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Classical World, Volume 103, Number 1, Fall 2009, pp. 88-92 (Article)

DOI: 10.1353/clw.0.0154 

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  1  T. N. Habinek, “Towards a History of Friendly Advice: The Politics of Candorin Cicero’s de Amicitia,”  Apeiron  23 (1990) 165–85.

2  J. P. Hallett, “Heeding our Native Informants: The Uses of Latin LiteraryTexts in Recovering Elite Roman Attitudes Toward Age, Gender, and Social Status,” Echos du Monde Clas sique/Class ical Views   36 (1992) 333–55.

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EXPLORING R ELATIONSHIPS: A MICITIA AND F  AMILIA 

IN CICERO’S  DE  A MICITIA

ABSTRACT:  In Cicero’s de Amicitia , it is st rik ing that Cicero ut ilizesthe vocabulary of family relationships to describe friendship and createsa dialogue that focuses on interlocutors who are both friends and familymembers who are joined through marriage. After briefly introducing read-ers to the intersection between friendship and familial relationships in thedialogue, a set of learning activities is presented to help students explorethe dynamics of family and friendship in Roman society, to compare Ro-man concepts of family and friendship to contemporary ideas, and finallyto compare Cicero’s idealized version of friendship in the dialogue withactual relationships seen in the letters.

At first glance, friendship and family appear to be mutually exclusivecategories. In fact, we might define friends as those with whom we share bonds of trust, with whom we share joys and sorrows outside the family,while we might define family members as those with whom we are united

 by blood or marriage. Cicero’s  Laelius de Amicitia   poses a challenge to thissimple dichotomy and offers its readers an opportunity to reexamine whatit means to be a friend and a member of a family. While Cicero’s dialoguecontains Hellenistic, philosophical ideas on friendship, it is also meant to bea particularly Roman response to the idea of friendship. 1  In the same way,Cicero’s dialogue provokes a personal response even today, 2  and offers awonderful opportunity for readers to compare Roman notions of friendshipand family with current attitudes, to explore not only abstract notions offriendship and family but also examples from the lives of those we know. Inwhat follows I present a learning scenario, using Cicero’s  Laelius de Amicitia as the locus, to help students see the interconnection of the two concepts,and see how these terms are constructed in ways unique to each culture.

As soon as readers plunge into the dialogue, they realize that Cicero is usingthe language of the household and kinship to describe relationships. Scaevolaand Fannius are acting as friends as they listen to Laelius speak about Scipioand friendship, yet they were in fact married to Laelius’ daughters (de Gaio

 Laelio socero suo , 1; cum altero genero Gaio Fannio, 3). The first word todescribe a friend in the dialogue is  familiaris  (2), a word whose root remindsone of family. In the same section, Publius Sulpicius’ relationship with Q.

Pompeius is described as coniunctissime et amantissime  (2) before Sulpiciusattacks Pompeius (and Sulla) in 88 over the command of Marius againstMithridates. Later in the dialogue, Aemilius Papus and Fabricius Luscinus aredescribed as  familiares  (39), and still later friends are described as quocum

 familiariter vixeris  (77). Even more striking is that Laelius twice claims, bothat the beginning and at the end of the dialogue, that he shared “one house,one common way of life” (una domus, idem victus isque communis  103; see15). Even the exempla that Cicero uses to emphasize that friendship is rootedin nature rather than in utility often refer to familial relationships (27, 50).

 Familia  was both broader (in that it included parents and their childrenas well as slaves and dependents) and narrower (referring only to household

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3  R. P. Saller, “ Familia, Domus, and the Roman Conception of the Family,” Phoe nix  38 (1984) 336–55; see now his  Patriarchy, Proper ty and Death in the Ro-man Family  (Cambridge 1994) 74–101.

4  S. Dixon, The Roman Family  (Baltimore 1992), esp. chapter 1.5  D. B. Martin, “The Construction of the Ancient Family: Methodological

Considerations,”  JR S   86 (1996) 49–50.6  Martin (above, n.5) 53.7  R. P. Saller, “The Language and Ideology of Patronage,” in  Personal Patron-

age under the Early Empire  (Cambridge 1982) 7–39.

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slaves) than our conception of family. In addition, it included notions of property and inheritance, something that modern definitions do not normallyconsider essential to the definition. It also overlaps with Roman notions of

 patronage in that  familia can include those who depend on the  pater  or mater familias: slaves and freedmen and freedwomen. As Richard Saller has shown,the Romans preferred the term domus  to  familia  when they wanted to referto lineage and kinship.3  Indeed, our understanding of a Roman family hasshifted from an extended family to the nuclear family to a more nuanced no-tion of the Roman family.4 Dale Martin asks what the crucial factors are fordefining a Roman (or other) family: kinship, co-residence, adoption, marriage(and remarriage), number of generations, economic interdependence, legaldefinitions, cooperation in the production and consumption of goods? Allthese criteria are problematic when one looks at families from a comparative

 perspective.5  When one looks at Roman inscriptions, moreover, many tomb-stones are set up by a wide variety of “family members” for other membersof the “family”: parents, children, grandparents, siblings, in-laws, slaves,freed, and nurslings. For example, siblings and their children are found buriedtogether, slaves and nurslings with blood relations, multiple generations, orin-laws with blood relations. Martin argues that “the coherent nuclear familyis not necessarily the dominant arrangement for burial. We might say thatthe nuclear family holds a ‘gravitational pull’ in the inscriptions. It providesthe nucleus  for a great variety of actual family structures.” 6

If it is not so easy to delimit “family,” neither is it a simple matter todefine friendship. Cicero—any Roman—faced a predicament when he attemptedto write about amicitia, “friendship.” For amicus  encompassed a much widerrange of meaning than our “friend.” Of course, it could mean “friend,” but

it could just as easily refer to someone whom we might refer to as a col-league, business associate, political ally, or an acquaintance. Furthermore, itneed not refer only to peers, but to a wide variety of unequal relationships,whether we call them advocate and client or patron and freedman. Yet Ro-mans avoided using terms such as  patronus  or cliens, preferring to use themore positive term amicus.7  While Cicero stresses that friendship is basedon affection (caritas) and good will (benevolentia), he also recognizes theimportance of reciprocal benefactions and obligations for friendship. It isthe conjunction of good will (23, 26), the performing of one’s duties (8),and reciprocating with beneficia  (29–32, 49–51) that reinforces the mutualagreement (consensio 20) of good friends. These bonds are solidified between

friends, just as they are between families, because of the exchange of favors,advice, and assistance. In other words, families and friends were linked bymany of the same bonds, and as in the case of Cicero and Atticus, friendswere sometimes linked to families through marriage.

In what follows, I offer a number of activities designed to help studentsdevelop an understanding of Roman friendship and the Roman family. At thesame time, I want them to comprehend the complexity of defining these re-lationships in our own society as well. The first step in reading de Amicitia,

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therefore, is to create expectations and get students to predict what they mightfind in this work.8 At the same time, if students are to become engaged, theyneed to develop their own definitions of friendship and family. Before students

 begin to read de Amicitia, I ask them to spend some time individually and thenin small groups defining (in English) what they think a friend is and what afamily is and what, if any, connection there is between the two. Since definingabstract concepts can be tricky, it might be useful to start with more specificquestions: What are the adjectives associated with friendship and family (e.g.,

 personal, private, dependable, loyal)? What synonyms do we have for friends(e.g., acquaintance, partner, colleague, compatriot, companion, ally) and familymember (e.g., father, mother, cousin, relative, daughter-in-law)? Finally, whatare some examples of friends that they know of from their reading, from theirknowledge of popular culture, or from personal experience?

Second, the setting and participants of the de Amicitia need to be introduced before reading the dialogue. In fact, the dialogue features four generations:Scipio Africanus and the elder Laelius, Laelius (the speaker in the dialogue)and his friend Scipio Aemilianus, C. Fannius and Mucius Scaevola (Laelius’audience), and Cicero (Scaevola’s protégé) and Atticus (Cicero’s dedicatee).An excellent way to introduce these participants is to ask students to labelthe significant members of the family trees 9  with appropriate kinship termi-nology ( pater , mater ,  filius,  filia,  socer ,  gener, nepos). For example,  Laeliusest filius Gaii, pater Laeliae maioris et Laeliae minoris, socer C. Fannii etQ. Mucii Scaevolae. Students not only learn the relationships of each of themajor characters but also become acquainted with Roman kinship terminology.

Once readers have been prepared for the various major themes and vo-cabulary of the dialogue, it is time to begin reading. In order to build on the

family tree exercise and come to a deeper understanding of the relationshipsthat frame the dialogue as well as those mentioned as exempla later in thework, students could research the life and relationships of one of the charac-ters named in the first few sections. Using reference works such as the OCD and  MRR, supplemented by other works such as Astin’s Scipio Aemilianus,10 students should discover not just who these people were, but also explorethe different kinds of bonds that united them: bonds of kinship, marriage,

 patronage, and friendship. As students present the results of their research,they can begin to discover that these characters—the Laelii and Scipiones,Fannius and Scaevolus, Cicero and Atticus—are united in many more waysthan simply friendship and that a nexus of blood ties, marriage, reciprocal

obligations, and affection bind them together in friendship.When students reach Laelius’ first speech about friendship, they can

construct a semantic map that lays out in graphic form various clusters ofwords associated with friendship. At the same time, students can recall andcompare their first thoughts about friendship that they developed in English

8  For practical activities to do before reading, while reading, and after reading,see M. A. Barnett,  More than Meets the Eye: Foreign Language Reading   (EnglewoodCliffs 1989); J. Gruber-Miller, “Toward Fluency and Accuracy: A Reading Approachto College Latin,” in R. A. LaFleur, ed.,  La tin for the 21st Ce ntur y: From Conc eptto Classroom  (Glenview, Ill., 1998) 162–75; J. K. Phillips, “Practical Implications of

Recent Research in Reading,”  Fore ign Language Annals   17 (1984) 285–96.9  J. G. F. Powell, ed., Cicero: On Friendship  and the Dream of Scipio (Warm-inster 1990) 10, offers a useful set of family trees.

10  E.g. S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary,3rd ed. (Oxford 1996); T. R. S. Broughton,  Magist rates of the Roman Republic (NewYork 1951–52); A. E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus  (Oxford 1967).

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 before they began reading. A semantic map for amicitia, based on the Laelius17–24, might look as follows:

Qualis est amicus/amica? Quid amici agunt?

Familiaris est. consentiunt de rebus (20).Iucundus/a est. beneficia dant (20).Verus/a est. Colloquuntur omnia (22).  In prosperis gaudent (22).  Adversas ferunt (22).

Amicitia

Quas virtutes amici monstrant? Quod ad animi motus pertinet?Constantia (19, 62–64) caritas, benevolentia (19–20, 22, 50)Fides (19, 65) iucundius (49)Integritas (19); veritas (65–66, 89–90)Liberalitas (19)

Students can create this map either before or after they read the section.The advantage of creating it before (with the help of their teacher) is thatit will help them with new vocabulary before they read. If they complete itafter they read the section, it might provide a post-reading exercise that willhelp them solidify their knowledge of Cicero’s idea of friendship.

Another way for students to perceive the complexity of defining key termsassociated with family and friendship in the Roman world is a dictionary

 project. Some students could focus on terms for family (e.g.,  familia  andits cognates, domus, propinquus, coniunctus, and consuetudo) and others on

 patronage (officium, beneficium, gratia, merita).11 To choose the first example,the OLD  defines  familia  as:

1. All persons subject to the control of one man, whetherrelations, freedman, slaves, a household.

2. The slaves of a household, servants.

3. A group of servants domiciled in one place.

4. A body of persons closely associated by blood oraffinity, family.

5. A school (of philosophy, etc.).

6. (legal) Estate (consisting of the household and household property).

As one reads through the definitions (and as we saw above), it becomesclear that  familia did not have the same resonances as our “family.” As studentslearn to use the OLD  and compare the diverse meanings of words connectedwith family and friendship, they can begin to see that Romans used theseterms in different ways than today, that the Romans had no equivalent toour word family or friend, and that terms such as  propinquus  or coniunctus could refer to any close relationship, whether kin or neighbor or friend. Inshort, Roman notions of family and friendship tend to be more public androoted in face-to-face, personal relationships.

The opening scene of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather   (1972) offers anotherway for students to comprehend the intersection of family and friendship and

the importance of personal ties of  pietas  and officium  in relationships. In

11  For discussion of the first set of terms, see Saller (above, n.3). For the secondset, see R. Saller, “The Language and Ideology of Patronage,” in  Personal Patronageunder the Early Empire  (Cambridge 1982) 7–39.

PAEDAGOGUS

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this scene, Don Corleone, the Godfather, is about to celebrate his daughter’swedding when an undertaker, whose daughter is the godchild of Corleone’swife, enters the Godfather’s study (tablinum), not to offer good wishes, but

to ask for favor (beneficium). The Godfather responds by asking the under-taker why he and his family have not visited, invited him for coffee, or senttheir regards in the past. After the undertaker acknowledges his inattentionto the ties of family and friendship and finally renews their relationship,Don Corleone grants his request, but makes clear that someday he may askfor a favor in return. The scene nicely illustrates Roman ideas of personalrelationships over our preference for economic exchange, of the importanceof maintaining ties of family and friendship throughout one’s life, and of thecomplicated nexus of reciprocal obligations in Roman society. 12

One final, major project is to ask groups of students to follow Hallett’s adviceto “heed our native informants”13  and to explore other texts that might act ascorroboration (or not) of Cicero’s definition of friendship in de Amicitia. Cicero’sletters offer just such a corpus to test whether his definitions of friendship inthe  Laelius  remain true in his letters to family and friends. For example, inone letter to Atticus, Cicero writes “please love me and believe that I love youas brother” ( Att . 1.5.8) while in another, he refers to Quintus as a friend ( Att .1.18.1). In groups of four, students can be assigned one figure from Cicero’sfriends and family. Each group would contain one member from Cicero’s fam-ily (e.g., Terentia, Tullia, Quintus, Tiro), another who is a good friend (e.g.,Atticus, Lentulus Spinther), another who is younger protégé (e.g., M. CaeliusRufus, G. Trebatius Testa), and a fourth from a diverse group of adressees(e.g., Pompey, Caesar, Antony, Clodia Metelli, or Caerellia).14  For example,one group may explore P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, who was instrumental in

securing Cicero’s recall from exile; P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, son of theelder Spinther; G. Trebonius, who published a collection of Cicero’s witticisms,and M. Tullius Tiro, Cicero’s secretary and advisor. In exploring the letters todiscover what sort of bonds link Cicero to his addressee, it is possible to seeexamples of genuine affection in the vocabulary used in openings and closingsalutations of letters. Though less apparent, it is also possible to ascertain levelsof affection and commitment by looking at their shared interests, enthusiasmfor these shared pursuits, and willingness to execute business for the other’ssake. As students read through these letters, they will once again see that notall relationships exhibit the same level of intimacy, that relationships changeover time, that Cicero’s letters expand and elaborate on his understanding of

friendship in de Amicitia, and that different cultures construct friendship andfamily in ways unique to their own society and values.

Cornell College  JOHN GRUBER-MILLER Classical World 103.1 (2009) JGruber-Miller@cornellcollege.edu

12  For a transcript and summary of the opening scene, see T. Dirks, Review ofThe Godfather , http://www.filmsite.org/godf.html (accessed September 2009).

13  Hallett (above, n.2).14  One can find who is mentioned in which letters by exploring the index to

the Loeb editions of Cicero’s letters or in D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Onomasticon toCicero’s Letters  (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1995). For more on Cicero’s relations withTerentia, see S. Dixon, “Family Finances: Terentia and Tullia,” in Beryl Rawson, ed.,The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives  (Ithaca 1986) 93–120; on Tullia, seeS. Treggiari,  Roman Social Histor y  (Routledge 2002); on Quintus, see C. Bannon,The Brothers of Romulus: Fraternal Pietas in Roman Law, Literature, and Society (Princeton 1997) 101–16; on Clodia, see M. Skinner, “Clodia Metelli,” TAPA  113(1983) 273–87; on Caerellia, see Hallett (above, n.2).

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