Toxaris, or Friendship (36-40)

I shall tell you of many deeds of blood and battles and deaths for the sake of friends, that you may know the achievements of your people to be child’s play in comparison with those of the Scythians.

Yet it is not unaccountable that this is so with you Greeks, but natural for you to praise these trivial matters; for you lack, you entirely lack momentous occasions for the display, of friendship, living as you do in profound peace. Just so in calm weather a man cannot tell whether his sailing-master is good; hé will need a storm to determine that. With us, however, wars are continuous, and we are always either invading the territory of others, or withdrawing before invaders, or meeting in battle over

First of all, I wish to tell you how we make our friends. Not through boon-companionship, as you do, nor because a man has been a comrade of ours in military training or a neighbour. No, when we see a brave man, capable of great achievements, we all make after him, and we think fit to behave in forming friendships as you do in seeking brides, paying them protracted court and doing everything in their company to the end that we may not fall short of attaining their friendship or be thought to deserve rejection. And whena man has been singled out and is at last a friend, there ensue formal compacts and the most solemn of oaths that we will not only live with one another but die, if need be, for each other; and we do just that. For, once we have cut our fingers, let the blood drip into a cup, dipped our sword-points into it, and then, both at once, have set it to our lips and drunk, there is nothing thereafter that can dissolve the bond between us.[*]_ We are permitted at most to enter into three such compacts, since a man of many friends resembles, we think, promiscuous women with their lovers, and we consider that his friendship is no longer of the same strength when it has been split up into a multitude of loyalties.

I shall begin with the affair of Dandamis, which

MNESIPPUS I scarcely felt the need of your swearing, but you did well to avoid taking oath by any god!

TOXARIS What is that you say? Do you not think Wind and Glaive are gods? Were you really so unaware that there is nothing more important to mankind than life and death? Well then, when we swear by Wind and Glaive, we do so because the wind is the source of life, and the glaive the cause of death.[*] MNESIPPUS Well, really, if that is the reason, you could have many other such gods as Glaive is—Arrow, Spear, Poison, Halter, and the like; for this god Death takes many shapes and puts at our disposal an infinite number of roads that lead to him.

TOXARIS Don’t you see how it smacks of sophists bickering and lawyers in court for you to act this way, interrupting and spoiling my story? I kept still while you were talking.

TOXARIS The friendship of Dandamis and Amizoces was three days old, counting from the time when they drank each other’s blood, when the Sauromatae descended upon our country with ten thousand horse; and the foot came over the border, it was said, in thrice that number. As our people had not foreseen their attack, they not only routed us completely when they fell upon us, but slew many of the fighting men and took the rest prisoners, except one or another who succeeded in swimming over to the other side of the river, where we had half our encampment and part of the wagons; for that was the way in which we had pitched our tents at the time, since for some reason unknown to me it had seemed good to the leaders of our horde—on both banks of the Tanais.[*]

At once they began to round up the cattle, secure the prisoners, plunder the tents, and seize the wagons, taking most of them with all their occupants and offering violence to our concubines and wives before our very eyes; and we were distressed over the situation.

But as Amizoces was being dragged away—for he had been taken—he called upon his friend by name because of his disgraceful captivity