Cicero relates how Scipio often said that no utterance could be found more at war with friendship than that of the man who had made this remark: “We should love as if at some time we were going to hate” and would not believe that it could be attributed to Aristotle. Instead he thought that it was the speech of some abandoned wretch, or scheming politician, or of someone who regarded everything as an instrument to serve his own selfish ends. For how will it be possible for anyone to be a friend to a man who, he believes, may be his foe? M. Tullius Cicero. De Amictia. Laelius on friendship. Section 59.
Image: Scipio Africanus releasing Massiva, the nephew of the Prince of Nubia, after he was captured by Roman soldiers by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo now in the collections of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
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