13. As soon as he ceased, I, fearing lest he might again proceed anew to more and greater absurdities, spoke up and asked him: “Very well, but do you accept all these things as true?” To which he replied, “Even if not all, but only some of them are true, do you not think the question presents the same difficulty?” “Perhaps,” said I, “and yet when persons are suffering from a high fever, the same or nearly the same heat remains whether they have on them one or more garments; nevertheless it affords some relief (to the patient) to remove what is superfluous. Still, if you do not wish to go on, we will let this matter pass; at any rate, these stories look like fables and inventions; remember, however, the festival of Theoxenia, recently celebrated, and the honorable place the heralds assign to the descendants of Pindar; how imposing and delightful the ceremony appeared to you. Who would not, I said, be charmed with the bestowal of this honor, so entirely in harmony with the spirit of Greek antiquity, unless his ‘black heart had been forged with cold flame,’ to use one of Pindar’s own expressions? Then I forbear to mention, I said, a proclamation similar to this in Sparta called, After the Lesbian Bard, in honor and memory of Terpander the Ancient, for the argument is the same. And you too, descendants of Opheltas, forsooth, claim somewhat more consideration than others among the Boeotians and at the hands of the Phokians because of Diophantus; besides, you were present and were the first to support me when I upheld the traditional honor of Herakles and the right to wear a crown which the Lycormae and the Satilaiae laid claim to; for I said it was altogether proper that the descendants of Herakles should enjoy unimpaired honors and benefits for services which he had rendered to the Greeks, but for which he had not himself received adequate recognition and requital.” “You have recalled to my mind a noble contest,” he said, “and one well worthy of a philosopher.” “Retract, then, my friend,” said I, “this serious charge, and do not take it ill if the descendants of wicked or base men are sometimes punished; or cease to speak with approval of the honors conferred upon those who are of noble ancestry. For it is incumbent upon us, if we are to requite to their descendants, the services of their forefathers, as a matter of consistency not to think that punishment ought to cease or be discontinued at once after the crime, but that it ought to run along with it and render a recompense corresponding to it. He who is pleased to see the family Kimon honored at Athens, but feels sore and aggrieved when the descendants of Lachares or Aristo are expelled, is very weak and inconsistent; or rather, he is captious and hypercritical as regards the deity: for he finds fault if the grand-children of a wicked and unjust man seem to meet with good fortune, and he finds fault again, if the offspring of the vicious are cut off and blotted out.