The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 70

The flatterers are worms which prey upon All who have money; for they make an entrance Into the heart of a good guileless man, And take their seat there, and devour it, Till they have drain'd it like the husk of wheat, And leave the sh.e.l.l; and then attack some other.

And Plato says, in his Phaedrus--"Nature has mingled some pleasure which is not entirely inelegant in its character of a flatterer, though he is an odious beast, and a great injury to a state." And Theophrastus, in his treatise on Flattery, says that Myrtis the priest, the Argive, taking by the ear Cleonymus (who was a dancer and also a flatterer, and who often used to come and sit by him and his fellow-judges, and who was anxious to be seen in company with those who were thought of consideration in the city), and dragging him out of the a.s.sembly, said to him in the hearing of many people, You shall not dance here, and you shall not hear us. And Diphilus, in his Marriage, says--

A flatterer destroys By his pernicious speeches Both general and prince, Both private friends and states; He pleases for a while, But causes lasting ruin.

And now this evil habit Has spread among the people, Our courts are all diseased, And all is done by favour.

So that the Thessalians did well who razed the city which was called Colaceia (Flattery), which the Melians used to inhabit, as Theopompus relates in the thirtieth book of his History.

66. But Phylarchus says, that those Athenians who settled in Lemnos were great flatterers, mentioning them as such in the thirteenth book of his History. For that they, wishing to display their grat.i.tude to the descendants of Seleucus and Antiochus, because Seleucus not only delivered them when they were severely oppressed by Lysimachus, but also restored both their cities to them,--they, I say, the Athenians in Lemnos, not only erected temples to Seleucus, but also to his son Antiochus; and they have given to the cup, which at their feasts is offered at the end of the banquet, the name of the cup of Seleucus the Saviour.

Now some people, perverting the proper name, call this flattery ???s?e?a, complaisance; as Anaxandrides does in his Samian, where he says--

For flattery is now complaisance call'd.

But those who devote themselves to flattery are not aware that that art is one which flourishes only a short time. Accordingly, Alexis says in his Liar--

A flatterer's life but a brief s.p.a.ce endures, For no one likes a h.o.a.ry parasite.

And Clearchus the Solensian, in the first book of his Amatory treatises, says--"No flatterer is constant in his friendship. For time destroys the falsehood of his pretences, and a lover is only a flatterer and a pretended friend on account of youth or beauty." One of the flatterers of Demetrius the king was Adeimantus of Lampsacus, who having built a temple in Thriae, and placed statues in it, called it the temple of Phila Venus, and called the place itself Philaeum, from Phila the mother of Demetrius; as we are told by Dionysius the son of Tryphon, in the tenth book of his treatise on Names.

67. But Clearchus the Solensian, in his book which is inscribed Gergithius, tells us whence the origin of the name flatterer is derived; and mentioning Gergithius himself, from whom the treatise has its name, he says that he was one of Alexander's flatterers; and he tells the story thus--"That flattery debases the characters of the flatterers, making them apt to despise whoever they a.s.sociate with; and a proof of this is, that they endure everything, well knowing what they dare do.

And those who are flattered by them, being puffed up by their adulation, they make foolish and empty-headed, and cause them to believe that they, and everything belonging to them, are of a higher order than other people." And then proceeding to mention a certain young man, a Paphian by birth, but a king by the caprice of fortune, he says--"This young man (and he does not mention his name) used out of his preposterous luxury to lie on a couch with silver feet, with a smooth Sardian carpet spread under it of the most expensive description. And over him was thrown a piece of purple cloth, edged with a scarlet fringe; and he had three pillows under his head made of the finest linen, and of purple colour, by which he kept himself cool. And under his feet he had two pillows of the kind called Dorian, of a bright crimson colour; and on all this he lay himself, clad in a white robe.

68. "And all the monarchs who have at any time reigned in Cyprus have encouraged a race of n.o.bly-born flatterers as useful to them; for they are a possession very appropriate to tyrants. And no one ever knows them (any more than they do the judges of the Areopagus), either how many they are, or who they are, except that perhaps some of the most eminent may be known or suspected. And the flatterers at Salamis are divided into two cla.s.ses with reference to their families; and it is from the flatterers in Salamis that all the rest of the flatterers in the other parts of Cyprus are derived; and one of these two cla.s.ses is called the Gergini, and the other the Promalanges. Of which, the Gergini mingle with the people in the city, and go about as eavesdroppers and spies in the workshops and the market-places; and whatever they hear, they report every day to those who are called their Princ.i.p.als. But the Promalanges, being a sort of superior investigators, inquire more particularly into all that is reported by the Gergini which appears worthy of being investigated; and the way in which they conduct themselves towards every one is so artificial and gentle, that, as it seems to me, and as they themselves allege, the very seed of notable flatterers has been spread by them over all the places at a distance. Nor do they pride themselves slightly on their skill, because they are greatly honoured by the kings; but they say that one of the Gergini, being a descendant of those Trojans whom Teucer took as slaves, having selected them from the captives, and then brought and settled in Cyprus, going along the sea-coast with a few companions, sailed towards aeolis, in order to seek out and re-establish the country of his ancestors; and that he, taking some Mysians to himself, inhabited a city near the Trojan Ida, which was formerly called Gergina, from the name of the inhabitants, but is now called Gergitha. For some of the party being, as it seems, separated from this expedition, stopped in Cymaea, being by birth a Cretan race, and not from the Thessalian Tricca, as some have affirmed,--men whose ignorance I take to be beyond the skill of all the descendants of aesculapius to cure.

69. "There were also in this country, in the time of Glutus the Carian, women attaching themselves to the Queens, who were called flatterers; and a few of them who were left crossed the sea, and were sent for to the wives of Artabazus and Mentor, and instead of ???a??de? were called ???a??de? from this circ.u.mstance. By way of making themselves agreeable to those who had sent for them, they made a ladder (???a??a) of themselves, in such a manner that there was a way of ascending over their backs, and also a way of descending, for their mistresses when they drove out in chariots: to such a pitch of luxury, not to say of miserable helplessness, did they bring those silly women by their contrivance. Therefore, they themselves, when they were compelled by fortune to quit that very luxurious way of living, lived with great hardship in their old age. And the others who had received these habits from us, when they were deprived of their authority came to Macedonia; and the customs which they taught to the wives and princesses of the great men in that country by their a.s.sociation with them, it is not decent even to mention further than this, that practising magic arts themselves, and being the objects of them when practised by others, they did not spare even the places of the greatest resort, but they became complete vagabonds, and the very sc.u.m of the streets, polluted with all sorts of abominations. Such and so great are the evils which seem to be engendered by flattery in the case of all people who admit from their own inclination and predisposition to be flattered."

70. And a little further Clearchus goes on as follows:--"But still a man may have a right to find fault with that young man for the way in which he used those things, as I have said before. For his slaves stood in short tunics a little behind the couch: and as there are now three men on whose account all this discussion has been originated, and as all these men are men who have separate names among us, the one sat on the couch close to his feet, letting the feet of the young man rest upon his knees, and covering them with a thin cloth; and what he did further is plain enough, even if I do not mention it. And this servant is called by the natives Parabystus, because he works his way into the company of those men even who do not willingly receive him, by the very skilful character of his flatteries. The second was one sitting on a certain chair which was placed close to the couch; and he, holding by the hand of the young man, as he let it almost drop, and clinging to it, kept on rubbing it, and taking each of his fingers in turn he rubbed it and stretched it, so that the man appeared to have said a very witty thing who first gave that officer the name of Sicya.[403:1] The third, however, was the most n.o.ble of all, and was called Theer (or the wild beast), who was indeed the princ.i.p.al person of the whole body, and who stood at his master's head, and shared his linen pillows, lying upon them in a most friendly manner. And with his left hand he kept smoothing the hair of the young man, and with his right hand he kept moving up and down a Phocaean fan, so as to please him while waving it, without force enough to brush anything away. On which account, it appears to me, that some high-born G.o.d must have been angry with him and have sent a fly to attack the young man, a fly like that with whose audacity Homer says that Minerva inspired Menelaus, so vigorous and fearless was it in disposition.

"So when the young man was stung, this man uttered such a loud scream in his behalf, and was so indignant, that on account of his hatred to one fly he banished the whole tribe of flies from his house: from which it is quite plain that he appointed this servant for this especial purpose."

71. But Leucon, the tyrant of Pontus, was a different kind of man, who when he knew that many of his friends had been plundered by one of the flatterers whom he had about him, perceiving that the man was calumniating some one of his remaining friends, said, "I swear by the G.o.ds that I would kill you if a tyrannical government did not stand in need of bad men." And Antiphanes the comic writer, in his Soldier, gives a similar account of the luxury of the kings in Cyprus. And he represents one of them as asking a soldier these questions--

_A._ Tell me now, you had lived some time in Cyprus?

Say you not so?

_B._ Yes, all the time of the war.

_A._ In what part most especially? tell me that.

_B._ In Paphos, where you should have seen the luxury That did exist, or you could not believe it.

_A._ What kind of luxury?

_B._ The king was fann'd While at his supper by young turtle-doves And by nought else.

_A._ How mean you? never mind My own affairs, but let me ask you this.

_B._ He was anointed with a luscious ointment Brought up from Syria, made of some rich fruit Which they do say doves love to feed upon.

They were attracted by the scent and flew Around the royal temples; and had dared To seat themselves upon the monarch's head, But that the boys who sat around with sticks Did keep them at a slight and easy distance.

And so they did not perch, but hover'd round, Neither too far nor yet too near, still fluttering, So that they raised a gentle breeze to blow Not harshly on the forehead of the king.

72. The flatterer (???a?) of that young man whom we have been speaking of must have been a a?a?????a?, (a soft flatterer,) as Clearchus says. For besides flattering such a man as that, he invents a regular gait and dress harmonizing with that of those who receive the flattery, folding his arms and wrapping himself up in a small cloak; on which account some men call him Paranconistes, and some call him a Repository of Att.i.tudes. For really a flatterer does seem to be the very same person with Proteus himself. Accordingly he changes into nearly every sort of person, not only in form, but also in his discourse, so very varied in voice he is.

But Androcydes the physician said that flattery had its name (?????e?a) from becoming glued (?p? t?? p??s?????s?a?) to men's acquaintance. But it appears to me that they were named from their facility; because a flatterer will undergo anything, like a person who stoops down to carry another on his back, by reason of his natural disposition, not being annoyed at anything, however disgraceful it may be.

And a man will not be much out who calls the life of that young Cyprian a wet one. And Alexis says that there were many tutors and teachers of that kind of life at Athens, speaking thus in his Pyraunus--

I wish'd to try another style of life, Which all men are accustom'd to call wet.

So walking three days in the Ceramicus, I found it may be thirty skilful teachers Of the aforesaid life, from one single school.

And Crobylus says in his Female Deserter--

The wetness of your life amazes me, For men do call intemperance now wetness.

73. And Antiphanes, in his Lemnian Women, lays it down that flattery is a kind of art, where he says--

Is there, or can there be an art more pleasing, Or any source of gain more sure and gainful Than well-judged flattery? Why does the painter Take so much pains and get so out of temper?

Why does the farmer undergo such risks?

Indeed all men are full of care and trouble.

But life for us is full of fun and laughter.

For where the greatest business is amus.e.m.e.nt, To laugh and joke and drink full cups of wine, Is not that pleasant? How can one deny?

'Tis the next thing to being rich oneself.

But Menander, in his play called the Flatterer, has given us the character of one as carefully and faithfully as it was possible to manage it: as also Diphilus has of a parasite in his Telesias. And Alexis, in his Liar, has introduced a flatterer speaking in the following manner--

By the Olympian Jove and by Minerva I am a happy man. And not alone Because I'm going to a wedding dinner, But because I shall burst, an it please G.o.d.

And would that I might meet with such a death.

And it seems to me, my friends, that that fine epicure would not have scrupled to quote from the Omphale of Ion the tragedian, and to say--

For I must speak of a yearly feast As if it came round every day.

74. But Hippias the Erythraean, in the second book of his Histories of his own Country, relating how the kingdom of Cnopus was subverted by the conduct of his flatterers, says this--"When Cnopus consulted the oracle about his safety, the G.o.d, in his answer, enjoined him to sacrifice to the crafty Mercury. And when, after that, he went to Delphi, they who were anxious to put an end to his kingly power in order to establish an oligarchy instead of it, (and those who wished this were Ortyges, and Irus, and Echarus, who, because they were most conspicuous in paying court to the princes, were called adorers and flatterers,) they, I say, being on a voyage in company with Cnopus, when they were at a distance from land, bound Cnopus and threw him into the sea; and then they sailed to Chios, and getting a force from the tyrants there, Amphiclus and Polytechnus, they sailed by night to Erythrae, and just at the same time the corpse of Cnopus was washed up on the sea-sh.o.r.e at Erythrae, at a place which is now called Leopodon. And while Cleonice, the wife of Cnopus, was busied about the offices due to the corpse, (and it was the time of the festival and a.s.sembly inst.i.tuted in honour of Diana Stophea,) on a sudden there is heard the noise of a trumpet; and the city is taken by Ortyges and his troops, and many of the friends of Cnopus are put to death; and Cleonice, hearing what had happened, fled to Colophon.

75. "But Ortyges and his companions, establishing themselves as tyrants, and having possessed themselves of the supreme power in Chios, destroyed all who opposed their proceedings, and they subverted the laws, and themselves managed the whole of the affairs of the state, admitting none of the popular party within the walls. And they established a court of justice outside the walls, before the gates; and there they tried all actions, sitting as judges, clothed in purple cloaks, and in tunics with purple borders, and they wore sandals with many slits in them during the hot weather; but in winter they always walked about in women's shoes; and they let their hair grow, and took great care of it so as to have ringlets, dividing it on the top of their head with fillets of yellow and purple. And they wore ornaments of solid gold, like women, and they compelled some of the citizens to carry their litters, and some to act as lictors to them, and some to sweep the roads. And they sent for the sons of some of the citizens to their parties when they supped together; and some they ordered to bring their own wives and daughters within. And on those who disobeyed they inflicted the most extreme punishment. And if any one of their companions died, then collecting the citizens with their wives and children, they compelled them by violence to utter lamentations over the dead, and to beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and to cry out shrilly and loudly with their voices, a man with a scourge standing over them, who compelled them to do so--until Hippotes, the brother of Cnopus, coming to Erythrae with an army at the time of a festival, the people of Erythrae a.s.sisting him, set upon the tyrants, and having punished a great many of their companions, slew Ortyges in his flight, and all who were with him, and treated their wives and children with the very extremity of ill-usage, and delivered his country."

76. Now from all this we may understand, my friends, of how many evils flattery is the cause in human life. For Theopompus, in the nineteenth book of his history of the Transactions of Philip, says, "Agathocles was a slave, and one of the Penestae in Thessaly, and as he had great influence with Philip by reason of his flattery of him, and because he was constantly at his entertainments dancing and making him laugh, Philip sent him to destroy the Perrhaebi, and to govern all that part of the country. And the Macedonian constantly had this kind of people about him, with whom he a.s.sociated the greater part of his time, because of their fondness for drinking and buffoonery, and in their company he used to deliberate on the most important affairs." And Hegesander the Delphian gives a similar account of him, and relates how he sent a large sum of money to the men who are a.s.sembled at Athens at the temple of Hercules in Diomea, and who say laughable things; and he ordered some men to write down all that was said by them, and to send it to him. And Theopompus, in the twenty-sixth book of his History, says "that Philip knowing that the Thessalians were an intemperate race, and very profligate in their way of living, prepared some entertainments for them, and endeavoured in every possible manner to make himself agreeable to them. For he danced and revelled, and practised every kind of intemperance and debauchery. And he was by nature a buffoon, and got drunk every day, and he delighted in those occupations which are consistent with such practices, and with those who are called witty men, who say and do things to provoke laughter. And he attached numbers of the Thessalians who were intimate with him to himself, still more by his entertainments than by his presents." And Dionysius the Sicilian used to do very nearly the same thing, as Eubulus the comic poet tells us in his play ent.i.tled Dionysius;--

But he is harsh and rigorous to the solemn, But most good-humour'd to all flatterers, And all who jest with freedom. For he thinks Those men alone are free, though slaves they be.

77. And indeed Dionysius was not the only person who encouraged and received those who had squandered their estates on drunkenness and gambling and all such debauchery as that, for Philip also did the same.

And Theopompus speaks of such of them in the forty-ninth book of his History, where he writes as follows:--"Philip kept at a distance all men who were well regulated in their conduct and who took care of their property; but the extravagant and those who lived in gambling and drunkenness he praised and honoured. And therefore he not only took care that they should always have such amus.e.m.e.nts, but he encouraged them to devote themselves to all sorts of injustice and debauchery besides. For what disgraceful or iniquitous practices were there to which these men were strangers, or what virtuous or respectable habits were there which they did not shun? Did they not at all times go about shaven and carefully made smooth, though they were men? And did not they endeavour to misuse one another though they had beards? And they used to go about attended by two or three lovers at a time; and they expected no complaisance from others which they were not prepared to exhibit themselves. On which account a man might very reasonably have thought them not ?ta???? but ?ta??a?, and one might have called them not soldiers, but prost.i.tutes. For though they were ??d??f???? by profession, they were ??d??p????? by practice. And in addition to all this, instead of loving sobriety, they loved drunkenness; and instead of living respectably they sought every opportunity of robbing and murdering; and as for speaking the truth, and adhering to their agreements, they thought that conduct quite inconsistent with their characters; but to perjure themselves and cheat, they thought the most venerable behaviour possible. And they disregarded what they had, but they longed for what they had not; and this too, though a great part of Europe belonged to them. For I think that the companions of Philip, who did not at that time amount to a greater number than eight hundred, had possession so far as to enjoy the fruits of more land than any ten thousand Greeks, who had the most fertile and large estates." And he makes a very similar statement about Dionysius, in his twenty-first book, when he says, "Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily encouraged above all others those who squandered their property in drunkenness and gambling and intemperance of that sort. For he wished every one to become ruined and ready for any iniquity, and all such people he treated with favour and distinction."

78. And Demetrius Poliorcetes was a man very fond of mirth, as Phylarchus relates in the tenth book of his History. But in the fourteenth book he writes as follows:--"Demetrius used to allow men to flatter him at his banquets, and to pour libations in his honour, calling him Demetrius the only king, and Ptolemy only the prefect of the fleet, and Lysimachus only a steward, and Seleucus only a superintendent of elephants, and in this way he incurred no small amount of hatred."

And Herodotus states that Amasis the king of the Egyptians was always a man full of tricks, and one who was used to turn his fellow feasters into ridicule; and when he was a private man he says he was very fond of feasting and of jesting, and he was not at all a serious man. And Nicolaus, in the twenty-seventh book of his History, says that Sylla the Roman general was so fond of mimics and buffoons, being a man very much addicted to amus.e.m.e.nt, that he gave such men several portions of the public land. And the satyric comedies which he wrote himself in his native language, show of how merry and jovial a temperament he was in this way.

79. And Theophrastus, in his treatise on Comedy, tells us that the Tirynthians, being people addicted to amus.e.m.e.nt, and utterly useless for all serious business, betook themselves once to the oracle at Delphi in hopes to be relieved from some calamity or other. And that the G.o.d answered them, "That if they sacrificed a bull to Neptune and threw it into the sea without once laughing, the evil would cease." And they, fearing lest they should make a blunder in obeying the oracle, forbade any of the boys to be present at the sacrifice; however, one boy, hearing of what was going to be done, mingled with the crowd, and then when they hooted him and drove him away, "Why," said he, "are you afraid lest I should spoil your sacrifice?" and when they laughed at this question of his, they perceived that the G.o.d meant to show them by a fact that an inveterate custom cannot be remedied. And Sosicrates, in the first book of his History of Crete, says that the Phaestians have a certain peculiarity, for that they seem to practise saying ridiculous things from their earliest childhood; on which account it has often happened to them to say very reasonable and witty things because of their early habituation: and therefore all the Cretans attribute to them preeminence in the accomplishment of raising a laugh.