In his dialogue Laelius On Friendship, which explores the friendship and the self-understanding of two noble Roman statesmen, Cicero expounds a more promising variant of Montaigne's view of friendship as both noble and unsurpassably good. Cicero has chosen Gaius Laelius, a respected leader and devoted friend to his colleague Publius Scipio Africanus the Younger, as the aptest vehicle to set forth a rich and pleasing but also revealing praise of friendship. The dialogue was written in 44 b.c., after the Republic had fallen and Cicero had been driven into retirement, in a world in which great friendships among eminent leaders of a thriving political life had become impossible. It is set in 129 b.c., when the Republic was still vibrant and full of brilliant leaders, if not wholly healthy: The troubles that were eventually to bring it down were already in evidence, as Cicero reminds us with hints throughout the dialogue, and especially with the story of Tiberius Gracchus.

This is the same Gracchus whose loyal friend Gaius Blossius is praised with such unreserve by Montaigne. Montaigne's source for the story is Cicero's dialogue, although what Montaigne does not report is that Laelius himself bitterly condemns Gracchus for his sedition and Blossius for his loyalty.