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Cicero On Friendship

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Cicero On Friendship
“Laelius: On Friendship” Marcus Tullius Cicero was the greatest and most prolific prose-writer of the Romans. Cicero’s writing On Friendship is one of his greatest. Almost everyone can relate to something in the text and find it very uplifting. Everyone has friends, which is why many can relate very easily to the text. Cicero identifies multiple characteristics of friendship throughout this writing. Cicero supports that people should choose their friends very wisely, and share everything with those friends. With saying this Cicero believed that loyalty and honesty are key components to having a good friendship. Cicero presents his essential views of friendship and proceeds to give practical advice on how to find and maintain good friends. Cicero had multiple characteristics on friendship; however in this paper only three of his characteristics of friendship will be discussed. According to Cicero, friendship is founded on a moral and ethical base, and there is a relationship between virtue and friendship. Virtue is essential for friendship and friendship helps in maintaining virtue. Virtue is behavior showing high moral standards. Therefore friendship is based on virtue, and friendship helps achieve greater virtue. Cicero supports this in his text by saying “Those who place the ultimate good in virtue act the most splendidly, and virtue produces and contains friendship within itself, nor can friendship exist in any way without virtue.” (Cicero 8). When choosing friends, it would be best to pick ones with the same morals. However regardless of different cultures and lifestyles almost everyone has similar morals. We should all aim to get the most out of a healthy relationship that includes learning good morals and virtues. Cicero’s second important characteristic for friendship is that it is a fundamental source of happiness and comfort. Friendship is seen as essentially inspired by love and where there is love there is happiness. There are several different


Cited: Cicero, Laelius: On Friendship. Trans. G. Malsbury. Belmont, NC: Belmont Abbey College, 2009.
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