HOW ONE MAY DISCERN A FLATTERER FROM A FRIEND.

§ xxix. In what cases then ought a friend to be vehement, and when ought he to use emphatic freedom of language? When circumstances call upon him to check some headlong pleasure or rage or insolence, or to curtail avarice, or to correct some foolish negligence. Thus Solon spoke out to Crœsus, who was corrupted and enervated by insecure good fortune, bidding him look to the end.⁹² Thus Socrates restrained Alcibiades, and wrung from him genuine tears by his reproof, and changed his heart.⁹³ Such also was the plain dealing of Cyrus with Cyaxares, and of Plato with Dion, for when Dion was most famous and attracted to himself the notice of all men, by the splendour and greatness of his exploits, Plato warned him to fear and be on his guard against "pleasing only himself, for so he would lose all his friends."⁹⁴ Speusippus also wrote to him not to plume himself on being a great person only with lads and women, but to see to it that by adorning Sicily with piety and justice and good laws he might make the Academy glorious. On the other hand Euctus and Eulæus, companions of Perseus, in the days of his prosperity ingratiated themselves with him, and assented to him in all things, and danced attendance upon him, like all the other courtiers, but when he fled after his defeat by the Romans at Pydna, they attacked him and censured him bitterly, reminding him and upbraiding him in regard to everything he had done amiss or neglected to do, till he