Page:Discourses of Epictetus volume 2 Oldfather 1928.djvu/257

 he wills, and accordingly no bad man is free. And who wishes to live in grief, fear, envy, pity, desiring things and failing to get them, avoiding things and falling into them?—No one at all.—Do we find, then, any bad man free from grief or fear, not falling into what he would avoid, nor failing to achieve what he desires?—No one.—Then we find no bad man free, either.

Now if some man who has been consul twice hear this, he will forgive you, if you add, "But you are a wise man; this does not apply to you." Yet if you tell him the truth, to wit: "In point of being a slave you are not a whit better than those who have been thrice sold," what else can you expect but a flogging? "Why, how am I a slave?" says he. "My father was free, my mother free; no one has a deed of sale for me. More than that, I am a member of the senate, and a friend of Caesar, and I have been consul, and I own many slaves." Now in the first place, most worthy senator, it is very likely that your father was the same kind of slave that you are, and your mother, and your grandfather, and all your ancestors from first to last. But even if they were free to the limit, what does that prove in your case? Why, what does it prove if they were noble, and you are mean-spirited? If they were brave, and you a coward? If they were self-controlled, and you unrestrained?

And what, says someone, has this to do with being a slave?—Doesn't it strike you as "having to do with being a slave" for a man to do something against his will, under compulsion?—Granted the point, he replies. But who can put me under compulsion, except Caesar, the lord of all?—There, 247