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it is impossible for a friend not to share his friend’s wrongs or disrepute or disfavour; for a man’s enemies at once look with suspicion and hatred upon his friend, and oftentimes his other friends are envious and jealous, and try to get him away. As the oracle given to Timesias Cf. the story told of Timesias by Plutarch, Moralia, 812 A. about his colony prophesied: Soon shall your swarms of honey-bees turn out to be hornets, so, in like manner, men who seek for a swarm of friends unwittingly run afoul of hornets’ nests of enemies. Besides, the resentment of an enemy and the gratitude of a friend do not weigh equally in the Cf. Moralia, 86 c, and Aulus Gellius, i. 3. c Cf. the story told of Timesias by Plutarch, Moralia, 812 a. balance. See what treatment Alexander meted out to the friends and family of Philotas and Parmenio, Dionysius those of Dion, Nero those of Plautus,Rubellius Plautus; cf. Tacitus, Annals, xiv. 57 ff., and Dio Cassius, lxii. 14. and Tiberius those of Sejanus, Cf. Tacitus, Annals, v. 7 ff., and Dio Cassius, lviii. 11-12. torturing and killing them. For as the golden crown and the robe of Creon’s daughter did not help Creon,Euripides, Medea, 1136 ff. but, as he suddenly ran to her and clasped her in his arms, the fire, fastening upon him, burned him up and destroyed him as well as his daughter, so some persons without deriving any benefit from their friends’ good fortunes, perish with them in their misfortunes. This is the experience especially of men of culture and refinement, as Theseus, for example, shared with Peirithoüs his punishment and imprisonment, Yoked fast in duty’s bonds not forged by man,A line of Euripides, probably from the Peirithoüs, cited by Plutarch also in Moralia, 482 A, 533 A, and 763 F. Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 595. and Thucydides Thucydides, ii. 51. asserts that in the pestilence those who had the highest claim to virtue perished with their friends who were ill; for they did not spare themselves in going, as they did, to visit those who had claims on their friendship.
