d 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.

Sec. XXV. And so we advised at the beginning of this discourse, and now
advise again, to cut off self-love and too high an opinion of ourselves;
for that flatters us first, and makes us more impressionable and
prepared for external flatterers. But if we hearken to the god, and
recognize the immense importance to everyone of that saying, "Know
thyself,"[444] and at the same time carefully observe our nature and
education and training, with its thousand shortcomings in respect to
good, and the large proportion of vice and vanity mixed up with our
words and deeds and feelings, we shall not make ourselves so easy a mark
for flatterers. Alexander said that he disbelieved those who called him
a god chiefly in regard to sleep and the sexual delight, for in both
those things he was more ignoble and emotional than in other
respects.[445] So we, if we observe the blots, blemishes, shortcomings,
and imperfec