tions of our private selves, shall perceive clearly that we
do not need a friend who shall bestow upon us praise and panegyric, but
one that will reprove us, and speak plainly to us, aye, by Zeus, and
censure us if we have done amiss. For it is only a few out of many that
venture to speak plainly to their friends rather than gratify them, and
even among those few you will not easily find any who know how to do so
properly, for they think they are outspoken when they abuse and scold.
And yet, just as in the case of any other medicine, to employ freedom of
speech unseasonably is only to give needless pain and trouble, and in a
manner to do so as to produce vexation the very thing the flatterer does
so as to produce pleasure. For it does people harm not only to praise
them unseasonably but also to blame them unseasonably, and especially
exposes them to the successful attack of flatterers, for, like water,
they abandon the rugged hills for the soft grassy valleys. And so
outspokenness ought to be tempered with kindness, and reason ought to be
called in to correct its excessive tartness, (as we tone down the too
powerful glare of a lamp), that people may not, by being troubled and
grieved at continual blame and rebuke, fly for refuge to the shade of
the flatterer, and turn aside to him to free themselves from annoyance.
For we ought, Philopappus, to banish all vice by virtue, not by the
opposite vice, as some hold,[446] by exchanging modesty for impudence,
and countrified ways for town ribaldry, and by removing their character
as far as possible from cowardice and effeminacy, even if that should
make people get very near to audacity and foolhardiness. And some even
make superstition a plea for atheism, and stupidity a plea for knavery,
perverting their nature, like a stick bent double, from inability to set
it straight. But the basest disowning of flattery is to be disagreeable
without any purpose in view, and it shows an altogether inelegant and
clumsy unfitness for social intercourse to shun by unpleasing moroseness
the suspicion of being mean and servile in friendship; like the freedman
in the comedy who thought railing only enjoying freedom of speech.
Seeing then, that it is equally disgraceful to become a flatterer
through trying only to please, as in avoiding flattery to destroy all
friendship and intimacy by excessive freedom of speech, we must avoid
both these extremes, and, as in any other case, make our freedom of
sp