This article is written by Massimo Pigliucci, based on How to Be a Friend: An Ancient Guide to True Friendship, by Cicero, translated by Philip Freeman.

In order to console himself and relieve his distressed mind, Cicero wrote an astonishing number of philosophical treatises in the span of just a couple of years. One of these was De Amicitia. It’s written in dialogue form, as a conversation set in 129 BCE (before Cicero was born) featuring three characters: the then aged Roman general and orator Gaius Laelius and his two young sons-in-law, Gaius Fannius and Quintus Mucius Scaevola. Laelius had just lost his best friend, Scipio Aemilianus, and this loss was the occasion for the conversation on friendship among the three of them. Many years later, a young Scipio studied law with Scaevola, who told him about the episode. (Whether this is historically accurate or a literary invention by Cicero is beside the point.)

Plenty of people, of course, had written about friendship before, including both Plato and Aristotle, who greatly influenced Cicero. Yet, De Amicitia is special because of both its depth of feeling and its practical utility. Freeman, the translator, summarizes the take home messages in ten points:

1. There are different kinds of friendship. We make friends with people at different levels and for different reasons, from casual acquaintances to colleagues at work to buddies with whom to watch football on tv. But, hopefully, a small number of these people will belong to the highest category of friends, that of virtue. They are rare by necessity, because it takes time to find them and a lot of energy to cultivate the relationship. But it’s an effort well worth making.
2. Only good people can be true friends. If you don’t believe me, just watch the Sopranos. Friendship requires trust, wisdom, and basic goodness, otherwise it’s just a relationship of convenience.
3. We should choose our friends with care. A real friendship is a major investment, not just of time and effort, but emotionally. It can be very painful to break up with a friend, so we should take our time before deciding to commit.
4. Friends make you a better person. Human beings are fundamentally social animals and we learn from each other. Modern scientific evidence clearly shows that good people do significantly influence their friends in positive manners, truly making them better individuals.
5. Make new friends, but keep the old. Old friends are important because we share a large number of memories and experiences with them. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be open to new friendships, including with younger people, to create a series of binding bridges across generations.
6. Friends are honest with each other. This is really a corollary of (2) above. It’s easy to find people who will flatter you for their own advantage, but only a true friend will be willing to look you in the eyes and let you know when you are about to make a mistake or behave unvirtuously.
7. The reward of friendship is friendship itself. Friendships of virtue are not a business transaction, you do not engage in them because you want  material gain out of the relationship. You do it for the same reason you engage in a relationship with your partner or spouse: because you care about the other and because the connection you establish is intrinsically worth it.
8. A friend never asks another friend to do something wrong. Again, see the Sopranos. If a “friend” asks you to engage in unvirtuous acts then you ought to have serious doubts about the value of that friendship. Someone who wants you to lie, cheat, or do anything else shameful is likely not who you thought they were.
9. Friendships can change over time. As Heraclitus put it, panta rei, everything changes. This includes relationships and friendships. This is normal in life and to be expected, and hopefully you and your friend will grow together, rather than apart.
10. Without friends life is not worth living. To make the point, Cicero presents us with a thought experiment:

“Suppose a god carried you far away to a place where you were granted an abundance of every material good nature could wish for, but denied the possibility of ever seeing a human being. Wouldn’t you have to be as hard as iron to endure that sort of life? Wouldn’t you, utterly alone, lose every capacity for joy and pleasure?” (87)

You can read an expanded version of this article here: https://thephilosophygarden.substack. com/p/how-to-be-a-friend-with-cicero

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