e that the rich man is at once orator and poet, and
(if he likes) painter, and flute-player, and swift-footed, and strong,
falling down if he wrestles with them, and if contending with him in
running letting him win the race, as Crisso of Himera purposely allowed
Alexander to outrun him, which vexed the king very much when he heard of
it.[411] And Carneades said that the sons of rich men and kings learnt
nothing really well and properly except how to ride, for their master
praised and flattered them in their studies, and the person who taught
them wrestling always let them throw him, whereas the horse, not knowing
or caring whether his rider were a private person or ruler, rich or
poor, soon threw him over his head if he could not ride well. Simple
therefore and fatuous was that remark of Bion, "If you could by
encomiums make your field to yield well and be fruitful, you could not
be thought wrong in tilling it so rather than digging it and labouring
in it: nor would it be strange in you to praise human beings if by so
doing you could be useful and serviceable to them." For a field does not
become worse by being praised, but those who praise a man falsely and
against his deserts puff him up and ruin him.

Sec. XVII. Enough has been said on this matter: let us now examine
outspokenness. For just as Patroclus put on the armour of Achilles, and
drove his horses to the battle, only durst not touch his spear from
Mount Pelion, but let that alone, so ought the flatterer, tricked out
and modelled in the distinctive marks and tokens of the friend, to leave
untouched and uncopied only his outspokenness, as the special burden of
friendship, "heavy, huge, strong."[412] But since flatterers, to avoid
the blame they incur by their buffoonery, and drinking, and gibes, and
jokes, sometimes work their ends by frowns and gravity, and intermix
censure and reproof, let us not pass this over either without
examination. And I think, as in Menander's Play the sham Hercules comes
on the stage not with a club stout and strong, but with a light and
hollow cane, so the outspokenness of the flatterer is to those who
experience it mild and soft, and the very reverse of vigorous, and like
those cushions for women's heads, which seem able to stand their ground,
but in reality yield and give way under their pressure; so this sham
outspokenness is puffed up and inflated with an empty and spurious and
hollow bombast, that when it contracts and collapses