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Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu fight the monster Humbaba, on an Assyrian cylinder seal from the 600s BC

Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu fight a monster, on an Assyrian cylinder seal from the 600s BC

Why were friends important?

Friends were very important to people in the ancient and medieval world.

Indian friendship
Friendship in ancient Greece

Because there were not so many police or lawyers or judges then, people often had to rely on their friends to protect them or help them get justice.

Friends to lend money or do business

Also there was no welfare then, so people relied on their friends for money or food if they became poor. And people also had to trust their friends in other cities with their business, because it was so hard to travel from one place to another.

The Greek economy
How people fell into debt

West Asian friendships

Because of this, many poems and stories from the ancient world show us examples of great friendships. From West Asia, we have the story of Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu. When Enkidu died, Gilgamesh tried to go to the land of the dead to get him back.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu
David and Jonathan

Also from West Asia is the Bible story of friendship between David and Jonathan. Jonathan saved David’s life when Jonathan’s father wanted to kill David, even though he knew this meant that David would be king in his place.

Achilles bandaging the wounded Achilles binding up the wounds of Patroclos (Athens, red-figure vase, 500 BC -now in Berlin)

Achilles bandaging the wounded Achilles binding up the wounds of Patroclos (Athens, red-figure vase, 500 BC -now in Berlin)

Greek friendships

From Greece, we have the story of Achilles and Patroclos in the Iliad, where after Patroclos dies Achilles gives his life to avenge him.

Achilles and Patroclos
Sappho’s poems
Alexander and Hephaistion
Damon and Pythias

Sappho, in her poems, tells us about close friendships among teenaged girls. And from later Greece, we know of many close friendships among young men that lasted through their whole lives.

Alexander the Great, for instance, had a very close friend whose name was Hephaistion.  The story of Damon and Pythias is also the story of a great friendship. In Classical Greece, people emphasized friendship as a way to weaken the power of families, so they would have a democracy and not an oligarchy.

Roman friendships

The Romans also thought that friendship was very important. Cicero wrote essays about friendship. Early Christians also lived together in groups of friends, instead of in families. The story of Perpetua and Felicitas, for instance, shows us how two Christian women stuck together even while the Roman judge was killing them.

Who was Cicero?

Medieval friendships

Mosaic of Perpetua and Felicitas, from Ravenna in the 500s AD

Perpetua and Felicitas, from Ravenna in the 500s AD

In medieval Europe, friendships continued to be important. In Chaucer‘s stories, friends help each other out. But there were many complicated relationships between people in the Middle Ages. That may have made friendships seem less important than the relationship between lord and peasant, or between abbess and nun.

Who was Chaucer?
Medieval feudalism
Christian nuns
People in the Middle Ages

Romance also became more important at this time, and many stories deal with romantic friendships between men and women, like the story of Tristan and Isolde or Lancelot and Guinevere.

Islamic Friendships

In the Islamic world, at the same time, the same ideas appear. Many stories deal with the king and his advisers, or the king and his servants. Other stories are romances, like Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat.

Greek friends
Indian friends

Bibliography and further reading about the history of friendship:




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