How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend (8-10)

The changes of the flatterer, which are like those of a cuttle-fish, may be most easily detected if a man pretends that he is very changeable himself and disapproves the mode of life which he previously approved, and suddenly shows a liking for actions, conduct, or language which used to offend him. For he will see that the flatterer is nowhere constant, has no character of his own, that it is not because of his own feelings that he loves and hates, and rejoices and grieves, but that, like a mirror, he only catches the images of alien feelings, lives and movements. For he is the kind of man, who, if you chance to blame one of your friends before him, will exclaim, You’ve been slow in discovering the man’s character; for my part I took a dislike to him long ago. But if, on the next occasion, you change about again and commend the man, then you may be sure the flatterer will avow that he shares your pleasure and thanks you for the man’s sake, and that he believes in him. If you say that you must adopt some other sort of life, as, for example, by changing from public life to ease and quietness, then he says, Yes, we

ought long ago to have secured release from turmoils and jealousies. But again if you appear to be bent on public activity and speaking, then he chimes in, Your thoughts are worthy of you; ease is a pleasant thing, but it is inglorious and mean. Without more ado we must say to such a man:

Stranger, you seem to me now a different man than aforetime.[*]

I have no use for a friend that shifts about just as I do and nods assent just as I do (for my shadow better performs that function), but I want one that tells the truth as I do, and decides for himself as I do. This is one method, then, of detecting the flatterer;

but here follows a second point of difference which ought to be observed, in his habits of imitation. The true friend is neither an imitator of everything nor ready to commend everything, but only the best things;

His nature ’tis to share not hate but love,

as Sophocles [*] has it, and most assuredly to share also in right conduct and in love for the good, not in error and evil-doing, unless, as a result of association and close acquaintance, an emanation and infection, like that which comes from a diseased eye, contaminate him against his will with a touch of baseness or error. In a similar way it is said that close acquaintances used to copy [*] Plato’s stoop, Aristotle’s lisp, and King Alexander’s twisted neck as well as the harshness of his voice in conversation. In fact, some people unconsciously acquire most of their peculiarities from the traits or the lives of others. But the flatterer’s case is exactly the same as that of the chameleon. For the chameleon can make himself like to every colour except white, and the flatterer, being utterly incapable of making himself like to another in any quality that is really worth while, leaves no shameful thing unimitated; but even as bad painters, who by reason of incompetence are unable to attain to the beautiful, depend upon wrinkles, moles, and scars to bring out their resemblances, so the flatterer makes himself an imitator of licentiousness, superstition, passionate anger, harshness toward servants, and distrust toward household and kinsmen. For by nature he is of himself prone to the worse, and he seems very far removed from disapproving what is shameful, since he imitates it. In fact it is those who follow a higher ideal and show distress and annoyance at the errors of their friends, who fall under suspicion. This is the thing that brought Dion into disfavour with Dionysius, Samius with Philip, Cleomenes with Ptolemy, and finally brought about their undoing. But the flatterer, desiring to be and to seem pleasant and loyal at the same time, affects to take greater delight in the worse things, as one who for the great love he bears will take no offence even at what is base, but feels with his friend and shares his nature in all things. For this reason flatterers will not be denied a share even in the chances of life which happen without our will; but they flatter the sickly by pretending to be afflicted with the same malady, and not to be able to see or hear distinctly if they have to do with those who are dim-sighted or hard of hearing, just as the flatterers of Dionysius, whose sight was failing, used to bump against one another and upset the dishes at dinner. And some seize upon afflictions rather as a means to insinuate themselves still more, and carry their fellow-feeling so far as to include inmost secrets. If they know, for example, that one or another is unfortunate in his marriage, or suspicious towards his sons or his household, they do not spare themselves, but lament over their own children or wife or kinsmen or household, divulging certain secret faults of theirs. For such similarity makes fellow-feeling stronger, so that the others, conceiving themselves to have received pledges, are more inclined to let out some of their own secrets to the flatterers, and having so done they take up with them, and are afraid to abandon the confidential relation. I personally know of one man who put away his wife after his friend had sent his own away; but he was caught visiting her in secret and sending messages to her after his friend’s wife had got wind of what was going on. Quite unacquainted with a flatterer, then, was he who thought that these iambic verses [*] applied to a flatterer rather than to a crab:

His body is all belly; eyes that look All ways; a beast that travels on its teeth.

For such a description is that of a parasite, one of

The saucepan friends and friends postprandial,

as Eupolis [*] puts it.

However, let us reserve this matter for its proper place in our discussion. But let us not omit to note this clever turn which the flatterer has in his imitations, that if he does imitate any of the good qualities of the person whom he flatters, he gives him always the upper hand. The reason is this: between true friends there is neither emulation nor envy, but whether their share of success is equal or less, they

bear it with moderation and without vexation. But the flatterer, mindful always that he is to play the second part, abates from his equality in the imitation, admitting that he is beaten and distanced in everything save what is bad. In bad things, however, he does not relinquish the first place, but, if the other man is malcontent, he calls himself choleric; if the man is superstitious he says of himself that he is possessed; that the man is in love, but that he himself is mad with passion. You laughed inopportunely, he says, but I nearly died of laughing. But in good things it is just the reverse. The flatterer says that he himself is a good runner, but the other man simply flies; that he himself is a fairly good horseman, but what is that compared with this Centaur? I am a natural born poet, and I write verse that is not at all bad, yet

To Zeus belongs the thunder, not to me.[*]

a Thus at the same time he thinks to show that the other’s tastes are excellent by imitating them, and that his prowess is unrivalled by letting himself be outdone. Thus, then, in the flatterer’s attempts to conform himself to another, differences like these are found which distinguish him from a friend.