.[396] It was nearly the overthrow and destruction of
the ancient manners of the Romans, palliating the luxury and
intemperance and display of Antony as exhibitions of jollity and
kindliness, when his power and fortune were at their zenith. What else
invested Ptolemy[397] with his pipe and fiddle? What else brought
Nero[398] on the tragic stage, and invested him with the mask and
buskins? Was it not the praise of flatterers? And are not many kings
called Apollos if they can just sing a song,[399] and Dionysuses if they
get drunk, and Herculeses if they can wrestle, and do they not joy in
such titles, and are they not dragged into every kind of disgrace by
flattery?

Sec. XIII. Wherefore we must be especially on our guard against the
flatterer in regard to praise; as indeed he is very well aware himself,
and clever to avoid suspicion. If he light upon some dandy, or rustic in
a thick leather garment, he treats him with nothing but jeers and
mocks,[400] as Struthias insulted Bias, ironically praising him for his
stupidity, saying, "You have drunk more than king Alexander,"[401] and,
"that he was ready to die of laughing at his tale about the
Cyprian."[402] But when he sees people more refined very much on their
guard, and observing both time and place, he does not praise them
directly, but draws off a little and wheels round and approaches them
noiselessly, as one tries to catch a wild animal. For sometimes he
reports to a man the panegyric of other persons upon him, (as orators
do, introducing some third person,) saying that he had a very pleasant
conversation in the market with some strangers and men of worth, who
mentioned how they admired his many good points. On another occasion he
concocts and fabricates some false and trifling charges against him,
pretending he has heard them from other people, and runs up with a
serious face and inquires, where he said or did such and such a thing.
And upon his denying he ever did, he pounces on him at once[403] and
compliments his man with, "I thought it strange that you should have
spoken ill of your friends, seeing that you don't even treat your
enemies so: and that you should have tried to rob other people, seeing
that you are so lavish with your own money."

Sec. XIV. Other flatterers again, just as painters heighten the effect of
their pictures by the combination of light and shade, so by censure
abuse detraction and ridicule of the opposite virtues secretly praise
and fom