1And while friendship contains very many and very great advantages, it surely surpasses all in this, that it shines a good hope ahead into the future and does not allow spirits to be weakened or to fall. 1Moreover, he who looks upon a true friend looks, as it were, upon a kind of image of himself. 1Therefore the absent are present, the needy have plenty, the weak are strong, and, what is harder to say, the dead live; 1so great is the honour, the remembrance, the longing of their friends that attends them, from which the death of the one seems blessed and the life of the other praiseworthy. 1But if you were to take the bond of goodwill out of the nature of things, no house or city could stand, and not even the tilling of the fields would continue.
1If that is not clearly understood, how great the power of friendship and concord is can be perceived from dissensions and discords. 1For what house is so stable, what state so firm, that it could not be utterly overthrown by hatreds and divisions? 1From this one can judge how much good there is in friendship. 24They say indeed that a certain learned man of Agrigentum prophesied in Greek verses that whatever in the nature of things and in the whole universe stands fast and whatever moves, friendship draws together and discord scatters. 24And this indeed all mortals both understand and confirm in practice. 24And so, if ever some service of a friend has come to light, in either undergoing or sharing dangers, who is there that does not extol it with the highest praise?
24What shouts there were through the whole theatre lately at the new play of my host and friend Marcus Pacuvius, when, as the king did not know which of the two was Orestes, Pylades said that he was Orestes, so as to be put to death in his place, while Orestes, as was the truth, persisted that he was Orestes! 24They stood and applauded at a fiction; 24what do we think they would have done at the real thing? 24Nature herself easily showed her power, when men judged that rightly done in another which they could not do themselves. 24Thus far I seem to have been able to say what I feel about friendship; 24if there is anything more (and I believe there is much), seek it, if you see fit, from those who discuss such matters.
25FANNIUS. 25But we would rather seek it from you. 25Although I have often asked those men too and listened, not unwillingly indeed; but the thread of your discourse is of a different kind. 25SCAEVOLA. 25You would say that all the more, Fannius, if you had been present lately in Scipio's gardens, when there was a discussion about the state. 25What a champion of justice he was then against the careful speech of Philus! 25FANNIUS. 25That was easy, certainly, for the most just of men to defend justice. 25SCAEVOLA. 25What? 25And friendship, is that not easy for one who has won the greatest glory for having kept it with the utmost faithfulness, constancy and justice?