Plutarch, Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur
Frank Cole Babbitt, Ed.

For the very reason, however, that friendship is the most pleasant thing in the world, and because nothing else gives greater delight, the flatterer allures by means of pleasures and concerns himself [p. 277] with pleasures. And just because graciousness and usefulness go with friendship (which is the reason why they say that a friend is more indispensable than fire and water), the flatterer thrusts himself into services for us, striving always to appear earnest, unremitting, and diligent. And inasmuch as that which most especially cements a friendship begun is a likeness of pursuits and characters, and since to take delight in the same things and avoid the same things is what generally brings people together in the first place, and gets them acquainted through the bond of sympathy, the flatterer takes note of this fact, and adjusts and shapes himself, as though he were so much inert matter, endeavouring to adapt and mould himself to fit those whom he attacks through imitation; and he is so supple in changes and so plausible in his copyings that we may exclaim :

Achilles' self thou art and not his son.¹

But the most unprincipled trick of all that he has is this : perceiving that frankness of speech, by common report and belief, is the language of friendship especially (as an animal has its peculiar cry), and, on the other hand, that lack of frankness is unfriendly and ignoble, he does not allow even this to escape imitation, but, just as clever cooks employ bitter extracts and astringent flavourings to remove the cloying effect of sweet things, so flatterers apply a frankness which is not genuine or beneficial, but which, as it were, winks while it frowns, and does nothing but tickle. For these reasons, then, the man is hard to detect, as is the case with some animals to which Nature has given the faculty of changing their hue, so that they exactly conform to [p. 279] the colours and objects beneath them. And since the flatterer uses resemblances to deceive and to wrap about him, it is our task to use the differences in order to unwrap him and lay him bare, in the act, as Plato ² puts it, of ‘adorning himself with alien colours and forms for want of any of his own.’