Abstract

In Cicero's de Amicitia, it is striking that Cicero utilizes the vocabulary of family relationships to describe friendship and creates a dialogue that focuses on interlocutors who are both friends and family members who are joined through marriage. After briefly introducing readers to the intersection between friendship and familial relationships in the dialogue, a set of learning activities is presented to help students explore the dynamics of family and friendship in Roman society, to compare Roman concepts of family and friendship to contemporary ideas, and finally to compare Cicero's idealized version of friendship in the dialogue with actual relationships seen in the letters.

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