But there are others behind, who outdo all the subtlety of the former, such as can claw and please, even
whilst they seem to reprehend. Thus when Alexander
had bestowed some considerable reward upon a jester,
Agis the Argive, through mere envy and vexation, cried
out upon it as a most absurd action; which the king
overhearing, he turned him about in great indignation at
the insolence, saying, What's that you prate, sirrah? Why
truly, replied the man, I must confess, I am not a little
troubled to observe, that all you great men who are descended
[p. 126]
from Jupiter take a strange delight in flatterers
and buffoons; for as Hercules had his Cercopians and
Bacchus his Silenuses about him, so I see your majesty is
pleased to have a regard for such pleasant fellows too.
And one time when Tiberius Caesar was present at the
senate, there stood up a certain fawning counsellor, asserting that all free-born subjects ought to have the liberty of
speaking their sense freely, and should not dissemble or
conceal any thing that they might conceive beneficial to
the public; who, having thus awakened the attention of
his audience, silence being made, and Tiberius impatient
to hear the sequel of the man's discourse, pursued it in
this manner: I must tell you of a fault, Caesar, said he,
for which we universally blame you, though no man yet
has taken the confidence to speak it openly. You neglect
yourself, endanger your sacred person by your too much
labor and care, night and day, for the public. And he
having harangued several things to the same effect, it is
reported that Cassius Severus the orator subjoined: This
man's freedom of speech will ruin him.
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