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And surely this fact is quite easy to perceive from the contrary. For when we observe that parents are grieved by sons who maltreat a servant honoured by mother and father, and neglect plants or farm-lands in which their parents took delight, and that remissness in caring for some house-dog or horse hurts elderly persons who feel a jealous affection for them; and when, again, we observe that parents are vexed when their children disparage and hiss at concerts and spectacles and athletes all of which they themselves used to admire; when we observe these things, is it reasonable to suppose that parents are indifferent when sons quarrel, hate and malign each other, and array themselves ever against each other s interests and activities, and are finally ruined by each other? No one can say that the parents are indifferent. Hence when, on the other hand, brothers love and feel affection for each other, and, in so far as Nature has made them separate in their bodies, so far do they become united in their emotions and actions, and share with each other their studies and recreations and games, then they have made their brotherly love a sweet and blessed sustainer of old age Perhaps with a reference to Pindar, Frag. 214L cf. 477 b, supra, and the note. for their parents. For no father is so fond of oratory or of honour or of riches as he is of his children; therefore fathers do not find such pleasure in seeing their sons gaining a reputation as orators, acquiring wealth, or holding office as in seeing that they love one another. So they report of Apollonis of Cyzicus, mother of King Eumenes Cf. 489 d f., infra; Gnomologicum Vaticanum, 293 (Wiener Stud., x. p. 241). and three other sons, Attalus and Philetaerus and Athenaeus, that she always congratulated herself and gave thanks to the gods, not because of wealth or empire, but because she saw her three sons members of the body-guard of the eldest, who passed his days without fear surrounded by brothers with swords and spears in their hands. So again, on the contrary, when Artaxerxes Cf. Life of Artaxerxes, xxx. (1027 b). perceived that his son Ochus had plotted against his brothers, he despaired and died. For cruel are the wars of brothers, as EuripidesNauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. ², p. 675, Frag. 975. says, and they are cruellest of all to the parents themselves. For he that hates his own brother and is angry with him cannot refrain from blaming the father that begat and the mother that bore such a brother.Perhaps this sentence is paraphrased by Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 658 ed. Hense.
