Note 93 — Chapter II

“Through the great weight which, both in theory and in their actual life with each other, was laid by the Epicureans on Friendship (a social development which only became possible after the dissolution of the bond which had so closely united each individual citizen to the Civil Community), Epicureanism aided in softening down the asperity and exclusiveness of ancient manners, and in cultivating the social virtues of companionableness, compatibility, friendliness, gentleness, beneficence, and gratitude, and so performed a work whose merit we should be careful not to under-estimate.”—Ueberweg: Grundriss. Cf. Horace: Sat., I. iv. 135—“dulcis amicis.” The other elements of the Epicurean ideal are also realized in Horace’s character, as his writings have left it to us.