42 ESSA YS CIVIL AND MORAL. 



many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give 

 unto such persons the name of favourites or privadoes, as if it were 

 matter of grace or conversation : but the Roman name attaincth the 

 true use and cause thereof, naming them &quot; participes curarum ;&quot; for 

 it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly, that this hath been 

 done, not bj weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and 

 most politic that ever reigned, who have oftentimes joined to them 

 selves some of their servants, whom both themselves have called 

 friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner, 

 using the word which is received between private men. 



L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompcy, after sur- 

 namcd the Great, to that height, that Pompey vaunted himself for 

 Sylla s over-match. For when he had carried the consulship for a 

 friend of his against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little 

 resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him 

 again, and in effect bade him be quiet : for that more men adored the 

 sun rising, than the sun setting. With Julius Ca;sar Decimus Brutus 

 had obtained that interest, as he set him down in his testament for heir 

 in remainder after his nephew. And this was the man that had power 

 with him to draw him forth to his death. For when Caesar would 

 have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and espe 

 cially a dream of Calpurnia, this man lifted him gently by the arm out 

 of his chair, telling him, He hoped he would not dismiss the senate till 

 his wife had dreamed a better dream. And it seemeth, his favour was 

 so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of 

 Cicero s Philippics, calleth him &quot;venefica,&quot; witch ; as if he had en 

 chanted Ca:sar. Augustus raised Agrippa, though of mean birth, to 

 that height, as when he consulted with Maecenas about the marriage of 

 his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, That he must 

 either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life; there was 

 no third way, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Caesar 

 Sejanus had ascended to that height, as they two were termed and 

 reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith : &quot; Hasc 

 pro amicitia nostra non occultavi :&quot; and the whole senate dedicated an 

 altar to friendship as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of 

 friendship between them two. The like or more was between Sep 

 timus Sevcrus and Plantianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry 

 the daughter of Plantianus, and would often maintain Planlianus in 

 doing affronts to his son : and did write also in a letter to the senate, 

 hy these words : &quot; I love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live 

 me.&quot; Now if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, 

 a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant 

 goodness of nature ; but being men so wise, of such strength and 

 severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these 

 were ; it proveth most plainly, that they found their own felicity, 

 though as great as ever happened to mortal men, but as an half piece, 

 except they might have a friend to make it entire ; and yet, which is 

 more, they were princes which had wives, sons, nephews ; and yet all 

 these could not supply the comfort of friendship. 



