Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. I. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1927 (printing).

Plutarch’s essay on flatterers is addressed to C. Julius Antiochus Philopappus, a descendant of the kings of Commagene, whose monument still stands on the Museum Hill at Athens. He was a patron of art and literature, and on friendly terms with Plutarch.a

The essay is not concerned with the impecunious and dependent adherents (parasites) of the rich, but with the adroit flatterers of a higher standing, who worm their way into the confidence of great men, and exercise a pernicious influence upon them. That Philopappus may have stood in need of such a warning may readily be inferred.

The essay, at the close, digresses into a disquisition on frank speech (παρρησία) that might easily have been made into a separate treatise, but which is developed naturally from the attempt to distinguish the genuineness of a friend from the affectation of a flatterer. Frank speech was regarded in classical times as the birthright of every Athenian citizen, but under the political conditions existent in Plutarch’s day it was probably safer to cultivate it as a private virtue.

[*](a Cf. Moralia, 628 b, which gives a brief account of a great dinner given by King Philopappus at which both he and Plutarch were present.)

Plato [*](Laws, 731 D, E.) says, my dear Antiochus Philopappus, that everyone grants forgiveness to the man who avows that he dearly loves himself, but he also says that along with many other faults which are engendered thereby the most serious is that which makes it impossible for such a man to be an honest and unbiased judge of himself. For Love is blind as regards the beloved, [*](Ibid.; cited also in Moralia, 90 A, 92 E, and 1000 A.) unless one, through study, has acquired the habit of respecting and pursuing what is honourable rather than what is inbred and familiar. This fact affords to the flatterer a very wide field within the realm of friendship,[*](True friendship is, of course, proof against flattery, but friendship weakened by self-love is a sort of borderland between true friendship and flattery in which the flatterer can work.) since in our love of self he has an excellent base of operations against us. It is because of this self-love that everybody is himself his own foremost and greatest flatterer, and hence finds no difficulty in admitting the outsider to witness with him and to confirm his own conceits and desires. For the man who is spoken of with opprobrium as a lover of flatterers is in high degree a lover of self, and, because of his kindly feeling toward himself, he desires and conceives himself to be endowed with all manner of good qualities; but although the desire for these is not unnatural, yet the conceit that one possesses them is dangerous and must be carefully avoided. Now

if Truth is a thing divine, and, as Plato [*](Laws, 730 C.) puts it, the origin of all good for gods and all good for men, then the flatterer is in all likelihood an enemy to the gods and particularly to the Pythian god. For the flatterer always takes a position over against the maxim Know thyself, by creating in every man deception towards himself and ignorance both of himself and of the good and evil that concerns himself; the good he renders defective and incomplete, and the evil wholly impossible to amend.

If the flatterer, then, like most other evils, attacked solely or mostly the ignoble and mean, he would not be so formidable or so hard to guard against. But the fact is, that as bore-worms make their entrance chiefly into the delicate and sweetscented kinds of wood, so it is ambitious, honest, and promising characters that receive and nourish the flatterer as he hangs upon them. Moreover, just as Simonides [*](Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. iii. 393.) says,

The rearing of horses consorts not with Zacynthus, But with wheat-bearing acres,

so we observe that flattery does not attend upon poor, obscure, or unimportant persons, but makes itself a stumbling-block and a pestilence in great houses and great affairs, and oftentimes overturns kingdoms and principalities. Wherefore it is no small task, nor a matter requiring but slight foresight, to subject it to examination, so that, being thoroughly exposed, it may be prevented from injuring or discrediting friendship. Vermin depart from dying persons and forsake their bodies, as the blood, from which the vermin derive their sustenance, loses its vitality; and so flatterers are never so much

as to be seen coming near where succulence and warmth are lacking, but where renown and power attend, there do they throng and thrive; but if a change come, they slink away quickly and are gone. But we must not wait until that experience shall befall, which is a thing profitless, or rather injurious and not devoid of danger. For it is cruel to discover friends that are no friends at a crucial time which calls for friends, since there is then no exchanging one that is untrustworthy and spurious for the true and trustworthy. But one’s friend, like a coin, should have been examined and approved before the time of need, not proved by the need to be no friend. For we must not wait for injury to open our eyes, but to avoid injury we must gain acquaintance with the flatterer and learn how to detect him; otherwise we shall be in the same case with those who try to learn about deadly drugs by tasting them first, and so ruin and destroy themselves in order to reach their decision. We do not, of course, commend such persons, nor again those who rate the friend as something noble and beneficial, and so imagine that all who are socially agreeable at once stand openly convicted of being flatterers. For a friend is not unpleasant or absolute, nor is it bitterness and sternness that give dignity to friendship, but this very nobility and dignity in it is sweet and desirable.

Close by its side have the Graces and Longing established their dwelling,[*](Adapted from Hesiod, Theogony, 64.)

and not merely for one who is in misfortune

’Tis sweet to gaze into a kind man’s eyes,

as Euripides [*](Ion, 732; again cited in Moralia, 69 A.) has it, but when friendship attends us,

it brings pleasure and delight to our prosperity no less than it takes away the griefs and the feeling of helplessness from adversity. As Evenus [*](Again cited in Moralia, 126 D, 697 D, and 1010 C.) has remarked that fire is the best of sauce, so God, by commingling friendship with our life, has made everything cheerful, sweet and agreeable, when friendship is there to share in our enjoyment. Indeed, how the flatterer could use pleasures to insinuate himself, if he saw that friendship was nowhere ready to welcome what is pleasant, no man can explain. But just as false and counterfeit imitations of gold imitate only its brilliancy and lustre, so apparently the flatterer, imitating the pleasant and attractive characteristics of the friend, always presents himself in a cheerful and blithe mood, with never a whit of crossing or opposition. But that is no reason why persons who express commendation should instantly be suspected of being simply flatterers. For commendation at the right time is no less becoming to friendship than is censure, or we may express it better by saying that complaining and fault-finding generally is unfriendly and unsociable, whereas the kindly feeling that ungrudgingly and readily bestows commendation for noble acts inclines us, at some later time, cheerfully and without distress to bear admonishment and frankness of speech, since we believe, and are content, that the man who is glad to commend blames only when he must.

One might say, then, that it is difficult to distinguish flatterer and friend, if neither pleasure nor praise shows the difference; indeed, in services and courtesies we may often observe that friendship is outstripped by flattery. How can it be helped, will

be our answer, if we are in quest of the real flatterer, who takes hold of the business with adroitness and skill, and if we do not, like most people, regard as flatterers merely those self-ministering [*](Men too poor to afford a servant, and hence obliged to carry their own bottle of oil to the bath. Cf. Demosthenes, Against Conon, 16 (p. 1262).) trencherslaves, so called, whose tongue will be wagging, as one man has put it, as soon as the water is brought for the hands, [*](The ceremonial washing of the hands immediately before eating.) for whom one dish and one glass of wine is enough to show their ill breeding with its display of vulgarity and offensiveness? Surely there was no need to press the case against Melanthius, the parasite of Alexander of Pherae, who, in answer to those who asked how Alexander was slain, said, By a stab through his ribs that hit me in my belly ; nor those who throng round a rich man’s table whom

Not fire, nor steel, Nor bronze can keep From coming each day to dine.[*](From the Flatterers of Eupolis according to Plutarch, Moralia, 778 E; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. i. p. 303.)

nor the flatteresses in Cyprus, [*](Cf. Athenaeus, 256 D.) who when they had crossed over into Syria, acquired the nickname of ladderesses, because by prostrating themselves they afforded by their bodies a means for the women of the royal household to mount their carriages.

Against whom, then, must we be on our guard? Against the man who does not seem to flatter and will not admit that he does so, the man who is never to be found hanging round the kitchen, never caught noting the shadow on the sun-dial to see if it is getting towards dinner-time, never gets drunk and drops down in a heap on the floor; he is usually sober, he is always busy, and must have a hand in everything; he has a mind to be in all secrets, and in general plays the part of friend with the gravity of a tragedian and

not like a comedian or a buffoon. For as Plato [*](Republic, 361 A.) says, it is the height of dishonesty to seem to be honest when one is not, and so the flattery which we must regard as difficult to deal with is that which is hidden, not that which is openly avowed, that which is serious, not that which is meant as a joke. For such flattery infects even true friendship with distrust, unless we give heed, for in many respects it coincides with friendship. Now it is true that Gobryas, having forced his way into a dark room along with the fleeing Magian, and finding himself engaged in a desperate struggle, called upon Darius, who had stopped beside them and was in doubt what to do, to strike even though he should pierce them both [*](Herodotus, iii. 78.); but we, if we can by no means approve the sentiment, Down with a foe though a friend go too, [*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adesp. No. 362.) have great cause to fear in seeking to detach the flatterer, who through many similarities is closely interlocked with the friend, lest in some way we either cast out the useful along with the bad, or else, in trying to spare what is close to our hearts, we fall upon what is injurious. So, I think, when wild seeds which have a shape and size approximating to wheat have got mixed with it, the process of cleaning is difficult (for either they do not pass out through a finer sieve, or else they do pass out through a coarser, and the wheat along with them); in like manner, flattery which blends itself with every emotion, every movement, need, and habit, is hard to separate from friendship.

For the very reason, however, that friendship is the most pleasant thing in the world, and because nothing else gives greater delight, the flatterer allures by means of pleasures and concerns himself

with pleasures. And just because graciousness and usefulness go with friendship (which is the reason why they say that a friend is more indispensable than fire and water), the flatterer thrusts himself into services for us, striving always to appear earnest, unremitting, and diligent. And inasmuch as that which most especially cements a friendship begun is a likeness of pursuits and characters, and since to take delight in the same things and avoid the same things is what generally brings people together in the first place, and gets them acquainted through the bond of sympathy, the flatterer takes note of this fact, and adjusts and shapes himself, as though he were so much inert matter, endeavouring to adapt and mould himself to fit those whom he attacks through imitation; and he is so supple in changes and so plausible in his copyings that we may exclaim:

Achilles’ self thou art and not his son.[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adesp. No. 363; quoted by Plutarch also in the Life of Alcibiades, 203 C.)

But the most unprincipled trick of all that he has is this: perceiving that frankness of speech, by common report and belief, is the language of friendship especially (as an animal has its peculiar cry), and, on the other hand, that lack of frankness is unfriendly and ignoble, he does not allow even this to escape imitation, but, just as clever cooks employ bitter extracts and astringent flavourings to remove the cloying effect of sweet things, so flatterers apply a frankness which is not genuine or beneficial, but which, as it were, winks while it frowns, and does nothing but tickle. For these reasons, then, the man is hard to detect, as is the case with some animals to which Nature has given the faculty of changing their hue, so that they exactly conform to

the colours and objects beneath them. And since the flatterer uses resemblances to deceive and to wrap about him, it is our task to use the differences in order to unwrap him and lay him bare, in the act, as Plato [*](Phaedrus, 239 D.) puts it, of adorning himself with alien colours and forms for want of any of his own.

Let us, then, consider this matter from the beginning. We have previously said that with most people the beginning of friendship is their congenial disposition and nature, which welcomes the same habits and traits, as nearly as may be, and takes delight in the same pursuits, activities, and avocations; on the subject of this it has also been said:

An old man hath the sweetest tongue for old, And child for child, and woman suits her kind, A sick man suits the sick; misfortune’s thrall Hath charms for him who hath just met mischance.[*](Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adesp. No. 364, and Kock, Comm. Att. Frag. iii. 606.)

So then the flatterer, knowing that when people take delight in the same things it is only natural that they find enjoyment and satisfaction in each other’s company, adopts this course in making his first attempts to approach each victim and to secure a lodgement near him; he acts as though the man were some animal running at large in a pasture, [*](A reminiscence of Plato’s Republic, 493 A.) and by affecting the same pursuits, the same avocations, interests and manner of life, he gradually gets close to him, and rubs up against him so as to take on his colouring, until his victim gives him some hold and becomes docile and accustomed to his touch: he is ever disapproving actions and lives and persons which he perceives his victim to dislike, while if anything pleases the other he commends, not with

moderation, but so as plainly to outdo him in amazement and wonder, and at the same time he stoutly maintains that his affection and hatred are the result of judgement rather than of emotion.

What, then, is the method of exposing him, and by what differences is it possible to detect that he is not really like-minded, or even in a fair way to become like-minded, but is merely imitating such a character? In the first place, it is necessary to observe the uniformity and permanence of his tastes, whether he always takes delight in the same things, and commends always the same things, and whether he directs and ordains his own life according to one pattern, as becomes a free-born man and a lover of congenial friendship and intimacy; for such is the conduct of a friend. But the flatterer, since he has no abiding-place of character to dwell in, and since he leads a life not of his own choosing but another’s, moulding and adapting himself to suit another, is not simple, not one, but variable and many in one, and, like water that is poured into one receptacle after another, he is constantly on the move from place to place, and changes his shape to fit his receiver. The capture of the ape, as it seems, is effected while he is trying to imitate man by moving and dancing as the man does: but the flatterer himself leads on and entices others, not imitating all persons alike, but with one he joins in dancing and singing, and with another in wrestling and getting covered with dust; if he gets hold of a huntsman fond of the chase, he follows on, all but shouting out the words of Phaedra [*](Euripides, Hippolytus, 218.):

Ye gods, but I yearn to encourage the hounds, As I haste on the track of the dapple deer.

He does not trouble himself in regard to the quarry, but he goes about to net and ensnare the huntsman himself. But if he is on the track of a scholarly and studious young man, now again he is absorbed in books, his beard grows down to his feet, the scholar’s gown is the thing now and a stoic indifference, and endless talk about Plato’s numbers and right-angled triangles. At another time, if some easy-tempered man fall in his way, who is a hard drinker and rich,

Then stands forth the wily Odysseus stripped of his tatters;[*](Homer, Od. xxii. 1.)

off goes the scholar’s gown, the beard is mowed down like an unprofitable crop; it’s wine-coolers and glasses now, bursts of laughter while walking in the streets, and frivolous jokes against the devotees of philosophy. Just so at Syracuse, it is said, after Plato had arrived, and an insane ardour for philosophy laid hold on Dionysius, the king’s palace was filled with dust by reason of the multitude of men that were drawing their geometrical diagrams in it: but when Plato fell out of favour, and Dionysius, shaking himself free from philosophy, returned post-haste to wine and women and foolish talk and licentiousness, then grossness and forgetfulness and fatuity seized upon the whole people as though they had undergone a transformation in Circe’s house. A further testimony is to be found in the action of the great flatterers and the demagogues, of whom the greatest was Alcibiades. At Athens he indulged in frivolous jesting, kept a racing-stable, and led a life full of urbanity and agreeable enjoyment; in Lacedaemon he kept his hair cropped close, he wore the coarsest clothing, he bathed in cold water; in Thrace he was a fighter and a hard drinker: but when he came to

Tissaphernes, he took to soft living, and luxury, and pretentiousness. So by making himself like to all these people and conforming his way to theirs he tried to conciliate them and win their favour. Not of this type, however, was Epameinondas or Agesilaus, who, although they had to do with a very large number of men and cities and modes of life, yet maintained everywhere their own proper character in dress, conduct, language, and life. So, too, Plato in Syracuse was the same sort of man as in the Academy, and to Dionysius he was the same as to Dion.

The changes of the flatterer, which are like those of a cuttle-fish, may be most easily detected if a man pretends that he is very changeable himself and disapproves the mode of life which he previously approved, and suddenly shows a liking for actions, conduct, or language which used to offend him. For he will see that the flatterer is nowhere constant, has no character of his own, that it is not because of his own feelings that he loves and hates, and rejoices and grieves, but that, like a mirror, he only catches the images of alien feelings, lives and movements. For he is the kind of man, who, if you chance to blame one of your friends before him, will exclaim, You’ve been slow in discovering the man’s character; for my part I took a dislike to him long ago. But if, on the next occasion, you change about again and commend the man, then you may be sure the flatterer will avow that he shares your pleasure and thanks you for the man’s sake, and that he believes in him. If you say that you must adopt some other sort of life, as, for example, by changing from public life to ease and quietness, then he says, Yes, we

ought long ago to have secured release from turmoils and jealousies. But again if you appear to be bent on public activity and speaking, then he chimes in, Your thoughts are worthy of you; ease is a pleasant thing, but it is inglorious and mean. Without more ado we must say to such a man:

Stranger, you seem to me now a different man than aforetime.[*](Homer, Odyssey, xvi. 181.)

I have no use for a friend that shifts about just as I do and nods assent just as I do (for my shadow better performs that function), but I want one that tells the truth as I do, and decides for himself as I do. This is one method, then, of detecting the flatterer;

but here follows a second point of difference which ought to be observed, in his habits of imitation. The true friend is neither an imitator of everything nor ready to commend everything, but only the best things;

His nature ’tis to share not hate but love,

as Sophocles [*](Adapted from Sophocles, Antigone, 523.) has it, and most assuredly to share also in right conduct and in love for the good, not in error and evil-doing, unless, as a result of association and close acquaintance, an emanation and infection, like that which comes from a diseased eye, contaminate him against his will with a touch of baseness or error. In a similar way it is said that close acquaintances used to copy [*](Cf. 26 B, supra. ) Plato’s stoop, Aristotle’s lisp, and King Alexander’s twisted neck as well as the harshness of his voice in conversation. In fact, some people unconsciously acquire most of their peculiarities from the traits or the lives of others. But the flatterer’s case is exactly the same as that of the chameleon. For the chameleon can make

himself like to every colour except white, and the flatterer, being utterly incapable of making himself like to another in any quality that is really worth while, leaves no shameful thing unimitated; but even as bad painters, who by reason of incompetence are unable to attain to the beautiful, depend upon wrinkles, moles, and scars to bring out their resemblances, so the flatterer makes himself an imitator of licentiousness, superstition, passionate anger, harshness toward servants, and distrust toward household and kinsmen. For by nature he is of himself prone to the worse, and he seems very far removed from disapproving what is shameful, since he imitates it. In fact it is those who follow a higher ideal and show distress and annoyance at the errors of their friends, who fall under suspicion. This is the thing that brought Dion into disfavour with Dionysius, Samius with Philip, Cleomenes with Ptolemy, and finally brought about their undoing. But the flatterer, desiring to be and to seem pleasant and loyal at the same time, affects to take greater delight in the worse things, as one who for the great love he bears will take no offence even at what is base, but feels with his friend and shares his nature in all things. For this reason flatterers will not be denied a share even in the chances of life which happen without our will; but they flatter the sickly by pretending to be afflicted with the same malady, and not to be able to see or hear distinctly if they have to do with those who are dim-sighted or hard of hearing, just as the flatterers of Dionysius, whose sight was failing, used to bump against one another and upset the dishes at dinner. And some seize upon afflictions rather as a means to insinuate themselves

still more, and carry their fellow-feeling so far as to include inmost secrets. If they know, for example, that one or another is unfortunate in his marriage, or suspicious towards his sons or his household, they do not spare themselves, but lament over their own children or wife or kinsmen or household, divulging certain secret faults of theirs. For such similarity makes fellow-feeling stronger, so that the others, conceiving themselves to have received pledges, are more inclined to let out some of their own secrets to the flatterers, and having so done they take up with them, and are afraid to abandon the confidential relation. I personally know of one man who put away his wife after his friend had sent his own away; but he was caught visiting her in secret and sending messages to her after his friend’s wife had got wind of what was going on. Quite unacquainted with a flatterer, then, was he who thought that these iambic verses [*](Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. iii. 669.) applied to a flatterer rather than to a crab:

His body is all belly; eyes that look All ways; a beast that travels on its teeth.

For such a description is that of a parasite, one of

The saucepan friends and friends postprandial,

as Eupolis [*](Kock, Com. Att. Frag. i. 349.) puts it.

However, let us reserve this matter for its proper place in our discussion. But let us not omit to note this clever turn which the flatterer has in his imitations, that if he does imitate any of the good qualities of the person whom he flatters, he gives him always the upper hand. The reason is this: between true friends there is neither emulation nor envy, but whether their share of success is equal or less, they

bear it with moderation and without vexation. But the flatterer, mindful always that he is to play the second part, abates from his equality in the imitation, admitting that he is beaten and distanced in everything save what is bad. In bad things, however, he does not relinquish the first place, but, if the other man is malcontent, he calls himself choleric; if the man is superstitious he says of himself that he is possessed; that the man is in love, but that he himself is mad with passion. You laughed inopportunely, he says, but I nearly died of laughing. But in good things it is just the reverse. The flatterer says that he himself is a good runner, but the other man simply flies; that he himself is a fairly good horseman, but what is that compared with this Centaur? I am a natural born poet, and I write verse that is not at all bad, yet

To Zeus belongs the thunder, not to me.[*](Author unknown; cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. iii. p. 736.)

a Thus at the same time he thinks to show that the other’s tastes are excellent by imitating them, and that his prowess is unrivalled by letting himself be outdone. Thus, then, in the flatterer’s attempts to conform himself to another, differences like these are found which distinguish him from a friend.

Since, however, as has been said before, the element of pleasure is common to both (for the good man takes no less delight in his friends than the bad man in his flatterers), let us now, if you will, draw the distinction between them in this respect. The distinction lies in referring the pleasure to its end. Look at it in this way: There is a pleasant odour in a perfume, there is a pleasant odour in a medicine.

But the difference is that the former has been created for pleasure and for nothing else, while in the latter the purgative, stimulative, or tissue-building principle that gives it value is only incidentally sweet-smelling. Then again, painters mix bright colours and pigments, and there are also some physicians’ drugs that are bright in appearance, and have a colour that is not repellent. What, then, is the difference? Is it not plain that we shall distinguish them by the end for which they are employed? So, in a similar way, the graciousness of friends, in addition to goodness and profit, possesses also the power of giving pleasure as a sort of efflorescence, and there are times when friends enjoy together jest and food and wine, and indeed even mirth and nonsense, as a sort of spice for noble and serious things. To this purport it has been said:

Joy they had in converse, speaking each to the other [*](Homer, Il. ii. 643.)

and

Else there were nothing Which could have parted us twain in the midst of our love and enjoyment.[*](Homer, Od. iv. 178.)

But the whole work and final aim of the flatterer is always to be serving up some spicy and highlyseasoned jest or prank or story, incited by pleasure and to incite pleasure. [*](Possibly a reminiscence from Plato, Gorgias, 465 ff.) To put it in few words, the flatterer thinks he ought to do anything to be agreeable, while the friend, by doing always what he ought to do, is oftentimes agreeable and oftentimes disagreeable, not from any desire to be disagreeable, and yet not attempting to avoid even this if it be better. For he is like a physician, who, if it be for the good of the patient, administers saffron or spikenard, and indeed oftentimes prescribes a

grateful bath or generous diet, but there are cases where he lets all these go and drops in a dose of castor, or else of

Polium, pungent to smell, whose stench is surely most horrid,[*](Nicander, Theriaca, 64. On the herb polium see Pliny, Natural History, xxi. 7 (21). 44 and xxi. 20 (84), 145.)

or he compounds some hellebore and makes a man drink it down, setting neither in this case the disagreeable nor in the other the agreeable as his final aim, but endeavouring through either course to bring his patient to one state—that which is for his good. So it is with the friend; sometimes by constantly exalting and gladdening another with praise and graciousness he leads him on toward that which is honourable, as did he who said

Teucer, dear to my heart, son of Telamon, prince of the people. Aim your other shafts like this,[*](Homer, Il. viii. 281.)

and

How then, I ask, could I ever forget Odysseus the godlike?[*](Ibid. x. 243, and Od. i. 65.)

Or again, when there is need of reprehension, he assails with stinging words and all the frankness of a guardian: Foolish you are, Menelaus, cherished by Zeus; nor is needed Any such folly as this.[*](Il. vii. 109.) There are times, too, when he combines deeds with words, as did Menedemus, who chastened the profligate and disorderly son of his friend Asclepiades by shutting the door upon him and not speaking to him; and Arcesilaus forbade Baton his lecture-room when the latter had composed a comic line on Cleanthes, and it was only when Baton had placated Cleanthes and was repentant that Arcesilaus became reconciled with him. For one ought to hurt a friend

only to help him; and ought not by hurting him to kill friendship, but to use the stinging word as a medicine which restores and preserves health in that to which it is applied. Wherefore a friend, like a skilled musician, in effecting a transition to what is noble and beneficial, now relaxes and now tightens a string, and so is often pleasant and always profitable; but the flatterer, being accustomed to play his accompaniment of pleasantness and graciousness in one key only, knows nothing either of acts of resistance or of words that hurt, but is guided by the other’s wish only, and makes every note and utterance to accord with him. As Xenophon [*](Xen. Agesilaus, 11, 5.) says of Agesilaus, that he was glad to be commended by those who were willing to blame him also, so we must regard that which gives delight and joy as true to friendship, if at times it is able also to hurt our feelings and to resist our desires; but we must be suspicious of an association that is confined to pleasures, one whose complaisance is unmixed and without a sting; and we ought in fact to keep in mind the saying of the Spartan,[*](Archidamidas, according to Plutarch, Moralia, 218 B.) who, when Charillus the king was commended, said, How can he be a good man, who is not harsh even with rascals?

They say that the gad-fly finds lodgement with cattle close by the ear, as does the tick with dogs; so also the flatterer takes hold of ambitious men’s ears with his words of praise, and once settled there, he is hard to dislodge. Wherefore in this matter especially it is necessary to keep the judgement awake and on the alert, to see whether the praise is for the action or for the man. It is for the action if they praise us in absence rather than in our presence; also if they, too, cherish the same desires and

aspirations themselves and praise not us alone but all persons for like conduct; also if they are not found doing and saying now this and now the opposite; but, chief of all, if we ourselves know that we feel no regret for those actions for which we are praised, no feeling of shame and no wish that we had said or done the opposite. For if our own conscience protests and refuses to accept the praise, then it is not affected or touched, and is proof against assault by the flatterer. Yet, in some way that passes my knowledge, most people have no patience with efforts to console them in their misfortunes, but are more influenced by those who commiserate and condole with them; and whenever these same people are guilty of mistakes and blunders, the man who by chiding and blaming implants the sting of repentance is taken to be an enemy and an accuser, whereas they welcome the man who praises and extols what they have done, and regard him as kindly and friendly. Now those who unthinkingly praise and join in applauding an act or a saying, or anything offered by another, whether he be in earnest or in jest, are harmful only for the moment and for the matter at hand; but those who with their praises pierce to the man’s character, and indeed even touch his habit of mind with their flattery, are doing the very thing that servants do who steal not from the heap [*](The grain, after being winnowed, was heaped on the threshing-floor.) but from the seed-corn. For, since the disposition and character are the seed from which actions spring, such persons are thus perverting the very first principle and fountain-head of living, inasmuch as they are investing vice with the names that belong to

virtue. Amid factions and wars, Thucydides [*](Thuc. iii. 82.) says, they changed the commonly accepted meaning of words when applied to deeds as they thought proper. Reckless daring came to be regarded as devoted courage, watchful waiting as specious cowardice, moderation as a craven’s pretext, a keen understanding for everything as want of energy to undertake anything. And so in attempts at flattery we should be observant and on our guard against prodigality being called liberality, cowardice self-preservation, impulsiveness quickness, stinginess frugality, the amorous man companionable and amiable, the irascible and overbearing spirited, the insignificant and meek kindly. So Plato [*](Republic, 474 E; cf. supra 45 A.) somewhere says that the lover, being a flatterer of his beloved, calls one with a snub nose fetching, one with a hooked nose kingly, dark persons manly, and fair persons children of the gods; while honey-hued is purely the creation of a lover who calls sallowness by this endearing term, and cheerfully puts up with it. And yet an ugly man who is made to believe that he is handsome, or a short man that he is tall, is not for long a party to the deception, and the injury that he suffers is slight and not irremediable. But as for the praise which accustoms a man to treat vices as virtues, so that he feels not disgusted with them but delighted, which also takes away all shame for his errors—this is the sort that brought afflictions upon the people of Sicily, by calling the savage cruelty of Dionysius and of Phalaris hatred of wickedness; this it is that ruined Egypt, [*](Ptolemy Philopator (221-205 B.C.); cf. Polybius, v. 34.) by giving to Ptolemy’s effeminacy, his religious mania, his hallelujahs, his clashing of cymbals, the name of

piety and devotion to the gods; this it is that all but subverted and destroyed the character of the Romans in those days, by trying to extenuate Antony’s [*](See Plutarch, Life of Antony, chap. ix. (920).) luxuriousness, his excesses and ostentatious displays, as blithe and kind-hearted actions due to his generous treatment at the hands of Power and Fortune. What else was it that fastened the mouthpiece and flute upon Ptolemy [*](Ptolemy Auletes (80-51 B.C.); cf. Strabo xvii. 11 (p. 796).)? What else set a tragic stage for Nero, and invested him with mask and buskins? Was it not the praise of his flatterers? And is not almost any king called an Apollo if he can hum a tune, and a Dionysus if he gets drunk, and a Heracles if he can wrestle? And is he not delighted, and thus led on into all kinds of disgrace by the flattery?

For this reason we must be especially on our guard against the flatterer in the matter of his praises. But of this he is not unconscious himself, and he is adroit at guarding against the breath of suspicion. If, for example, he gets hold of some coxcomb, or a rustic wearing a thick coat of skin, he indulges his raillery without limit, just as Strouthias, in the play, walks all over Bias, and takes a fling at his stupidity by such praise as this:

More you have drunk Than royal Alexander,[*](From the Flatterer of Menander; Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii., Menander, No. 293.)

and

Ha! ha! A good one on the Cyprian,[*](Ibid. No. 29.)

But as for the more clever people, he observes that

they are particularly on the look-out for him in this quarter, that they stand well upon their guard in this place and region; so he does not deploy his praise in a frontal attack, but fetches a wide circuit, and

Approaches noiseless as to catch a beast,[*](Source unknown.)

touching and handling him. Now he will report other people’s praise of him, quoting another’s words as public speakers do, how he had the pleasure of meeting in the market-place with some strangers or elderly men, who recounted many handsome things of him and expressed their admiration; then again, he will fabricate and concoct some trivial and false accusation against him, which he feigns to have heard from others, and comes up in hot haste to inquire when it was he said this or when it was he did that. And if the man denies the thing, as he naturally will, then on the instant the flatterer seizes him and launches him into a flood of praise: I wondered if you did speak ill of any of your good friends, since it is not your nature to speak ill even of your enemies, or if you did make any attempt on other’s property when you give away so much of your own.

Others, like painters who set off bright and brilliant colours by laying- on dark and sombre tints close beside them, covertly praise and foster the vices to which their victims are addicted by condemning and abusing, or disparaging and ridiculing, the opposite qualities. Among the profligate they condemn frugality as rusticity; and among avaricious evil-doers, whose wealth is gained from shameful and unscrupulous deeds, they condemn contented independence and honesty as the want

of courage and vigour for active life; but when they associate with the easy-going and quiet people who avoid the crowded centres of the cities, they are not ashamed to call public life a troublesome meddling with others’ affairs, and ambition unprofitable vainglory. Often enough a way to flatter a public speaker is to disparage a philosopher, and with lascivious women great repute is gained by those who brand faithful and loving wives as cold and countrified. But here is the height of depravity, in that the flatterers do not spare their own selves. For as wrestlers put their own bodies into a lowly posture in order to throw their opponents, so flatterers, by blaming themselves, pass surreptitiously into admiration for their neighbours: I am a miserable coward on the water, I have no stomach for hardships, I go mad with anger when anyone speaks ill of me; but for this man here, he says, nothing has any terrors, nothing any hardship, but he is a singular person; he bears everything with good humour, everything without distress. But if there be somebody who imagines himself possessed of great sense, and desires to be downright and uncompromising, who because he poses as an upright man, forsooth, always uses as a defence and shield this line:

Son of Tydeus, praise me not too much, nor chide me,[*](Homer, Il. x. 249.)

the accomplished flatterer does not approach him by this road, but there is another device to apply to a man of this sort. Accordingly the flatterer comes to consult with him about his own affairs, as with one obviously his superior in wisdom, and says that while he has other friends more intimate yet he

finds it necessary to trouble him. For where can we resort who are in need of counsel, and whom can we trust? Then having heard whatever the other may say, he asserts that he has received, not counsel, but the word of authority; and with that he takes his departure. And if he observes that the man lays some claim to skill in letters, he gives him some of his own writings, and asks him to read and correct them. Mithridates, the king, posed as an amateur physician, and some of his companions offered themselves to be operated upon and cauterized by him, thus flattering by deeds and not by words; for he felt that their confidence in him was a testimony to his skill.

In many a guise do the gods appear,[*](From thes tock lines used at the close of the Alcestis, the Andromache, the Bacchae, and the Helena, of Euripides.)

and this class of dissimulated praise, which calls for a more cunning sort of precaution, is to be brought to light by deliberately formulating absurd advice and suggestions, and by making senseless corrections. For if he fails to contradict anything, if he assents to everything and accepts it, and at each suggestion exclaims good and excellent, he makes it perfectly plain that he

The password asks, to gain some other end,[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adesp. No. 365.)

his real desire being to praise his victim and to puff him up all the more.

Moreover, just as some have defined painting as silent poetry,[*](A dictum attributed to Simonides by Plutarch, Moralia, 346 F, where it is quoted in full. The full form is found also supra, 17 F.) so there is a kind of praise that is silent flattery. For just as men engaged in hunting are less noticed by their quarry if they pretend not to be so engaged, but to be going along the road or tending flocks or tilling the soil, so flatterers gain the best hold with their praise when they pretend

not to be praising, but to be doing something else. Take, for example, a man who yields his seat or his place at table to a new-comer, or if he is engaged in speaking to the popular assembly or the senate and discovers that someone of the wealthy wants to speak, suddenly lapses into silence in the midst of his argument, and surrenders the platform with his right to speak; such a man by his silence, far more than one who indulges in loud acclaim, makes it plain that he regards the rich person as his better and his superior in intelligence. This is the reason why such persons are to be seen taking possession of the front seats at entertainments and theatres, not because they think they have any right to them, but so that they may flatter the rich by giving up their seats. So, too, in an assemblage or a formal meeting they may be observed to begin a subject of discussion, and later to give ground as though before their betters, and to shift over with the utmost readiness to the other side, if the man opposing them be a person of power or wealth or repute. Herein lies the supreme test by which we must detect such cases of cringing submission and giving way, in that deference is paid, not to experience or virtue or age, but to wealth and repute. Apelles, the painter, as Megabyzus [*](Cf. Moralia, 472 A.) took a seat by his side, eager to discuss line and chiaroscuro, said, Do you see these boys here who are grinding the body for my colours? They were all attention while you kept silent, and admired your purple robe and golden ornaments, but now they are laughing at you because you have undertaken to speak of matters which you have never learned. And Solon, [*](Herodotus, i. 30-33; cf. Plutarch, Life of Solon, xxvii. (93 B).) when Croesus inquired about happiness, declared that Tellus, one of the

inconspicuous men at Athens, and Cleobis and Biton, were more blest by fate than he. But flatterers proclaim that kings and wealthy persons and rulers are not only prosperous and blessed, but that they also rank first in understanding, technical skill, and every form of virtue.

Again, some people will not even listen to the Stoics, when they call the wise man at the same time rich, handsome, well-born, and a king; but flatterers declare of the rich man that he is at the same time an orator and a poet, and, if he will, a painter and a musician, and swift of foot and strong of body; and they allow themselves to be thrown in wrestling and outdistanced in running, as Crison of Himera was outdistanced in a foot-race with Alexander, but Alexander saw through the deception and was indignant. [*](Cf. Moralia, 471 F.) Carneades used to say that the sons of the wealthy and sons of kings do learn to ride on horseback, but that they learn nothing else well and properly; for in their studies their teacher flatters them with praise, and their opponent in wrestling does the same by submitting to be thrown, whereas the horse, having no knowledge or concern even as to who is private citizen or ruler, or rich or poor, throws headlong those who cannot ride him. It was therefore silly and foolish of Bion to say that if he were sure to make his field productive and fruitful by lauding it, should he not then seem to be in error if he did not do this rather than give himself the trouble to dig it over? And so, too, a man would not be an improper subject for praise, if by virtue of praise alone he becomes profitable and abundantly productive of good. But the truth is that a field is

not made any the worse by being praised, whereas a man is puffed up and ruined by those who praise him falsely and beyond his deserts.

Enough, then, on this topic. Let us, as the next step, look at the subject of frankness. As Patroclus, when he equipped himself with the armour of Achilles, and drove forth his horses to battle, did not venture to touch the Pelian spear, but left that, and that only, behind, so the flatterer, when he arrays himself to masquerade in the badges and insignia proper to a friend, ought to leave frankness alone as the one thing not to be touched or imitated, as though it were a choice piece of equipment,

Heavy and big and solid,[*](Homer, Il. xvi. 14.)

belonging to friendship only. But since they shrink from the exposure that awaits them in laughter and wine, and in jest and jollity, and their next effort is to raise their business to a serious [*](High-brow; cf. the note in Allinson, Menander in the L.C.L., p. 316.) level, by putting a stern face on their flattery, and tempering it with a little blame and admonition, let us not neglect to examine this point also. My mind is this: Just as in Menander’s comedy [*](The few fragments may be found in Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 148, or in Allinson, Menander in the L.C.L., p. 458.) the sham Heracles comes on carrying a club which is not solid nor strong, but a light and hollow counterfeit, so the flatterer’s frankness will appear, if we test it, to be soft and without weight or firmness, just like women’s cushions, which, while they seem to support and to offer resistance to their heads, yet rather yield and give way to them; and in the same way this counterfeit frankness, through having a hollow, false, and unsound bulk, is inflated and swollen, to the intent that later when it contracts and collapses it may

take in and drag along with it the man who throws himself upon it. For the true frankness such as a friend displays applies itself to errors that are being committed; the pain which it causes is salutary and benignant, and, like honey, it causes the sore places to smart and cleanses them too, [*](There are many references in ancient writers to this property of honey. Cf. Plutarch, Life of Phocion, chap. ii. (p. 742 B). The fact that honey quickly destroys pathogenic germs, like those of typhoid, has recently received scientific demonstration; cf. Bulletin 252 of the Colorado Agricultural College.) but in its other uses it is wholesome and sweet; this later shall have a chapter to itself.[*](Chap. 26, infra. ) But the flatterer, in the first place, makes a parade of harshness and of being acrimonious and inexorable in his bearing towards others. For he is rough with his own servants, and very quick to pounce on the errors of his kinsmen and household, refusing to admire or extol any outsider but rather despising all such; he is relentless in his efforts to stir up others to anger by his slanders; his aim is to get the name of a hater of iniquity, and to give the impression that he would not willingly abate his frankness to please others, nor do or say anything at all to curry favour. In the second place, he pretends not to know or notice a single real and important misdeed, but he is very quick to swoop down upon trifling and immaterial shortcomings, and to indulge in an intense and vehement tirade if he sees that a bit of furniture is carelessly placed, if he sees that a man is a poor manager, if anyone is careless about having his hair cut or about his clothing, or does not give proper care to some dog or horse; but let a man disregard his parents, neglect his children, insult his wife, disdain his household, squander his money, all this is nothing to him, but in the midst of such matters he is mute and craven, like a trainer who allows an athlete to get drunk and live loosely, and then is very stern about oilflask

and flesh-scraper, or like a schoolmaster who scolds a boy about his slate and pencil, and affects not to hear his blunders in grammar and diction. For the flatterer is the sort of person who will not say a word regarding the actual discourse of a cheap and ridiculous speaker, but will find fault with his voice, and accuse him severely because he ruins his throat by drinking cold water; or if he is requested to look over a wretched piece of writing, he will find fault with the paper for being rough, and call the copyist abominably careless. So it was with the flatterers of Ptolemy, [*](Probably Ptolemy Euergetes II., also called Physcon (146-117 B.C.); cf. Athenaeus, xii. 73 (p. 549 D).) who posed as a lover of learning; they would contend with him about an obscure word or a trifling verse or a point of history, and keep it up till midnight; but when he indulged in wanton cruelty and violence, played the cymbals and conducted his initiations, not one of all these people opposed his course. Just imagine a man using a surgeon’s lancet to cut the hair and nails of a person suffering from tumours and abscesses! Yet this is the sort of thing that flatterers do, who apply their frankness to those parts that feel no hurt or pain.

There is still another class of persons, even more unscrupulous than these, who employ this frankness of speech and reprehension of theirs in order to give pleasure. For example, Agis, the Argive, on an occasion when Alexander gave great gifts to a jester, in his jealousy and chagrin shouted out, Heavens, what gross absurdity! The king turned upon him angrily and said, What’s that you say? Whereupon he replied, I confess that I feel troubled and indignant at seeing that all you sons of Zeus alike show favour to flatterers and ridiculous persons. For Heracles had pleasure in

certain Cercopes, and Dionysus in Sileni, and one can see that such persons are in good repute with you. And once, when Tiberius Caesar had come into the Senate, one of the flatterers arose and said that they ought, being free men, to speak frankly, and not to dissemble or refrain from discussing anything that might be for the general good. Having thus aroused general attention, in the ensuing silence, as Tiberius gave ear, he said, Listen, Caesar, to the charges which we are all making against you, but which no one dares to speak out. You do not take proper care of yourself, you are prodigal of your bodily strength, you are continually wearing it out in your anxieties and labours in our behalf, you give yourself no respite either by day or by night. As he drew out a long string of such phrases, they say that the orator Cassius Severus remarked, Such frankness as this will be the death of this man!

All that is really a minor matter. But we come now to matters that are a serious problem, and do great damage to the foolish, when the flatterer’s accusations are directed against emotions and weaknesses the contrary to those that a person really has. For example, Himerius the flatterer used to vilify a man, the most illiberal and avaricious of the rich men at Athens, as a careless profligate destined to starve miserably together with his children. Or again, on the other hand, they will reproach profligate and lavish spenders with meanness and sordidness (as Titus Petronius did with Nero); or they will bid rulers who deal savagely and fiercely with their subjects to lay aside their excessive clemency and their inopportune and unprofitable pity. Very like to these also is the man who pretends to be on his

guard against some simple and stupid fool, and to fear him as a clever rascal; and so, too, if a malicious person, and one that delights in constant evil-speaking and fault-finding, be induced to commend some man of note, a flatterer of this stamp takes him straight in hand, and contradicts him, declaring that it is a weakness of his to commend even the worthless. For who is this fellow, or what brilliant thing has he said or done? Especially in regard to love affairs they beset their victims and add fuel to their fire. Likewise if they see that any are in disagreement with their brothers, or that they contemn their parents, or deal scornfully with their wives, they do not admonish or arraign them, but try to intensify such feelings. You have no proper appreciation of yourself, they say, and, You have yourself to blame for this, because you always affect such an obsequious and humble air. And if, as a result of temper and jealousy, a feeling of irritation is engendered toward a mistress or another man’s wife with whom the man has a love-affair, in comes flattery at once with a splendid frankness, adding fire to fire, pleading for justice, accusing the lover of many unloving, obdurate, and reprehensible actions:

O ingrate, after crowding kiss on kiss![*](From the Myrmidons of Aeschylus. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Aesch., No. 135; cf. also Plutarch, Moralia, 715 C.)

So the friends of Antony, who was consumed with love of the Egyptian woman,[*](Cf. Plutarch, Life of Antony, chap. liii. (940 D).) tried to make him believe that she was enamoured of him, and, upbraiding him, they would call him cold and haughty: For the woman, forsaking so great a kingdom and so many happy employments, is wearing her life away, as she follows with you on your marches in the guise of a concubine;

But the mind in your breast is proof against enchantment,[*](Homer, Od. x. 329.)

and you are indifferent to her distress. He was pleased at being taken to task for such wrongdoing, and taking more pleasure in those who accused him than he did even in any who commended him, he failed to see that by this seeming admonition he was being perversely drawn towards her. Such frankness is like the love bites of lascivious women; it arouses and tickles the sense of pleasure by pretending to cause pain. So undiluted wine is of itself a helpful remedy for the hemlock poison, but if they add it to hemlock and mix the two together they make the potency of the drug quite beyond remedy, since it is rapidly carried to the heart by the heat. In like manner the unscrupulous, being well aware that frankness is a great remedy for flattery, flatter by means of frankness itself. It is for this reason that Bias did not give a good answer to the man who asked him What is the fiercest animal? when he replied, Of the wild animals the tyrant, and of the domesticated the flatterer. For it were nearer the truth to say, that among flatterers those who hover about the bath and the table are domesticated, whereas he that extends his meddling and slander and malice like tentacles into the bedchamber and the women’s privacy, is an uncivilized brute and most hard to handle.