Teaching Cicero's Laelius de Amicitia

Judith de Luce

Classical World, Volume 103, Number 1, Fall 2009, pp. 71-76 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.0.0147

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/365790

Access provided by Durham University (6 Nov 2018 11:57 GMT)

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PAEDAGOGUS
Special Section on Cicero’s de Amicitia
•
Teaching Cicero’s Laelius de Amicitia1

Abstract: In terms of content Cicero’s Laelius de Amicitia recommends

itself for the classroom and can ease the transition from artificial to original
Latin. Organizing such a course around the contextualization of friendship
challenges students to define friendship both for themselves and for the Romans
across the lifespan. Contemporary research into the nature and function of
friendship underscores the complexity of the relationship. In addition, apply-
ing Robert Butler’s theory of the life review to this essay illuminates Cicero’s
composing this discussion of friendship within the context of his own old age.
—
It is inappropriate to conceptualize friendship as a “natural”
or “pure” relationship, that is, as one based upon individual
choice, feelings and commitment. Rather its form and content
are inevitably influenced by circumstances—or contexts—under
which it is constructed. 2
I. Introduction
The Laelius de Amicitia recommends itself for the classroom for a variety
of reasons. For one thing, it is by a canonical Latin author and is an essay of
manageable length available in electronic as well as traditional texts supported
by commentary and translation. It also recommends itself as a suitable text
for the notoriously difficult transition from intermediate artificial to original
Latin. A range of secondary discussions of friendship among the Greeks and
Romans and in Cicero in particular can easily support a course which takes
the de Amicitia as its focus. In addition, its content has genuine appeal for
students at the secondary and collegiate level. Many of our students are of
an age when they are actively developing their self-identity, and this includes
making decisions about who their friends will be.

II. Establishing Contexts

To organize a course on the de Amicitia around the theme of the contex-
tualization of friendship, I have chosen four examples of the kinds of themes
and issues which I would raise in such a class. We would begin by addressing
1
A leave from the College of Arts and Science at Miami University allowed me to
do the reading for this article. The inspiration for this collection of articles on Cicero’s
Laelius de Amicitia comes from a Classical Association of the Middle West and South
panel held at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1997 entitled “Reading Cicero’s
Laelius de Amicitia in Context” in which John Gruber-Miller and I participated. Those
attending the panel showed considerable interest in using this text in Latin, civilization,
and literature classes at the secondary as well as the collegiate level. Many were interested
in the variety of topics relevant to reading the essay, including Cicero’s perspective on
friendship, Roman and Greek friendship patterns, the philosophical tradition regarding
friendship, and friendship compared with other forms of social relations among the Ro-
mans. We have expanded that original panel to include here four articles, each of which
takes a particular approach to teaching the de Amicitia. These essays do not provide an
exhaustive discussion of how to teach Cicero so much as they suggest, taken together,
the breadth of approaches and resources available for the study of the de Amicitia.
2
G. Allan, “Friendship, Sociology and Social Structure,” Journal of Social and
Personal Relationships 15 (1998) 689.
71
72 C lassical W orld
some of the contexts within which the de Amicitia was written, such as the
philosophical tradition of discussing friendship and Roman attitudes toward
personal relationships including kin, relatives, and friends. For my purposes
the class would discuss in depth both the public and the private lives of
Cicero at this time. Cicero wrote most of his philosophical works between
45 and 44 b . c . e .; the political climate in Rome was such that he withdrew
from public life and occupied his time with writing. He was suffering the
profound loss of the public role which had defined his life, but he was suf-
fering another loss every bit as profound, the death of his beloved daughter
Tullia, who died in the spring of 45. We know from letters which he wrote
to close friends and which they wrote him about Tullia’s death just how
devastated he was by the loss of his daughter (Att., 7.15–16; Fam., 4.6–7) He
had also divorced his second wife, Publilia. Finally, but not insignificantly,
at sixty-two Cicero was an old man in Roman terms. 3

III. Defining “Friendship”

Continuing the theme of contextualization, I would ask the class to consider
the assumptions about friendship that they bring to a reading of Cicero. We
would discuss in particular modern Western definitions of friendship and the
extent to which current definitions might affect interpretations of the essay.
At the start of her book on friendship processes, Beverly Fehr asks, “Is it
possible to meaningfully study a concept for which there is no agreed-upon
definition?” 4 With that warning in mind, we can take advantage of recent
work by sociologists and social-psychologists in particular. I have included
below some perspectives that bear most provocatively on what we find in
Cicero. This is not to say that amicitia in Republican Rome and friendship
in the United States in late modernity necessarily resemble or differ from
each other. Rather, contemporary research into the nature and function of
friendship underscores the complexity of the relationship and challenges us
above all to notice all those factors that comprise amicitia for Cicero.
William Rawlins identifies five characteristics of friendship:
1) Friendship is voluntary “. . . even though friendships
may coincide with family ties, work, and neighborhood
affiliations.” 5
2) Individuals privately negotiate friendship; people choose
friends not as representatives of a group or class but for
their particular personal qualities.
3) Friendship is an egalitarian relationship. 6 This calls for
further comment. As Graham Allan points out, “One of
the key characteristics of friendship is that it is, broadly
speaking, a tie of equality. That is, there is an expectation
of reciprocity within the relationship, though the time frame
for this and the measurements of equivalence of exchange
vary across relationships.” Because of this characteristic
of equality, friendship plays a significant role in shaping

3
J. de Luce, “Theme and Variations in the De Senectute,” Journal of Aging
Studies, 7 (1994) 361–71.
4
B. Fehr, Friendship Processes (Thousand Oaks, Calif., 1996) 5.
5
W. K. Rawlins, “Friendships in Later Life,” in J. F. Nussbaum and J. Coupland,
eds., Handbook of Communication and Aging Research (Mahwah, N.J., 1995) 229.
6
Rawlins (above, n.5) 230.
 P aedagogus 73
people’s social identities; “. . . individuals affirm their
own position, cement their status, and give substance to
their identities.” 7
4) The mutual involvement in friendship entails shared
social reality and history.
5) Friendship is based on affection.
But these characteristics do not tell the whole story. Adams and Allan
observe that “. . . friendships, like other seemingly personal ties, are not
fashioned solely by those involved. On the one hand . . . they entail people
making decisions about which specific others they are going to engage
with. . . . On the other, it should be evident that these choices are not made
in isolation.” 8 Factors that can influence friendship patterns include gender,
sexual orientation, age and life-stage, geographical location, religion, politics,
migration histories, domestic relations, divorce, class, ethnicity, and race.
As Adams and Allan also remind us,” . . . friendships do not operate in some
abstract, decontextualised world. Like all other types of personal relationships,
they are constructed—developed, modified, sustained, and ended—by individuals
acting in contextualised settings.” 9 By “context” they mean those conditions
external to the creation and course of particular friendships. Adams and Allan
identify four levels of context: the personal environment level encompasses
“immediate features of a person’s life which affect the character and pattern
of the friendships which they develop and sustain.” 10 This level includes such
features as economic circumstances, domestic responsibilities, work, etc.,
features which limit or create opportunities for sociability. The network level
is the network of personal relationships which each person maintains. 11 The
community level includes such features as family, love, work, survival, daily
activities; that is, the social lives and personal relationships of participants.
Finally, the societal level is the most removed from the individual. This in-
cludes “economic and social structures which dominate at any time [and] have
an impact on the forms which different personal relationships take.” 12
As economic and social conditions change, so do friendships. Here our
students could speak to the impact of e-mail, text-messaging, Facebook, and
the like on making and maintaining friendships.
Friendship patterns influence our sense of self; “. . . our friends often
serve to confirm our own self-identity. They help us authenticate our place in
the world, our standing within the hierarchies and divisions of society. Yet,
more than this, our friends provide us with a sense of individuality which
at one level appears as a validation of our personal uniqueness.” 13
Matthews reminds us that we do not enter into friendships in the same
way, that there are individual variations. In discussing friendship as a non-
institutionalized relationship Matthews identifies three friendship “styles,”
each of which has a different way of initiating, maintaining, and ending
friendships. Those who display the independent style allow circumstances to

7
Allan (above, n.2) 693–94.
R. Adams and G. Allan eds., Placing Friendship in Context (Cambridge 1998) 190.
8

9
Adams and Allan (above, n.8) 3.
10
Adams and Allan (above, n.8) 6.
11
Adams and Allan (above, n.8) 7.
12
Adams and Allan (above, n.8) 9.
13
Adams and Allan (above, n.8) 191.
74 C lassical W orld
dictate their associations and tend to live very much in the present. 14 Those
who follow a discerning style identify a few people over the course of their
lives to whom they feel especially close and who are important to them. 15
The discerning are much more focused on the past and the importance of
the history of their relationships with a few people. The acquisitive style
includes people who throughout their lives collect “a variety of friendships,
allowing circumstances to make possible the meeting of likely candidates
but, then, committing themselves to friendships once they were made, at the
very least for the period of time during which they and their friends were
geographically proximate.” Unlike the discerning, the acquisitive are open
to making new friends. 16
Several assignments can grow out of this material. At this stage the stu-
dents might trace the course of their own friendships, keeping the friendship
research in mind and tracing the patterns of contextualization in their own
relationships. They could consider the course of famous historical as well
as non-Roman friendships. Certainly they should apply friendship theory to
understanding better the nature and course of friendship patterns described
in Cicero’s essay.

IV. Friendship across the Lifespan

De Amicitia is practically the companion piece of de Senectute; as such,
we should read it with the same sensitivity to Cicero’s age as we read the
earlier essay. Cicero himself makes the connection between the two in a
variety of ways: he dedicates both essays to Atticus; Laelius appears in both
essays, first as an interlocutor, then as the spokesperson. And Cicero recalls
the earlier essay at the very start: Sed ut tum ad senem senex de senectute,
sic hoc libro ad amicum amicissimus scripsi de amicitia (de Am. 1.5).
There is no discussion of amicitia per se in the de Senectute; we have to
wait for the de Amicitia for that. Cato goes on at some length describing his
friend Quintus Fabius Maximus, although the point of the discussion is not
their friendship but the quality of his friend’s old age. Cicero does not include
want of friends as one of the four reasons old age appears to be unhappy.
In 8.26 Cato considers the great pleasure for wise elders who attract the
interest and esteem of young men. Finally, in 17.61 Cato concludes that the
apex of old age is auctoritas; we might want to consider whether auctoritas
is a feature of amicitia. Cicero does not include an overt discussion of old
age in the de Amicitia, perhaps because he had already discussed it in the
earlier essay. Nonetheless, Cicero does take a lifespan approach to friendship,
even considering what happens to friendships formed in early youth. Were
he a younger man, Cicero might not take such an approach; at the very least
one wonders what relationships of his own he might be reflecting on as he
writes about the formation and maintenance of amicitia.
Keeping in mind not only Cicero’s chronological age but the conditions of
his life at the time, we can consider what friendship means to this particular
old man. We might begin by asking what we assume about friendship in old
age. To what extent do we rely on a stereotype of frail elders whose lives
are marked by persistent loss, including the loss of friends? While much of
the friendship research has been done on college-age individuals, we can
learn something from those studies that look at friendship across the lifespan.

14
S. H. Matthews, “Friendship Styles” in Aging and Everyday Life, J. F. Gu-
brium and J. A. Holstein, eds. (Malden, Mass., 2000) 158, 173.
15
Matthews (above, n.14) 164.
16
Matthews (above, n.14) 169.
 P aedagogus 75
“Data consistently indicate that although family members
are close and intimate members of most elderly people’s
network, friends are named as the people with whom they
enjoy spending time, engage in leisure activities, and have
daily or frequent contact and who have the most significant
impact on well-being. . . . Thus, although the absolute
number of social relations is smaller in succeeding age
groups, the role of friends appears to remain important
throughout life. . . .” 17
Moreover, the homophily characteristic of friends notwithstanding, in old
age friendships may become increasingly intergenerational.
It appears that in general across the generations people agree on those features
characteristic of friendships: play, prosocial behavior, and absence of aggression,
for example, appear in children’s as well as adolescents’ views of friendship. 18
Adults stress reciprocity as well as compatibility, openness, acceptance, and
similarity. All age groups identify in friendships common interests, the friend as
giver, intimacy, and activities in common. “Valued characteristics of friendships
do not seem to change greatly with age. These include enjoyment, understand-
ing, trust, affection, respect, acceptance, spontaneity.” 19 Across the lifespan
“. . . friendship is a voluntary, personal relationship typically providing intimacy
and assistance. . . . Characteristics such as trust, loyalty, and self-disclosure
emerge and solidify in adolescence and remain important throughout adulthood.”20
At this point, students will want to look at the history of Cicero’s friend-
ships: what evidence do we have for them? Who were his closest friends?
Who were more casual acquaintances? What friendships did he form as a
younger man? Did those friendships survive the tumultuous times in which
he lived? Do we see changes in his friendship patterns as he ages? What is
the relationship between amicitia and public life, amicitia and private life?

V. De Amicitia and a Life-Review?

Reading the essay as the product of old age can be an effective strategy
for thinking about Cicero at this time of his life, the Republican politics of
the day, and the relationship between friendship and age. I have suggested in
another context that Cicero may have been engaging in what Robert Butler
has called a “life-review” when he wrote the de Senectute. 21 According to
Butler, under particular kinds of stress—a life-threatening illness, extreme old
age, grief—one engages in “a naturally occurring, universal mental process
characterized by the progressive return to consciousness of past experiences,
and particularly, the resurgence of unresolved conflicts.” 22 The process is
“prompted by the realization of approaching dissolution and death, and the
inability to maintain one’s sense of personal invulnerability. It is further
shaped by contemporaneous experiences and its nature and outcome are af-
fected by the lifelong unfolding of character.” 23 It can be a painful process
17
T. C. Antonucci and H. Akiyama, “Convoys of Social Relations: Family and
Friendships within a Life Span Context” in Handbook of Aging and the Family, R.
Blieszner and V. Hilkevitch Bedford, eds., (Westport, Conn., 1995) 361.
18
Fehr (above, n.4) 10.
19
Antonucci and Akiyama (above, n.17) 361.
20
Fehr (above, n.4) 20.
21
J. de Luce (above, n.3) 361–71.
22
R. N. Butler, “The Life-Review: An Interpretation of Reminiscences in the
Aged,” Psychiatry 26 (1963) 66.
23
Butler (above, n.22)
76 C lassical W orld
which gives rise to depression, anxiety, dissatisfaction with one’s life, but
it can also have beneficial results, allowing the individual to come to terms
with her/his past, to discover that her/his life has had meaning.
Perhaps Cicero was still engaged in such a review when he turned to
writing about friendship. In this class we can try applying Butler’s theory
of the life-review as we look at friendship across the lifespan. Certainly
Cicero’s circumstances were right for a life-review. Cicero was suffering
from a variety of severe losses at the same time that he faced the stress
of a politically and personally turbulent period. His response to politics in
Rome after Caesar’s death might be interpreted as growing in part out of
a positive life-review. That is, under the stress of his public and private
life, Cicero had occasion to explore the nature of old age and the nature
of friendship. Perhaps writing about amicitia allowed him to take stock of
his own friendships, particularly those which grew out of Roman politics.
Perhaps this taking stock, begun with the de Senectute, left Cicero convinced
of the importance of his political contributions to the Republic in the past. If
Cicero was in fact engaged in a life-review, the process seems to have been
a successful one, as he emerged from retirement and returned with renewed
and bold purpose to public life with the Philippics.
In this essay I have tried to suggest several ways we might look in class
at the contexts of friendship. The essays which follow provide models of
still further ways one might teach the de Amiticia.
Miami University Judith de Luce
Classical World 103.1 (2009) delucej@muohio.edu

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