word is said against me; but this man fears nothing, has no vices, is a rare good fellow, patient and easy in all circumstances." But if a person has an excellent idea of his own good sense, and desires to be austere and self-opinionated, and in his moral rectitude is ever spouting that line of Homer,
the artistic flatterer does not attack him as he attacked others, but employs against such a one a new device. For he comes to him about his own private affairs, as if desirous to have the advice of one wiser than himself; he has, he says, more intimate friends, but he is obliged to trouble him; "for whither shall we that are deficient in judgement go? whom shall we trust?" And having listened to his utterance he departs, saying he has received an oracle not an opinion. And if he notices that somebody lays claim to experience in oratory, he gives him some of his writings, and begs him to read and correct them. So, when king Mithridates took a fancy to play the surgeon, several of his friends offered themselves for operating upon, as for cutting or cauterizing, flattering in deed and not in word, for his being credited by them would seem to prove his skill.46