eems to proceed from ambition and an unseasonable
opinion of oneself. For as those who cannot obtain food are forced to
feed on their own flesh against nature, and that is the end of famine,
so those that hunger after praise, if they get no one else to praise
them, disgrace themselves by their anxiety to feed their own vanity. But
when, not merely content with praising themselves, they vie with the
praise of others, and pit their own deeds and actions against theirs,
with the intent of outshining them, they add envy and malignity to their
vanity. The proverb teaches us that to put our foot into another's dance
is meddlesome and ridiculous; we ought equally to be on our guard
against intruding our own panegyric into others' praises out of envy and
spite, nor should we allow others either to praise us then, but we
should make way for those that are being honoured, if they are worthy of
honour, and even if they seem to us undeserving of honour and worthless,
we ought not to strip them of their praise by self-laudation, but by
direct argument and proof that they are not worthy of all these
encomiums. It is plain then that we ought to avoid all such conduct as
this.

Sec. IV. But self-praise cannot be blamed, if it is an answer to some
charge or calumny, as those words of Pericles, "And yet you are angry
with such a man as me, a man I take it inferior to no one either in
knowledge of what should be done, or in ability to point out the same,
and a lover of my country to boot, and superior to bribes."[772] For not
only did he avoid all swagger and vainglory and ambition in talking thus
loftily about himself, but he also exhibited the spirit and greatness of
his virtue, which could abase and crush envy because it could not be
abased itself. For people will hardly condemn such men, for they are
elevated and cheered and inspired by noble self-laudation such as this,
if it have a true basis, as all history testifies. Thus the Thebans,
when their generals were charged with not returning home, and laying
down their office of Boeotarchs when their time had expired, but instead
of that making inroads into Laconia, and helping Messene, hardly
acquitted Pelopidas, who was submissive and suppliant, but for
Epaminondas,[773] who gloried in what he had done, and at last said that
he was ready to die, if they would confess that he had ravaged Laconia,
and restored Messene, and made Arcadia one state, against the will of
the Thebans, they wo