, or different political opinions.
Then, again, as he often said, characters change, sometimes under
adverse conditions, sometimes with growing years. He cited also the
analogy of what takes place in early youth, the most ardent loves of
boyhood being often laid aside with its robe. But if friendships last on
into opening manhood, they are not infrequently broken up by rivalry in
quest of a wife, or in the pursuit of some advantage which only one can
obtain. [Footnote: Had Cicero not been personating Laelius, who died
long before the quarrel occurred, he would undoubtedly have cited the
case of Servilius Caepio and Livius Diusus. They married each other's
sisters, and were united in the closest intimacy, and seemingly in the
dearest mutual love; but as rivals in bidding for a ring at an auction-
sale they had their first quarrel, which grew into intense mutual
hatred, led almost to a civil war between their respective partisans,
and bore no small part in starting the series of dissentions which
issued in the Social War, and the destruction of not far from three
hundred thousand lives. I refer to this in a note, because it must have
been fresh in Cicero's memory, and had annotation been the habit of his
time, he would most assuredly have given it the place which I now give
it.] Then, if friendships are of longer duration, they yet, as Scipio
said, are liable to be undermined by competition for office; and indeed
there is nothing more fatal to friendship than, in very many cases, the
greed of gain, and among some of the best of men the contest for place
and fame, which has often engendered the most intense enmity between
those who had been the closest friends. Strong and generally just