On Brotherly Love (10-14)

Only after the erring brother has been defended in this manner should the other turn to him and rebuke him somewhat sharply, pointing out with all frankness his errors of commission and of omission. For one should neither give free rein to brothers, nor, again, should one trample on them when they are at fault (for the latter is the act of one who gloats over the sinner, the former that of one who aids and abets him), but should apply his admonition as one who cares for his brother and grieves with him. Otherwise he who has been the most zealous advocate before his parents becomes before the brother himself the most vehement of accusers. But if a brother is guiltless when he is accused, though it is right to be subservient to parents in everything else and to endure all their wrath and displeasure, yet pleas and justifications offered to parents on behalf of a brother who is being undeservedly criticized or punished are honourable and not reprehensible; nor must one be afraid that the words of Sophocles[*] will be addressed to him:

Most shameless son, who with his father dare

To litigate,

when one is speaking with all frankness on behalf of a brother who seems to be receiving unfair treatment. For to the parents themselves, when they are proved wrong, such a litigation makes defeat sweeter than victory.

After the father is dead, however, even more

than before it is right for the brother to cling fast to his brother’s goodwill, immediately sharing his affection for the dead in tears and grief, rejecting the insinuations of servants and the calumnies of comrades who range themselves on the other side, and believing all the tales about the brotherly love of the Dioscuri and in particular the one which relates that Polydeuces[*] killed with a blow of his fist a man who whispered to him something against his brother.[*] And when they seek to divide their father’s goods, they should not first declare war on each other, as the majority do, and then, shouting

Hearken, Alala, daughter of War,[*]

go out to meet each other ready armed, but they must by all means be on their guard against that day of the division, knowing that for some brothers it is the beginning of implacable enmity and strife, but for others the beginning of friendship and concord. Let them preferably assemble alone by themselves; otherwise, let there be present some common friend as a witness equally friendly to both, and then by the lots of Justice, as Plato[*] says, let them, as they give and take what is suitable to each and preferred by each, be of the opinion that it is the care and administration of the estate that is being distributed, but that its use and ownership is left unassigned and undistributed for them all in common. But those who have outbidden their brothers by their shrewd calculations and then drag away from each other nurses and slave-boys, who have been brought up with their brothers and are their familiar companions, when they go away have got the better of their brothers by the value of a slave, but have lost the greatest and most valuable part of their inheritance, a brother’s friendship and confidence.

And some we know who, even with no thought of gain, but merely from the love of contention, deal with their father’s goods with no more decency than they would with spoils taken from an enemy. Of this number were Charicles and Antiochus the Opuntians, who would not part until they had split in two a silver cup and torn apart a cloak,[*] as though driven on by some imprecation from a tragedy to

Divide with whetted sword their heritage.[*]

Some even relate to outsiders boastfully how by knavery and craftiness and jugglery of accounts they have got the better of their brothers in the apportionment, when they ought rather to rejoice and to pride themselves on having surpassed their brothers in fairness and generosity and compliance. It is worth our while to illustrate this point by citing the case of Athenodorus, and indeed all my countrymen still speak of him. For he had an elder brother named Xenon, who, as administrator of Athenodorus’s estate, squandered a large part of his substance; at last Xenon raped a woman, was condemned in court, and lost the entire estate, made confiscate to the imperial treasury. But Athenodorus, although he was then still a beardless lad, yet when his portion of the money was restored to him, he did not neglect his brother, but put down all the money before them both and apportioned it; and even though he was being treated very unfairly in the division, he did not express indignation or change his mind, but calmly and cheerfully endured his brother’s folly, which had become notorious throughout Greece.

When Solon,[*] speaking of principles of government, said that equality does not create sedition, he was thought to be playing up too much to the crowd by introducing an arithmetical proportion, a democratic principle,[*] instead of the sound geometrical proportion.[*] As for a man who gives advice to brothers in the matter of a family estate after the manner of Plato’s[*] advice to the citizens of his state, to abolish, if possible, the notion of mine and not mine, but if he cannot do this, to cherish equality and cling to it, and thus lays a fair and abiding[*] foundation of concord and peace, let him also make use of eminent precedents, such as that reply of Pittacus to the king of Lydia[*] who inquired if Pittacus had money: Twice as much, said he, as I would wish, now that my brother is dead. But since it is not only the getting of money and the losing of it that makes less grow hostile to more, [*] but in general, as Plato[*] says, in inequality movement is produced and in equality rest and repose; thus all

manner of inequality is dangerous as likely to foster brothers’ quarrels, and though it is impossible for them to be equal and on the same footing in all respects (for on the one hand our natures at the very beginning make an unequal apportionment, and then later on our varying fortunes beget envies and jealousies, the most shameful diseases and baneful plagues,[*] ruinous not only for private houses, but for whole states as well); against these inequalities we must be on our guard and must cure them, if they arise. One would therefore advise a brother, in the first place, to make his brothers partners in those respects in which he is considered to be superior, adorning them with a portion of his repute and adopting them into his friendships, and if he is a cleverer speaker than they, to make his eloquence available for their use as though it were no less theirs than his; in the next place, to make manifest to them neither haughtiness nor disdain, but rather, by deferring to them and conforming his character to theirs, to make his superiority secure from envy and to equalize, so far as this is attainable, the disparity of his fortune by his moderation of spirit. Lucullus,[*] for instance, refused to hold office before his brother, older though he was, but forwent his own proper time for candidature and awaited his brother’s. And Polydeuces[*] refused to become even a god by himself, but chose rather to become a demigod with his brother and to share his mortal portion upon the condition of yielding to Castor part of his own immortality.

But you, fortunate man, one might say, are so

situated that, without in the least diminishing your present blessings, you can make another an equal sharer in them and give him a portion of your adornment so that he may enjoy the radiance, as it were, of your reputation or excellence or prosperity. Just so did Plato make his brothers famous by introducing them into the fairest of his writings, Glaucon and Adeimantus into the Republic, Antiphon the youngest into the Parmenides.

And further, just as there exist inequalities in the natures and the fortunes of brothers, so it is impossible that the one brother should excel at all points and in all ways. They say that the elements come into being from one substance, yet possess the most opposite faculties; but of two brothers sprung from one mother and father, no one ever saw the one, like the wise man of the Stoics,[*] at once handsome, gracious, liberal, eminent, rich, eloquent, learned, philanthropic, and the other ugly, graceless, illiberal, dishonoured, needy, a poor speaker, unlearned, misanthropic. Yet somehow or other there inheres, in even the more disreputable and humble creatures, some portion of grace or faculty or natural aptitude for some good thing:

As among urchin’s foot and rough rest-harrow[*]

There grow the blossoms of soft snow-drops.[*]

Therefore he who appears to have the better in other respects, if he does not try to curtail or conceal these points of vantage in his brother or thrust him, as though in athletic competitions, from the first places always, but yields in his turn and reveals that his brother is better and more useful in many respects, by thus continually removing all ground for envy, fuel for fire, as it were, will quench the envy, or rather will not allow it to spring up or begin at all. And he who continually makes his brother a helper and adviser in matters in which he himself is supposed to be superior, as in law-suits, being himself a barrister; in the conduct of office, himself a politician; in practical affairs, himself being fond of such-in brief, he that permits his brother to be left out of no task that is worthy of notice and would bring honour, but makes him a sharer in all honourable enterprises and employs him when present, waits for him when absent, and, in general, by showing that his brother is no less a man of affairs than himself, but merely more inclined to shrink from fame and power-he deprives himself of nothing, but adds a great deal to his brother.

Such is the advice, then, which one would give to the superior brother. The inferior brother, on the other hand, must reflect that his brother is not the only one who is richer or more learned or more famous than himself, but that he is frequently inferior to many others-ten thousand times ten thousand,

As many as enjoy the fruit of spacious earth[*];

whether, then, he envies every man as he walks about, or whether, among the vast number of fortunate beings, the only one that distresses him is his nearest and dearest, he has left no room for any other man to surpass him in wretchedness. Just as Metellus,[*] therefore, thought that Romans should be grateful to the gods because so great a man as Scipio was not born in any other city, so each one of us should pray that, if possible, he himself may succeed beyond all other men, yet if this cannot be, that his brother may have that superiority and influence so coveted by himself. But some are by nature so unfortunate in matters of right conduct that they exult in famous friends and are proud if they are on terms of hospitality with commanders and men of wealth, but consider that their brothers’ brilliance obscures their own; and that while they are elated by the narration of their fathers’ successes and their great-grandfathers’ high commands,[*] matters from which they received no benefit and in which they had no share, yet they are depressed and dejected when their brothers inherit fortunes, are elected to office, or contract marriages with famous families. And yet they should by all means envy no one; if this is impossible, they should turn their malignancy outwards[*] and drain it off on those not of their blood, just as men do who divert sedition from the city by means of foreign wars:

Many Trojans have I and famous allies,

And many Achaeans have you[*] -

by nature suitable objects for envy and jealousy.