How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend (15-19)

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.

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,[*]

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 [*] 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 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, [*] but in its other uses it is wholesome and sweet; this later shall have a chapter to itself.[*] 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, [*] 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![*]

So the friends of Antony, who was consumed with love of the Egyptian woman,[*] 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,[*]

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.