Calumniae non temere credundum

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 1. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913.

As you see, flattery and slander were most likely to find an opening when they were framed with reference to Alexander's weak point. In a siege the enemy do not attack the high, sheer and secure parts of the wall, but wherever they notice that any portion is unguarded, unsound or low, they move all their forces against that place because they can very easily get in there and take the city. Just so with slanderers: they assail whatever part of the soul they perceive to be weak, unsound and easy of access, bringing their siege-engines to bear on it

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and finally capturing it, as no one opposes them or notices their assault. Then, when they are once within the walls, they fire everything and smite and slay and banish ; for all these things are likely to happen when the soul is captured and put in bondage.

The engines that they use against the hearer are deceit, lying, perjury, insistence, impudence, and a thousand other unprincipled means; but the most important of all is flattery, a bosom friend, yes, an own sister to slander. Nobody is so high-minded and has a soul so well protected by walls of adamant that he cannot succumb to the assaults of flattery, especially when he is being undermined and his foundations sapped by slander.

All this is on the outside, while on the inside there are many traitors who help the enemy, holding out their hands to him, opening the gates, and in every way furthering the capture of the hearer. First there is fondness for novelty, which is by nature common to all mankind, and ennui also; and secondly, a tendency to be attracted by startling rumours. Somehow or other we all like to hear stories that are slyly whispered in our ear, and are packed with innuendo: indeed, I know men who get as much pleasure from having their ears titillated with slander as some do from being tickled with feathers.

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Therefore, when the enemy falls on with all these forces in league with him, he takes the fort by storm, I suppose, and his victory cannot even prove difficult, since nobody mans the walls or tries to repel his attacks. No, the hearer surrenders of his own accord, and the slandered person is not aware of the design upon him: slandered men are murdered in their sleep, just as when a city is captured in the night.

The saddest thing of all is that the slandered man, unaware of all that has taken place, meets his friend cheerfully, not being conscious of any misdeed, and speaks and acts in his usual manner, when he is beset on every side, poor fellow, with lurking foes. The other, if he is noble, gentlemanly, and outspoken, at once lets his anger burst out and vents his wrath, and then at last, on permitting a defence to be made, finds out that he was incensed at_ his friend for nothing.

But if he is ignoble and mean he welcomes him and smiles at him out of the corner of his mouth, while all the time he hates him and secretly grinds his teeth and broods, as the poet says[*](Homer; the word is frequent in the Odyssey (e.g. 9, 316 ; 17, 66).) on his anger. Yet nothing, I think, is more unjust or more contemptible than to bite your lips and nurse your bitterness, to lock your hatred up within yourself and nourish it, thinking one thing in the depths of your heart and saying another, and acting a very eventful tragedy, full of lamentation, with a jovial comedy face.

Men are more liable to act in this way when the slanderer has long seemed to be a friend of the person slandered, and yet does what he does.

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In that case they are no longer willing even to hear the voice of the men slandered or of those who speak in their behalf, for they assume in advance that the accusation can be relied on because of the apparent friendship of long standing, without even reflecting that many reasons for hatred . often arise between the closest friends, of which the rest of the world knows nothing. Now and then, too, a man makes haste to accuse his neighbour of something that he is himself to blame for, trying in this way to escape accusation himself. And in general, nobody would venture to slander an enemy, for in that case his accusation would not inspire belief, as its motive would be patent. No, they attack those men who seem to be their best friends, aiming to show their good will toward their hearers by sacrificing even their nearest and dearest to help them.

There are people who, even if they afterwards learn that their friends have been unjustly accused to them, nevertheless, because they are ashamed of their own credulity, no longer can endure to receive them or look at them, as though they themselves had been wronged merely by finding out that the others were doing no wrong at all!

It follows, then, that life has been filled with troubles in abundance through the slanderous stories that have been believed so readily and so unquestioningly. Anteia says:

Die, Proetus, or despatch Bellerophon,
Who offered me his love, by me unsought,

Homer, Iliad 6, 164. when she herself had made the first move and had

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been scorned. So the young man came near getting killed in the encounter with the Chimaera, and was rewarded for his continence and his respect for his host by being plotted against by a wanton. As for Phaedra, she too made a similar charge against her stepson and so brought it about that Hippolytus was cursed by his father [*](Theseus: the story is told in the Hippolytus of Euripides.) when he had done nothing impious—good Heavens, nothing !

“Yes,” somebody will say, “but now and then the man who brings a personal charge deserves credence, because he seems to be just in all other matters and sensible also, and one would have to heed him, as he would never do such a scoundrelly thing as that.” Well, is there anyone more just than Aristides? But even he conspired against Themistocles and had a hand in stirring up the people against him, because, they say, he was secretly pricked by the same political ambition as Themistocles. Aristides was indeed just, in comparison with the rest of the world; but he was a man like anyone else and had spleen and not only loved but hated on occasion.