HOW ONE MAY DISCERN A FLATTERER FROM A FRIEND.

some of them are cleverer still and make their outspokenness and censure a means of imparting pleasure. As Agis the Argive,⁵⁷ 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, Cæsar, 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."