for downright plainness and truth. Besides we see that enemies censure one another for what they have done amiss, as Diogenes said,' he who wished to lead a good life ought to have good friends or red-hot enemies, for the former told you what was right, and the latter blamed you if you did what was wrong. But it is better to be on our guard against wrong actions, through listening to the persuasion of those that advise us well, than to repent, after we have done wrong, in consequence of the reproaches of our enemies. And so we ought to employ tact in our freedom of speech, as it is the greatest and most powerful remedy in friendship, and always needs a well-chosen occasion, and moderation in applying it.

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§ XXXVII. Since then, as I have said before, freedom of speech is often painful to the person who is to receive benefit from it, we must imitate the surgeons, who, when they have performed an operation, do not leave the suffering part to pain and smart, but bathe and foment it; so those who do their rebuking daintily run' off after paining and smarting, and by different dealing and kind words soothe and mollify them, as statuaries smooth and polish images which have been broken or chipped. But he that is broken and wounded by rebuke, if he is left sullen and swelling with rage and off his equilibrium, is henceforth hard to win back or talk over. And so people who reprove ought to be especially careful on this point, and not to leave them too soon, nor break off their conversation and intercourse with their acquaintances at the exasperating and painful stage.

HOW A MAN MAY BE BENEFITED BY

HIS ENEMIES.

§ 1. I am well aware, Cornelius Pulcher, that you prefer the mildest manners in public life, by which you can be at once most useful to the community, and most agreeable in

1 Compare "How One may be aware of one's Progress in Virtue,"§ xi. 2" Ductum e proverbiali dictione Baλóvra Expɛúyev, emisso telo aufugere."-Wyttenbach.

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private life to those who have any dealings with you. But since it is difficult to find any region without wild beasts, though it is related of Crete; and hitherto there has been no state that has not suffered from envy, rivalry, and strife, the most fruitful seeds of hostility; (for, even if nothing else does, our friendships involve us in enmities, as Chilo the wise man perceived, who asked the man who told him he had no enemy, whether he had a friend either), it seems to me that a public man ought not only to examine the whole question of enemies in its various ramifications, but also to listen to the serious remark of Xenophon, that a sensible man will receive profit even from his enemies. The ideas therefore that lately occurred to me to deliver, I have now put together nearly in the identical words and send them to you, with the exception of some matter also in "Political Precepts," 994 a treatise which I have often

noticed in your hands.

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§ II. People in old times were well satisfied if they were not injured by strange and wild beasts, and that was the only motive of their fights with them, but those of later days have by now learnt to make use of them, for they feed on their flesh, and clothe themselves with their wool, and make medical use of their gall and beestings, and turn their hides into shields, so that we might reasonably fear, if beasts failed man, that his life would become brutish, and wild, and void of resources. Similarly since all others are satisfied with not being injured by their enemies, but the sensible will also (as Xenophon says) get profit out of them, we must not be incredulous, but seek a method and plan how to obtain this advantage, seeing that life without an enemy is impossible. The husbandman cannot cultivate every tree, nor can the hunter tame every kind of animal, so both seek means to derive profit according to their several necessities, the one from his barren trees, the other from his wild animals. Sea-water also is undrinkable and brackish, but it feeds fish, and is a sort of vehicle to convey and transport travellers anywhere. The Satyr, when he

So Pliny, viii. 83: "In Creta Insula non vulpes ursive, atque omnino nullum maleficum animal præter phalangium."

2 See the same remark of Chilo," On Abundance of Friends," § vi. 3" Econom." i. 15. 4 A treatise of Plutarch still extant.

saw fire for the first time, wished to kiss it and embrace it, but Prometheus warned him,

"Goat, thou wilt surely mourn thy loss of beard."1

For fire burns whoever touches it, but it also gives light and warmth, and is an instrument of art to all those who know how to use it. Consider also in the case of the enemy, if he is in other respects injurious and intractable, he somehow or other gives us a handle to make use of him by, and so is serviceable. And many things are unpleasant and detestable and antagonistic to those to whom they happen, but you must have noticed that some use even illnesses as a period of rest for the body, and others by excessive toil have strengthened and trained their bodily vigour, and some have made exile and the loss of money a passage to leisure and philosophy, as did Diogenes and Crates. And Zeno, when he heard of the wreck of the ship which contained all his property, said, "Thou hast done well, Fortune, to confine me to my threadbare cloak."3

For as those animals that have the strongest and healthiest stomachs eat and digest serpents and scorpions, and some even feed on stones and shells, which they convert into nourishment by the strength and heat of their stomachs, while fastidious people out of health almost vomit if offered bread and wine, so foolish people spoil even their friendships, while the wise know how to turn to account even their enmities.

§ III. In the first place then it seems to me that what is most injurious in enmity may become most useful to those that pay attention to it? To what do I refer? Why, to the way in which your enemy ever wide awake pries into all your affairs, and analyzes your whole life, trying to get a handle against you somewhere, able not only to look through a tree, like Lynceus, or through stones and shells,

A line from a lost Satyric Play of Eschylus, called "Prometheus Purphoros."

2 So fire is called πávrεɣvov in Æschylus, "Prometheus Desmotes," 7. 3 Compare Seneca, "De Animi Tranquillitate," cap. xiii. : 66 Zeno noster cum omnia sua audiret submersa, Jubet, inquit, me fortuna expeditius philosophari."

4 See Horace, "Epistles," i. 1. 28; Pausanias, iv. 2.

but through your friend and domestic and every intimate acquaintance, as far as possible detecting your doings, and digging and ferreting into your designs. For our friends are ill and often die without our knowing anything about it through our delay and carelessness, but we almost pry into even the dreams of our enemies; and our enemy knows even more than we do ourselves of our diseases and debts and differences with our wives.1 But they pay most attention to our faults and hunt them out and as vultures follow the scent of putrid carcases, and cannot perceive sound and wholesome ones, so the diseases and vices and crimes of life attract the enemy, and on these those that hate us pounce, these they attack and tear to pieces. Is not this an advantage to us? Certainly it is. For it teaches us to live warily and be on our guard, and neither to do or say anything carelessly or without circumspection, but ever to be vigilant by careful mode of living that we give no handle to an enemy. For the cautiousness that thus represses the passions and follows reason implants a care and determination to live well and without reproach. For as those states that have been sobered by wars with their neighbours and continual campaigns love the blessings of order and peace, so those people who are compelled to lead a sober life owing to their enemies, and to be on their guard against carelessness and negligence, and to do everything with an eye to utility, imperceptibly glide into a faultless mode of life, and tone down their character, even without requiring much assistance from precepts. For those who always remember the line,

"Ah! how would Priam and his sons rejoice," 2

are by it diverted from and learn to shun all such things as their enemies would rejoice and laugh at. Again we see actors and singers on the stage oftentimes slack and remiss, and not taking sufficient pains about their performances in the theatres when they have it all to themselves; but when there is a competition and contest with

2 Homer, "Iliad,” i. 255.

1 See Plautus, "Trinummus," 205-211. 3 Literally “the artists of Dionysus." We know what they were from our author's "Quæstiones Romanæ," § 107: dià rí roÙÇ TEpì TÒV Διόνυσον τεχνίτας ἱστρίωνας Ῥωμαῖοι καλοῦσιν ;

others, they not only wake up but tune their instruments, and adjust their chords, and play on the flute with more care. Similarly whoever knows that his enemy is antagonistic to his life and character, pays more attention to himself, and watches his behaviour more carefully, and regulates his life. For it is peculiar to vice to be more afraid of enemies than friends in regard to our faults. And so Nasica, when some expressed their opinion that the Roman Republic was now secure, since Carthage was rased to the ground and Achaia reduced to slavery, said, "Nay rather we are now in a critical position, since we have none left to fear or respect."

§ IV. Consider also that very philosophical and witty answer of Diogenes to the man who asked, "How shall I avenge myself on my enemy ?" "By becoming a good and honest man. " 1 Some people are terribly put about if they see their enemies' horses in a good condition, or hear their dogs praised; if they see their farm well-tilled, their garden well-kept, they groan aloud. What a state think you then they would be in, if you were to exhibit yourself as a just man, sensible and good, in words excellent, in deeds pure, in manner of life decorous, reaping fruit from the deep soil of the soul, where good counsels grow. Pindar says 3 "those that are conquered are reduced to complete silence:" but not absolutely, not all men, only those that see they are outdone by their enemies in industry, in goodness, in magnanimity, in humanity, in kindnesses; these, as Demosthenes says, "stop the tongue, block up the mouth, choke people, and make them silent."

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1 2

"Be better than the bad: 'tis in your power."
"95

66

If you wish to vex the man who hates you, do not abuse him by calling him a pathick, or effeminate, or intemperate, or a low fellow, or illiberal; but be yourself a man, and temperate, and truthful, and kind and just in all your

1 Compare "De Audiendis Poetis," § iv.

2 Eschylus, "Septem contra Thebas," 593, 594.
3 Pindar, "Fragm." 253.

4 Demosthenes, "De Falsa Legatione," p. 406.

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Euripides, "Orestes," 251.