Slander: on not Being Quick to Put Faith in it (16-20)

A very effective form of slander is the one that is based on opposition to the hearer’s tastes. For instance, in the court of the Ptolemy who was called Dionysus[*] there was once a man who accused Demetrius, the Platonic philosopher, of drinking nothing but water and of being the only person who did not wear women’s clothes during the feast of Dionysus. If Demetrius, on being sent for early the next morning, had ‘not drunk wine in view of everybody and had not put on a thin gown and played the cymbals and danced, he would have been put to death for not liking the king’ s mode of life, and being a critic and an opponent of Ptolemy’s luxury.

In the court of Alexander it was once the greatest of all slanderous charges to say that a man did not worship Hephaestion or even make obeisance to him —for after the death of Hephaestion, Alexander for the love he bore him determined to add to his other great feats that of appointing the dead man a god. So the cities at once erected temples; plots of ground - were consecrated; altars, sacrifices and feasts were established in honour of this new god, and everybody’s strongest oath was “By Hephaestion.” If anyone smiled at what went on or failed to'seem quite reverent, the penalty prescribed was death. The flatterers, taking hold of this childish passion of Alexander’s, at once began to feed it and fan it into flame by telling about dreams of Hephaestion, in that way ascribing to him visitations and cures and accrediting him with prophecies; and at last

It was then that Agathocles of Samos, one of Alexander’s captains whom he esteemed highly, came near being shut up in a lion’s den because he was charged with having wept as he went by the tomb of Hephaestion. But Perdiccas is said to have come to his rescue, swearing by all the gods and by Hephaestion to boot that while he was hunting the god had appeared to him in the flesh and had bidden him tell Alexander to spare Agathocles, saying that he had not wept from want of faith or because he thought Hephaestion dead, but only because he had been put in mind of their old-time friendship.

As you see, flattery and slander were most likely to find an opening when they were framed with reference to Alexander's weak point. In a siege the enemy do not attack the high, sheer and secure parts of the wall, but wherever they notice that any portion is unguarded, unsound or low, they move all their forces against that place because they can very easily get in there and take the city. Just so with slanderers: they assail whatever part of the soul they perceive to be weak, unsound and easy of access, bringing their siege-engines to bear on it

The engines that they use against the hearer are deceit, lying, perjury, insistence, impudence, and a thousand other unprincipled means; but the most important of all is flattery, a bosom friend, yes, an own sister to slander. Nobody is so high-minded and has a soul so well protected by walls of adamant that he cannot succumb to the assaults of flattery, especially when he is being undermined and his foundations sapped by slander.