her thou wilt tarry
here with me, or go back to Achaia with all that I have given thee."

Partly perforce of his banishment from his city, partly for that the
sweet friendship of Titus was justly dear to him, Gisippus consented to
become a Roman. And so, long and happily they lived together at Rome,
Gisippus with his Fulvia, and Titus with his Sophronia, in the same
house, growing, if possible, greater friends day by day.

Exceeding sacred then, is friendship, and worthy not only to be had in
veneration, but to be extolled with never-ending praise, as the most
dutiful mother of magnificence and seemliness, sister of gratitude and
charity, and foe to enmity and avarice; ever, without waiting to be
asked, ready to do as generously by another as she would be done by
herself. Rarely indeed is it to-day that twain are found, in whom her
most holy fruits are manifest; for which is most shamefully answerable
the covetousness of mankind, which, regarding only private interest, has
banished friendship beyond earth's farthest bourne, there to abide in
perpetual exile. How should love, or wealth, or kinship, how should aught
but friendship have so quickened the soul of Gisippus that the tears and
sighs of Titus should incline his heart to cede to him the fair and
gracious lady that was his betrothed and his beloved? Laws, menaces,
terror! How should these, how should aught but friendship, have withheld
Gisippus, in lonely places, in hidden retreats, in his own bed, from
enfolding (not perchance unsolicited by her) the fair damsel within his
youthful embrace? Honours, rewards, gains! Would Gisippus for these,
would he for aught but friendship, have made nothing of the loss of
kindred--his own and Sophronia's--have made nothing of the injurious
murmurs of the populace, have made nothing of mocks and scorns, so only
he might content his friend? And on the other hand, for what other cause
than friendship had Titus, when he might decently have feigned not to
see, have striven with the utmost zeal to compass his own death, and set
himself upon the cross in Gisippus' stead? And what but friendship had
left no place for suspicion in the soul of Titus, and filled it with a
most fervent desire to give his sister to Gisippus, albeit he saw him to
be reduced to extreme penury and destitution? But so it is that men covet
hosts of acquaintance, troops of kinsfolk, offspring in plenty; and the
number of their dependants increases with their weal