I say their real opinion, for such
persons have a true opinion of themselves, though they attempt to
conceal it from themselves, and also to conceal it from others, in
neither of which attempts are they quite successful. It makes no
difference if a man knows that the great man who affects to know him
really does not know him, for he knows that the great man does not
know everybody and cares for very few; but the mere pretence of
knowing, the mere show of knowing and recognising, which the great man
assumes, he is willing to take for what he knows that it is not, a
mark of respect; and mainly, that others, as he hopes, may be deceived
by the false appearance, and take him to be what he knows that he is
not.
Cato's tribuneship was a military tribuneship (tribunus militum).]
[Footnote 672: He was a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, and at the time
of Cato's visit to him he had the care of the library at Pergamus.
Strabo (p. 674, ed. Casaub.) says that he died in Cato's house at
Rome.]
[Footnote 673: AEnus was a small town at the mouth of the river Hebrus,
now the Maritza. The island of Thasos, now Thaso, contains marble. The
monument was a costly memorial, if the Attic talent was meant, which
we must presume. Talents of silver are of course intended.]
[Footnote 674: The allusion is to the Anticato of Caesar (Life of
Caesar, c. 54). How the matter really was, no one can tell; but such a
story is not likely to be a pure invention.
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