tten [Greek: en to
Deipno].

[495] Compare "How One may be aware of one's Progress in
Virtue," Sec. xi.

[496] "Ductum e proverbiali dictione [Greek: balonta
ekpheugein], emisso telo aufugere."--_Wyttenbach._

HOW A MAN MAY BE BENEFITED BY
HIS ENEMIES.

Sec. I. I am well aware, Cornelius Pulcher, that you prefer the mildest
manners in public life, by which you can be at once most useful to the
community, and most agreeable in private life to those who have any
dealings with you. But since it is difficult to find any region without
wild beasts, though it is related of Crete;[497] and hitherto there has
been no state that has not suffered from envy, rivalry, and strife, the
most fruitful seeds of hostility; (for, even if nothing else does, our
friendships involve us in enmities, as Chilo[498] the wise man
perceived, who asked the man who told him he had no enemy, whether he
had a friend either), it seems to me that a public man ought not only to
examine the whole question of enemies in its various ramifications, but
also to listen to the serious remark of Xenophon,[499] that a sensible
man will receive profit even from his enemies. The ideas therefore that
lately occurred to me to deliver, I have now put together nearly in the
identical words and send them to you, with the exception of some matter
also in "Political Precepts,"[500] a treatise which I have often noticed
in your hands.

Sec. II. People in old times were well satisfied if they were not injured
by strange and wild beasts, and that was the only motive of their fights
with them, but those of later days have by now learnt to make use of
them, for they feed on their flesh, and clothe themselves with their
wool, and make medical use of their gall and beestings, and turn their
hides into shields, so that we might reasonably fear, if beasts failed
man, that his life would become brutish, and wild, and void of
resources. Similarly since all others are satisfied with not being
injured by their enemies, but the sensible will also (as Xenophon says)
get profit out of them, we must not be incredulous, but seek a method
and plan how to obtain this advantage, seeing that life without an enemy
is impossible. The husbandman cannot cultivate every tree, nor can the
hunter tame every kind of animal, so both seek means to derive profit
according to their several necessities, the one from his barren trees,
the other from his wild animals. Sea-w