99
No one, to be sure, unless he is an utter fool, fails to detect the open flatterer, but we must exercise a watchful care against the deep and crafty one lest he steal upon us unawares. For he is very hard to recognize, since he often fawns even by opposing, and flatters and cajoles by pretending to quarrel, until at last he gives in, allowing himself to be overcome so that his dupe may appear to have seen further into the matter than himself. And yet, is there anything more discreditable than to be made a dupe? If not, then we should be all the more on our guard that it does not happen to us to have to confess: To-day, of all old fools that play the comic parts, You’ve wheedled me the most and made your greatest dupe. Lines from the Epiclerus by Caecilius Statius.Cf. Cic. Cato Maior § 36 nam quos ait Caecilius . . . comicos stultos senes.
100
For even on the stage the silliest characters take the parts of old men lacking in foresight and easily deceived.
100
But in some unaccountable way I have drifted away from the friendship of faultless men—that is, men of wisdom, such wisdom I mean as is observed to fall to the lot of man—and I have rambled on to a discussion of friendships of the frivolous kind. Wherefore, let me return to the topic with which I began and finally put an end even to that.