'LAELIUS DE AMICITIA', MARCUS T. CICERO'S MASTERPIECE

The world is going downhill and we are passive spectators of this daily loss of humanity, ethics and good nature.

Anything goes to satisfy the desires and whims of a very small percentage of society that is voracious, selfish and greedy and uses all the power it has to repress and stifle what it does not like.

These are not good times for critical thinking, or even for thinking itself. Karl Popper's paradox becomes more evident every day: if a society is infinitely tolerant, its capacity to be tolerant will eventually be reduced or destroyed by the intolerant, therefore, paradoxically as it may seem, to maintain a tolerant society, society must be intolerant of intolerance. 

Intolerance is ignorance and in times when we have more technology at our disposal than ever, there are more communication problems; in a time when we can access more information than ever, we are more uninformed because we cannot give veracity to anything that comes to us through media that are totally servile to the power that subsidizes them.

We do not know what this new year will bring us, but nothing seems to think that we are in a position to be able to end the armed conflicts that plague the planet, among other things, because it is important that they exist and that they increase since they are the business of a few that costs the lives of many of us.

The history of humanity has always had turbulent times and now we are in a very uncertain and disappointing time, but humanity itself, when it has found itself in this dead end, has looked back many times and has sought inspiration and answers in the classics.

On a day like today in 106 BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero was born, Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher and Academic Skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire, one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists who wrote a masterpiece called Laelius De Amicitia, a treatise on friendship that is always required reading.

The Grandma is a lover of Latin culture and language ​​and this is one of her favourite works.

Laelius de Amicitia (or simply De Amicitia) is a treatise on friendship (amicitia) by the Roman statesman and author Marcus Tullius Cicero, written in 44 BC.

The work is written as a dialogue between prominent figures of the Middle Roman Republic and is set after the death of the younger Scipio Africanus (otherwise known as Scipio Aemilianus, Scipio Africanus Minor or Scipio the Younger) in 129 BC. The interlocutors of the dialogue chosen by Cicero are Gaius Laelius, a close friend of the late statesman, and Laelius's two sons-in-law, Gaius Fannius, and Quintus Mucius Scaevola. Cicero in his youth knew Scaevola and states that Scaevola described to him the substance of the conversation on Friendship which he and Fannius had held with Laelius a few days after the death of Scipio.

De Amicitia is addressed to Atticus, who, as Cicero tells him in his dedication, could not fail to discover his own portrait in the study of a perfect friend.

In the dialogue Fannius, the historian, and Mucius Scaevola, the Augur, both sons-in-law of Laelius, pay him a visit immediately after the sudden and suspicious death of Scipio Africanus.

The loss which Laelius had thus sustained leads to a eulogy on the virtues of the departed hero, and to a discussion on the nature of their friendship.

Many of the sentiments which Laelius utters are declared by Scaevola to have originally flowed from Scipio, with whom the nature and laws of friendship formed a favourite topic of discourse.

But I must at the very beginning lay down this principle -friendship can only exist between good men. We mean then by the "good" those whose actions and lives leave no question as to their honour, purity, equity, and liberality; who are free from greed, lust, and violence; and who have the courage of their convictions.

More information: Medium

The rule of friendship means there should be 
mutual sympathy between them, 
each supplying what the other lacks 
and trying to benefit the other, 
always using friendly and sincere words.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, LATIN LANGUAGE INFLUENCER

Today, The Grandma has been doing one of her favourite hobbies -reading in Latin and translate it to Catalan. She has chosen her favourite author, Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar and philosopher, who was killed on a day like today in 43 BC.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 BC-7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher and Academic Skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire.

His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics, and he is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC.

His influence on the Latin language was immense. He wrote more than three-quarters of extant Latin literature that is known to have existed in his lifetime, and it has been said that subsequent prose was either a reaction against or a return to his style, not only in Latin but in European languages up to the 19th century.

Cicero introduced into Latin the arguments of the chief schools of Hellenistic philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary with neologisms such as evidentia, humanitas, qualitas, quantitas, and essentia, distinguishing himself as a translator and philosopher.

Though he was an accomplished orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. It was during his consulship that the second Catilinarian conspiracy attempted to overthrow the government through an attack on the city by outside forces, and Cicero suppressed the revolt by summarily and controversially executing five conspirators.

During the chaotic middle period of the 1st century BC, marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government.

Following Caesar's death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. He was proscribed as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and consequently executed by soldiers operating on their behalf in 43 BC having been intercepted during an attempted flight from the Italian peninsula.

His severed hands and head were then, as a final revenge of Mark Antony, displayed on the Rostra.

Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, humanism, and classical Roman culture.

His works rank among the most influential in European culture, and today still constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for the writing and revision of Roman history, especially the last days of the Roman Republic.

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on 3 January 106 BC in Arpinum, a hill town 100 kilometres southeast of Rome. He belonged to the tribus Cornelia. His father was a well-to-do member of the equestrian order and possessed good connections in Rome. However, being a semi-invalid, he could not enter public life and studied extensively to compensate.

Although little is known about Cicero's mother, Helvia, it was common for the wives of significant Roman citizens to be responsible for the management of the household. Cicero's brother Quintus wrote in a letter that she was a thrifty housewife.

Cicero wanted to pursue a public career in politics, along the steps of the Cursus honorum. In 90-88 BC, he served both Pompeius Strabo and Lucius Cornelius Sulla as they campaigned in the Social War, though he had no taste for military life, being an intellectual first and foremost.

Cicero started his career as a lawyer around 83–81 BC. The first extant speech is a private case from 81 BC, the pro Quinctio, delivered when Cicero was aged 26, though he refers throughout to previous defences he had already undertaken.

His first office was as one of the twenty annual quaestors, a training post for serious public administration in a diversity of areas, but with a traditional emphasis on administration and rigorous accounting of public monies under the guidance of a senior magistrate or provincial commander. Cicero served as quaestor in western Sicily in 75 BC and demonstrated honesty and integrity in his dealings with the inhabitants.

Cicero, seizing the opportunity offered by optimate fear of reform, was elected consul for the year 63 BC; he was elected with the support of every unit of the centuriate assembly, rival members of the post-Sullan establishment, and the leaders of municipalities throughout post–Social War Italy. His co-consul for the year, Gaius Antonius Hybrida, played a minor role.

He began his consular year by opposing a land bill proposed by a plebeian tribune, which would have appointed commissioners with semi-permanent authority over land reform.

In 60 BC, Julius Caesar invited Cicero to be the fourth member of his existing partnership with Pompey and Marcus Licinius Crassus, an assembly that would eventually be called the First Triumvirate.

Cicero refused the invitation because he suspected it would undermine the Republic.

Cicero and Antony now became the two leading men in Rome: Cicero as spokesman for the Senate; Antony as consul, leader of the Caesarian faction, and unofficial executor of Caesar's public will. Relations between the two were never friendly, and worsened after Cicero claimed that Antony was taking liberties in interpreting Caesar's wishes and intentions.

Cicero and all of his contacts and supporters were numbered among the enemies of the state, even though Octavian argued for two days against Cicero being added to the list.

Cicero was one of the most viciously and doggedly hunted among the proscribed. He was viewed with sympathy by a large segment of the public, and many people refused to report that they had seen him.

He was caught on 7 December 43 BC leaving his villa in Formiae in a litter heading to the seaside, where he hoped to embark on a ship destined for Macedonia. When his killers -Herennius (a Centurion) and Popilius (a Tribune)- arrived, Cicero's own slaves said they had not seen him, but he was given away by Philologus, a freedman of his brother Quintus Cicero.

As reported by Seneca the Elder, according to the historian Aufidius Bassus, Cicero's last words are said to have been:

Ego vero consisto. Accede, veterane, et, si hoc saltim potes recte facere, incide cervicem.

I go no further: approach, veteran soldier, and, if you can at least do so much properly, sever this neck.

Download Extracts Narrative and Descriptive by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cicero has been traditionally considered the master of Latin prose, with Quintilian declaring that Cicero was not the name of a man, but of eloquence itself.

The English words Ciceronian (meaning eloquent) and cicerone (meaning local guide) derive from his name. He is credited with transforming Latin from a modest, utilitarian language into a versatile literary medium capable of expressing abstract and complicated thoughts with clarity.

Cicero was declared a righteous pagan by the Early Church, and therefore many of his works were deemed worthy of preservation. The Bogomils considered him a rare exception to a pagan saint.

Subsequent Roman and medieval Christian writers quoted liberally from his works De Re Publica (On the Commonwealth) and De Legibus (On the Laws), and much of his work has been recreated from these surviving fragments.

Cicero also articulated an early, abstract conceptualization of rights, based on ancient law and custom. Of Cicero's books, six on rhetoric have survived, as well as parts of seven on philosophy. Of his speeches, 88 were recorded, but only 52 survive.

Download The Republic by Marcus Tullius Cicero

If you have a garden and a library,
you have everything you need.

Marcus Tullius Cicero