[99] accordingly just see what Hercules says in Euripides. [23] / "Yes, burn and scorch my flesh, and glut your hate, / Drinking my life-warm blood; for heaven’s stars / Shall quit their place, and darken ’neath the earth, / And earth rise up and take the place of heaven, / Before you wring from me a word of flattery." For in real truth flattery, and adulation, and hypocrisy, in which what is uttered is at variance with the sentiments which are really felt, are the most slavish of things. But without any disguise, and in a genuine honest spirit of truth to speak with freedom what is dictated by a clear conscience, is a line of conduct suited to those who are nobly born.