16 Cicero, De Amicitia 33–35
Laelius turns now to address the reasons that friendships may come to an end. He does this by recalling arguments made by his great friend Scipio about how changes in taste over time or rivalry in love or for political office can destroy the relationship. This is, in effect, a dialogue within the dialogue—a reported speech of a reported speech, one of Plato’s favorite tricks in his Socratic dialogues.
| 1 | Audīte vērō, optumī virī, ea, quae saepissimē inter mē et Scīpiōnem dē amīcitiā disserēbantur. |
| 2 | Quamquam ille quidem nihil difficilius esse dīcēbat, quam amīcitiam usque ad extrēmum vītae diem permanēre. |
| 3 | Nam, vel ut nōn idem expedīret, incīdere saepe, vel ut dē rē pūblicā nōn idem sentīrētur; mūtārī etiam mōrēs hominum saepe dīcēbat, aliās adversīs rēbus, aliās aetāte ingravēscente. |
| 4 | Atque eārum rērum exemplum ex similitūdine capiēbat ineuntis aetātis, quod summī puerōrum amōrēs saepe ūnā cum praetextā togā pōnerentur; |
| 5 | [34] sīn autem ad adulēscentiam perdūxissent, dirimī tamen interdum contentiōne vel uxōriae condiciōnis vel commodī alicūius, quod idem adipīscī uterque nōn posset. |
| 6 | Quodsī quī longius in amīcitiā prōvectī essent, tamen saepe labefactārī, sī in honōris contentiōnem incīdissent; |
| 1 | optumī: remember that archaic forms sometimes swap “u” for an “i”. |
| 2 | quamquam: this is not the typical use as a subordinating conjunction (“although”); here it signals that the thought is continuing in a somewhat new direction: “and yet”. |
| 3 | incīdere: this verb is often used impersonally with an ut substantive (or noun) clause as its subject (incīdit ut… “it happens that…”); here there are TWO such noun clauses AND dīcēbat (line 3) is shifting the whole construction into an indirect statement.
mūtārī: another main verb inside indirect statement giving yet another reason for why friendships might end. aliās… aliās…: both referring back to mōrēs, and followed by an ablative absolute; note that adversīs rēbus lacks a participle because the participle would be an (nonexistent) participle of “to be.” |
| 4 | exemplum: “proof, pattern, image”; don’t confuse with the English derivative, “example”.
ineuntis aetātis: in combination with aetās the participle of ineō -īre means something like “early” (literally “entering”); the genitive case is regular with similitūdō (“analogy”). amōrēs: here, the friendship of young boys is characterized by the very strong idea of amor, the argument, therefore, is that even such strong connections can be broken; it is fickle, like amor and not stable like a foedus. amōrēs puerōrum: the accusative subject for the infinitive, dirimī, and as the object of perduxissent. Since this is all that Scipio said to Laelius, all of the conditional clauses in these final lines are also inside indirect statement, and that makes recognizing the subjunctive tenses even more of a challenge! (Check out AG 514d and 518b) ūnā cum: the adv. ūnā is often used to strengthen the preposition cum. praetextā togā: until they turned 16, young Roman boys wore a toga with a purple stripe (praetexta) at which point they took on the plain woolen toga virīlis. pōnerentur: why is this verb in the subjunctive? |
| 5 | dirimī: this and the following infinitives (labefactārī (11)… esse (12)… exstitisse (14) are main verbs inside an indirect statement (all going back to the construction in line 3, dīcēbat). |
| 6 | quī: remember, “after si, nisi, num, and ne all the ali-s fly away.”
honōris: here probably has the technical sense of “public office”; the cursus honōrum is the term used to describe the standard progression of aristocratic young Roman males through the public offices. |
