1Let us therefore first consider, if you please, how far love ought to go in friendship. 1If Coriolanus had friends, ought they to have borne arms against their country together with Coriolanus? 1Ought his friends to have helped Vecellinus when he aimed at kingship, or Maelius? 37Tiberius Gracchus, indeed, when he was harassing the state, we saw abandoned by Quintus Tubero and by the friends of his own age. 37But Gaius Blossius of Cumae, a guest-friend of your family, Scaevola, when he had come to me to plead for himself, since I was present as an adviser to the consuls Laenas and Rupilius, offered this reason why I should pardon him: that so highly had he esteemed Tiberius 37Gracchus that he thought he must do whatever Gracchus wished.
37Then I said, 'Even if he wanted you to carry torches to the Capitol?' 37'He would never have wanted that, of course; but if he had wanted it, I would have obeyed.' 37You see what a wicked utterance it is. 37And, by Hercules, he did just that, or even more than he said; 37for he did not obey Tiberius 37Gracchus's recklessness, but took the lead in it, and showed himself not the companion of his madness but its leader. 37And so, through this frenzy, terrified by the new court of inquiry, he fled to Asia, betook himself to the enemy, and paid the state a heavy and just penalty. 37There is, then, no excuse for wrongdoing if you have done wrong for a friend's sake; 37for since it was belief in a man's virtue that brought the friendship about, it is hard for the friendship to remain if you have deserted virtue.
38But if we were to lay it down as right either to grant our friends whatever they wish or to obtain from them whatever we wish, then, if we were indeed of perfect wisdom, the thing would have no fault in it; 38but we are speaking of the friends who are before our eyes, whom we see or of whom we have received a record, the friends whom everyday life knows. 38From this number we must take our examples, and above all from those who come closest to wisdom. 39We see that Papus Aemilius was an intimate friend of Gaius Luscinus (so we have heard from our fathers), and that they were twice consuls together and colleagues in the censorship; 39and further, that very closely joined both with them and with each other were Manius Curius and Tiberius 39Coruncanius: so it has been handed down to memory.
39Therefore we cannot even suspect that any of these men pressed a friend for anything that was against good faith, 39against an oath, or against the state. 39For in the case of such men, what is the point of saying that if one had pressed for it he would not have obtained it, since they were most upright men, and it is equally wicked to do such a thing when asked and to ask it? 39But Tiberius 39Gracchus was followed by Gaius Carbo and Gaius Cato, and, least of all at that time, by his brother Gaius, who is now the fiercest of them.