I f it could be brought about, Imperator, that our friends and relations should in all cases act by our principles of conduct, there is nothing I should desire more; next I would have them follow, if not our principles yet at least our advice on every occasion. But since each man's own character governs his life, I can only confess that I am sorry my friend Niger Censorius1 used such intemperate language in his will, in which he made me his heir. If I claimed to clear him by justifying his action, I should be unprincipled; I should be disloyal to my friend if I did not at least say what I could in his excuse.
It cannot be denied that Niger Censorius was unrestrained and ill-advised in his language, but at the same time in many respects he was an honest man and manly and blameless. It will accord with your clemency, Imperator, if you set his other creditable actions against his solitary misconduct in word.
When I first came to be his friend, his strenuous achievements, civil and military, had already won him the love of others. Not to mention his other friends, he was on the most intimate terms with Marcius Turbo2 and Erucius Clarus,3 who were both eminent men in the first rank, the one of the Knights, the other of the Senators. Subsequently, however, a great accession of honours and authority accrued to him from your courts4 also. Such was the man whose friendship I coveted.
Possibly some might say that I ought to have given up my friendship with him when I realized that he was not held by you in the same favour as before. But, Imperator, I was never of such a spirit as to cast off a friendship formed in prosperity as soon as a whisper of adversity was audible. And in any case—for why should I not say what is in my mind?—I shall hold as an enemy one who bears you no love, but one for whom you have but little love I shall count as an unfortunate rather than as an enemy5 . . . . There is a very great difference between blaming a man and hating him . . . . was in want of friends and advice. And would that Niger, as in most things subsequently he was guided by me, so had asked my advice in drawing up his will! Never would he have seared his memory with such a stain by reckless words that injured himself more than anyone else.
Nor . . . .6 would an interval have intervened . . . . a man at the very time of his offence. But he offends from very love, just as most animals that lack skill and perseverance in maternal duties injure their eggs and their young with talons or teeth, maltreating them not from malice but from want of experience in nursing.
I at least call to witness the Gods above and the Gods below and the hidden loyalties of human friendship, that I have ever been the author7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nor has he been influenced by kindness so great and benefits so many whenever . . . . . . . . . . . . he has his own end. But let us always strive for those things, which we have neither been willing to pass over in silence nor think it right to deny, and such things, if the Gods are just, as are true and in accord with the straightforward nature of our friendship.
? 154–156 A.D.
Fronto to Gavius Maximus.