Page:All the works of Epictetus - which are now extant; consisting of his Discourses, preserved by Arrian, in four books, the Enchiridion, and fragments (IA allworksofepicte00epic).pdf/375

RV 323 (Chap. 1.) §. 17. Are you free yourself then? (It will be said.) By Heaven I wish and pray for it. But I cannot yet face my Masters. I still pay a Regard to my Body, and set a great Value on keeping it whole; though at the same time it is not whole. But I can show you one who was free, that you may no longer seek an Example. Diogenes was free."How so?"Not because he was of free Parents, for he was not; but because he was so himself; because he had cast away all the Handles of Slavery; nor was there any Way of getting at him, nor any-where to lay hold on him, to enslave him. Every thing sat loose upon him, every thing only just hung on. If you took hold on his Possessions, he would rather let them go, than follow you for them: if on his Leg, he let go his Leg: if his Body, he let go his Body: Acquaintance, Friends, Country, just the same. For he knew whence he had them, and from whom, and upon what Conditions he received them. But he would never have forsaken his true Parents the Gods, and his real Country; nor have suffered any one to be more dutiful and obedient to them than he: nor would any one have died more readily for his Country than he. For he never sought when it would be proper for him to act for the sake of any thing else, [except his real Country the Universe;] but he remembered, that every thing that exists is from thence, and carried on by it, and commanded by its Ruler. Accordingly, see what he himself says and writes. "Upon this Account, says he, O Diogenes, it is in your Power to converse as you will with the Persian Monarch, and with Archidamus, King of the Lacedemonians."Was it because he was born of