insult and ribaldry, and put up with being made sport of, exhibiting himself as an instrument to produce laughter. So too the flatterer, who can neither advocate your cause, nor give you useful counsel, nor share in your contention with anybody, but shirks all labour and toil, never makes any excuses in underhand transactions, is sure to lend a helping hand in any love affair, is energetic in setting free some harlot, and not careless in clearing off the account of a drinking score, nor remiss in making preparations for banquets, and obsequious to concubines, but if ordered to be uncivil to your relations, or to help in turning your wife out of doors, he is relentless and not to be put out of countenance. So that he is not hard to detect here too. For if ordered to do anything you please disreputable or dishonourable, he is ready to take any pains to oblige you.
§ xxiv. One might detect again how greatly the flatterer differs from the friend by his behaviour to other friends. For the friend is best pleased with loving and being beloved by many, and also always tries to contrive for his friend that he too may be much loved and honoured, for he believes in the proverb "the goods of friends are common property,"73 and thinks it ought to apply to nothing more than to friends; but the false and spurious and counterfeit friend, knowing how much he debases friendship, like debased and spurious coin, is not only by nature envious, but shows his envy even of those who are like himself, striving to outdo them in scurrility and gossip, while he quakes and trembles at any of his betters, not by Zeus "merely walking on foot by their Lydian chariot," but, to use the language of Simonides, "not even, having pure lead by comparison with their refined gold."74 Whenever then, being light and counterfeit and false, he is put to the test at close quarters with a true and solid and cast-iron friendship, he cannot stand the test but is detected at once, and imitates the conduct of the painter that painted some