3.2
When a man is loved by friends, I take it, they rejoice at his presence, delight to do him good, miss him when he is absent, greet him most joyfully on his return, rejoice with him in his good fortune, unite in aiding him when they see him tripping.Xen. Cyrop. 1.6.24
3.3
Even states are not blind to the fact that friendship is a very great blessing, and very delightful to men. At any rate, many states have a law that adulterers only may be put to death with impunity, obviously for this reason, because they believe them to be destroyers of the wife’s friendship with her husband;
3.4
although,ἐπεὶ should be rendered though, not since here, for it introduces a reason why one might suppose that there would be some restriction on the right to kill an adulterer, and not the reason why all adulterers may be killed with impunity. Compare, for instance, Plat. Prot. 335c. The accident is, of course, rape. when a woman’s lapse is the result of some accident, husbands do not honour their wives any less on that account, provided that wives seem to reserve their affection unblemished.
3.5
In my judgment, to be loved is a blessing so precious that I believe good things fall literally of themselves on him who is loved from gods and men alike.
3.6
Such, then, is the nature of this possession—a possession wherein despots above all other men are stinted. If you want to know that I am speaking the truth, Simonides, consider the question in this way.
