Sec. IX. So Ino in Euripides, speaking plainly about herself, says she
knows "how to be silent when she should, and to speak when speech is
safe."[570] For those who have enjoyed a truly noble and royal education
learn first to be silent and then to speak. So the famous king
Antigonus, when his son asked him, "When are we going to shift our
quarters?" answered, "Are you afraid that you only will not hear the
trumpet?" Was he afraid then to entrust a secret to him, to whom he
intended one day to leave his kingdom? Nay rather, it was to teach him
to be close and guarded on such matters. Metellus[571] also, the
well-known veteran, when questioned somewhat similarly about an
expedition, said, "If I thought my coat knew the secret, I would strip
it off and throw it into the fire." And Eumenes, when he heard that
Craterus was marching against him, told none of his friends, but
pretended that it was Neoptolemus; for his soldiers despised
Neoptolemus, but they admired the glory and loved the virtue of
Craterus; and no one but Eumenes knew the truth, and they engaged and
were victorious, and unwittingly killed Craterus, and only recognized
his dead body. So great a part did silence play in the battle,
concealing the name of the enemy's general: so that Eumenes' friends
marvelled more than found fault at his not having told them the truth.
And if anyone should receive blame in such a case, it is better to be
censured when one has done well by keeping one's counsel, rather than to
have to accuse others through having come to grief by trusting them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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