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Against one's fatherland, says Cicero, De Amicitia, 36; Gellius does not quote verbally from Cicero. one must not take up arms for a friend. That of course everybody knew, and before The ognis was born, as Lucilius says. 952 Marx, who cites for the proverb Plutarch, Cum princip. esse philos. 2, p. 777, c (C.A.F. iii, p. 495, K) and restores Lucilius' line as: hoc priusquan nasceretur Theognis omnes noveratt. But what I ask and wish to know is this: when it is that one must act contrary to law and contrary to equity in a friend's behalf, albeit without doing violence to the public liberty and peace; and when it is necessary to turn aside from the path, as he himself puts it, in what way and how much, under what circumstances, and to what extent that ought to be done. Pericles, the great Athenian, a man of noble character and endowed with all honourable accomplishments, declared his opinion— in a single instance, it is true, but yet very clearly. For when a friend asked him to perjure himself in court for his sake, he replied in these words: One ought to aid one's friends, but only so far as the gods allow. That is, so far as one can do so without violating the laws of the gods or breaking an oath which one has taken in the name of a god; cf. Cic. Off. iii. 44, quae salva fide facere possit.
