Quid adulator, assentator, et palpo ; et quod
The Destructive Nature of Flattery
Flattery is identified as a uniquely dangerous vice that blinds the soul and severs the connection to truth.
Truly, nothing is more destructive. For the flatterer is an enemy to every virtue; he drives a nail into the eye of the one he is speaking with. He is all the more dangerous because he never stops doing harm under the guise of a friend, until he dulls the sharpness of reason and extinguishes whatever small light seemed to be there. Furthermore, he blocks the ears of his listeners so they can't hear the truth; I wouldn't find it easy to say what could be more destructive than that. There is a well-known saying of Laelius, or rather Cicero: 'When a person's ears are closed to the truth so that they cannot hear it, their salvation must be despaired of.' What, in truth, is more disloyal than to deceive someone to whom you owe faithfulness, using the flattery of words, the mockery of one's own appearance and gestures, and the enticements of total vanity, all to blind them and push them into the filth of vice and the abyss of ruin? What is more hateful than fraud and deceit, by which—under the image of love and loyalty—the wickedness of treachery and hostility is practiced against the simple and the credulous, and (what is even more detestable) against a friend? This is, indeed, the type of person who says everything for the sake of pleasure and nothing for the sake of truth. The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit, which he repeats even to friends who are wandering, for the sake of their own ruin: 'Well done, well done.'
The Mimicry of the Parasite
The flatterer is compared to a stage player who abandons his own identity to mirror the desires and moods of others.
To understand them better, look at Gnatho in the comedy and listen to his confession: "Does someone say no? I say no. Does he say yes? I say yes." "In short, I have commanded myself to agree with everything." The entire Gnathonic faction is parasitic. If you laugh, he erupts in a louder guffaw; if he sees a friend’s tears, he weeps, though he feels no sorrow. If you ask for a little fire in the dead of winter, he brings out Andromeda; if you say, "I'm burning up," he breaks into a sweat. Hence Umbricius says: "We aren't equals; he is better who can always, night and day, assume a stranger's face, wave his hands at a glance, and is ready to offer praise if his friend has belched well, or if he has done something that he cannot modestly speak of in public." This is indeed unworthy not only of a friend but of any free man, since true and unique liberty falls into the appearance of virtue, and the filth that infects such people subjects them to the lowest form of slavery. To be a stage player or a mime brings infamy upon those whom the dignity of nature or personhood seems to have spared from the disgrace of such degradation. Furthermore, he who puts on a stranger's face and alternates the various expressions of his feelings prepares traps for the integrity of the senses and, like a scavenger, gathers scraps for others' ears; and if he denies being a stage player in word, he confesses it in his character and filth. This is the hallmark of the flatterer, who lives by another's nod and, before he offers his own judgment, waits for someone else's on every matter. However, the sycophant—who is also known as a flatterer or wheedler, since the same behavior is marked by many signs—explores men's minds and tests their will, so that he may adapt his own senses to whatever you wish, in order to sneakily steal the favor of the one he is dealing with.
The Sweet Poison of Agreement
Friendship is corrupted when it is based on the flatterer's manipulative agreement rather than a shared pursuit of virtue.
He knows that the streams of friendship spring from a meeting of minds and a union of wills. As the historian says, true and firm friendship consists in having the same likes and dislikes. Why wouldn't it? Anyone who thinks you agree with his own pursuits will be a supporter who praises your every move with both thumbs. But when he senses your will, he flatters and soothes you, anointing you with such a grace of sweetness that he puts your virtue to sleep and, by pouring in the waters of Lethe, destroys the entire form of moderation, without which one can never live rightly. Thais, should I give you great thanks? The comic poet is pleasant and apt, for he often mixes himself into our trifles. Great ones, he says.
The Vanity of Being Deceived
The ultimate tragedy of flattery is not just the liar's deceit, but the listener's willingness to believe false praise over their own conscience.
It would have been enough if he had simply answered, "Great." But because the flatterer's deceit exaggerates everything and adds something of his own to pile up favor for himself, he says, "Huge." He doesn't even blush at lying. For anyone who could convince himself to stain a person's integrity with the mark of such disgrace for any reason at all, will certainly convince him to do whatever he wants—rightly, if he can; if not, then by any means necessary. But the one who is properly called a flatterer whitewashes everyone's faults; and so that a person doesn't see himself, he fills the eyes of the one he's talking to with a kind of cloud of vanity, and refreshes their ears with false titles of praise. The ethicist says: What about the fact that the most clever breed of flatterers praises the speech of the uneducated, the face of an ugly friend, and compares the long, weak neck of a sickly man to the neck of Hercules—who held Antaeus far from the earth—and admires a thin voice that sounds no better than a hen being bitten by her mate? This, however, seems the least surprising thing, if the most lost people—those for whom this world, heavy with vice and filth, is already corrupted—can be driven to such disgrace. But I find it more remarkable that there are people who believe them, relying more on a stranger's tongue than on the judgment of their own conscience, while everyone looks for themselves outside of themselves and refuses to acknowledge how meager their own resources really are. There's nothing a person won't believe about themselves when they're being flattered—not just that they have the power of a god, but whatever else a soul puffed up by the yeast of pride might imagine.
Read the original Latin
eia nichil perniciosius. o Adulator enim omnis uirtutis inimicus est, et quasi clauum figit in oculo illius cum quo sermonem conserit, eoque magis cauendus est, quo sub amantis specie nocere non desinit, donec rationis obtundat acumeh et modicum id luminis, quod adesse uidebatur, extinguat. Ad haec S auditorum aures obturat ne audiant uerum; quo quid possit esse perniciosius, non facile dixerim. Scitum est illud Lelii aut potius Ciceronis: Cuius aures clausae sunt ueritati ut uerum audire non possit, eius salus desperanda est. Quid uero infidelius est quam eum cui fidem debeas j3o circumuenire uerborum blanditiis ludibrio habitus gestus transfiguratione, et totius uanitatis lenocinio excecatura in sordes uitiorum impellere et praecipitationis abyssum? Quid odibilius fraude et dolo, quo sub imagine amoris et fidei in simplicem et credulum et (quod detestabilius est) amicum perfidiae et inimicitiarum nequitia exercetur? Hoc siquidem genus hominum omnia loquentium ad uoluptatem, ad ueritatem nichil. Verba oris eius iniquitas et dolus, qui etiam errantibus amicis ad eorum subuersionem ingeminat: Euge, euge.
Quos ut plenius noueris, Gnatonem apud comicum uide, et quid de se fateatur ausculta: a Negat quis, nego; ait, aio. Denique imperaui egomet michi omnia assentari. Tota enim Gnatonicorum factio comeda est. Rides, maiore cachinno concutitur; flet, si lacrimas conspexit amici, nec dolet: igniculum si brumae tempore poscas, accipit andromedam; si dixeris Estuo, sudat. Vnde Vmbricius ait: Non sumus ergo pares; melior qui semper et omni nocte dieque potest alienum sumere uultum, a facie iactare manus, laudare paratus si bene ructauit, aut si quid fecit amicus quod proferre palam non possit lingua modeste. Quod quidem non modo amico sed ne libero homine dignum est, cum uera et unica libertas in uirtutis speciem cadat, et turpitudo quos inficit postremae subiciat seruituti. Histrionem esse uel mimum infamiam ingerit his, quos a tantae abiectionis obprobrio naturae uel personae dignitas uidetur excepisse, Porro qui uultum induit alienum et uarias affectuum altemat facies, incolumitati sensuum insidias parat et sordidus auriculis alienis coUigit escas; et, si histrionem uerbo diffiteatur, eum moribus et turpitudine confitetur; quod assentatoris proprium est, qui ad alterius uiuit nutum et, antequam suum proferat iudicium, de singulis expectat alienum. Ceterum palpo, qui tamen assentatoris uel adulatoris censetur nomine, quoniam eadem res multis notatur indiciis, hominum mentes explorat, praetentat uoluntatem, ut cui rei uolueris sensus accommodet, ut gratiam illius quicum agitur fraudulenter surripiat.
Nouit enim de concursu sensuum et uoluntatum unione quasi riuulos amicitiae scaturire. Idem siquidem K uelle et nolle (ut ait historicus) ea demum firma amicitia i est. Quidni? Consentire suis studiis qui crediderit te, fautor utroque tuum laudabit pollice ludum. Cum uero praesenserit uoluntatem, sic palpat, sic demulcet, tanta suauitatis perungit gratia, ut uirtuti sompnum inducat, et totam moderationis, sine qua numquam recte uiuitur, formam Lethei fluminis infusione subuertat. Magnas grates agere Thais michi? locundus est enim comicus et aptus qui se nugis nostris frequenter immisceat. Ingentes, inquit.
Fuerat quidem satis si magnas respondisset. Sed, quia adulatoris fraus omnia extollit in maius et de suo aliquid adicit unde sibi gratiam cumylet, ingentes inquit. Sed nec mendacium erubescit. Qui enim sibi persuadere potuit ut honestatem hominis tantae turpitudinis macula decoloraret quacumque de causa, utique persuadebit ut quod appetit, faciat, si possit, recte; si non, quocumque modo rem. Verum qui a suo nomine, ut proprie loquamur, dicitur adulator, uitia cuiusque dealbat, et ne se ipsum uideat, oculos colloquentis quadam nube uanitatis implet, et aures falsis praeconiorum titulis reficit. Ait ethicus: Quid quod adulandi gens prudentissima laudat sermonem indocti, faciem deformis amici, et longum inualidi collum ceruicibus aequat Herculis, Anteium procul a tellure tenentis, miratur uocem angustam, qua deterius nec ille sonat, quo mordetur gallina marito? Hoc autem minime uidetur mirum, si perditissimi homines, et quibus hic grauis moribus et feculentus mundus sordidatur, ad tantam turpitudinem possunt impelli. Sed hoc potius duco mirabile, quod populum qui sibi credat habent, qui de se magis alienae linguae adquiescat quam propriae iudicio conscientiae, dum seipsum quilibet extra se quaerit et nosse dedignatur quam sit sibi curta supellex.
Nichil est enim quod credere de se non possit cum laudatur, non modo diis aequa potestas, sed quaecumque anima de fermento superbiae intumescit.
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