The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

280 LJELIUS; OR,
immoderate desire of wealth, so among those of a more
liberal and exalted spirit, an inordinate thirst of glory is
usually the strongest bane of amity and each of them
;
have proved the occasion of converting the warmest
friends into the most implacable enemies.
He added, that great and just dissensions had arisen
also in numberless instances on account of improper
requests where a man has solicited his friend to assist
him, for example, in his lawless gallantries, or to support
him in some other act of equal dishonour and injustice.
A denial upon such occasions, though certainly laudable,
is generally deemed by the party refused to be a violation
of the rights of amity ; and he will probably resent it
the more, as applications of this nature necessarily imply
that the person who breaks through
all restraints in urging
them is equally disposed to make the same unwarrantable
concessions on his own part. Disagreements of this kind
have not only caused irreparable breaches between the
closest connexions, but have even kindled unextinguishable
animosities. In short, the common friendships of
the world are liable to be broken to pieces by such a
variety of accidents, that Scipio thought it required a
more than common portion, not only of good sense, but
of good fortune, to steer entirely clear of those numerous
and fatal rocks.
Our first inquiry therefore, if you please, shall be,
How far the claims of friendship may reasonably
extend ? For instance, ought the bosom friends of
Coriolanus (if any intimacies of that kind he had) to have
joined him in turning his arms against his country ; or
those of Viscelliuus, or Spurius Maelius, to have assisted
them in their designs of usurping the sovereign power ?
In those public commotions which were raised by
Tiberius Gracchus, it
appeared that neither Quintus
Tubero, nor any other of those persons with whom he
lived upon terms of the greatest intimacy, engaged in