Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/36

 power, honor, arts and sciences, and all the enjoyments of life. He endeavor ed to exhibit, in his own person, a model of Cynic virtue. For this purpose he subjected himself to the severest trials, and disregarded all the forms of polite society. He often struggled to overcome his appetite, or satisfied it with the coarsest food; practised the most rigid temperance, even at feasts, in the midst of the greatest abundance, and did not even consider it beneath his dignity to ask alms. By day, he walked through the streets of Athens barefoot, without any coat, with a long beard, a stick in his hand, and a wallet on his shoulders; by night, he slept in a tub, though this has been doubted. He defied the inclemency of the weather, and bore the scoffs and insults of the people with the greatest equanimity. Seeing a boy draw water with his hand, he threw away his wooden goblet as an unnecessary utensil. He never spared the follies of men, but openly and loudly inveighed against vice and corruption, attacking them with satire and irony. The people, and even the higher classes, heard him with pleasure, and tried their wit upon him. When he made them feel his superiority, they often had recourse to abuse, by which, however, he was little moved. He rebuked them for expressions and actions which violated decency and modesty, and therefore it is not credible that he was guilty of the excesses with which his enemies have reproached him. His rudeness offended the laws of good breeding rather than the principles of-morality. Many anecdotes, however, related of this singular person, are mere fictions. On a voyage to Ægina, he fell into the hands of pirates, who sold him as a slave to the Corinthian Xeniades in Crete. The latter emancipated him, and intrusted him with the education of his children. He attended to the duties of his new employment with the greatest care, commonly living in summer at Corinth, and in winter at Athens. It was at the former place that Alexander found him on the road-side, basking in the sun, and, astonished at the indifference with which the ragged beggar regarded him, entered into conversation with him, and finally gave him permission to ask for a boon."I ask nothing," answered the philosopher, "but that thou wouldst get out of my sunshine." Surprised at this proof of content, the king is said to have exclaimed, "Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." At another time, he was carrying a lantern through the streets of Athens, in the daytime: on being asked what he was looking for, he answered,"I am seeking a man." Thinking he had found, in the Spartans, the greatest capacity for becoming such men as he wished, he said "Men I have found nowhere; but children, at least, I have seen at Lacedæmon." Being asked,"What is the most dangerous animal?" his answer was "Among wild animals, the slanderer; among tame, the flatterer." He died 324 B. C, at a great age. When he felt death approaching, he seated himself on the road leading to Olympia, where he died with philosophical calmness, in the presence of a great number of people, who were collected around him.

Slaves of little or no value, were contemptuously called "salt bought," from a custom prevalent among the inland Thracians, of bartering their captives for