For this reason we must be especially on our guard against the flatterer in
the matter of his praises. But of this he is not unconscious himself, and he
is adroit at guarding against the breath of suspicion. If, for example, he
gets hold of some coxcomb, or a rustic wearing a thick coat of skin, he
indulges his raillery without limit, just as Strouthias, in the play, walks
all over Bias, and takes a fling at his stupidity by such praise as this :
More you have drunk Than royal Alexander,1
and
Ha ! ha ! A good one on the
Cyprian,2
But as for the more clever people, he observes that
[p. 307]
they are particularly on the look-out for him in this
quarter, that they stand well upon their guard in this place and region ; so
he does not deploy his praise in a frontal attack, but fetches a wide
circuit, and
Approaches noiseless as to catch a beast,3
touching and
handling him. Now he will report other people's praise of him, quoting
another's words as public speakers do, how he had the pleasure of meeting in
the market-place with some strangers or elderly men, who recounted many
handsome things of him and expressed their admiration ; then again, he will
fabricate and concoct some trivial and false accusation against him, which
he feigns to have heard from others, and comes up in hot haste to inquire
when it was he said this or when it was he did that. And if the man denies
the thing, as he naturally will, then on the instant the flatterer seizes
him and launches him into a flood of praise : ‘I wondered if you did
speak ill of any of your good friends, since it is not your nature to
speak ill even of your enemies, or if you did make any attempt on
other's property when you give away so much of your own.’
