Deipnosophistae

And a little further Clearchus goes on as follows:— "But still a man may have a right to find fault with that young man for the way in which he used those things, as I have said before. For his slaves stood in short tunics a little behind the couch: and as there are now three men on whose account all this discussion has been originated, and as all these men are men who have separate names among us, the one sat on the couch close to his feet, letting the feet of the young man rest upon his knees, and covering them with a thin cloth; and what he did further is plain enough, even if I do not mention it. And this servant is called by the natives Parabystus, because he works his way into the company of those men even who do not willingly receive him, by the very skilful character of his flatteries. The second was one sitting on a certain chair which was placed close to the couch; and he, holding by the hand of the young mar, as he let it almost drop, and clinging to it, kept on rubbing it, and taking each of his fingers in turn he rubbed it and stretched it, so that the man appeared to have said a very with thing who first gave that officer the name of Sicya.[*](σικύα, a cucumber.) The third, however, was the most noble of all, and was called Theer (or the wild beast), who was indeed the principal person of the whole body, and who stood at his master's head, and shared

So when the young man was stung, this man uttered such a loud scream in his behalf, and was so indignant, that on account of his hatred to one fly he banished the whole tribe of flies from his house: from which it is quite plain that he appointed this servant for this especial purpose.

But Leucon, the tyrant of Pontus, was a different kind of man, who when he knew that many of his friends had been plundered by one of the flatterers whom he had about him, perceiving that the man was calumniating some one of his remaining friends, said,

I swear by the gods that I would kill you if a tyrannical government did not stand in need of bad men.

1. A. Tell me now, you had lived some time in Cyprus
2. Say you not so?
3. B. Yes, all the time of the war.
4. A. In what part most especially? tell me that.
5. B. In Paphos, where you should have seen the luxury
6. That did exist, or you could not believe it.
7. A. What kind of luxury?
8. B. The king was fann'd
9. While at his supper by young turtle-doves
10. And by nought else.
11. A. How mean you? never mind
12. My own affairs, but let me ask you this.
13. B. He was anointed with a luscious ointment
14. Brought up from Syria, made of some rich fruit
15. Which they do say doves love to feed upon.
16. They were attracted by the scent and flew
17. Around the royal temples; and had dared
18. To seat themselves upon the monarch's head,
19. But that the boys who sat around with sticks
20. Did keep them at a slight and easy distance.
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21. And so they did not perch, but hover'd round,
22. Neither too far nor yet too near, still fluttering,
23. So that they raised a gentle breeze to blow
24. Not harshly on the forehead of the king.

The flatterer (κόλαξ) of that young man whom we have been speaking of must have been a μαλακοκόλαξ, (a soft flatterer,) as Clearchus says. For besides flattering such a man as that, he invents a regular gait and dress harmonizing with that of those who receive the flattery, folding his arms and wrapping himself up in a small cloak; on which account some men call him Paranconistes, and some call him a Repository of Attitudes. For really a flatterer does seem to be the very same person with Proteus himself. Accordingly he changes into nearly every sort of person, not only in form, but also in his discourse, so very varied in voice he is.

But Androcydes the physician said that flattery had its name (κολάκεια) from becoming glued (ἀπὸ τοῦ προσκολλᾶσθαι) to men's acquaintance. But it appears to me that they were named from their facility; because a flatterer will undergo anything, like a person who stoops down to carry another on his back, by reason of his natural disposition, not being annoyed at anything, however disgraceful it may be.

And a man will not be much out who calls the life of that young Cyprian a wet one. And Alexis says that there were many tutors and teachers of that kind of life at Athens, speaking thus in his Pyraunus—

1. I wish'd to try another style of life,
2. Which all men are accustom'd to call wet.
3. So walking three days in the Ceramicus,
4. I found it may be thirty skilful teachers
5. Of the aforesaid life, from one single school.

1. The wetness of your life amazes me,
2. For men do call intemperance now wetness.

And Antiphanes, in his Lemnian Women, lays it down that flattery is a kind of art, where he says—

1. Is there, or can there be an art more pleasing,
2. Or any source of gain more sure and gainful
3. Than well-judged flattery? Why does the painter
4. Take so much pains and get so out of temper?
5. Why does the farmer undergo such risks?
6. Indeed all men are full of care and trouble.
7. But life for us is full of fun and laughter.
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8. For where the greatest business is amusement,
9. To laugh and joke and drink full cups of wine,
10. Is not that pleasant't How can one deny?
11. 'Tis the next thing to being rich oneself.

But Menander, in his play called the Flatterer, has given us the character of one as carefully and faithfully as it was possible to manage it: as also Diphilus has of a parasite in his Telesias. And Alexis, in his Liar, has introduced a flatterer speaking in the following manner—

1. By the Olympian Jove and by Minerva
2. I am a happy man. And not alone
3. Because I'm going to a wedding dinner,
4. But because I shall burst, an it please God.
5. And would that I might meet with such a death.

1. For I must speak of a yearly feast
2. As if it came round every day.

But Hippias the Erythræan, in the second book of his Histories of his own Country, relating how the kingdom of Cnopus was subverted by the conduct of his flatterers, says this—"When Cnopus consulted the oracle about his safety, the god, in his answer, enjoined him to sacrifice to the crafty Mercury. And when, after that, he went to Delphi, they who were anxious to put an end to his kingly power in order to establish an oligarchy instead of it, (and those who wished this were Ortyges, and Irus, and Echarus, who, because they were most conspicuous in paying court to the princes, were called adorers and flatterers,) they, I say, being on a voyage in company with Cnopus, when they were at a distance from land, bound Cnopus and threw him into the sea; and then they sailed to Chios, and getting a force from the tyrants there, Amphiclus and Polytechnus, they sailed by night to Erythræ, and just at the same time the corpse of Cnopus was washed up on the sea-shore at Erythræ, at a place which is now called Leopodon. And while Cleonice, the wife of Cnopus, was busied about the offices due to the corpse, (and it was the time of the festival and assembly instituted in honour of Diana Stophea,) on a sudden there is heard the noise of a trumpet; and the city is taken by Ortyges and his troops, and many of the friends of Cnopus are put to death; and Cleonice, hearing what had happened, fled to Colophon.

But Ortyges and his companions, establishing themselves as tyrants, and having possessed themselves of the supreme power in Chios, destroyed all who opposed their proceedings, and they subverted the laws, and themselves managed the whole of the affairs of the state, admitting none of the popular party within the walls. And they established a court of justice outside the walls, before the gates; and there they tried all actions, sitting as judges, clothed in purple cloaks, and in tunics with purple borders, and they wore sandals with many slits in them during the hot weather; but in winter they always walked about in women's shoes; and they let their hair grow, and took great care of it so as to have ringlets, dividing it on the top of their head with fillets of yellow and purple. And they wore ornaments of solid gold, like women, and they compelled some of the citizens to carry their litters, and some to act as lictors to them, and some to sweep the roads. And they sent for the sons of some of the citizens to their parties when they supped together; and some they ordered to bring their own wives and daughters within. And on those who disobeyed they inflicted the most extreme punishment. And if any one of their companions died, then collecting the citizens with their wives and children, they compelled them by violence to utter lamentations over the dead, and to beat their breasts, and to cry out shrilly and loudly with their voices, a man with a scourge standing over them, who compelled them to do so—until Hippotes, the brother of Cnopus, coming to Erythræ with an army at the time of a festival, the people of Erythræ assisting him, set upon the tyrants, and having punished a great many of their companions, slew Ortyges in his flight, and all who were with him, and treated their wives and children with the very extremity of ill-usage, and delivered his country.

Now from all this we may understand, my friends, of how many evils flattery is the cause in human life. For Theopompus, in the nineteenth book of his history of the Transactions of Philip, says,

Agathocles was a slave, and one of the Penestee in Thessaly, and as he had great influence with Philip by reason of his flattery of him, and because he was constantly at his entertainments dancing and making him laugh, Philip sent him to destroy the Perrhæbi, and to govern all that part of the country. And the Macedonian constantly

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had this kind of people about him, with whom he associated the greater part of his time, because of their fondness for drinking and buffoonery, and in their company he used to deliberate on the most important affairs.

that Philip knowing that the Thessalians were an intemperate race, and very profligate in their way of living, prepared some entertainments for them, and endeavoured in every possible manner to make himself agreeable to them. For he danced and revelled, and practised every kind of intemperance and debauchery. And he was by nature a buffoon, and got drunk every day, and he delighted in those occupations which are consistent with such practices, and with those who are called witty men, who say and do things to provoke laughter. And he attached numbers of the Thessalians who were intimate with him to himself, still more by his entertainments than by his presents.

1. But he is harsh and rigorous to the solemn,
2. But most good-humour'd to all flatterers,
3. And all who jest with freedom. For he thinks
4. Those men alone are free, though slaves they be.

And indeed Dionysius was not the only person who encouraged and received those who had squandered their estates on drunkenness and gambling and all such debauchery as that, for Philip also did the same. And Theopompus speaks of such of them in the forty-ninth book of his History, where he writes as follows:—

Philip kept at a distance all men who were well regulated in their conduct and who took care of their property; but the extravagant and those who lived in gambling and drunkenness he praised and honoured. And therefore he not only took care that they should always have such amusements, but he encouraged them to devote themselves to all sorts of injustice and debauchery besides. For what disgraceful or iniquitous practices were there to which

v.1.p.409

these men were strangers, or what virtuous or respectable habits were there which they did not shun? Did they not at all times go about shaven and carefully made smooth, though they were men? And did not they endeavour to misuse one another though they had beards? And they used to go about attended by two or three lovers at a time; and they expected no complaisance from others which they were not prepared to exhibit themselves. On which account a man might very reasonably have thought them not ἑταῖροι but ἑταῖραι, and one might have called them not soldiers, but prostitutes. For though they were ἀνδροφόνοι by profession, they were ἀνδρόπορνοι by practice. And in addition to all this, instead of loving sobriety, they loved drunkenness; and instead of living respectably they sought every opportunity of robbing and murdering; and as for speaking the truth, and adhering to their agreements, they thought that conduct quite inconsistent with their characters; but to perjure themselves and cheat, they thought the most venerable behaviour possible. And they disregarded what they had, but they longed for what they had not; and this too, though a great part of Europe belonged to them. For I think that the companions of Philip, who did not at that time amount to a greater number than eight hundred, had possession so far as to enjoy the fruits of more land than any ten thousand Greeks, who had the most fertile and large estates.

Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily encouraged above all others those who squandered their property in drunkenness and gambling and intemperance of that sort. For he wished every one to become ruined and ready for any iniquity, and all such people he treated with favour and distinction.

And Demetrius Poliorcetes was a man very fond of mirth, as Phylarchus relates in the tenth book of his History. But in the fourteenth book he writes as follows:—

Demetrius used to allow men to flatter him at his banquets, and to pour libations in his honour, calling him Demetrius the only king, and Ptolemy only the prefect of the flee, and Lysimachus only a steward, and Seleucus only a superintendent of elephants, and in this way he incurred no small amount of hatred.

And Theophrastus, in his treatise on Comedy, tells us that the Tirynthians, being people addicted to amusement, and utterly useless for all serious business, betook themselves once to the oracle at Delphi in hopes to be relieved from some calamity or other. And that the God answered them,

That if they sacrificed a bull to Neptune and threw it into the sea without once laughing, the evil would cease.

Why,

are you afraid lest I should spoil your sacrifice?