After this general community, the sovereign, and most worthy part presiding and governing, and performing its proper offices, they say, that thence great utility was derived, both by private and public concerns; that it constituted the force and power of the countries where it prevailed, and the chiefest security of liberty and justice.

Of which the healthy loves of Harmodius and Aristogiton are instances.

And therefore it is that they called it sacred and divine, and conceive that nothing but the violence of tyrants and the baseness of the common people are inimical to it.

Finally, all that can be said in favour of the Academy is, that it was a love which ended in friendship, which well enough agrees with the Stoical definition of love: "Amorem conatum esse amicitiae faciendae ex pulchritudinis specie." ["Love is a desire of contracting friendship arising from the beauty of the object."-- Cicero, Tusc.Quaes., vi.

34.] I return to my own more just and true description: "Omnino amicitiae, corroboratis jam confirmatisque, et ingeniis, et aetatibus, judicandae sunt." ["Those are only to be reputed friendships that are fortified and confirmed by judgement and the length of time." -- Cicero, De Amicit., c.