When Plutarch had said all this about parasites, Democritus, taking up the discourse, said, And I myself, 'like wood well-glued to wood,' as the Theban poet has it, will say a word about flatterers.
For of all men the flatterer fares best,as the excellent Menander says. And there is no great difference between calling a man a flatterer and a parasite. Accordingly, Lynceus the Samian, in his Commentaries, gives the name of parasite to Cleisophus, the man who is universally described as the flatterer of Philip, the king of the Macedonians (but he was an Athenian by birth, as Satyrus the Peripatetic affirms, in his Life of Philip). And Lynceus says—“Cleisophus, the parasite of Philip, when Philip rebuked him for being continually asking for something, replied, 'I am very forgetful.' Afterwards, when Philip had given him a wounded horse, he sold him; and when, after a time, the king [p. 391] asked him what had become of him, he answered, ' He was sold by that wound of his.' And when Philip laughed at him, and took it good-humouredly, he said, 'Is it not then worth my while to keep you?'” And Hegesander the Delphian, in his Commentaries, makes this mention of Cleisophus:—“When Philip the king said that writings had been brought to him from Cotys, king of Thrace, Cleisophus, who was present, said, 'It is well, by the gods.' And when Philip said, But what do you know of the subjects mentioned in these writings?' he said, 'By the great Jupiter, you have reproved me with admirable judgment.'”
