has given! To reproach a man at the very moment that you are
doing him a service is sheer madness; it is to mix insult with your
favours. We ought not to make our benefits burdensome, or to add any
bitterness to them. Even if there be some subject upon which you wish to
warn your friend, choose some other time for doing so.

VII. Fabius Verrucosus used to compare a benefit bestowed by a harsh man
in an offensive manner to a gritty loaf of bread, which a hungry man is
obliged to receive, but which is painful to eat. When Marius Nepos of
the praetorian guard asked Tiberius Caesar for help to pay his debts,
Tiberius asked him for a list of his creditors; this is calling a
meeting of creditors, not paying debts. When the list was made out,
Tiberius wrote to Nepos telling him that he had ordered the money to be
paid, and adding some offensive reproaches. The result of this was
that Nepos owed no debts, yet received no kindness; Tiberius, indeed,
relieved him from his creditors, but laid him under no obligation.
Tiberius, however, had some design in doing so; I imagine he did not
wish more of his friends to come to him with the same request. His mode
of proceeding was, perhaps, successful in restraining men's extravagant
desires by shame, but he who wishes to confer benefits must follow quite
a different path. In all ways you should make your benefit as acceptable
as possible by presenting it in the most attractive form; but the method
of Tiberius is not to confer benefits, but to reproach.

VIII. Moreover, if incidentally I should say what I think of this part
of the subject, I do not consider that it is becoming even to an emperor
to give merely in order to cover a man with shame. "And yet," we are
told, "Tiberius did not even by this means attain his object; for after
this a good many persons were found to make the same request. He ordered
all of them to explain the reasons of their indebtedness before the
senate, and when they did so, granted them certain definite sums of
money." This is not an act of generosity, but a reprimand. You may call
it a subsidy, or an imperial contribution; it is not a benefit, for
the receiver cannot think of it without shame. I was summoned before a
judge, and had to be tried at bar before I obtained what I asked for.

IX. Accordingly, all writers on ethical philosophy tell us that some
benefits ought to be given in secret, others in public. Those things
which it is glorious to receive, such