Book 6
73
But Menander, in his play called the Flatterer, has given us the character of one as carefully and faithfully as it was possible to manage it: as also Diphilus has of a parasite in his Telesias. And Alexis, in his Liar, has introduced a flatterer speaking in the following manner— By the Olympian Jove and by Minerva I am a happy man. And not alone Because I'm going to a wedding dinner, But because I shall burst, an it please God. And would that I might meet with such a death. And it seems to me, my friends, that that fine epicure would not have scrupled to quote from the Omphale of Ion the tragedian, and to say— For I must speak of a yearly feast As if it came round every day.
