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Sec. XXII. To all sensible people all this is an indication, not of true or sober friendship, but of a meretricious one, that embraces you more warmly than there is any occasion for. Nevertheless let us first look at the difference between the friend and flatterer in their promises. For it has been well said by those who have handled this subject before us, that the friend’s promise is,

“If I can do it, and ’tis to be done,”

but the flatterer’s is,

“Speak out your mind, whate’er it is, to me.”[428]

And the comic dramatists put such fellows on the stage,

“Nicomachus, pit me against that soldier,
See if I beat him not into a jelly,
And make his face e’en softer than a sponge.”[429]

In the next place no friend participates in any matter, unless he has first been asked his advice, and put the matter to the test, and set it on a suitable and expedient basis. But the flatterer, if anyone allows him to examine a matter and give his opinion on it, not only wishes to gratify him by compliance, but also fearing to be looked upon with suspicion as unwilling and reluctant to engage in the business, gives in to and even urges on his friend’s desire. For there is hardly any king or rich man who would say,

“O that a beggar I could find, or worse
Than beggar, if, with good intent to me,
He would lay bare his heart boldly and honestly;”[430]

but, like the tragedians, they require a chorus of sympathizing friends, or the applause of a theatre. And so Merope gives the following advice in the tragedy,

“Choose you for friends those who will speak their mind,
For those bad men that only speak to please
See that you bolt and bar out of your house.”[431]

But they act just the contrary, for they turn away with horror from those who speak their mind, and hold different views as to what is expedient, while they welcome those bad and illiberal impostors (that only speak to please them) not only within their houses, but also to their affections and secrets. Now the simpler of these do not think right or claim to advise you in important matters, but only to assist in the carrying out of them: but the more cunning one stands by during the discussion, and knits his brows, and nods assent with his head, but says nothing, but if his friend express an opinion, he then says, “Hercules, you only just anticipated me, I was about to make that very remark.” For as the mathematicians tell us that surfaces and lines neither bend nor extend nor move of themselves, being without body and only perceived by the mind, but only bend and extend and change their position with the bodies whose extremities they are: so you will catch the flatterer ever assenting with, and agreeing with, aye, and feeling with, and being angry with, another, so easy of detection in all these points of view is the difference between the friend and the flatterer. Moreover as regards the kind of good service. For the favour done by a friend, as the principal strength of an animal is within, is not for display or ostentation, but frequently as a doctor cures his patient imperceptibly, so a friend benefits by his intervention, or by paying off creditors, or by managing his friend’s affairs, even though the person who receives the benefit may not be aware of it. Such was the behaviour of Arcesilaus on various occasions, and when Apelles[432] of Chios was ill, knowing his poverty, he took with him twenty drachmae when he visited him, and sitting down beside him he said, “There is nothing here but those elements of Empedocles, ‘fire and water and earth and balmy expanse of air,’ but you don’t lie very comfortably,” and with that he moved his pillow, and privately put the money under it. And when his old housekeeper found it, and wonderingly told Apelles of it, he laughed and said, “This is some trick of Arcesilaus.” And the saying is also true in philosophy that “children are like their parents.”[433] For when Cephisocrates had to stand his trial on a bill of indictment, Lacydes (who was an intimate friend of Arcesilaus) stood by him with several other friends, and when the prosecutor asked for his ring, which was the principal evidence against him, Cephisocrates quietly dropped it on the ground, and Lacydes noticing this put his foot on it and so hid it. And after sentence was pronounced in his favour, Cephisocrates going up to thank the jury, one of them who had seen the artifice told him to thank Lacydes, and related to him all the matter, though Lacydes had not said a word about it to anybody. So also I think the gods do often perform benefits secretly, taking a natural delight in bestowing their favours and bounties.[434] But the good service of the flatterer has no justice, or genuineness, or simplicity, or liberality about it; but is accompanied with sweat, and running about, and noise, and knitting of the brow, creating an impression and appearance of toilsome and bustling service, like a painting over-curiously wrought in bold colours, and with bent folds wrinkles and angles, to make the closer resemblance to life. Moreover he tires one by relating what journeys and anxieties he has had over the matter, how many enemies he has made over it, the thousand bothers and annoyances he has gone through, so that you say, “The affair was not worth all this trouble.” For being reminded of any favour done to one is always unpleasant and disagreeable and insufferable:[435] but the flatterer not only reminds us of his services afterwards, but even during the very moment of doing them upbraids us with them and is importunate. But the friend, if he is obliged to mention the matter, relates it modestly, and says not a word about himself. And so, when the Lacedaemonians sent corn to the people of Smyrna that needed it, and the people of Smyrna wondered at their kindness, the Lacedaemonians said, “It was no great matter, we only voted that we and our beasts of burden should go without our dinner one day, and sent what was so saved to you.”[436] Not only is it handsome to do a favour in that way, but it is more pleasant to the receivers of it, because they think those who have done them the service have done it at no great loss to themselves.