Of the many distinctions between Ancient and Modern political thought, one area that seems neglected is the differing emphasis each school places on friendship. Plato's Lysis, for example, examines the nature of friendship, and Aristotle dedicates two of the ten Books of his Nicomachean Ethics to the same subject. By contrast, Modern political philosophers are relatively silent on the nature of friendship.1 This leads to two questions. First, what accounts for this difference between Ancient and Modern political philosophers? Second, how important is understanding friendship for understanding politics? To answer the first of the two preceding questions, it may be helpful to consider some of the main points of contention between Aristotle and Thomas Hobbes, Aristotle's harshest Modern critic. At first glance, the primary concern of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics seems to be the nature of human happiness. Hobbes, by contrast, speaks not of "happiness, " but the passion of "felicity, " his closest corollary to happiness. Whereas Aristotle defines happiness as an activity of the soul according to virtue (1098a30-31), Hobbes defines felicity as a continual progression of one desire after another ending only in death (Leviathan XI.1).2 Further, Aristotle speaks of happiness after first raising the question of whether or not there is a single good at which all things aim (1094a1-3), then suggesting the political art could secure this good (1094a27-1094b10), which according to the opinion of many is happiness (1095a14- 20). Hobbes, on the other hand, denies the existence of a "greatest good" immediately before defining "felicity" (XI.1). Hobbes does say, however, that the "greatest of goods for each [individual] is his own preservation" (De Homine XI.6), and so the purpose of politics is to create a commonwealth by which individuals are secure and provided the means by which they may live "a more contented life" (Leviathan XVII.1).3