§ XI. But if our enemies seem to us to have got either by flattery, or fraud, or bribery, or venal services, ill-got and discreditable power at court or in state, it ought not to trouble us but rather inspire pleasure in us, when we compare our own liberty and purity and independence of life. For, as Plato[538] says, "all the gold above or below the earth is not of equal value with virtue." And we ought ever to remember the precept of Solon, "We will not exchange our virtue for others' wealth."[539] Nor will we give up our virtue for the applause of banqueting theatres, nor for honours and chief seats among eunuchs and harlots, nor to be monarchs' satraps; for nothing is to be desired or noble that comes from what is bad. But since, as Plato[540] says, "the lover is blind as respects the loved one," and we notice more what our enemies do amiss, we ought not to let either our joy at their faults or our grief at their success be idle, but in either case we ought to reflect, how we may become better than them by avoiding their errors, and by imitating their virtues not come short of them.
[497] So Pliny, viii. 83: "In Creta Insula non vulpes ursive, atque omnino millum maleficum animal præter phalangium."
[498] See the same remark of Chilo, "On Abundance of Friends," § vi.
[500] A treatise of Plutarch still extant.
[501] A line from a lost Satyric Play of Æschylus, called "Prometheus Purphoros."
[502] So fire is called [Greek: pantechnon] in Æschylus, "Prometheus Desmotes," 7.
[503] Compare Seneca, "De Animi Tranquillitate," cap. xiii.: "Zeno noster cum omnia sua audiret submersa, Jubet, inquit, me fortuna expeditius philosophari."
[504] See Horace, "Epistles," i. I. 28; Pausanias, iv. 2.
[507] Literally "the artists of Dionysus." We know what they were from our author's "Quæstiones Romanæ," § 107: [Greek: dia ti tous peri ton Dionuson technitas histriônas Rhômaioi kalousin];
[508] Compare "De Audiendis Poetis," § iv.
[509] Æschylus, "Septem contra Thebas," 593, 594.
[511] Demosthenes, "De Falsa Legatione," p. 406.
[513] A line from Euripides. Quoted also "De Adulatore et Amico," § xxxii.
[514] Compare "De Audiendo," §vi. See also Horace, "Satires," i, 4. 136, 137.
[515] The story is somewhat differently told, "Quæst. Conviv.," Lib. ii. § ix.