On Friendship (De Amicitia)

Cicero wrote On Friendship, also called Laelius, in 44 BC as a companion to his On Old Age, and dedicated it, too, to his friend Atticus. It is a dialogue set in 129 BC, a few days after the death of Scipio Aemilianus, in which Scipio's closest friend, Gaius Laelius, talks about friendship to his sons-in-law Gaius Fannius and Quintus Mucius Scaevola.

After the introduction, Laelius explains how he bears his grief at Scipio's death, consoled by the thought of his friend's happy life and the survival of the soul. Pressed by the young men, he defines friendship as agreement in all things, with goodwill and affection, and argues that it can exist only among good men. Friendship springs from nature, not from need or profit, and is founded on virtue. He recalls Scipio's view of the dangers to friendship and asks how far a friend may go: no friendship excuses treason, and the first law is never to ask or do anything wrong for a friend's sake. He goes on to discuss why tyrants and the rich have no friends, false limits of friendship, care in choosing friends, loyalty and candour, old and new friendships and friendships between unequals, how to end a friendship without enmity, and the difference between frank advice and flattery. He ends by praising virtue and his friendship with Scipio.

On Friendship has influenced European thought on the subject from Ambrose and Aelred to Montaigne. Its prose is clear, warm and more relaxed than Cicero's speeches.