Slander: on not Being Quick to Put Faith in it (10)

For the most part, such men may be seen enjoying high favour in the courts of kings and among the friends of governors and princes, where envy is great, suspicions are countless, and occasions for flattery and slander are frequent. For where hope runs ever high, there envy is more bitter, hate more dangerous, and rivalry more cunning. All eye one another sharply and keep watch like gladiators to detect some part of the body exposed. Everyone, wishing to be first himself, shoves or elbows his neighbour out of his way and, if he can, slyly pulls down or trips up the man ahead. In this way a good man is simply upset and thrown at the start, and finally thrust off the course in disgrace, while one who is better versed in flattery and cleverer at such unfair practices wins. In a word, it is “devil take the hindmost !” ; for they quite confirm Homer’s saying:

Impartial war adds slayer to the slain.

Iliad 18, 309. So, as their conflict is for no small stake, they think out all sorts of ways to get at each other, of which the quickest, though most perilous, road is slander, which has a hopeful beginning in envy or hatred, but leads to a sorry, tragic ending, beset with many accidents.