But after flattery, Anaxandrides the comic poet gives the next place to ostentation, in his Apothecary Prophet, speaking thus—
Do you reproach me that I'm ostentatious?[p. 411] And Antiphanes speaks of what he calls a psomocolax, a flatterer for morsels of bread, in his Gerytades, when he says—
Why should you do so? for this quality
Is far beyond all others, only flattery
Excepted: that indeed is best of all.
You are call'd a whisperer and psomocolax.And Sannyrion says—
What will become of you, you cursed psomocolaces.And Philemon says in his Woman made young again—
The man is a psomocolax.And Philippides says in his Renovation—
Always contending and ψωμοκολακεύων.But the word κόλαξ especially applies to these parasitical flatterers; for κόλον means food, from which come the words βουκόλος, and δύσκολος, which means difficult to be pleased and squeamish. And the word κοιλία means that part of the body which receives the food, that is to say, the stomach. Diphilus also uses the word ψωμοκόλαφος in his Theseus, saying—
They call you a runaway ψωμοκόλαφος.
