How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend (16-17)

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.