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How A Man May Be Benefited By His Enemies
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Sec. XI. But if our enemies seem to us to have got either by flattery, or fraud, or bribery, or venal services, ill-got and discreditable power at court or in state, it ought not to trouble us but rather inspire pleasure in us, when we compare our own liberty and purity and independence of life. For, as Plato[538] says, “all the gold above or below the earth is not of equal value with virtue.” And we ought ever to remember the precept of Solon, “We will not exchange our virtue for others’ wealth.”[539] Nor will we give up our virtue for the applause of banqueting theatres, nor for honours and chief seats among eunuchs and harlots, nor to be monarchs’ satraps; for nothing is to be desired or noble that comes from what is bad. But since, as Plato[540] says, “the lover is blind as respects the loved one,” and we notice more what our enemies do amiss, we ought not to let either our joy at their faults or our grief at their success be idle, but in either case we ought to reflect, how we may become better than them by avoiding their errors, and by imitating their virtues not come short of them.
Footnotes:
[497] So Pliny, viii. 83: “In Creta Insula non vulpes ursive, atque omnino millum maleficum animal praeter phalangium.”
[498] See the same remark of Chilo, “On Abundance of Friends,” Sec. vi.
[499] “Oeconom.” i. 15.
[500] A treatise of Plutarch still extant.
[501] A line from a lost Satyric Play of AEschylus, called “Prometheus Purphoros.”
[502] So fire is called [Greek: pantechnon] in AEschylus, “Prometheus Desmotes,” 7.
[503] Compare Seneca, “De Animi Tranquillitate,” cap. xiii.: “Zeno noster cum omnia sua audiret submersa, Jubet, inquit, me fortuna expeditius philosophari.”
[504] See Horace, “Epistles,” i. I. 28; Pausanias, iv. 2.
[505] See Plautus, “Trinummus,” 205-211.
[506] Homer, “Iliad,” i. 255.
[507] Literally “the artists of Dionysus.” We know what they were from our author’s “Quaestiones Romanae,” Sec. 107: [Greek: dia ti tous peri ton Dionuson technitas histrionas Rhomaioi kalousin];
[508] Compare “De Audiendis Poetis,” Sec. iv.
[509] AEschylus, “Septem contra Thebas,” 593, 594.
[510] Pindar, “Fragm.” 253.
[511] Demosthenes, “De Falsa Legatione,” p. 406.
[512] Euripides, “Orestes,” 251.
[513] A line from Euripides. Quoted also “De Adulatore et Amico,” Sec. xxxii.
[514] Compare “De Audiendo,” Sec.vi. See also Horace, “Satires,” i, 4. 136, 137.
[515] The story is somewhat differently told, “Quaest. Conviv.,” Lib. ii. Sec. ix.
[516] From a lost play of Euripides.
[517] In some lost play. Compare Hesiod, “Works and Days,” 719-721; Terence, “Andria,” 920.
[518] The sentiment is assigned to Diogenes twice elsewhere by our author, namely, “How One may be aware of one’s Progress in Virtue,” Sec. xi., and “How One may discern a Flatterer from a Friend,” Sec. xxxvi.
[519] See Propertius, ii. 1. 63, 64; Ovid, “Metamorphoses,” xii. 112; xiii. 171; “Tristia,” v. 2. 15, 16; “Remedia Amoris,” 47, 48; Erasmus, “Adagia,” p. 221.
[520] “Jason Pheraeus cognomine Prometheus dictus est. Vide Ciceronem, ‘Nat. Deor.’ iii. 29; Plinium, vii. 51; Valerium Maximum, i. 8, Extem. 6.”– Wytttenbach.
[521] She was a Vestal Virgin. See Livy, iv. 44.
[522] See Thucydides, i. 135, 136.
[523] From a lost play of Euripides. Compare the proverb, [Greek: pathemata mathemata].
[524] “Laws,” v. p. 731 E.
[525] Told again “Reg. et Imperator. Apophthegm.,” p. 175 B.
[526] A favourite image of Homer, employed “Iliad,” iv. 350; xiv. 83; “Odyssey,” i. 64; xxiii. 70.
[527] “Laws,” xi. p. 935 A. Quoted again “On Talkativeness,” Sec. vii.
[528] See Pausanias, v. 14.
[529] From a Fragment of Pindar.
[530] See Suetonius, “Divus Julius,” 75: “Sed et statuas L. Sullae atque Pompeii a plebe disjectas reposuit.”
[531] Compare our author, “Quaestiones Convivalium,” viii. p. 729 E.
[532] No doubt in the interest of the defendant. See our author, “Cato Minor,” p. 769 B.
[533] A Greek proverb, see Erasmus, “Adagia,” p. 921.
[534] So Cicero, “Nat. Deor.” ii. 56: “In aedibus architecti avertunt ab oculis naribusque dominorum ea quae profluentia necessario taetri essent aliquid habitura.”
[535] “Works and Days,” 23-26. Our “Two of a trade seldom agree.”
[536] Compare “How One may be aware of one’s Progress in Virtue,” Sec. xiv.
[537] For as the English proverb says, “Hatred is blind as well as love.”
[538] “Laws,” v. p. 728 A.
[539] Quoted more fully “How One may be aware of one’s Progress in Virtue,” Sec. vi.
[540] “Laws,” v. p. 731 E. See also above, Sec. vii.