The Law and Friendship¹

The Sage Chilon's View on Laws

(from Diogenes Laertius's Lives of Eminent Philosophers)

IN HIS OLD AGE, one of the seven sages, Chilon, stated that he was unaware of breaking any law throughout his whole life, except for one situation where it was unclear. In a suit before him as ephor appeared a friend as a defendant. He pronounced a sentence against the friend in accordance with the law, but he persuaded a colleague, who was also his friend, to acquit the accused. In this manner he both maintained the law and kept his friend.

(As related by Aulus Gellius in Attic Nights)²

"CHILOS, AT THE CLOSE OF HIS LIFE, when death was already close upon him, thus addressed the friends about his bdeside: 'That very little of what I have said and done in the course of a long life calls for repentance, you yourselves may perhaps know. I, at any rate, at such a time as this do not deceive myself in believing that I have done nothing that it troubles me to remember, except for just one thing; and as to that it is not even now perfectly clear to me whether I did right or wrong. 'I was a judge with two others, and a friend's life was at stake. The law was such that the man must be found guilty. TTherefore, either my friend must suffer capital punishment or violence must be done to the law. I considered for a long time how to remedy so difficult a situation. The course which I adopted seemed, in comparison with the alternative, the less objectionable; I myself secretly voted for conviction, but I persuaded my fellow judges to vote for acquittal. Thus I myself in a matter of such moemnt did my duty both as a judge and as a friend. But my action torments me with the fear that there may be something of treachery and guilt in having recommended to others, in the same case, at the same time, and in a common duty, a course for them contrary to what I thought best for myself.'"

Endnotes

¹ Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers I.71. ⇑

² Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights (Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Loeb), 1996), I.iii.4-7, p. 13. ⇑