§ xvi. But since a good many are moved by the lines of Euripides, who seems to bring a strong indictment against exile, let us see what it is he says in each question and answer about it.
But this is not a right or true estimate.14 For first of all, not to say out all one thinks is not the action of a slave but of a sensible man, in times and matters that require reticence and silence, as Euripides himself has said elsewhere better,
Then as for the follies of one's masters, one has to put up with them just as much in one's own country as in exile. Indeed, more frequently have the former reason to fear that the powerful in cities will act unjustly to them either through calumny or violence. But his greatest and absurdest error is that he takes away from exiles freedom of speech. It is wonderful, if Theodorus had no freedom of speech, that when Lysimachus the king said to him, "Did not your country cast you out because of your character?" replied, "Yes, as Semele cast out Dionysus, when unable to bear him any longer." And when he showed him Telesphorus in a cage,15 with his eyes scooped out, and his