SYNOPSIS.
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DE AMICITIA
1. Introduction.
2. Reputation of Laelius for wisdom. The curiosity to know how he bore the death of Scipio.
3. His grounds of consolation in his bereavement
4. He expresses his faith in immortality. Desires perpetual memory in this world of the friendship between himself and Scipio.
5. True friendship can exist only among good men.
6. Friendship defined.
7. Benefits derived from friendship.
8. Friendship founded not on need, but on nature.
9. The relation of utility to friendship.
10. Causes for the separation of friends.
11. How far love for friends may go.
12. Wrong never to be done at a friend's request.
13. Theories that degrade friendship
14. How friendships are formed.
15. Friendlessness wretched.
16. The limits of friendship.
17. In what sense and to what degree friends are united. How friends are to be chosen and tested.
18. The qualities to be sought in a friend.
19. Old friends not to be forsaken for new.
20. The duties of friendship between persons differing in ability, rank, or position.
21. How friendships should be dissolved, and how to guard against the necessity of dissolving them.
22. Unreasonable expectations of friends. Mutual respect necessary in true friendship.
23. Friendship necessary for all men.
24. Truth-telling, though it often gives offence, an essential duty from friend to friend.
25. The power of truth. The arts of flattery.
26. Flattery availing only with the feeble-minded.
27. Virtue the soul of friendship. Laelius describes the intimacy of the friendship between himself and Scipio.
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