Plutarch, De fraterno amore, William Clark Helmbold (Translator), 6

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[6] So Peisistratus,¹ marrying for a second time when his sons were full grown, said that because he considered them to be honourable and good he wished to become the father of more children like them. Excellent and just sons will not only love each other the more because of their parents, but will also love their parents the more because of each other; so will they always both think and say that, though they owe their parents gratitude for many favours, it is most of all for their brothers that they owe it,² since these are truly the most precious and delightful of all the possessions they have received from them. Well indeed has Homer³ also depicted Telemachus as reckoning his brotherless condition a misfortune:

The son of Cronus thus has doomed our race

To have one son alone.

But Hesiod⁴ does not well in advising an only son to inherit his father’s estate - and that too when he was himself a pupil of the Muses,⁵ who, in fact, received this name⁶ just because they were always together ( homou ousas) in concord and sisterly affection.⁷

Now, as regards parents, brotherly love is of such sort that to love ones brother is forthwith a proof of love for both mother and father; and again, as regards children, for them there is no lesson and example comparable to brotherly love on their father’s part. And, on the other hand, the contrary is a bad example for children who inherit, as from a father’s testament, his hatred of brothers. For a man who has grown old in law-suits and quarrels and contentions with his brothers, and then exhorts his children to concord,

Healer of others, full of sores himself,⁸

weakens the force of his words by his own actions. If, at any rate, Eteocles⁹ of Thebes had said with reference to his brother,¹⁰

To where the sun and stars rise would I go,

And plunge beneath the earth-if this I could-

To hold Dominion, greatest of the gods,

and then had proceeded to exhort his own children¹¹

Revere Equality, which ever binds

Friend to friend, state to state, allies unto

Allies: Nature made equal rights secure,

who would not have despised him? And what sort of man would Atreus have been, if, after serving his brother that dinner,¹² he had then proceeded to preach to his own children:

And yet the use of friends, fast joined with ties Of blood, alone brings help when troubles flow?¹³

De fraterno amore. Plutarch. William Clark Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1939.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

On Brotherly Love (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. VI. Helmbold, W.C., translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1939 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ φιλαδελφίας Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol III. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig. Teubner, 1891.) — 6 focus

[6] ὁ μὲν οὖν Πεισίστρατος ἐπιγαμῶν ἐνηλίκοις 10 οὖσι τοῖς υἱοῖς, ἔφη, καλοὺς ἐκείνους κἀγαθοὺς¹ ἡγούμενος, ἔτι πλειόνων ἐθέλειν τοιούτων πατὴρ 480e γενέσθαι.² χρηστοὶ δὲ καὶ δίκαιοι παῖδες οὐ μόνον διὰ τοὺς γονεῖς ἀγαπήσουσι μᾶλλον ἀλλήλους, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς γονεῖς διʼ ἀλλήλους· οὕτως ἀεὶ καὶ φρονοῦντες 15 καὶ λέγοντες, ὅτι τοῖς γονεῦσιν ἀντὶ πολλῶν χάριν ὀφείλοντες μάλιστα διὰ τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς ὀφείλουσιν, ὡς τοῦτο δὴ κτημάτων ἁπάντων τιμιώτατον καὶ ἥδιστον ἔχοντες παρʼ αὐτῶν. εὖ γέ τοι καὶ Ὅμηρος³ πεποίηκε Τηλέμαχον ἐν συμφορᾷ τὸ ἀνάδελφον 20 τιθέμενον

ὧδε γὰρ ἡμετέρην γενεὴν μούνωσε Κρονίων.

480f ὁ δʼ Ἡσίοδος⁴ οὐκ εὖ παραινεῖ μουνογενῆ παῖδα τῶν πατρῴων ἐπίκληρον εἶναι, καὶ ταῦτα τῶν Μουσῶν γεγονὼς μαθητής, ἃς ὁμοῦ διʼ εὔνοιαν ἀεὶ καὶ φιλαδελφίαν 25 οὔσας οὕτως ὠνόμαζον.⁵ πρὸς; μὲν οὖν γονεῖς ἡ φιλαδελφία τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν, ὥστε τὸ φιλεῖν ἀδελφὸν εὐθὺς ἀπόδειξιν εἶναι τοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα φιλεῖν καὶ τὸν πατέρα· πρὸς δὲ παῖδας αὑτοῦ δίδαγμα καὶ παράδειγμα φιλαδελφίας, οἷον οὐθὲν ἄλλο· 5 καὶ τοὐναντίον αὖ πονηρὸν ὥσπερ ἐξ ἀντιγράφου 481a πατρῴου τὴν μισαδελφίαν ἀναλαμβάνουσιν. ὁ γὰρ ἐν δίκαις καὶ στάσεσι καὶ ἀγῶσι πρὸς ἀδελφοὺς ἐγγεγηρακὼς εἶτα τοὺς υἱοὺς ὁμονοεῖν παρακαλῶν

ἄλλων ἰατρός, αὐτὸς ἕλκεσιν⁶ βρύων

⁷ 10 ἀσθενῆ ποιεῖ τοῖς ἔργοις τὸν λόγον. εἰ. γοῦν ὁ Θηβαῖος Ἐτεοκλῆς πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφὸν εἰρηκώς

ἄστρων ἂν ἔλθοιμʼ ἡλίου πρὸς ἀντολὰς

⁸

καὶ γῆς ἔνερθε δυνατὸς; ὢν δρᾶσαι τάδε,

τὴν θεῶν⁹ μεγίστην ὥστʼ ἔχειν τυραννίδα

15 τοῖς αὑτοῦ πάλιν παρεκελεύετο τέκνοις

ἰσότητα τιμᾶν, ἣ φίλους ἀεὶ φίλοις

¹⁰

πόλεις τε πόλεσι συμμάχους τε συμμάχοις

συνδεῖ τὸ γὰρ ἴσον νόμιμον ἀνθρώποις ἔφυ,

481b τίς οὐκ ἂν αὐτοῦ κατεφρόνησε; ποῖος δʼ ἂν ἦν ὁ 20 Ἀτρεύς, εἰ τοιαῦτα δειπνίσας τὸν ἀδελφὸν ἐγνωμολόγει πρὸς; τοὺς παῖδας

φίλων γε μέντοι χρῆσις ἡ πρὸς αἵματος

¹¹

μόνη κακοῦ ῥέοντος¹² ὠφελεῖν φιλεῖ;

Translations (1)

Of Brotherly Love Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. III. Goodwin, William W., editor; Thomson, John, translator. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company, 1874.) — 6 focus

[6] Wherefore Pisistratus, being about to marry again, his sons being grown up to a mature age, gave them their deserved character of praise, together with the reason of his designs for a second marriage,—that he might be the happy father of more such children. Now those who are truly ingenious do not only love one another the more entirely for the sake of their common parents, but they love their very parents for the sake of one another; always owning themselves bound to their parents especially for the mutual happiness that they enjoy in each other, and looking upon their brethren as the dearest and the most valuable treasure they could have received from their parents. And thus Homer elegantly expresses Telemachus bewailing the want of a brother:

Stern Jove has in some angry mood

Condemned our race to solitude.

But I like not Hesiod’s judgment so well, who is all for a single son’s inheriting. Not so well (I say) from Hesiod, a pupil of the Muses, who being endeared sisters kept always together, and therefore from that inseparate union ( ὁμοῦ οὐσαι) were called Muses. To parents therefore the love of brothers is a plain argument of their children’s love to themselves. And to the children of the brothers themselves it is the best of precedents, and that which affords the most effectual advice that can be thought of; as again, they will be forward enough in following the worst of their parents’ humors and inheriting their animosities. But for one who has led his relations a contentious life, and quarrelled himself up into wrinkles and gray hairs,—for such a one to begin a lecture of love to his children is just like him

Who boldly takes the fees,

To cure in others what’s his own disease.

In a word, his own actions weaken and confute all the arguments of his best counsel. Take Eteocles of Thebes reflecting upon his brother and flying out after this manner:

I’d mount the Heavens, I’d strive to meet the sun

In’s setting forth, I’d travel within him down

Beneath the earth, I’d balk no enterprise,

To gain Jove’s mighty power and tyrannize.

Suppose, I say, out of this rage, he had presently fallen into the softer strain of good advice to his children, charging them thus:

Prize gentle amity that vies

With none for grandeur; concord prize

That joins together friends and states,

And keeps them long confederates.

Equality!—whatever else deceives

Our trust, ’tis this our very selves outlives;

who is there that would not have despised him? Or what would you have thought of Atreus, after he had treated his brother at a barbarous supper, to hear him afterwards thus instructing his children:

Such love as doth become related friends

Alone, when ills betide, its succor lends?

Notes on the current edition

On Brotherly Love

1. Cf. Moralia, 189 d; related also of Cato Maior in Plutarch’s Life, xxiv. (351 b).

2. Paraphrased by Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 658 ed. Hense.

3. Od., xvi. 117.

4. Works and Days, 376; cf. the Commentarii in Hesiodum, 37 (Bernardakis, vol. vii. p. 70).

5. Theogony, 22.

6. A fanciful derivation: Μοῦσαιfrom ὁμοῦ οὖσαι.

7. Paraphrased by Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 659 ed. Hense.

8. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. ², p. 703, Euripides, Frag. 1086; quoted also in Moralia, 71 f, 88 d, 1110 e. Cf. Aeschylus, Prometheus, 473; and ἰατρέ, θεράπευσον σεαυτόν.

9. Euripides, Phoenissae, 504-506.

10. Polyneices.

11. Phoenissae, 536-538, but it is Jocasta who speaks here, exhorting Eteocles to concord: cf. Moralia, 643 f.

12. Atreus served to his brother Thyestes Thyestes’ own children at a feast of pretended reconciliation.

13. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. ², p. 912, ades. 384.

Plutarch De fraterno amore 6

William Clark Helmbold (Translator)

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