Discourses - Book II   

the same father? Were they not brought up together, had they not lived
together, drunk together, slept together, and often kissed one
another? So that, if any man, I think, had seen them, he would have
ridiculed the philosophers for the paradoxes which they utter about
friendship. But when a quarrel rose between them about the royal
power, as between dogs about a bit of meat, see what they say,

Polynices: Where will you take your station before the towers?
Eteocles: Why do you ask me this?
Pol. I place myself opposite and try to kill you.
Et. I also wish to do the same.

Such are the wishes that they utter.
For universally, be not deceived, every animal is attached to
nothing so much as to its own interest. Whatever then appears to it an
impediment to this interest, whether this be a brother, or a father,
or a child, or beloved, or lover, it hates, spurns, curses: for its
nature is to love nothing so much as its own interest; this is father,
and brother and kinsman, and country, and God. When, then, the gods
appear to us to be an impediment to this, we abuse them and throw down
their statues and burn their temples, as Alexander ordered the temples
of AEsculapius to be burned when his dear friend died.
For this reason if a man put in the same place his interest,
sanctity, goodness, and country, and parents, and friends, all these
are secured: but if he puts in one place his interest, in another
his friends, and his country and his kinsmen and justice itself, all
these give way being borne down by the weight of interest. For where
the "I" and the "Mine" are placed, to that place of necessity the
animal inclines: if in the flesh, there is the ruling power: if in the
will, it is there: and if it is in externals, it is there. If then I
am there where my will is, then only shall I be a friend such as I
ought to be, and son, and father; for this will he my interest, to
maintain the character of fidelity, of modesty, of patience, of
abstinence, of active cooperation, of observing my relations. But if I
put myself in one place, and honesty in another, then the doctrine
of Epicurus becomes strong, which asserts either that there is no
honesty or it is that which opinion holds to be honest.
It was through this ignorance that the Athenians and the
Lacedaemonians quarreled, and the Thebans with both; and the great
king quarreled with Hellas, and the Macedonians with both; and the
Romans with the Getae. And still earlier the Trojan war happened for
these reasons. Alexander was the guest of Menelaus; and if any man had
seen their friendly disposition, he would not have believed any one
who said that they were not friends. But there was cast between them a
bit of meat, a handsome woman, and about her war arose. And now when
you see brothers to be friends appearing to have one mind, do not
conclude from this anything about their friendship, not even if they
say it and swear that it is impossible for them to be separated from
one another. For the ruling principle of a bad man cannot be
trusted, it is insecure, has no certain rule by which it is