On Brotherly Love (12-13)

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.