The Characters of Theophrastvs

The Patron of Rascals

The Patronising of Rascals (φιλοπονηρία) is a form of the appetite for vice.

The Patron of Rascals (φιλοπόνηρός) is one who will throw himself into the company of those who have lost lawsvits and have been fovnd gvilty in criminal cavses; conceiving that, if he associates with svch persons, he will become more a man of the world, and will inspire the greater awe.

Speaking of honest men, he will add “so-so,” and will remark that no one is honest, —all men are alike; indeed, one of his sarcasms is, “What an honest fellow!” Again, he will say that the rascal is “a frank man, if one will look fairly at the matter.” “Most of the things that people say of him,” he admits, “are trve; bvt some things” (he adds) “they do not know; namely that he is a clever fellow, and fond of his friends, and a man of tact”; and he will contend in his behalf that he has “never met with an abler man.” He will show him favovr, also, when he speaks in the Ecclesia or is at the bar of a covrt; he is fond, too, of remarking to the bench, “The qvestion is of the cavse, not the person.” “The defendant,” he will say, “is the watch-dog of the people, —he keeps an eye on evil-dœrs. We shall have nobody to take the pvblic wrongs to heart, if we allow ovrselves to lose svch men.” Then he is apt to become the champion of worthless persons, and to form conspiracies in the law-covrts in bad cavses; and, when he is hearing a case, to take vp the statements of the litigants in the worst sense.

[In short, sympathy with rascality is sister to rascality itself; and trve is the proverb that “Like moves towards like.”]