But when, after Syleus had bought him, he was sent into the fields, he showed *by his actions the indomitable freedom of his nature; for having sacrificed the choicest of the bulls which were there to Jupiter, he made a pretence of a feast, and having drunk a vast quantity of wine at one meal, he lay down very contentedly to digest it; and when Syleus came, and got angry both at the loss and also at the easy indifference of his servant, and at his preposterous contempt for his master, he never changed colour, nor made any difference in his con- duct, but said with the most perfect confidence — "Sit down and drink, and thus you shall At once appreciate my character, And learn to be my master in reality."
Shall we then say that he is the slave, or rather the master of his master, when he dares in this manner not only to accost him with such freedom, but even to impose injunctions* on him who has purchased him, as if he would beat and insult him if he were to be stubborn and disobedient, and, if he introduced any one to assist him, as if he would destroy them all to a man?
Therefore the writings which were delivered respecting this purchase must have been an utter absurdity and a mere joke, since they would be trampled upon by the more effectual power of the slave bought under them, being of less value than unwritten covenants, and being likely to be utterly destroyed by moths, or time, or mould and rust.
XVI. But it is not right, some one will say, to bring forward the actions of heroes as proofs of the correctness of an argu- ment, for that they were greater than the common run of human nature, and were more on a par with the heavenly beings themselves, as having been born of a sort of mixed generation, and having sprung from mortal and immortal seed at the same time, being correctly entitled demigods, the mortal part of their composition being tempered by the incor- ruptible part, so that there is nothing extraordinary in the fact of their. having despised those mortals who designed to bring slavery upon them.
However, let it be so. Are then Anaxagoras and Zeno the Eleatic heroes, or descended from gods? And nevertheless they, when tortured with the most unprecedented devices of cruelty by savage tyrants, wholly pitiless by nature, and even more than usually exasperated against them, looking on their VOL. III. M M VOL. III. M M 530 PHILO JUD^IUS.
bodies as if they belonged to strangers, or even to enemies, disregarded and utterly disdained the formidable evils with which they were afflicted; for through the love of knowledge having accustomed their souls from the very beginning to keep aloof from all participation with the passions, and to cling to education and wisdom, they easily endured the prospect of its emigrating from the body, and made it a dweller with prudence and courage, and other virtues. Therefore, tbe one being hung up and violently stretched for the sake of making him divulge some secret, showed himself mightier than fire or iron, though they are the strongest things in nature, and biting off his tongue with his teeth, spit it at his torturer, that he might not involuntarily utter what he ought to bury in silence, under the influence of agony; and the other said with great fortitude, " Beat Aristarchus's skin, for you cannot beat Aristarchus himself." These instances of brave fortitude, wholly full of daring, exceed in no slight degree the nobleness of those heroes, because the one class have a glory handed down to them by their ancestors without any actions of their own, while the fame of the others is founded on deeds of virtue deliberately performed, which very naturally make immortal those who practise them in a guileless spirit.
XVII. I know also that combatants in the pancratium very often, out of the excess of their spirit of rivalry, and of their eagerness for victory, when their bodies are exhausted do yet keep up their spirits, and strive with their soul alone, which they have accustomed to look contemptuously on danger, and thus they endure toil and pain to the very end of their life. Shall we then fancy that those men who have practised themselves so as to arrive at vigour of body, have been able to trample on the fear of death, either through hope of victory or from the desire of escaping the sight of their own defeat; but those who train up in themselves the invisible mind, which is really and truly the man himself, bearing about him the appearance perceptible by the outward senses as his house, and who educate it by the principles and maxims of philosophy and the rules of virtue, will not be willing to die for the sake of freedom, in order to perform the journey appointed for them by fate with an indomitable and free spirit?
They say that on one occasion, at one of the sacred games, two athletes who were contending with one another with equally matched strength and courage, doing the same things to one ON THE VIRTUOUS BEING ALSO FREE. 581 another, and suffering the same things, did not desist from the contest till they both fell dead.
" My too brave son, thy courage will destroy thee," * some one may say with reference to such persons. However is the death of such combatants glorious when it is encountered for the sake of some wild olives and parsley-leaves, and must it not be much more so when endured for the sake of freedom, the love of which, if one must tell the plain trnth, is firmly established in the soul alone, as if it were some extraordinary portion of it firmly united with it, which if it were cut off the whole composition of the man must necessarily be destroyed?
The indomitable spirit of a Lacedaemonian boy. whether derived from his birth or from nature, is celebrated, in which nation they are accustomed to hunt carefully for the virtues; for when he had been carried off as a prisoner by some one of the soldiers of Antigonus, he submitted to whatever was put upon him which became a free man, but refused to submit to menial offices, saying that he was not going to be a slave; and yet by reason of his age he could not as yet have been thoroughly educated in the laws of Lycurgus, because he had only tasted them, but he judged a violent death preferable to the life which was before him, and, despairing of any deliver- ance, he cheerfully slew himself.
It is also related that some Dardanian women who had been taken prisoners by the Macedonians, looking upon slavery as the most disgraceful of all evils, threw their children, whom they were carrying in their bosoms, into the deepest part of the river, saying at the same time, " At all events you shall not be slaves, but, before you can begin to experience such a miserable life, you shall cut off all such necessity, and travel in freedom the inevitable and last road of human existence."
Again, the tragedian, Euripides, introduces Polyxena disre- garding death, and thinking only of freedom, on which account she speaks in the following manner: " Willingly now I die; and let no foe Seize me with violent hands; for I myself With cheerful courage will put forth my neck. For God's sake touch me not; but leave me free, That having lived in freedom, 1 may die Unviolated by a master's hand."f * Horn. II. vi. 409. + Euripides, Hecuba, 548.
XVIII. Do we then imagine that there can be such a pro- found love of freedom firmly fixed in women and children, one of which classes is by nature light-minded, and the other is of an age which is easily perverted and liable to stumble, so that they, for the sake of not being deprived of it, cheerfully pro- ceed from death to immortality, but that those men who have tasted of unalloyed wisdom are not at once thoroughly free, bearing about in themselves, as they do, a sort of perpetual fountain of happiness, namely virtue, which no designing or hostile power has ever been able to dissolve, since it has the everlasting inheritance of authority and sovereign power?
But in truth we hear of whole nations also, who, for the sake of freedom and of good faith towards their deceased benefactors, have voluntarily encountered utter destruction, as they say that the Xanthians did no long time ago; for when Brutus, one of those men who attacked Julius Caesar, invaded their territory and made war upon them, they, fearing not so much the destruction of their city as slavery at the mercy of a murderer who had killed his king and his benefactor (for Caesar was both to him), resisted at first with great vigour to the very utmost extent of their power, and though they were being gradually destroyed, they still held out; and when at last they had exhausted all their strength, they all collected their wives, and parents, and children into their houses, and there slew them separately, and then collecting the slaughtered bodies in a heap, they set fire to them, and slew themselves on the top of all, and so with a noble and free spirit encountered the fated end of all men.
But these men, wishing to escape the pitiless inhumanity of tyrannical enemies, preferred death with glory to an inglorious life; but those to whom the chances of fortune gave a longer life, have endured their dangers and afflictions with fortitude, imitating the courage and endurance of Hercules, for he also showed himself superior to the commands of Eurystheus.
Accordingly the Cynic philosopher, Diogenes, exhibited such a loftiness and greatness of spirit, that when he was taken prisoner by some robbers, and when they fed him very sparingly, and scarcely gave him even necessary food, he was not weighed down by the circumstances which surrounded him, and did not fear the inhumanity of the masters into whose power he had fallen, but said " that it was a most absurd thing for pigs or sheep, when they were going to be sold, to be care- ON THE VIRTUOUS BEING ALSO FREE. 533 fully provided with abundant food, so as to be rendered fat and fleshy; but for the most excellent of all animals, man, to be reduced to a skeleton by bad food and continual scarcity, and so to be rendered of less value than before." And then, when he had obtained sufficient food, and when he was about to be sold with the rest of the captives, he sat down first, and break- fasted with great cheerfulness and courage, giving some of his breakfast to his neighbours. And seeing one of them not merely sorrowful, but in a state of extreme despondency, he said, " Will you not give up being miserable? take what you can get."
" For the golden haired Niobe asked for her food, Though her twelve noble children lay welt' ring in blood; Six daughters, fair emblems of virtue and truth, And six sons, the chief flower of the Lydian youth."
And then, speaking boldly to some one who seemed inclined to become a purchaser, and who asked him the question, " What do you know?" he replied, " I know how to govern men:" his soul from within, as it appears, prompting his free, and noble, and naturally royal spirit. And then he at once, with his natural indifference and serenity, turned to facetious discourse, at which all the rest, who were all full of despond- ency, were annoyed. Accordingly it is said that, seeing one of the intended purchasers afflicted with the female disease, as he did not even look like a man, he went up to him, and said, " Do you buy me, for you appear to me to be in want of a husband;" so that he, being grieved and downcast by reason of the infirmities of which he was conscious, slunk away, while all the rest admired the ready wit and happy courage of the philo- sopher.
Shall we then say that such a man as this was in a state of slavery, and not rather in a state of freedom, only without any irresponsible authority?
And there was also a man of the name of Choereas, a man of considerable education, who was a zealous imitator of Dioo-enes's freedom of speech; for he, being an inhabitant of Alexandria in Egypt, on one occasion, when Ptolemy was offended with him, and was uttering no slight threats against him, thinking that the freedom which was implanted in his nature was in no respect inferior to the royal authority of the other, replied — " Rule your Egyptian slaves; but as for me, 534 PHILO JUDiEUS.
I neither care for you, nor fear your wrath 4 And angry threats."* For noble souls have something authoritative within them, and do not allow their brilliancy to be obscured by the injustice of fortune, but their spirit encourages them to contend on equal terms with those who are very high in rank and very proud, pitting their freedom of spirit against the insolence of the others.
It is said that Theodoras, who was surnamed the Atheist, when he was banished from Athens, and had come to the court of Lysimachus, when one of those in power there reproached him with his banishment, mentioning the cause of it too, namely, that he had been expelled because he had been con- demned for atheism and for corrupting the youth, replied, " I have not been banished, but the same thing has befallen me which befell Hercules, the son of Jupiter; for he also was put ashore by the Argonauts, without having done anything wrong, but only because as he himself was both crew and ballast enough for a vessel, so that he burdened the ship, and caused fear to his fellow voyagers lest the vessel should become water-logged; and I too have been driven from my country because the bulk of the citizens at Athens were unable to keep pace with the loftiness and greatness of my mind, and there- fore I was envied by them." And when, after this reply, Lysimachus asked him, " Were you also banished from your native land through envy?" he replied a second time, " Not indeed through envy, but because of the exceedingly high qualities of my nature, which my country could not contain; for as when Semele, at the time that she was pregnant with Bacchus, was unable to bear her offspring until the appointed time for her delivery, Jupiter pitied her, and saved from the flames the offspring which she bore in her womb, being as yet imperfect, and granted it equal honours with the heavenly deities, so also some deity, or some god, has made me leave my country by reason of its being too narrow to contain the ample burden of a philosophic mind, and decided on trans- porting me to a place more fortunate than Athens, and settling me there."
XIX. And moreover any one who considers the matter may * This is a parody on Horn. H. i. 180, where Agamemnon says to Achilles — OiicaS iwi/ gvv vrjuai rsaaig (cat aoigerdpoKTi Mvppidovecvi avaacrt.
ON THE VIRTUOUS BEING ALSO FREE. 535 find even among the brute beasts examples of the freedom which exists among men, as he may of all other human bless- ings. At all events, cocks are accustomed to contend with one another, and to display such an actual affection for danger, that in order to save themselves from yielding or submitting, even if they are inferior in power to their adversary they will not bear to be inferior in courage, for they endure even to death. And Miltiades, the famous general of the Athenians, seeing this, when the king of the Persians having roused up all the might of Asia, was invading Europe with many myriads of soldiers, as if he were going to destroy all Greece with the mere shout of his army, having collected all the allies at the festival called the panathenaea, showed them a battle between these birds, thinking that the encouragement which they would derive from such a sight would be more powerful than any argument. And he was not deceived, for when they had seen the patient enduring and honourable feeling of these irrational animals, which could not be subdued by any means short of death itself, they snatched up their arms and rushed eagerly to war, as resolving to fight against their enemies with their bodies, and being utterly indifferent to wounds and death, being willing to die for their freedom, so that at all events they might be buried in the still free soil of their native country; for there is nothing which acts so forcibly in the way of exhortation so as to improve the character, as an unhoped for success in the case of those whom men look upon as inferior to themselves.
Moreover the tragic writer, Ion, mentions the contentious spirit of those birds in the following lines: " Nor though wounded in each limb, Nor though his eyes with blows are dim, Will he forget his might; But still, though much fatigued, will crow, Preferring death to undergo Than slavery, or slight."
And why, then, should we think that wise men will not cheer- fully encounter death in preference to slavery? And is it not absurd to imagine that the souls of young and nobly born men will turn out inferior to those of game-cocks in the contest of virtue, and will be barely fit to stand in the second place? And yet who is there who has even the least tincture of educa- tion who does not know this fact, that freedom is a noble thin<* 536 PHILO JUD^US.
and slavery a disgraceful one, and that what is honourable belongs to virtuous men, and what is disgraceful to worthless ones? From which it is seen most undeniably, that no virtuous man can ever be a slave, not if ten thousand persons, with all imaginable deeds to prove themselves masters, threaten them; and that no foolish or worthless man can ever be free, not even if he were Croesus, or Midas, or the great king of Persia himself.
But the beauty of freedom, which is much celebrated, and the deformity of slavery, which is accursed, are continually borne witness to as having that character by the more ancient cities and nations whose existence has been of long duration, being as it were immortal among mortal things, and their testimony cannot err; for, for what other object are councils and assemblies convened nearly every day, rather than about freedom, with a view to the confirmation of it if it is present, and to the acquisition of it if it is absent? And what other object have Greece and the nations of the barbarians ever had in all the continual seditions and wars which have taken place among or between those peoples, except to avoid slavery, and to obtain liberty? On which account in all battles the chief exhortation of all captains, and commanders, and generals is this, " 0 soldiers and allies, let us now repel that greatest of all evils, slavery, which the enemy is attempting to bring upon us; let us never endure the loss of that greatest of all human blessings, liberty. This is the beginning and fountain of all happiness, from which all particular blessings flow."
And it is for this reason that the most sharp-sighted of all the Greek nations, namely, the Athenians (for what the pupil is to the eye, or reasoning to the soul, that also is Athens to Greece), when they send out a solemn procession to the venerable goddesses,* never allow any slave whatever to take any part in it, but perform everything concerning it by the agency of free men and women who are accustomed to such duties, even then not taking any chance persons, but only such as have cultivated a blameless innocence of life; since the most excellent of the youths prepare the cakes for the feast, looking upon that office as conducing (which indeed it does) to their credit and honour.
And it happened not long ago, when some actors were representing a tragedy, and repeating those iambics of Euripides:f • Tte Furies. t Fragmenta Irtcerta, 495.
ON THE VIRTUOUS BEING ALSO FREE. 537 " For e'en the name of freedom is a jewel Of mighty value; and the man who has it E'en in a small degree, has noble wealth;" I myself saw all the spectators standing on tip-toe with excite- ment and delight, and with loud outcries and continual shouts combining their praise of the sentiments, and with praise also of the poet, as having not only honoured freedom by his actions, but having extolled its very name.
I also admire the Argonauts, who made the whole crew of their vessel to consist of freemen, not allowing a single slave to embark even for the purpose of performing the most indis- pensable services, but at that period they chose to do every thing for themselves, looking upon independent action as the brother of freedom; and if it may be allowed me at all to attend to what is said by the poets (and why should we not do so, for they are the instructors of the lives of all mankind, and just as individual parents are the instructors of their children, so too do they become so to the whole body of a city, correcting the entire population?), then I say that the Argo herself, when Jason was her captain, as if she were at that time endowed with a soul and with reasoning powers, did not permit any slaves to embark on board of her, since her nature was that of one devoted to freedom, on which account iEschylus, with reference to her, says — " And tell me where 's the sacred beam That dared the dangerous Euxine stream?'* And we must not pay the slightest attention to threats and menaces which some persons hold out over even wise men, but we must say as Antigonides the flute-player did; for it is related that he, when one of his rivals in art being angry with him, said to him, " I will buy you for a slave," said with very profound wit, " Then I will teach you to play the flute;" and in the same way it would become the virtuous man to say to any one who appeared inclined to purchase him, " Therefore you will be able to learn wisdom." And if any one were to threaten him with banishment beyond the borders of the country, it would become him to reply, "Every land is my country;" and if any one were to threaten him with loss of money, he might make answer, "A moderate means of subsist- ence are sufficient for me:" while if any one were to menace him with stripes or death, he would reply, " These things have * iEsch. Fragm. 648.
538 PKILO JUD.BUS.
538 PKILO JUD.BUS.
no terrors for me, nor am I inferior to a boxer or to a wrestler in the pancratium, who, seeing merely some indistinct images of virtue, because they have laboured merely at the one object of producing a good condition of body, endure both blows and death with fortitude; for in me- the mind, which is the ruler of the body, has been invigorated by courage, and so com- pletely fortified, that it is able to show itself superior to any kind of pain."
XXI. We must take care, therefore, never to catch a beast of that character which, being formidable not only in respect of its strength but also in its appearance, displays an almost invincible power, which is far from deserving to be despised. It often happens that places which serve as asylums for fugi- tives and slaves give them complete freedom from fear and perfect security, as if they were in possession of equal honours and privileges with their masters, and sometimes one may see those who are slaves of old standing, as descended from grand- fathers, and even more remote ancestors still, who have all been slaves by a kind of hereditary succession, yet, when once they have taken refuge in temples as suppliants, speaking freely and fearlessly in perfect security.
There are some too, who even argue about their own rights and just claims with those who are their owners, not merely on equal terms, but actually as if they were far superior to them, replying to them with great energy and even contemp- tuously; for the one party is enslaved by the conviction which their consciences force upon them, however nobly born they may be; while the others feel in perfect security as to their persons, from the general recognition of the place in which they are as an asylum, and therefore they display the free and noble disposition of soul, which God has made of such a nature as never to be subdued by any external circumstances, unless indeed any one is so utterly destitute of reason as to fancy that it is the place itself which is the cause of their confidence and freedom of speech, and that that most god-like of all things, virtue, has nothing to do with it, though it is owing to virtue alone that sanctity attaches either to the places or to anything which is endowed with sense.
And, indeed, in the case of those who take refuge in places which are looked upon as asylums, seeking security only in the places themselves, it constantly happens to such persons to be much influenced by a great variety of other circurn- ON THE VIRTUOUS BEING ALSO FREE. 539 stances, by the corruption of their wives, the loss of reputa- tion by their children, and the deceitfulness of love, while those who take refuge in virtue, as in a strong and indestruc- tible and invincible fortification, disregard all attacks which the treachery of the passions aims and directs against them. Now any one who is defended by this power may naturally say with all freedom, that other persons indeed are taken captive by all kinds of accidental things, but, as the tragic poet has it, " I am well skilled both to obey myself And rule myself: well weighing all events Accordingly also Bias, of Priene, is said, when Croesus threat- ened him, to have threatened him in return, in a most con- temptuous manner, bidding him eat onions, by which figurative expression he meant that he should weep, since the eating of onions excites tears.
Thus wise men, looking upon nothing as more royal tban virtue, which is the regulator of the whole of their lives, do not fear the authority of other men, whom they look upon rather as subject to themselves; in reference to which idea, they are all accustomed to consider double-minded and treach- erous people illiberal and slavish; on which account also there is a good deal of propriety in the expression — " Never was heard of slave uprightly held, But stooping always with a downbent neck." + For a crooked, and wily, and deceitful disposition, is a most ignoble thing; just as an upright, and straightforward, and undisguised, and unsuspicious soul, betokens a most noble cha- racter, its words harmonising with its intentions, and its intentions with its words.
We may fairly enough laugh at those men who, when once they have got released from the actual possession of an owner, think themselves free from that moment; for these men, when emancipated, are perhaps no longer servants, just as before, but they are all slaves, deeply branded slaves, obeying not indeed men (for this would not be so terrible), but even the most dishonoured of even inanimate things, strong wine, vegetables, cheesecakes, and all the other things which the superfluous labours of bakers and confectioners invent, as ene- mies of the miserable belly. Accordingly Diogenes, when he * This again is from the Syleus of Euripides, t From Theognis Carm. 41.
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