Hiero

Ah, Simonides, I think even the honours enjoyed by despots bear a close resemblance to their courtships, as I have described them to you.

The services of the indifferent seemed to us not acts of grace, and favours extorted appeared to give no pleasure. And so it is with the services proffered by men in fear: they are not honours.

For how can we say that men who are forced to rise from their seats rise to honour their oppressors, or that men who make way for their superiors desire to honour their oppressors?

And as for presents, most men offer them to one whom they hate, and that too at the moment when they have cause to fear some evil at his hands. These acts, I suppose, may not unfairly be taken for acts of servility; but honours, I should say, express the very opposite feelings.