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[17]
5. LAELIUS. I certainly should raise no objection
if I felt confidence in myself, for the subject is a
noble one, and we are, as Fannius said, free from
public business. But who am I? or what skill1
have I? What you suggest is a task for philosophers and, what is more, for Greeks—that of
discoursing on any subject however suddenly it
may be proposed to them. This is a difficult thing
to do and requires no little practice. Therefore,
for a discussion of everything possible to be said
on the subject of friendship, I advise you to apply
to those who profess that art; all that I can do is
to urge you to put friendship before all things
human; for nothing is so conformable to nature and
nothing so adaptable to our fortunes whether they
be favourable or adverse.
1 i.e. readiness acquired by practice in extemporaneous discussion—an art practised by sophists and rhetoricians and by the philosophers of the New Academy; of. Cic. De fin. ii. 1; De or. i. 102.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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