2 - Helping friends and harming enemies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 June 2024
Summary
Greek popular thought is pervaded by the assumption that one should help one’s friends and harm one’s enemies. These fundamental principles surface continually from Homer onwards and survive well into the Roman period, and indeed to the present day, especially in international relations. They are firmly based on observation of human nature, which yields the conclusion that most human beings do in fact desire to help their friends and harm their enemies, and derive satisfaction from such behaviour. Thus Xenophon’s Socrates can count benefiting friends and defeating enemies as one of the things which bring the ’greatest pleasures’.
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- Helping Friends and Harming EnemiesA Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics, pp. 26 - 59Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024