For Scaurus was a professed enemy and an open accuser of Domitius; whereupon a treacherous servant of Domitius comes to Scaurus before the cause was to be heard, and tells him that he has a secret to communicate to him in relation to the present suit, which he knows not of, and which may be very advantageous on his side. Yet Scaurus would not permit him to speak a word, but apprehended him, and sent him back to his master. And when Cato was prosecuting Murena for bribery, and was collecting evidence to support his charge, he was accompanied (according to custom) by certain persons in the interest of the defendant, who watched his transactions. These often asked him in the morning, whether he intended on that day to collect evidence or make other preparation for the trial; and so soon as he told them he should not, they put such trust in him that they went their way. This was a plain demonstration of the extraordinary deference and honor they paid to Cato; but a far greater testimony, and one surpassing all the rest, is it to prove that, if we accustom ourselves to deal justly and uprightly with our enemies, then we shall not fail to behave ourselves so towards our friends. 10. Simonides was wont to say that there was no lark without its crest; so the disposition of men is naturally pregnant with strife, suspicion, and envy, which last (as Pindar observes) is “the companion of empty-brained men.” Therefore no man can do any thing that will tend more to his own profit and the preservation of his peace than utterly to purge out of his mind these corrupt affections, and cast them off as the very sink of all iniquity, that they may create no more mischief between him and his friends. This Onomademus, a judicious and wise man, understood well, who, when he was of the prevailing side in a civil commotion at Chios, gave this counsel to his friends, that they should not quite destroy or drive away those of the adverse party, but let some abide there, for fear they should begin to fall out among themselves as soon as their enemies were all out of the way. Therefore, if these uneasy dispositions of the mind be spent and consumed upon enemies, they would never molest or disquiet our friends. Neither doth Hesiod approve of one potter or one singer’s envying another, or that a neighbor or relation or brother should resent it ill that another prospers and is successful in the world.[134] But if there be no other way whereby we may be delivered from emulation, envy, or contention, we may suffer our minds to vent these passions upon the prosperity of our enemies, and whet the edge and sharpen the point of our anger upon them. For as gardeners that have knowledge and experience in plants expect their roses and violets should grow the better by being set near leeks and onions,—because all the sour juices of the earth are conveyed into these,—so an enemy by attracting to himself our vicious and peevish qualities, may render us less humorsome and more candid and