"David Hume - Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

learned and virtuous Roman, whose dignity, though he was only
a private gentleman, was inferior to that of no one in Rome,
is there shewn in rather a more pitiful light than
Philalethe's friend in our modern dialogues. He is a humble
admirer of the orator, pays him frequent compliments, and
receives his instructions, with all the deference which a
scholar owes to his master.[8] Even Cato is treated in
somewhat of a cavalier manner in the dialogues de finibus.

One of the most particular details of a real dialogue, which
we meet with in antiquity, is related by Polybius;[9] when
Philip, king of Macedon, a prince of wit and parts, met with
Titus Flaminius, one of the politest of the Romans, as we
learn from Plutarch,[10] accompanied with ambassadors from
almost all the Greek cities. The Aetolian ambassador very
abruptly tells the king, that he talked like a fool or a
madman (lhrein). 'That's evident,' says his majesty, 'even to
a blind man'; which was a raillery on the blindness of his
excellency. Yet all this did not pass the usual bounds: For
the conference was not disturbed; and Flaminius was very well
diverted with these strokes of humour. At the end, when Philip
craved a little time to consult with his friends, of whom he
had none present, the Roman general, being desirous also to
shew his wit, as the historian says, tells him, 'that perhaps
the reason, why he had none of his friends with him, was
because he had murdered them all'; which was actually the
case. This unprovoked piece of rusticity is not condemned by
the historian; caused no farther resentment in Philip, than to
excite a Sardonian smile, or what we call a grin; and hindered
him not from renewing the conference next day. Plutarch[11]
too mentions this raillery amongst the witty and agreeable
sayings of Flaminius.

Cardinal Wolsey apologized for his famous piece of insolence,
in saying, 'Ego et Rex meus', I and my king, by observing,
that this expression was conformable to the Latin idiom, and
that a Roman always named himself before the person to whom,
or of whom he spake. Yet this seems to have been an instance
of want of civility among that people. The ancients made it a
rule, that the person of the greatest dignity should be
mentioned first in the discourse; insomuch, that we find the
spring of a quarrel and jealousy between the Romans and
Aetolians, to have been a poet's naming the Aetolians before
the Romans, in celebrating a victory gained by their united
arms over the Macedonians.[12] Thus Livia disgusted Tiberius
by placing her own name before his in an inscription.[13]

No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed. In like
manner, as modern politeness, which is naturally so
ornamental, runs often into affectation and foppery, disguise