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[62]
But Scipio—and I often recur to him, my sole
authority for a discourse on friendship—Scipio used
to complain that men were more painstaking in all
other things than in friendship; that everybody could
tell how many goats and sheep he had,1 but was
unable to tell the number of his friends; and that
men took pains in getting the former, but were
careless in choosing the latter, and had no certain
signs, or marks, so to speak, by which to determine
their fitness for friendship. We ought, therefore,
to choose men who are firm, steadfast and constant,
a class of which there is a great dearth; and at the
same time it is very hard to come to a decision
without a trial, while such trial can only be made
in actual friendship: thus friendship outruns the
judgement and takes away the opportunity of a trial.
1 Cf. Xen. Mem. ii. 4. 4; ib. ii. 4. 1.
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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