De Amicitia - on Friendship Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTES The "De Amicitia," or " Laelius," was written in 44 B. c., a little later than the " De Senectute," or " Cato Major," and at the request of Titus Pom- p... more »onius Atticus (see note 6), to whom both these treatises were addressed. It appeared at the close of a period of political inaction, but of great literary activity, in the life of Cicero, following the defeat of Pompey (at Pharsalus, August 9, 48 B. c.), whose cause he had espoused, and just preceding his quarrel with Antony and his assassination (December 7, 43 B. c.), by order of the second Triumvirate. Composed thus in a time of fierce civil strife, when the choice of party was often determined bypersonal relations toward the various leaders, it was designed, in part, to show both the importance of friendship to the welfare of the state, and the necessity of subordinating it to virtue and patriotism ; for the same reason the scene of the dialogue was fittingly placed in the age of the Gracchi which was marked by a like political unrest. Beyond this the discussion of friendship follows the lead of ancient ethics (of which this subject formed an essential part), considering and refuting, in particular, the opinions of the Stoics and Epicureans. The more important names and references are explained in the following notes : I. Quintus Mucius Scaevola, a distinguished jurist and statesman. He became tribune of the people in 128 B. c., plebeian edile in 125, governor of the province of Asia in 121, and consul, withL. Caecilius Metellus, in 117. It was the function of the college of Augurs, of which he was a member, to interpret the auspices (signs from the heavens, the direction of the flight of birds, etc.), with reference to proposed action on the part of the State, and to determine their validity. The office, which was ...« less