The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius - College of Stoic Philosophers

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP 299
wild and uncultivated, in which a considerable part of
our earlier days have been passed.
It frequently happens that there is a great disparity
between intimate friends both in point of rank and
talents. Now, under these circumstances, he who has
the advantage should never appear
sensible of his
superiority. Thus Scipio, who stood distinguished in
the little group, if I may so call it, of our select associates,
never discovered in his behaviour the least consciousness
of his pre-eminence over Philus, Rupilius, Memmius, or
any other of his particular connexions, who were of
subordinate abilities or station. And with regard to his
brother, Q. Maxirnus, who, although a man of great
merit, and his senior, was by no means comparable with
Scipio, he always treated him with as much deference
and regard as if he had advanced as far beyond him in
every other article as in point of years in short, ;
his constant endeavour to raise all his friends into an
it was
equal degree of consequence with himself, and his example
well deserves to be imitated. Whatever excellences,
therefore, a man may possess in respect to his virtues,
his intellectual
endowments, or the accidental favours of
fortune, he ought generously to communicate the benefits
of them with his friends and family. Agreeably to these
principles, should he happen to be descended from an
obscure ancestry, and see any of his relations in distressed
circumstances, or that require the assistance of his superior
power or abilities, it is incumbent upon him to employ
his credit, his riches, and his talents, to supply their
respective deficiencies, and reflect back upon them every
honour and advantage they are capable of receiving.
Dramatic writers, when the fabulous hero of their play,
after having been educated under some poor shepherd
ignorant of his true parent, is discovered to be of royal
lineage, or the offspring, perhaps, of some celestial divinity,
always think it
necessary to exhibit the noble youth as