Seneca, Moral Epistle 47.2-3
“Am I talking like an Epicurean again? Well, the same thing is good for me as for you–I am not your friend unless whatever bothers you matters to me too. Friendship makes everything into a partnership between us. There’s nothing good or bad for individuals: life is lived in common. It isn’t possible for anyone who only pays attention to themselves to live happily, someone who turns everything into a question of their own convenience. You need to live for another, if you want to live for yourself
This sense of community, when safeguarded carefully and sacredly, this force that mixes people of all kinds together, and insists that there are certain rights of the whole human race, is also important for what we are talking about, the closer commonwealth of friendship we must nurture. One who has much in common with humanity, has everything in common with a friend.”
Iterum ego tamquam Epicureus loquor? Mihi vero idem expedit, quod tibi; aut non sum amicus, nisi quicquid agitur ad te pertinens, meum est. Consortium rerum omnium inter nos facit amicitia. Nec secundi quicquam singulis est nec adversi; in commune vivitur. Nec potest quisquam beate degere, qui se tantum intuetur, qui omnia ad utilitates suas convertit; alteri vivas oportet, si vis tibi vivere. Haec societas diligenter et sancte observata, quae nos homines hominibus miscet et iudicat aliquod esse commune ius generis humani, plurimum ad illam quoque, de qua loquebar, interiorem societatem amicitiae colendam proficit. Omnia enim cum amico communia habebit, qui multa cum homine.
This passage made me think of another one:
liny the Elder, Natural History 2.5 16–18
“This is the reason it is possible to estimate a greater number of divinities than there are humans: individuals make a number of gods equal to their number by adopting their own Junos and Genii. Indeed, some peoples have animals, even horrible ones, for gods and many others too shameful to report, such as swearing by rotten food or other similar things.
Believing in marriage among the gods but without anyone being born from them for such a great span of time or that some are always old and graying while others are eternally young even children, or that some gods are dark-colored, winged, crippled born from eggs, or dying and living on alternating days, these beliefs are like childhood delusions. But it is beyond every kind of shame to imagine adultery among them, then strife and hatred, and that there are powers of thieves and criminals. “God” is a person helping another person; this is the path to eternal fame.”
quamobrem maior caelitum populus etiam quam hominum intellegi potest, cum singuli quoque ex semetipsis totidem deos faciant Iunones Geniosque adoptando sibi, gentes vero quaedam animalia et aliqua etiam obscena pro dis habeant ac multa dictu magis pudenda, per fetidos cibos et alia similia iurantes. matrimonia quidem inter deos credi tantoque aevo ex eis neminem nasci, et alios esse grandaevos semper canosque, alios iuvenes atque pueros, atricolores, aligeros, claudos, ovo editos et alternis diebus viventes morientesque, puerilium prope deliramentorum est; sed super omnem inpudentiam adulteria inter ipsos fingi, mox iurgia et odia, atque etiam furtorum esse et scelerum numina. deus est mortali iuvare mortalem, et haec ad aeternam gloriam via.
