Laelius on Friendship (91-95)

As, therefore, it is characteristic of true friendship both to give and to receive advice and, on the one hand, to give it with all freedom of speech, but without harshness, and on the other hand, to receive it patiently, but without resentment, so nothing is to be considered a greater bane of friendship than fawning, cajolery, or flattery; for give it as many names as you choose, it deserves to be branded as a vice peculiar to fickle and false-hearted men who say everything with a view to pleasure and nothing with a view to truth.

Moreover, hypocrisy is not only wicked under all circumstances, because it pollutes truth and takes away the power to discern it, but it is also especially inimical to friendship, since it utterly destroys sincerity, without which the word friendship can have no meaning. And since the effect of friendship is to make, as it were, one soul out of many, how will that be possible if not even in one man taken by himself shall there be a soul always one and the same, but fickle, changeable, and manifold?

For what can be as pliant and erratic as the soul of the man who changes not only to suit another’s humour and desire, but even his expression and his nod?

He says nay, and nay say I; he says yea, and yea say I; in fine, I bade myself agree with him in everything.[*]

This was said by Terence whom I quoted before, but he says it in the character of Gnatho; and to have such a man for a friend on any terms is a mark of inconstancy.

However, there are many like Gnatho, though his superiors in birth, fortune, and reputation, who become dangerous flatterers when their insincerity is supported by their position.

But by the exercise of care a fawning friend may be separated and distinguished from a true friend, just as everything pretended and false may be distinguished from what is genuine and true. A public assembly, though composed of very ignorant men, can, nevertheless, usually see the difference between a demagogue—that is, a smooth-tongued, shallow citizen—and one who has stability, sincerity, and weight.