Laelius on Friendship (71-75)

As, therefore, in the intimacy existing between friends and relatives the superior should put himself on a level with his inferior, so the latter ought not to grieve that he is surpassed by the former in intellect, fortune, or position. But many of the latter kind are continually uttering some complaints or reproaches even, especially if they think that they have done anything which they can speak of as an act of duty and of friendship, involving a certain amount of toil. A very disagreeable class of people, certainly, are those who are ever obtruding their own services, which ought to be kept in mind by him for whom they were performed and should not be mentioned by him who performed them.[*]

As, therefore, in friendship, those who are superior should lower themselves, so, in a measure, should they lift up their inferiors. For there are certain men who render friendships disagreeable by thinking themselves slighted—a thing which rarely happens, except in the case of persons who think that they really deserve to be slighted; but they ought to be relieved of such an opinion not by words only but by action.

Now, in the first place, you must render to each friend as much aid as you can, and, in the second place, as much as he whom you love and assist has the capacity to bear. For however eminent you may be, you cannot lead all your friends through the various grades to the highest official rank, as Scipio was able to do when he made Publius Rutilius consul, though he could not accomplish this result in the case of his brother, Lucius Rutilius. But even if you could bestow upon another any honour you chose, yet you must consider what he is able to bear.

As a rule decisions about friendships should be formed after strength and stability have been reached in mind and age; nor should men who in boyhood were devoted to hunting and games of ball, keep as their intimates those whom they loved at that period simply because they were fond of the same pursuits. For on that principle nurses and the slaves who attended us to and from school, will, by right of priority of acquaintance, claim the largest share of our goodwill. I admit that they are not to be neglected, but they are to be regarded in an entirely different way; under no other conditions can friendship remain secure.[*]For difference of character is attended by difference of taste and it is this diversity of taste that severs friendships; nor is there any other cause why good men cannot be friends to wicked men, or wicked men to good men, except that there is the greatest possible distance between them in character and in taste.

This rule also may properly be prescribed in friendship: Let not a sort of ungoverned goodwill (as very frequently happens) hinder your friends’ advantage in important matters. For indeed, if I may go back to legends, Neoptolemus could not have taken Troy if he had been willing to listen to Lycomedes, by whom he had been reared and who endeavoured with many tears to hinder him from setting out. Often, too, important duties arise which require the temporary separation of friends; and he who would hinder the discharge of those duties because he cannot easily bear his grief at the absence of his friends, is not only weak and effeminate, but, on that very account, is far from reasonable in his friendship.