wretched cocks, for he ordered his lad to scare away all live cocks as far from his picture as possible. So he too scares away real friends and will not let them come near if he can help it, but if he cannot prevent that, he openly fawns upon them, and courts them, and admires them as his betters, but privately runs them down and spreads calumnies about them. And when secret detraction has produced a sore feeling,75 if he has not effected his end completely, he remembers and observes the teaching of Medius, who was the chief of Alexander's flatterers, and a leading sophist in conspiracy against the best men. He bade people confidently sow their calumny broadcast and bite with it, teaching them that even if the person injured should heal his sore, the scar of the calumny would remain. Consumed by these scars, or rather gangrenes and cancers, Alexander put to death Callisthenes, and Parmenio, and Philotas; while he himself submitted to be completely outwitted by such as Agnon, and Bagoas, and Agesias, and Demetrius, who worshipped him and tricked him up and feigned him to be a barbaric god. So great is the power of flattery, and nowhere greater, as it seems, than among the greatest people. For their thinking and wishing the best about themselves makes them credit the flatterer, and gives him courage.76 For lofty heights are difficult of approach and hard to reach for those who endeavour to scale them, but the highmindedness and conceit of a person thrown off his balance by good fortune or good natural parts is easily reached by mean and petty people.
§ xxv. And so we advised at the beginning of this discourse, and now advise again, to cut off self-love and too high an opinion of ourselves; for that flatters us first, and makes us more impressionable and prepared for external flatterers. But if we hearken to the god, and recognize the immense importance to everyone of that saying, "Know thyself,"77 and at the same time carefully observe our nature and education and training, with its thousand shortcomings in respect to good, and the large proportion of vice and vanity mixed up with our words and deeds and feelings, we shall not make ourselves so easy a mark for flatterers.