.
For as he was dying, and his friends very naturally were weeping and
wailing, and reminded him of his military services and his power, and
the trophies and victories and towns he had won for Athens, and was
leaving as a legacy, he raised himself up a little and blamed them as
praising him for things common to many, and some of them the results of
fortune rather than merit, while they had passed over the best and
greatest of his deeds and one peculiarly his own, that he had never been
the cause of any Athenian's wearing mourning. This gives the orator an
example, if he be a good man, when praised for his eloquence, to
transfer the praise to his life and character, and the general who is
admired for his skill and good fortune in war to speak with confidence
about his gentleness and uprightness. And again, if any very extravagant
praise is uttered, such as many people use in flattery which provokes
envy, one can reply,

"I am no god; why do you liken me
To the immortals?"[791]

If you really know me, praise my integrity, or my sobriety, or my
kindheartedness, or my philanthropy. For even envy is not reluctant to
give moderate praise to one that deprecates excessive praise, and true
panegyric is not lost by people refusing to accept idle and false
praise. So those kings who would not be called gods or the sons of gods,
but only fond of their brothers or mother, or benefactors,[792] or dear
to the gods, did not excite the envy of those that honoured them by
those titles, that were noble but still such as men might claim. Again,
people dislike those writers or speakers who entitle themselves wise,
but they welcome those who content themselves with saying that they are
lovers of philosophy, and have made some progress, or use some such
moderate language about themselves as that, which does not excite envy.
But rhetorical sophists, who expect to hear "Divine, wonderful, grand,"
at their declamations, are not even welcomed with "Pretty fair, so so."

Sec. XIII. Moreover, as people anxious not to injure those who have weak
eyes, draw a shade over too much light, so some people make their praise
of themselves less glaring and absolute, by pointing out some of their
small defects, or miscarriages, or errors, and so remove all risk of
making people offended or envious. Thus Epeus, who boasts very much of
his skill in boxing, and says very confidently,

"I can your body crush, and break your bones,"[793]

yet says,