All this is on the
outside, while on the inside there are many traitors
who help the enemy, holding out their hands to him,
opening the gates, and in every way furthering
the capture of the hearer. First there is fondness
for novelty, which is by nature common to all
mankind, and ennui also; and secondly, a tendency
to be attracted by startling rumours. Somehow or
other we all like to hear stories that are slyly
whispered in our ear, and are packed with innuendo:
indeed, I know men who get as much pleasure from
having their ears titillated with slander as some do
from being tickled with feathers.


 

 
Therefore, when the enemy falls on with all these
forces in league with him, he takes the fort by storm,
I suppose, and his victory cannot even prove difficult,
since nobody mans the walls or tries to repel
his attacks. No, the hearer surrenders of his own
accord, and the slandered person is not aware of the
design upon him: slandered men are murdered
in their sleep, just as when a city is captured in
the night.

 
The saddest thing of all is that the slandered
man, unaware of all that has taken place, meets his
friend cheerfully, not being conscious of any misdeed,
and speaks and acts in his usual manner, when he
is beset on every side, poor fellow, with lurking foes.
The other, if he is noble, gentlemanly, and outspoken, at once lets his anger burst out and vents
his wrath, and then at last, on permitting a defence
to be made, finds out that he was incensed at_ his
friend for nothing.

 

But if he is ignoble and mean
he welcomes him and smiles at him out of the
corner of his mouth, while all the time he hates
him and secretly grinds his teeth and broods, as the
poet says Homer; the word is frequent in the Odyssey (e.g. 9, 316 ; 17, 66). on his anger. Yet nothing, I think, is
more unjust or more contemptible than to bite
your lips and nurse your bitterness, to lock your
hatred up within yourself and nourish it, thinking
one thing in the depths of your heart and saying
another, and acting a very eventful tragedy, full of
lamentation, with a jovial comedy face. 
Men are more liable to act in this way when
the slanderer has long seemed to be a friend of
the person slandered, and yet does what he does.



 

In that case they are no longer willing even
to hear the voice of the men slandered or of those
who speak in their behalf, for they assume in
advance that the accusation can be relied on
because of the apparent friendship of long standing,
without even reflecting that many reasons for hatred .
often arise between the closest friends, of which
the rest of the world knows nothing. Now and
then, too, a man makes haste to accuse his neighbour of something that he is himself to blame for,
trying in this way to escape accusation himself.
And in general, nobody would venture to slander
an enemy, for in that case his accusation would not
inspire belief, as its motive would be patent. No,
they attack those men who seem to be their best
friends, aiming to show their good will toward their
hearers by sacrificing even their nearest and dearest
to help them.

 

There are people who, even if they afterwards
learn that their friends have been unjustly accused
to them, nevertheless, because they are ashamed of
their own credulity, no longer can endure to receive
them or look at them, as though they themselves
had been wronged merely by finding out that the
others were doing no wrong at all!