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Sec. XXIII. But it is not so much by the importunity of the flatterer in regard to services, nor by his facility in making promises, that one can recognize his nature, as by the honourable or dishonourable kind of service, and by the regard to please or to be of real use. For the friend is not as Gorgias defined him, one who will ask his friend to help him in what is right, while he will himself do many services for his friend that are not right.

“For friend should share in good not in bad action.”[437]

He will therefore rather try and turn him away from what is not becoming, and if he cannot persuade him, good is that answer of Phocion to Antipater, “You cannot have me both as friend and flatterer,”[438] that is, as friend and no friend. For one must indeed assist one’s friend but not do anything wrong for him, one must advise with him but not plot with him, one must bear witness for him but not join him in fraud, one must certainly share adversity with him but not crime. For since we should not wish even to know of our friends’ dishonourable acts, much less should we desire to share their dishonour by acting with them. As then the Lacedaemonians, when conquered in battle by Antipater, on settling the terms of peace, begged that he would lay upon them what burdens he pleased, provided he enjoined nothing dishonourable, so the friend, if any necessity arise involving expense or danger or trouble, is the first to desire to be applied to and share in it with alacrity and without crying off, but if there be anything disgraceful in connection with it he begs to have nothing to do with it. The flatterer on the contrary cries off from toilsome and dangerous employments, and if you put him to the test by ringing him,[439] he returns a hollow and spurious sound, and finds some excuse; whereas use him in disgraceful and low and disreputable service, and trample upon him, he will think no treatment too bad or ignominious. Have you observed the ape? He cannot guard the house like the dog, nor bear burdens like the horse, nor plough like the ox, so he has to bear insult and ribaldry, and put up with being made sport of, exhibiting himself as an instrument to produce laughter. So too the flatterer, who can neither advocate your cause, nor give you useful counsel, nor share in your contention with anybody, but shirks all labour and toil, never makes any excuses in underhand transactions, is sure to lend a helping hand in any love affair, is energetic in setting free some harlot, and not careless in clearing off the account of a drinking score, nor remiss in making preparations for banquets, and obsequious to concubines, but if ordered to be uncivil to your relations, or to help in turning your wife out of doors, he is relentless and not to be put out of countenance. So that he is not hard to detect here too. For if ordered to do anything you please disreputable or dishonourable, he is ready to take any pains to oblige you.

Sec. XXIV. One might detect again how greatly the flatterer differs from the friend by his behaviour to other friends. For the friend is best pleased with loving and being beloved by many, and also always tries to contrive for his friend that he too may be much loved and honoured, for he believes in the proverb “the goods of friends are common property,”[440] and thinks it ought to apply to nothing more than to friends; but the false and spurious and counterfeit friend, knowing how much he debases friendship, like debased and spurious coin, is not only by nature envious, but shows his envy even of those who are like himself, striving to outdo them in scurrility and gossip, while he quakes and trembles at any of his betters, not by Zeus “merely walking on foot by their Lydian chariot,” but, to use the language of Simonides, “not even, having pure lead by comparison with their refined gold.”[441] Whenever then, being light and counterfeit and false, he is put to the test at close quarters with a true and solid and cast-iron friendship, he cannot stand the test but is detected at once, and imitates the conduct of the painter that painted some 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,[442] 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.[443] 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.