Amicitia – Roman friendship – is delineated as an ideal reciprocal relationship between elite Roman males of fairly equal social standing. When individuals of unequal rank share this ideal reciprocal relationship, amicitia is labeled as “patronage” or “clientship”. This report seeks to test these ideals by examining the language of amicitia between individuals of equal and unequal rank in the plays of Terence. The results of this study show that Terence’s plays broaden the definition of amicitia to encompass a wide range of various friendships, including clientships. The language of amicitia supports the evidence available from late Republican and Imperial Rome that the measurement of reciprocity is indeterminate, amicitia and clientship share the same terminology of friendship, and that it can illuminate character development throughout the plays of Terence. / text

The contract of mandatum in Roman law, unlike its namesake in modern civil law legal systems, was not a contract of representation or agency. It was a contract of gratuitous performance of services for others. According to Corpus luris Civilis it was a contract which drew its origin from the duties of friendship. This paper examines certain rules of mandatum and compares them with a similar legal institution known as procuratio and concludes that friendship must indeed have been the origin of the contract. The paper then examines various aspects of friendship in Roman society, and concludes that social custom cannot have been the sole basis for the creation of the contract. The philosophical and ethical views of Cicero and Seneca are then considered. From the works of these two authors two lines of thought regarding friendship are deduced: friendships are to be entered into for their own sake, or friendships are to be entered into for the benefits that will ensue. The former is the 'noble' view of friendship, the latter the 'utilitarian'. The author concludes after a reexamination of the rules of mandatum that the 'noble' view provides a better answer to the question of why mandatum was created by the Roman jurists.

No description available.