(1)        One of the first benefits of friendship mentioned by Cicero is how it offers the opportunity for sharing in experiences, enhancing such events for both parties:

            “Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy? On the other hand, misfortunes would be hard to bear if there were not some one to feel them even more acutely than yourself.”

 

It is indeed a rare individual who stumbles upon some unusual bit of good fortune, or discover

something important, who does not subsequently desire to share that news with someone who can

appreciate it... pat them on the back, tell them how lucky or smart they are. We humans crave respect

and recognition, even those who are awkward socially. Even one kindred spirit, one confidante to join

us on this hazardous journey makes the going a lot easier for most people.

            Cicero then points out that a friendship is more than just shared experiences. On a deeper level,

through a friend one acquires a kind of second life. We can live vicariously through them, co-opting

some of their accomplishments; perhaps being a certain person's friend could bring one a type of

prestige. Celebrities and/or people of wealth and power often attract sycophants with that end in mind.

            Your friend might sometimes represent you to others when you are not present. Many of us have

probably had an acquaintance tell us about one of their friends, someone we've never met, and yet

through that channel we feel we've come to know them. That is a powerful agency of friendship, and

one that could be used for good or ill. Most notably, it can extend beyond life itself:

            “While they [friends] take the sting out of death, they add a glory to the life of the survivors.”

Your friends might keep your memory alive after you have passed away... a comforting thought.

(2)        Cicero gives an astute account of how friendships can falter over time, and how difficult the

prospect is of maintaining such a relationship for life:

 

            “So many things might intervene: conflicting interests; differences of opinion in politics; frequent changes in character, owing sometimes to misfortunes, sometimes to advancing years.”

 

There is really not much remedy for such changes as these. I have not maintained any close friendships

from my childhood or adolescence, although a few are still acquaintances I might interact with on

social media, or see at a funeral... Our schoolmates marry, and move to other states, and live their own

lives. We might see them every five or ten years, if we go in for the nostalgia thing. I've never bothered.

            Some of the best advice offered for friends is that they refrain from asking each other to join in

any morally questionable activity; doing so uses the friendship as a wedge to elicit such behaviors.

While I can see how someone might want to avenge a harm that has befallen a true friend, taking the

law into their own hands, it should not be asked for by that victim. To quote Cicero,

            “We may then lay down this rule of friendship; neither ask nor consent to do what is wrong.”

Another risk to friendships mentioned is the tendency people have to want “new” things, and the question is raised, “Are there any occasions on which, assuming their worthiness, we should prefernew to old friends, just as we prefer young to aged horses?” The best answer, paraphrasing Cicero, is that we do not diminish older friendships when we form new ones; there is no “limit” to how many we may have. But certainly we don't discard the older friendships to make room, and anyone who would do so is obviously not a real friend.

(3)        The salient concept in Cicero's dialogue is how essential it is for every person to have some

interaction with others. Isolation is not a natural state for man, and even an individual who desires no

friends still needs, if nothing else, someone to complain to. The ups and downs of life cannot be felt to

their deepest emotional depth without the sharing of those moments with another mind.