Plutarch's Morals
looking after the farm, so flatterers obtain most success in their
praise, when they do not seem to be praising but to be doing something
else. For he who gives up his place or seat to the great man when he
comes in, and while making a speech to the people or senate breaks off
even in the middle, if he observes any rich man wants to speak, and
gives up to him alike speech and platform, shows by his silence even
more than he would by any amount of vociferation that he thinks the
other the better man, and superior to him in judgement. And consequently
you may always see them occupying the best places at theatres and public
assembly rooms, not that they think themselves worthy of them, but that
they may flatter the rich by giving up their places to them; and at
public meetings they begin speaking first, and then make way as for
better men, and most readily take back their own view, if any
influential or rich or famous person espouse the contrary view. And so
one can see plainly that all such servility and drawing back on their
part is a lowering their sails, not to experience or virtue or age, but
to wealth and fame. Not so Apelles the famous painter, who, when
Megabyzus sat with him, and wished to talk about lines and shades, said
to him, "Do you see my lads yonder grinding colours, they admired just
now your purple and gold, but now they are laughing at you for beginning
to talk about what you don't understand."[408] And Solon, when Croesus
asked him about happiness, replied that Tellus, an obscure Athenian, and
Bito and Cleobis were happier than he was.[409] But flatterers proclaim
kings and rich men and rulers not only happy and fortunate, but also
pre-eminent for wisdom, and art, and every virtue.
Sec. XVI. Now some cannot bear to hear the assertion of the Stoics[410]
that the wise man is at once rich, and handsome, and noble, and a king;
but flatterers declare that the rich man is at once orator and poet, and
(if he likes) painter, and flute-player, and swift-footed, and strong,
falling down if he wrestles with them, and if contending with him in
running letting him win the race, as Crisso of Himera purposely allowed
Alexander to outrun him, which vexed the king very much when he heard of
it.[411] And Carneades said that the sons of rich men and kings learnt
nothing really well and properly except how to ride, for their master
praised and flattered them in their studies, and the person who taught
them wrestling always let them throw him, whereas the horse, not knowing
or caring whether his rider were a private person or ruler, rich or
poor, soon threw him over his head if he could not ride well. Simple
therefore and fatuous was that remark of Bion, "If you could by
encomiums make your field to yield well and be fruitful, you could not
be thought wrong in tilling it so rather than digging it and labouring
in it: nor would it be strange in you to praise human beings if by so
doing you could be useful and serviceable to them." For a field does not
become worse by being praised, but those who praise a man falsely and
against his deserts puff him up and ruin him.
Sec. XVII. Enough has been said on this matter: let us now examine
outspokenness. For just as Patroclus put on the armour of Achilles, and
drove his horses to the battle, only durst not touch his spear from
Mount Pelion, but let that alone, so ought the flatterer, tricked out
and modelled in the distinctive marks and tokens of the friend, to leave
untouched and uncopied only his outspokenness, as the special burden of
friendship, "heavy, huge, strong."[412] But since flatterers, to avoid
the blame they incur by their buffoonery, and drinking, and gibes, and
jokes, sometimes work their ends by frowns and gravity, and intermix
censure and reproof, let us not pass this over either without
examination. And I think, as in Menander's Play the sham Hercules comes
on the stage not with a club stout and strong, but with a light and
hollow cane, so the outspokenness of the flatterer is to those who
experience it mild and soft, and the very reverse of vigorous, and like
those cushions for women's heads, which seem able to stand their ground,
but in reality yield and give way under their pressure; so this sham
outspokenness is puffed up and inflated with an empty and spurious and
hollow bombast, that when it contracts and collapses draws in the person
who relies on it. For true and friendly outspokenness attacks
wrong-doers, bringing pain that is salutary and likely to make them more
careful, like honey biting but cleansing ulcerated parts of the
body,[413] but in other respects serviceable and sweet. But we will
speak of this anon.[414] But the flatterer first exhibits himself as
disagreeable and passionate and unforgiving in his dealings with others.
For he is harsh to his servants, and a terrible fellow to attack and
ferret out the faults of his kinsmen and friends, and to look up to and
respect nobody who is a stranger, but to look down upon them, and is
relentless and mischief-making in making people provoked with others,
hunting after the reputation of hating vice, as one not likely knowingly
to mince matters with the vicious, or ingratiate himself with them
either in word or deed. Next he pretends to know nothing of real and
great crimes, but he is a terrible fellow to inveigh against trifling
and external shortcomings, and to fasten on them with intensity and
vehemence, as if he sees any pot or pipkin out of its place, or anyone
badly housed, or neglecting his beard or attire, or not adequately
attending to a horse or dog. But contempt of parents, and neglect of
children, and bad treatment of wife, and haughtiness to friends, and
throwing away money, all this he cares nothing about, but is silent and
does not dare to make any allusion to it: just as if the trainer in a
gymnasium were to allow the athlete to get drunk and live in
debauchery,[415] and yet be vexed at the condition of his oil-flask or
strigil if out of order; or as if the schoolmaster scolded a boy about
his tablet and pen, but paid no attention to a solecism or barbarism.
The flatterer is like a man who should make no comment on the speech of
a silly and ridiculous orator, but should find fault with his voice, and
chide him for injuring his throat by drinking cold water; or like a
person bidden to read some wretched composition, who should merely find
fault with the thickness of the paper, and call the copyist a dirty and
careless fellow. So too when Ptolemy seemed to desire to become learned,
his flatterers used to spin out the time till midnight, disputing about
some word or line or history, but not one of them all objected to his
cruelty and outrages, his torturing and beating people to death.[416]
Just as if, when a man has tumours and fistulas, one were to cut his
hair and nails with a surgeon's knife, so flatterers use outspokenness
only in cases where it gives no pain or distress.
Sec. XVIII. Moreover some of them are cleverer still and make their
outspokenness and censure a means of imparting pleasure. As Agis the
Argive,[417] when Alexander bestowed great gifts on a buffoon, cried out
in envy and displeasure, "What a piece of absurdity!" and on the king
turning angrily to him and saying, "What are you talking about?" he
replied, "I admit that I am vexed and put out, when I see that all you
descendants of Zeus alike take delight in flatterers and jesters, for
Hercules had his Cercopes, and Dionysus his Sileni, and with you too I
see that such are held in good repute." And on one occasion, when the
Emperor Tiberius entered the senate, one of his flatterers got up and
said, that being free men they ought to be outspoken, and not suppress
or conceal anything that might be important, and having by this exordium
engaged everybody's attention, a dead silence prevailing, and even
Tiberius being all attention, he said, "Listen, Caesar, to what we all
charge you with, although no one ventures to tell you openly of it; you
neglect yourself, and are careless about your health, and wear yourself
out with anxiety and labour on our behalf, taking no rest either by
night or day." And on his stringing much more together in the same
strain, they say the orator Cassius Severus said, "This outspokenness
will ruin the man."
Sec. XIX. These are indeed trifling matters: but the following are more
important and do mischief to foolish people, when flatterers accuse them
of the very contrary vices and passions to those to which they are
really addicted; as Himerius the flatterer twitted a very rich, very
mean, and very covetous Athenian with being a careless spendthrift, and
likely one day to want bread as well as his children; or on the other
hand if they rail at extravagant spendthrifts for meanness and
sordidness, as Titus Petronius railed at Nero; or exhort rulers who make
savage and cruel attacks on their subjects to lay aside their excessive
clemency, and unseasonable and inexpedient mercy. Similar to these is
the person who pretends to be on his guard against and afraid of a silly
stupid fellow as if he were clever and cunning; and the one who, if any
person fond of detraction, rejoicing in defamation and censure, should
be induced on any occasion to praise some man of note, fastens on him
and alleges against him that he has an itch for praising people. "You
are always extolling people of no merit: for who is this fellow, or what
has he said or done out of the common?" But it is in regard to the
objects of their love that they mostly attack those they flatter, and
additionally inflame them. For if they see people at variance with their
brothers, or despising their parents, or treating their wives
contemptuously, they neither take them to task nor scold them, but fan
the flame of their anger still more. "You don't sufficiently appreciate
yourself," they say, "you are yourself the cause of your being put upon
in this way, through your constant submissiveness and humility." And if
there is any tiff or fit of jealousy in regard to some courtesan or
adulteress, the flatterer is at hand with remarkable outspokenness,
adding fuel to flame,[418] and taking the lady's part, and accusing her
lover of acting in a very unkind harsh and shameful manner to her,
"O ingrate, after all those frequent kisses!"[419]
Thus Antony's friends, when he was passionately in love with the
Egyptian woman,[420] persuaded him that he was loved by her, and twitted
him with being cold and haughty to her. "She," they said, "has left her
mighty kingdom and happy mode of life, and is wasting her beauty, taking
the field with you like some camp-follower,
"The while your heart is proof 'gainst all her charms,"[421]
as you neglect her love-lorn as she is." But he that is pleased at being
reproached with his wrong-doing, and delights in those that censure him,
as he never did in those that praised him, is unconscious that he is
really perverted also by what seems to be rebuke. For such outspokenness
is like the bites of wanton women,[422] that while seeming to hurt
really tickle and excite pleasure. And just as if people mix pure wine,
which is by itself an antidote against hemlock, with it and so offer it,
they make the poison quite deadly, being rapidly carried to the heart by
the warmth,[423] so ill-disposed men, knowing that outspokenness is a
great antidote to flattery, make it a means of flattering. And so it was
rather a bad answer Bias[424] made, to the person who inquired what was
the most formidable animal, "Of wild animals the tyrant, and of tame the
flatterer." For it would have been truer to observe that tame flatterers
are those that are found round the baths and table, but the one that
intrudes into the interior of the house and into the women's apartments