How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend (14-16)

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,[*]

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,[*]

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,[*]

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,[*] 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 [*] 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, [*] 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. [*] 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.