A Treatise on Friendship by Cicero · 1:44am Apr 27th, 2018
When you struggle to come up with new ideas, it can help to go back to the beginning. And here is one of the best philosophical treatises on friendship by Cicero, one of the greatest statesmen and orators of all time. Within these pages are truths universal to all beings that feel friendship, and may aid your own story writing or just living in life day to day.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2808/2808-h/2808-h.htm
Indeed, to quote Cicero himself:
" 6. Now friendship may be thus defined: a complete accord on all subjects human and divine, joined with mutual goodwill and affection. And with the exception of wisdom, I am inclined to think nothing better than this has been given to man by the immortal gods. There are people who give the palm to riches or to good health, or to power and office, many even to sensual pleasures. This last is the ideal of brute beasts; and of the others we may say that they are frail and uncertain, and depend less on our own prudence than on the caprice of fortune. Then there are those who find the "chief good" in virtue. Well, that is a noble doctrine. But the very virtue they talk of is the parent and preserver of friendship, and without it friendship cannot possibly exist."
Sorry to snipe, but doesn't "a complete accord on all subjects human and divine" mean "a friend agrees completely with you about everything"?
(Still a better treatment of friendship than Plato's Lysis, though.)