Scipio's Dream

De Amicitia

Scipio's Dream

By Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Translated, with an Introduction and Notes by Andrew P. Peabody

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

Cicero writes about his own experience with friendship. Cicero ponders the meaning of this friendship by using the relationship between Scipio Aemilianus and Laelius to expound his views.

The De Amicitia, inscribed, like the De Senectute, to Atticus, was probably written early in the year 44 B.C., during Cicero's retirement, after the death of Julius Caesar and before the conflict with Antony. The subject had been a favorite one with Greek philosophers, from whom Cicero always borrowed largely, or rather, whose materials he made fairly his own by the skill, richness, and beauty of his elaboration, Some passages of this treatise were evidently suggested by Plato; and Aulus Gellius says that Cicero made no little use of a now lost essay of Theophrastus on Friendship.

In this work I am especially impressed by Cicero's dramatic power. But for the mediocrity of his poetic genius, he might have won pre-eminent honor from the Muse of Tragedy. He here so thoroughly enters into the feelings of Laelius with reference to Scipio's death, that as we read we forget that it is not Laelius himself who is speaking.