19 Cicero, De Amicitia 74
A little further along in the dialogue, Laelius declares that we should form friendships only when we are adults because youthful associations may not be stable.
| 1 | [74] Omnīnō amīcitiae corrōborātis iam cōnfirmātisque et ingeniīs et aetātibus iūdicandae sunt, |
| 2 | nec, sī quī ineunte aetāte vēnandī aut pilae studiōsī fuērunt, eōs habēre necessāriōs, quōs tum eōdem studiō praeditōs dīlēxērunt. |
| 3 | Istō enim modō nūtrīcēs et paedagōgī iūre vetustātis plūrimum benevolentiae postulābunt; |
| 4 | quī neglegendī quidem nōn sunt, sed aliō quōdam modō aestimandī. |
| 5 | Aliter amīcitiae stabilēs permanēre nōn possunt. |
| 6 | Disparēs enim mōrēs disparia studia sequuntur, quōrum dissimilitūdō dissociat amīcitiās; |
| 7 | nec ob aliam causam ūllam bonī improbīs, improbī bonīs amīcī esse nōn possunt, nisi quod tanta est inter eōs, quanta maxima potest esse, mōrum studiōrumque distantia. |
| 1 | corrōborātīs cōnfirmātīsque et ingeniīs et aetātibus: datives with iūdicandae sunt; pluralization of abstract nouns is common in Latin and tends to make them more “concrete”. |
| 2 | quī: how do you know this isn’t a relative pronoun?
ineunte aetāte: you have seen this phrase before. habēre: you need to understand this as the complementary infinitive of a verb like dēbent (because the idea of necessity is hanging over from iūdicandae sunt in line 1). necessāriōs: this is a virtual synonym for amīcōs. |
| 3 | nūtrīcēs…paedagōgī: these two positions would have been held by trusted slaves in a Roman household; they would have been companions to a Roman boy from his earliest youth; the paedagōgus especially, because he accompanied him to and from school and frequently served as a sort of tutor, would have been on intimate terms with the boy. |
| 4 | aliō…modō: i.e., in some other way than one values friends. |
| 7 | improbīs…bonīs: both datives are construed with amīcī; one is a friend or friendly “to” someone else in Latin (as in English).
nisi quod: responds to the nec ob aliam causam ūllam. |
Interrogata
- Do you think that people of different social statuses can be true friends? Of different ages? Of different characters?
