I'm reading his Laelius de Amicitia (translated On Friendship usually). Cicero, speaking through the character of Laelius, contends that friendship is higher than family or neighbor (the relations according to nature), for the very fact that it is not indissoluble. This is radically opposed to our culture's understanding, I think.
Among family, there can be breaches in trust, fidelity, and good-will. Family bonds can be played out partly or entirely on use or pleasure. Yet, family is always family, no matter what. This is why family is a baser form of love. In friendship, however, at the very moment good-will ceases in either one of the two, friendship ceases by definition. And, friendship is not even possible in the first place among those who lack virtue or merely seek to use others for pleasure or social advantages. Relationships such as those are not true friendships at all. Thus, for Cicero, friendship is the highest and rarest love among human beings, requiring more from a man than anything else, such that many or most men are not capable of giving or receiving it.
He says that friendships allow a man to thrive and prosper. In friendship, a man's fortune's are doubled (because two share them together) and his sorrows are halved (because the two share them together). However, it is not for any convenience to himself that a man enters into true friendship (this, again, would be a relationship of use, not friendship). Rather, he who is virtuous makes friends by virtue of his virtue itself, and any benefit is as a side effect.
I'm eager to read more.
Among family, there can be breaches in trust, fidelity, and good-will. Family bonds can be played out partly or entirely on use or pleasure. Yet, family is always family, no matter what. This is why family is a baser form of love. In friendship, however, at the very moment good-will ceases in either one of the two, friendship ceases by definition. And, friendship is not even possible in the first place among those who lack virtue or merely seek to use others for pleasure or social advantages. Relationships such as those are not true friendships at all. Thus, for Cicero, friendship is the highest and rarest love among human beings, requiring more from a man than anything else, such that many or most men are not capable of giving or receiving it.
He says that friendships allow a man to thrive and prosper. In friendship, a man's fortune's are doubled (because two share them together) and his sorrows are halved (because the two share them together). However, it is not for any convenience to himself that a man enters into true friendship (this, again, would be a relationship of use, not friendship). Rather, he who is virtuous makes friends by virtue of his virtue itself, and any benefit is as a side effect.
I'm eager to read more.