Disagreements of a very serious nature, and usually justifiable, arise from a demand upon friends to do something that is wrong

Disagreements of a very serious nature, and usually justifiable, arise from a demand upon friends to do something that is wrong. M. Tullius Cicero. De Amictia. Laelius on Friendship. Section 35.

A painting of Mercurius killing the Roman emperor Julian, 1778, by Yahanna al-Armani, an Armenian icon painter in Ottoman, Egypt.  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Note: I just finished reading "Julian" by Gore Vidal so this unjustly maligned emperor was on my mind. His assassination, although disguised as death in battle, was murder purely for the sake of greed and ambition not divine retribution as intimated by this painting.