mple nor
uniform, but complex and unstable, assuming different appearances, like
water poured from vessel to vessel, ever in a state of flux and
accommodating himself entirely to the fashion of those who entertain
him. The ape indeed, as it seems, attempting to imitate man, is caught
imitating his movements and dancing like him, but the flatterer himself
attracts and decoys other men, imitating not all alike, for with one he
sings and dances, with another he wrestles and gets covered with the
dust of the palaestra, while he follows a third fond of hunting and the
chase all but shouting out the words of Phaedra,

"How I desire to halloo on the dogs,
Chasing the dappled deer,"[370]

and yet he has really no interest in the chase, it is the hunter himself
he sets the toils and snares for. And if the object of his pursuit is
some young scholar and lover of learning, he is all for books then, his
beard flows down to his feet,[371] he's quite a sight with his
threadbare cloak, has all the indifference of the Stoic, and speaks of
nothing but the rectangles and triangles of Plato. But if any rich and
careless fellow fond of drink come in his way,

"Then wise Odysseus stript him of his rags,"[372]

his threadbare cloak is thrown aside, his beard is shorn off like a
fruitless crop, he goes in for wine-coolers and tankards, and laughs
loudly in the streets, and jeers at philosophers. As they say happened
at Syracuse, when Plato went there, and Dionysius was seized with a
furious passion for philosophy, and so great was the concourse of
geometricians that they raised up quite a cloud of dust in the palace,
but when Plato fell out of favour, and Dionysius gave up philosophy, and
went back again headlong to wine and women and trifles and debauchery,
then all the court was metamorphosed, as if they all had drunk of
Circe's cup, for ignorance and oblivion and silliness reigned rampant. I
am borne out in what I say by the behaviour of great flatterers and
demagogues,[373] the greatest of whom Alcibiades, a jeerer and
horse-rearer at Athens, and living a gay and merry life, wore his hair
closely shaven at Lacedaemon, and washed in cold water, and attired
himself in a threadbare cloak; while in Thrace he fought[374] and drank;
and at Tissaphernes' court lived delicately and luxuriously and in a
pretentious style; and thus curried favour and was popular with
everybody by imitating their habits and ways. Such was not the way
how