[368] Bacchus had many names, as he had various qualities. As Omestes he was the “cruel;” and as Agrionius the “wild and savage.” One of his festivals was called Agrionia.
[369] He was an orator, and also something of a soldier, for he successfully opposed Labienus, B.C. 40, when he invaded Asia (c. 28).
[370] There are many ways of flattery, as there are many ways of doing various things. Plutarch here gives a hint, which persons in high places might find useful. Open flattery can only deceive a fool, and it is seldom addressed to any but a fool, unless the flatterer himself be so great a fool as not to know a wise man from a foolish: which is sometimes the case. But there is flattery, as Plutarch intimates, which addresses itself, not in the guise of flattery, but in the guise of truth, one of the characters of which is plain speaking. It is hard for a man in an exalted station to be always proof against flattery, for it is often not easy to detect it. Nor in the intercourse of daily life is it always easy to distinguish between him who gives you his honest advice and opinion, and him who gives it merely to please you, or, what is often worse, merely to please himself.
[371] Nothing is known of him, unless he be the person mentioned in c. 59. Kaltwasser conjectures that he may be the Dellius or Delius to whom Horace has addressed an ode. (Carm. iii. 2). See c. 1, note.
[372] Plutarch alludes to the passage in Homer (Iliad, xiv. 162) where Juno bedecks herself to captivate Jupiter.
[373] She was now about twenty-eight years of age. Kaltwasser suggests that the words “and Cnæus the son of Pompeius” must be an interpolation, because nothing is known of his amours with Cleopatra. But if this be so, other words which follow in the next sentence must have been altered when the interpolation was made.
[374] Antonius was at Tarsus on the river Cydnus when Cleopatra paid him this visit, B.C. 41. Shakespere has used this passage of Plutarch in his “Antony and Cleopatra,” act ii. sc. 2—
“The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burnt on the water,” &c.
[375] Plutarch has given a long list of languages which this learned queen spoke. With Arabic and all the cognate dialects, it is probable enough that she was familiar, but we can hardly believe that she took pains to learn the barbarous language of the wretched Troglodytes, who lived in holes on the west coast of the Red Sea. Diodorus (iii. 32) describes their habits after the authority of Agatharchides.