low to friendship in the majority of cases was the lust
of gold, in the case of the best men it was a rivalry for office and
reputation, by which it had often happened that the most violent enmity
had arisen between the closest friends.

Again, wide breaches and, for the most part, justifiable ones were
caused by an immoral request being made of friends, to pander to a man's
unholy desires or to assist him in inflicting a wrong. A refusal, though
perfectly right, is attacked by those to whom they refuse compliance
as a violation of the laws of friendship. Now the people who have no
scruples as to the requests they make to their friends, thereby allow
that they are ready to have no scruples as to what they will do for
their friends; and it is the recriminations of such people which
commonly not only quench friendships, but give rise to lasting enmities.
"In fact," he used to say, "these fatalities overhang friendship in such
numbers that it requires not only wisdom but good luck also to escape
them all."

11. With these premises, then, let us first, if you please, examine
the question--how far ought personal feeling to go in friendship? For
instance: suppose Coriolanus to have had friends, ought they to have
joined him in invading his country? Again, in the case of Vecellinus
or Spurius Maelius, ought their friends to have assisted them in their
attempt to establish a tyranny? Take two instances of either line of
conduct. When Tiberius Gracchus attempted his revolutionary measures he
was deserted, as we saw, by Quintus Tubero and the friends of his own
standing. On the other hand, a friend of your own family, Scaevola,
Gains Blossius of Cumae, took a different course. I was acting as
assessor to the consuls Laenas and Rupilius to try the conspirators,
and Blossius pleaded for my pardon on the ground that his regard for
Tiberius Gracchus had been so high that he looked upon his wishes as
law. "Even if he had wished you to set fire to the Capitol?" said I.
"That is a thing," he replied, "that he never would have wished." "Ah,
but if he had wished it?" said I. "I would have obeyed." The wickedness
of such a speech needs no comment. And in point of fact he was as good
and better than his word for he did not wait for orders in the audacious
proceedings of Tiberius Gracchus, but was the head and front of them,
and was a leader rather than an abettor of his madness. The result
of his infatuation was that he fled to Asia, terri