the gods.38 It was nearly the overthrow and destruction of the ancient manners of the Romans, palliating the luxury and intemperance and display of Antony as exhibitions of jollity and kindliness, when his power and fortune were at their zenith. What else invested Ptolemy39 with his pipe and fiddle? What else brought Nero40 on the tragic stage, and invested him with the mask and buskins? Was it not the praise of flatterers? And are not many kings called Apollos if they can just sing a song,41 and Dionysuses if they get drunk, and Herculeses if they can wrestle, and do they not joy in such titles, and are they not dragged into every kind of disgrace by flattery?
§ xiii. Wherefore we must be especially on our guard against the flatterer in regard to praise; as indeed he is very well aware himself, and clever to avoid suspicion. If he light upon some dandy, or rustic in a thick leather garment, he treats him with nothing but jeers and mocks,42 as Struthias insulted Bias, ironically praising him for his stupidity, saying, "You have drunk more than king Alexander,"43 and, "that he was ready to die of laughing at his tale about the Cyprian."44 But when he sees people more refined very much on their guard, and observing both time and place, he does not praise them directly, but draws off a little and wheels round and approaches them noiselessly, as one tries to catch a wild animal. For sometimes he reports to a man the panegyric of other persons upon him, (as orators do, introducing some third person,) saying that he had a very pleasant conversation in the market with some strangers and men of worth, who mentioned how they admired his many good points. On another occasion he concocts and fabricates some false and trifling charges against him, pretending he has heard them from other people, and runs up with a serious face and inquires, where he said or did such and such a thing. And upon his denying he ever did, he pounces on him at once45 and compliments his man with, "I thought it strange that you should have spoken ill of your friends, seeing that you don't even treat your enemies so: and that you should have tried to rob other people, seeing that you are so lavish with your own money."