Philo of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Our earlier discourse, Theodotus, concerned the thesis that every base person is a slave, which we established through many plausible and true arguments. This present discourse is that one's kin, a full brother by both father and mother, and in a sense its twin, in which we shall demonstrate that every person of true worth is free.
The story goes that the most sacred company of the Pythagoreans, among many other admirable teachings, also handed down this one: "do not walk the highways." This did not mean that we should scramble over cliffs — for the precept was not laying down toil for our feet — but rather it was hinting through a symbol that we should not use words or deeds that are vulgar and well-trodden.
Those who embraced philosophy in the true sense, having become obedient to that command, took it to be a law — or rather a solemn ordinance ranking with an oracle — and looking beyond the opinions of the herd, they blazed a different trail, one impassable to ordinary people, in words and doctrines, causing forms of thought to rise up which it is not lawful for anyone impure to touch.
By "not pure" I mean those who either remained utterly untasted of education throughout their lives, or who received it crookedly rather than along a straight path, recasting the beauty of wisdom into the disgrace of sophistry.
These people, unable to see the intelligible light because of the weakness of the eye of the soul, are naturally overshadowed by its brilliance. Living as it were in night, they distrust those who live in daylight, and whatever such people, having gazed most clearly upon the unmixed radiance of the sun's rays, report to them, they regard as monstrous, resembling apparitions, no different from the marvels shown at shows.
For how is it not truly bizarre and astonishing to call "exiles" those who not only spend their time in the very heart of the city but also sit on councils, serve as judges, attend the assembly, and sometimes even undertake the offices of market-supervisor, gymnasiarch, and the other public services,
while calling "citizens" those who either were never enrolled at all, or who have been condemned to loss of civic rights and exile, men driven beyond the borders, who are able not merely not to set foot on the land but not even to view their ancestral soil from a distance, unless they are being driven along by certain avenging spirits, longing for death? For countless punishers stand in readiness against those who come back, sharpened by their own resolve and serving the commands of the laws.
And how is it not absurd, and full of great shamelessness or madness — I do not know which to call it, for owing to the sheer excess it is not even easy to find suitable names of one's own — to call "rich" the most destitute people, who lack even the necessities, living out a wretched and miserable existence, barely procuring their daily bread, possessing a peculiar famine in the midst of common abundance, nourished on the mere breeze of virtue the way they say cicadas are nourished on the air,
while calling "poor" those who are awash in an abundance of silver and gold and a multitude of possessions and revenues and other untold goods, whose wealth has benefited not only their relatives and friends, but who, going out beyond their household, benefit large gatherings of fellow tribesmen and fellow demesmen, and reaching further still, supply a whole city with everything it needs, whether peace or war requires it?
And from that same dream-delusion, they have dared to pronounce slavery upon men blessed on both sides and truly wellborn, whose forebears — not parents alone but grandfathers and ancestors reaching back to the founders, both on the men's side and the women's — have been most illustrious, while pronouncing freedom upon wretches branded through three generations of servitude, ground down by shackles and slaves of long standing.
Such things, as I said, are the pretext of people whose understanding has been darkened, who are slaves of opinion, clinging to the senses, whose court, being perpetually bribed by the very parties on trial, is unreliable.
They ought, if they had any real zeal for truth, not to fall short in reasoning of those who are ill in body. For the latter entrust themselves to physicians in their longing for health, while the former shrink from casting off the disease of the soul, ignorance, though they have become companions of wise men, from whom it is possible not only to unlearn ignorance but also to acquire the possession truly proper to a human being, knowledge.
Since, according to the most sacred Plato, "envy stands outside the divine choir," and wisdom is most divine and most sociable of all things, she never shuts up her own school, but keeps it perpetually open and receives those who thirst for wholesome words, upon whom she pours an unstinting stream of unmixed teaching, persuading them to become drunk with a sober intoxication.
Those who, as if initiated in the mysteries, have once been filled with her sacred rites, reproach themselves greatly for their former negligence, on the ground that they did not spare the time, but wore away a life not worth living, in which they were widowed of understanding.
It is fitting, therefore, that youth everywhere should devote the firstfruits of its earliest prime to nothing so much as to education, in which it is good both to grow up and to grow old. For just as, they say, new vessels retain the odors of whatever was first poured into them, so too the souls of the young, stamping the first impressions of their perceptions indelibly upon themselves, and being least overwhelmed by the flood of what streams in afterward, display clearly the original form.
Enough, then, of this. The matter under inquiry must be examined precisely, so that we are not led astray and wander because of the vagueness of terms, but rather, having grasped what the discourse concerns, may fit our proofs to it with sure aim.
Slavery, then, is said to be of two kinds, of souls and of bodies. Masters of bodies are men, but masters of souls are vices and passions. In the same way freedom is also of two kinds; the one produces immunity of bodies from more powerful men, the other produces a truce of the mind from the mastery of the passions.
The first of these no one at all inquires into, for the fortunes of men are countless, and many people of the highest worth have often, in circumstances not of their choosing, lost the freedom that was theirs by birth. But the inquiry concerns characters that neither desires nor fears nor pleasures nor griefs have yoked, characters that have come forth as it were from prison and had the bonds by which they were bound loosed.
Having then cleared out of the way the pretextual quibbles and the names — foreign to nature but hung upon mere opinion — of "house-bred slaves" or "purchased slaves" or "captives," let us seek the truly free man, to whom alone belongs self-mastery, even should countless people write themselves down as his masters. For he will cry out that saying of Sophocles, no different from an oracle's response: "God is my ruler, and no mortal is." For truly he alone is free who has God alone as his guide,
and in my judgment he is also the guide of others, having been entrusted with earthly affairs, as a mortal successor of a great king, the Immortal. But let the discourse on the wise man's rule be deferred to a more suitable occasion, while the discourse on freedom must now be made precise.
If someone, going deeper into the matter, should wish to look closely, he will know clearly that nothing else is so akin to another thing as self-determined action is to freedom, because for the base person there are many obstacles — love of money, love of glory, love of pleasure — while for the person of true worth there is absolutely nothing that rises up against him and takes its stand over him, the way that, in a contest of prizes, over those thrown down in the wrestling stand love, fear, cowardice, grief, and their kindred passions.
For he has learned to disregard the orders that the most lawless rulers of the soul give, out of zeal and longing for freedom, whose own special portion is self-command and voluntary action. Some people praise that line of verse composed by a certain poet: "Who is a slave, if he takes no thought of dying?" as one who grasped well the consequence of his own thought; for he understood that nothing so naturally enslaves the mind as fear of death, on account of the yearning for life.
But one ought to reckon that not only the person who takes no thought of dying is unenslaved, but also the person who takes no thought of poverty and disrepute and pain and all the other things that most people consider evils — people who are themselves bad judges of such matters, since they assess who is a slave by looking to services rendered, when they ought to look instead to a character that cannot be enslaved.
For the man who, out of a mean and servile disposition, undertakes mean and servile tasks against his own judgment, is truly a slave; but the man who adapts his own conduct to the present circumstance, both willingly and with endurance holding out against what comes from fortune, and who considers nothing in human affairs to be strange, but has carefully examined that things divine are honored with an eternal order and blessedness, while all mortal things are tossed about in the surge and swell of circumstance and sway toward unequal balances, and who nobly endures whatever befalls him, is at once a philosopher and free.
Hence he will not obey every person who gives him orders, even if that person threatens him with outrages and tortures and certain most fearful threats, but with youthful boldness will proclaim in reply: "Roast, burn my flesh, glut yourself drinking my dark blood; for sooner shall the stars go down beneath the earth, and the earth rise up into heaven, than you shall win from me a fawning word."
I once saw, in a contest of pankratiasts, one man landing blows with both hands and feet, aiming well and leaving nothing undone that could bring victory, yet giving up exhausted and slack, and leaving the stadium at the end without a crown; while the other, the one being struck, compacted by the density of his flesh, hard and solid, truly full of athletic spirit, sinewy through and through, like a rock or a piece of iron, yielded nothing to the blows, and wore down his opponent's strength by the endurance and firmness of his patience, until complete victory.
Something like this, it seems to me, is what happens to the man of worth. For once his soul has been thoroughly strengthened by a firm-minded reasoning, he forces the one using violence against him to give up sooner than he himself endures doing anything against his judgment. But perhaps what is said seems incredible to those who have not experienced virtue - just as that other fact seems incredible to those who do not know pankratiasts, yet it happens no less in truth.
Looking to these things, Antisthenes said that the man of worth is hard to carry off: for as folly is light and easily swept along, so wisdom is fixed, unswerving, and possesses an immovable weight.
But the lawgiver of the Jews represents the hands of the wise man as heavy (Exodus 17:12), hinting through symbols that his actions are established not superficially but firmly, springing from a mind that does not waver.
He is therefore compelled by no one, since he has come to despise pain, and to despise death, and holds all fools subject to him by the law of nature. For just as goatherds and cowherds and shepherds lead flocks of goats, cattle, and sheep, while it is impossible to set the herds in command of shepherds, in the same way the many, resembling cattle, need an overseer and ruler, while the men of worth are leaders, appointed to the rank of herd-masters.
Homer, then, is accustomed to call kings ‘shepherds of the people’; but nature has bestowed this name more properly upon the good, since kings, at least, are for the most part shepherded rather than shepherding - for unmixed wine drives them, and beauty, and pastries and delicacies and the seasonings of cooks and bakers, to say nothing of desires for silver and gold and more solemn things - whereas the good are enticed by nothing, but rather admonish whomever they perceive caught in the snares of pleasure.
That acts of service are not marks of slavery, the clearest proof is war: for one can see soldiers on campaign all doing their own work, not only carrying their full armor, but also loaded like pack animals with whatever is needed for daily necessities, then going out for water, for gathering firewood, and for fodder for the animals.
As for what they do against the enemy on campaign, why dwell at length - digging trenches, or building walls, or constructing triremes, or performing with their own hands and the rest of their bodies all the tasks that service or skill require.
There is also a kind of war even in peacetime, no less severe than the war of arms, one which disrepute, poverty, and a dreadful lack of necessities wage together; compelled by this, men are forced to undertake even the most slavish tasks - digging, farming, practicing menial trades, serving without hesitation merely to be fed, and often even carrying loads through the middle of the marketplace in full view of their peers, fellow students, and age-mates.
Others are slaves by birth who, by a stroke of good fortune, attain the status of free men: they are appointed stewards of households and properties and great estates, and sometimes even rulers over their fellow slaves; and many are chosen, ahead of friends and relatives, to be entrusted with the wives and orphaned children of their masters. Yet all the same they are slaves - though they lend money, make purchases, collect revenues, and are courted.
What wonder is it, then, if by a reverse slip of fortune someone performs the duties of a slave? It is obedience to another that takes away freedom. And how do children put up with the commands of a father or mother, or pupils with the instructions their teachers give? For no one is a slave willingly. Parents, at any rate, will never display such an excess of hatred toward their own children as to force them to endure services, the only true marks of slavery.
But if someone, seeing certain people being sold cheaply by slave-dealers, supposes they are therefore slaves, he strays far from the truth: for a sale does not make either the purchaser a master or the one sold a slave, since fathers have sometimes taken payment for their sons, and sons often for fathers who have been carried off by bandits or made captives in war - and the laws of nature, more binding than the laws below, declare these people free.
And indeed some have even gone to the opposite extreme and turned the matter around completely, becoming, instead of slaves, masters of those who bought them. I myself have often observed pretty little slave-girls, naturally talkative, who with two weapons - beauty of appearance and charm of speech - lay siege to their owners; for these are engines of unmoored and unballasted souls, more powerful than any machine built for the demolition of walls.
Here is a sign: their owners court them, beg them, are eager to obtain their favor as though from Fortune or a good spirit, and if overlooked they writhe in distress, but if they see only that glance turn gracious, they leap for joy and dance.
unless one must also say that the man who bought lions is master of lions - a man who, should the lions merely fix their eyes on him, will straightaway learn, to his cost, how harsh and savage are the masters he has purchased for himself. What then? Do we not think the wise man more free from slavery than lions, holding his strength in a free and invulnerable soul, rather than being unruly in a body that is by nature a slave and possesses the greatest bodily vigor?
One may also learn the freedom that belongs to the man of excellence from other considerations: no slave, in truth, is ever happy; for what is more wretched than to have no authority even over oneself? But the wise man is happy, bearing within him the ballast and the fullness of nobility, in which lies authority over all things.
so that, without doubt and of necessity, the man of excellence is free. Besides this, who would not say that the friends of the gods are free? Unless indeed it is fitting to grant not only freedom but even rulership to the companions of kings, who share in governing and administering the realm together with them, while slavery must be attributed to the companions of the Olympian gods - who, because of their love of God, straightaway upon being born become beloved of God, and are honored with an equal favor in return, by the judgment of truth, and, as the poets say, are rulers over all and kings of kings. But the lawgiver of the Jews, going further still, more boldly,
inasmuch as he was, as the account has it, an ascetic of unadorned philosophy, dared to call the man possessed by divine love and devoted only to the One who Is, no longer a man, but a god (Exodus 7:1) - a god, that is, of men, not of the parts of nature, so that he might leave to the Father of all the title of being King and God of gods.
Is it worthy, then, to consider the one who has attained so great a privilege a slave, rather than alone truly free? Even if he has not been deemed worthy of a divine portion in himself, still, through having God as a friend, he was surely bound to be happy: for the champion is not weak, nor is God, being a friend to his companions, careless of the rights due to companions.
Further, then, just as among cities, those governed by oligarchy or tyranny endure slavery, having as harsh and heavy masters those who subjugate and dominate them, while those that make use of laws as their caretakers and protectors are free - so too among men: those over whom anger, or desire, or some other passion, or even scheming vice holds sway, are altogether slaves, while all who live under law are free.
And law, unerring, is right reason - not perishable, corrupted by this man or that, mortal, inscribed on little sheets of paper or on stone tablets, lifeless engraved on lifeless things, but imperishable, stamped by an immortal nature upon an immortal understanding.
For this reason one might well marvel at the dimness of sight of those who fail to perceive distinctions so clearly evident - who say that the laws of Solon and Lycurgus, ruling and governing, are entirely sufficient for the freedom of the greatest peoples, Athens and Sparta, when their citizens obey them, and yet deny that right reason - which is also the source of all other laws - is sufficient for wise men to share in freedom, when they obey it in all that it commands or forbids.
In addition, then, to what has been said, the clearest proof of freedom is equality of speech, which all the virtuous maintain toward one another. Hence they say that those trimeter verses were spoken with philosophic insight: ‘For slaves by nature have no share in the laws.’ And again: ‘You are by nature a slave; you have no share in reasoned speech.’
Just as, then, the law of music grants equality of speech in the art to all who have practiced music, and the law of grammar or of geometry grants it to grammarians or geometers, so too the law of life grants it to those experienced in the affairs of life.
And all the virtuous are experienced in the affairs of life, since they are also experienced in the affairs of the whole of nature; and some of them are free, so that all who share equality of speech with these are likewise...
no serious man is a slave, but all are free. And from the same starting point it will also be shown that the fool is a slave. For just as the law of music does not grant equal speech to the unmusical in the presence of the trained, nor the law of grammar to the illiterate in the presence of grammarians, nor in general does any technical law grant it to the unskilled in the presence of skilled practitioners, so too the law of life does not grant equal speech to those inexperienced in living in the presence of the experienced.
But to all the free, equal speech is granted by law; and some of the serious are free; and of those inexperienced in living, the base are inexperienced, while the wise are the most experienced; therefore none of the base are free, but all are slaves.
Zeno, driven by virtue if anyone ever was, demonstrates rather forcefully that the base have no equal speech with the good. For he says: "Will not the base man wail if he contradicts the serious man? Then there is no equal speech for the base man with the serious man."
I know that many will mock this argument as showing more stubbornness than understanding when questioned. But once they have finished their laughter and their mockery, if they are willing to look closely and examine carefully what has been said, they will be astonished to find its truth, that there is nothing for which a man will wail more than for failing to obey the wise man.
For loss of money, or dishonor, or exile, or the outrages of blows, and all such things are small and amount to nothing when set against vices, of which vices themselves are the makers. But the many, failing to perceive the harms done to the soul because their reasoning is maimed, happen to be distressed only by external things, having been deprived of the one faculty by which alone the damage to the mind can be grasped.
But if they could recover their sight, and were to behold the deceptions wrought by folly and the abuses wrought by cowardice and all that licentiousness has committed in its drunkenness or injustice has committed against the law, they would be filled with unceasing grief at the misfortunes of what is best in them, and because of the excess of these evils they would not even tolerate consolation.
Zeno seems to have drawn this argument as from a spring, from the legislation of the Jews, in which, there being two brothers, one temperate and the other licentious, the father common to both, taking pity on the one who has not attained to virtue, prays that he may be enslaved to his brother — supposing slavery, which seems the greatest evil, to be the most complete good for a fool, since it deprives him of the independence to transgress with impunity, while through the guardianship of the one set over him his character will be improved.
The things said so far, for my part, were sufficient to establish the point at issue. But since physicians are accustomed to treat the varied forms of disease with correspondingly varied treatments, it is necessary also, in the case of problems considered paradoxical because of their unfamiliarity, to bring forward proof upon proof in support; for some people are persuaded only with difficulty, when struck by a continuous succession of demonstrations.
It is said, then, not without point, that the man who does everything with practical wisdom does everything well, and the one who does everything well does everything rightly, and the one who does everything rightly also does everything without error, blamelessly, irreproachably, unaccountably, and without penalty, so that he will have the power to do all things and to live as he wishes. And whoever has this power would be free. But the good man does everything with practical wisdom; therefore he alone is free.
And indeed, whoever cannot be compelled or hindered would not be a slave. But it is not possible to compel or hinder the serious man; therefore the serious man is not a slave. That he is neither compelled nor hindered is clear: for the one who is hindered is the one who fails to obtain what he desires, but the wise man desires the things that come from virtue, and it is not his nature to fail to obtain them. And indeed, if a man is compelled, it is clear that he does something unwillingly. But among the things a man does, actions are either successes stemming from virtue, or failures stemming from vice, or else neutral and indifferent.
Now the things that stem from virtue he does not by compulsion but willingly — for all that he does is chosen by him — while the things that stem from vice, being things to be shunned, he does not do even in a dream; nor is it likely that he does the indifferent things either, toward which his mind holds an even balance as on a scale, having been trained neither to yield as though they had a pulling force, nor to be vexed at them as though they deserved aversion. From this it is clear that he does nothing unwillingly and is compelled in nothing; but if he were a slave he would be compelled; so the good man would be free.
Now since some of those least versed in the choir of the Muses, who do not understand demonstrative arguments — the sort that establish general truths about things — are accustomed to ask: well then, who, either in the past or now, were or are the sort of men you fashion in your descriptions? It is a fine answer to give, that in ancient times too there were some who surpassed their contemporaries in virtue, taking God alone as their guide and living according to law, the right reason of nature, not only free themselves but also filling those who came near them with a free disposition of mind; and even in our own day there still exist, as it were, images copied from the original painting, imprinted with the nobility and goodness of wise men.
For if the souls of those who dispute this have been bereft of freedom, enslaved by folly and the other vices, that is no reason why the whole human race should be so as well. And if such men do not go forward in great herds like a flock, there is nothing surprising in this: first, because things of great beauty are rare; and further, because, turning away from the great crowd of more careless people, they devote their leisure to the contemplation of the works of nature, praying, if it were somehow possible, to set life right again — for virtue benefits the community — but being unable to do so, since strange affairs, which the passions and vices of the soul have caused to grow, are flooding the cities, they withdraw, so as not to be swept away by the rush of the current as though by the violence of a torrent.
But we, if we had any zeal for improvement, ought to have tracked down their hiding places and, sitting as suppliants, called upon them, so that by approaching we might tame our brutalized life, proclaiming to them, in place of war and slavery and untold evils, the peace and freedom and abundance of other goods flowing all around.
But as things now stand, for the sake of money we search out every hidden recess and lay open the hard, unyielding veins of the earth, and much of the plain is mined, and no small part of the mountain country too, as men search out gold and silver, bronze and iron, and the other materials.
And empty opinion, deifying its own vanity, has descended even to the depths of the sea in its search, in case some beautiful thing hidden from sense-perception might lie somewhere there; and having discovered the forms of many-colored and costly stones, some clinging to rocks, others to shellfish — which have in fact become even more prized — it has honored the deception of sight.
But for the sake of practical wisdom or temperance or courage or justice, the land, both impassable and passable alike, goes untraveled, and the seas, unsailed at every season of the year, are nonetheless crossed by shipowners for profit.
And yet what need is there of a long journey by land or by sea, for the search and pursuit of virtue, whose roots the one who planted them set not far off but very close at hand? Just as the wise lawgiver of the Jews also says: "in your mouth and in your heart and in your hands" (Deuteronomy 30:14), hinting through symbols at words, counsels, and actions, all of which require the art of farming.
Those, then, who have preferred idleness to labor have not only prevented the shoots from growing, but have also withered and destroyed the roots; while those who consider leisure harmful and are willing to labor, cultivating them like noble young plants, have through continual care raised up virtues into trunks reaching to the sky, evergreen and immortal shoots bearing the fruit of never-ceasing happiness — or, as some would say, not bearing happiness but themselves being happiness, which Moses is accustomed to call by the compound name "whole burnt offerings."
For in the case of things that grow from the earth, the fruit is not the tree nor the tree the fruit; but in the case of what grows in the soul, the shoots have been transformed wholly through and through into the nature of fruit — the shoot of practical wisdom,
the shoot of justice, of courage, of temperance. Having, then, such resources within ourselves, should we not blush to proclaim to the human race a poverty of wisdom, when it was possible to fan into flame, as one fans a smoldering spark buried in ash? But indeed, toward the things we ought to have hastened as most akin and most our own, there is great reluctance and continual indolence, by which the seeds of nobility and goodness are destroyed, while toward the things it would have been reasonable to be slow about, there is insatiable longing and desire.
For this reason the earth and sea are full of the rich and the famous and those who indulge in pleasures, but the number of the wise and just and good is small; yet what is small, even if rare, is not nonexistent.
Greece and the non-Greek world alike bear witness to this. For in Greece those truly called the Seven Sages flourished, and others before and after them, as is likely, reached their prime, whose memory, in the case of the older ones, has been erased by the length of time, while that of the more recent ones is being effaced through the prevailing negligence of their contemporaries.
But among non-Greek peoples, among whom there are ambassadors of word and deed, there exist very numerous multitudes of noble and good men: among the Persians, the order of the Magi, who, searching out the works of nature to attain knowledge of the truth, in quiet initiate others into the divine virtues through clearer manifestations, and are themselves initiated; and among the Indians, the order of the Gymnosophists, who, in addition to natural philosophy, labor also at moral philosophy, and have made their whole life a display of virtue.
And Palestinian Syria too is not barren of nobility and goodness, a land inhabited by no small portion of that most populous nation, the Jews. Among them there are some called Essenes, numbering more than four thousand, so named, in my opinion — though not in strict accordance with Greek dialect — from their holiness, since they have become above all others servants of God, not sacrificing living creatures, but deeming it fit to prepare their own minds to be worthy of holiness.
These men, in the first place, live in the villages, avoiding the cities because of the ingrained lawlessness of those who dwell in them, knowing from experience that the contagion of disease coming from a corrupting atmosphere is incurable to souls. Some of them work the land, others pursue crafts that cooperate with peace, and so benefit themselves and those close to them, not hoarding silver and gold, nor acquiring great tracts of land out of desire for revenue, but procuring only what is needed for the necessities of life.
For alone among almost all humankind, having become without money and without possessions—by deliberate choice rather than by lack of good fortune—they are considered the wealthiest, judging frugality and contentment, as indeed it is, to be abundance.
You would find among them no maker of arrows, javelins, daggers, helmets, breastplates, or shields, nor in general any armorer or engineer or anyone pursuing the crafts of war; nor even those peacetime crafts that slide so easily into vice. For of trade, retail dealing, or shipowning they know not even in a dream, warding off the occasions that lead to greed.
There is not a single slave among them, but all are free, rendering service to one another; and they condemn masters, not only as unjust, in that they violate equality, but also as impious, in that they abolish the law of nature, which, having given birth to all alike and reared them as a mother does, has made them true brothers—not merely called so, but genuinely so; a kinship which scheming greed, gaining the upper hand, has shaken apart, working alienation in place of intimacy and hostility in place of friendship.
Of philosophy they leave the logical part, as unnecessary for the acquisition of virtue, to the word-hunters, and the physical part, as beyond human nature, to the sky-gazing babblers, except so much of it as is philosophized concerning the existence of God and the origin of the universe; but the ethical part they labor at diligently, using as trainers the ancestral laws, which it would be impossible for a human soul to have devised without divine inspiration.
In these they are instructed at other times as well, but especially on the seventh days. For the seventh day has been reckoned sacred, on which they abstain from other work and, arriving at holy places called synagogues, sit in rows according to age, the younger beneath the elder, maintaining a fitting decorum as they listen.
Then one takes up the books and reads, while another of those most experienced comes forward and explains whatever is not clear; for most of their philosophizing is done through symbols, in the manner of an ancient zeal.
They are trained in piety, holiness, justice, household management, statesmanship, knowledge of what is truly good and bad and indifferent, in the choices one must make and the avoidances of their opposites, using three criteria and standards: love of God, love of virtue, and love of humanity.
Of their love of God they furnish countless proofs: the continuous and unbroken purity maintained throughout their whole life, their avoidance of oaths, their truthfulness, their belief that the divine is the cause of all good things and of no evil at all. Of their love of virtue: freedom from love of money, freedom from love of glory, freedom from love of pleasure, self-control, endurance, and further frugality, simplicity, contentment, freedom from arrogance, obedience to law, steadiness, and all the qualities akin to these. Of their love of humanity: goodwill, equality, and a fellowship surpassing all description, about which it is not out of place to say a little.
First, then, no one has a private house that does not happen to belong to all in common; for besides living together in companies, it stands open also to those of like zeal who come from elsewhere.
Then there is one storeroom for all, and common expenses, and common food, since they have made their meals communal; for you would not find among any other people the sharing of roof, of life, and of table more firmly established in practice. And this is not without reason: whatever they receive as wages for the day's work, they do not keep as their own, but set it forth in the common stock, thereby providing the benefit from it to all who wish to use it.
Those who are sick are not neglected on the ground that they are unable to provide for themselves, since they have ready to hand from the common resources whatever is needed for their care, so that they can draw freely and abundantly. And there is reverence and concern for the elders, cared for in old age with every abundance by the hands and thoughts of true children, as though by their own parents.
Such athletes of virtue does philosophy produce, free of the elaborate contrivance of Greek terminology, setting before them as its exercises praiseworthy actions, from which unenslaved freedom is made secure.
Here is a proof: many rulers have at various times risen up against the country, of differing natures and purposes—some striving to outdo the untamed savagery of wild beasts, leaving nothing undone in cruelty, slaughtering their subjects in droves like cattle, or even, while they were still alive, carving them limb by limb in the manner of butchers, until they themselves suffered the same misfortunes at the hands of the justice that oversees human affairs, and did not desist;
others, having transformed their disturbed and rabid fury into a different form of vice, practicing an unspeakable bitterness, speaking softly, displaying their temper through the pretense of a gentler voice heavy with hidden wrath, fawning like venomous dogs, becoming the cause of incurable evils, left behind in the cities monuments of their own impiety and inhumanity in the unforgettable sufferings of those who had endured them—
yet none of them, neither the most savage-hearted nor the most treacherous and cunning, was able to bring any charge against the aforesaid company of the Essenes, or holy ones; rather, all of them, overpowered by the goodness of these men, treated them as though they were by nature autonomous and free, celebrating their communal meals and their fellowship surpassing all description, which is the clearest proof of a perfect and truly happy life.
Since some do not think that virtues found among the masses can be perfect, but suppose them to stop short at mere growth and advancement, it is necessary to adduce as witnesses the lives of individual good men, which are the clearest proofs of freedom.
Calanus was an Indian by birth, one of the gymnosophists; considered the most enduring of all his contemporaries, not only by his own countrymen but even—which is exceedingly rare—by foreign kings hostile to him, he was admired, having woven together in his person noble deeds with words worthy of praise.
Alexander of Macedon, at any rate, wishing to display to Greece the wisdom found among the barbarians, as one displays a copy and likeness taken from an original painting, first invited Calanus to accompany him on his travels, promising to procure him the greatest renown throughout all Asia; and when he could not persuade him, he said he would compel him to follow.
But Calanus, very aptly and nobly, said, 'Of what worth, then, will you display me to be to the Greeks, Alexander, if I am to be compelled to do what I do not wish?' Is not this speech full of frankness, and is not the mind behind it far fuller of freedom? Indeed, in letters more lasting than mere spoken words, he inscribed clear marks of an unenslaved character.
This is shown by the letter sent to the king: 'Calanus. Your friends persuade you to bring hands and compulsion against the philosophers of India, though they have not so much as seen our deeds even in their dreams. Bodies you will move from place to place, but you will not compel souls to do what they do not wish, any more than you will make bricks and logs utter speech. Fire causes the greatest torments and destruction to living bodies; over this we rise superior, for we are burned while yet alive. There is no king or ruler who will compel us to do what we do not choose. We are not to be likened to the philosophers of the Greeks, as many of them as have practiced speeches for display in public assemblies, but among us deeds follow words and words follow deeds; ... brief, they possess another power, and secure blessedness and freedom.'
In the face of such declarations and convictions, is it not fitting to invoke the saying of Zeno, that 'one might sooner sink a wineskin full of air than compel any one of the wise, against his will, to do anything he is unwilling to do'? For the soul is unyielding and unconquerable which right reason has strengthened with firm convictions.
Witnesses to the freedom of the wise are the poets and prose writers, by whose sentiments Greeks and barbarians alike, nourished on them almost from the cradle, are improved in character, everything in their souls that has been corrupted by faulty upbringing and manner of life being reminted toward what is genuine.
See, then, what sort of thing Heracles says in Euripides: 'Burn, scorch my flesh, glut yourself drinking my dark blood; for sooner shall the stars go down beneath the earth, and the earth rise up into the heavens, than a flattering word shall come from me to meet you.' For in truth, fawning, flattery, and pretense, in cases where words contend with convictions, are most fit for a slave, but to speak freely, without adulteration and genuinely, out of a pure conscience, is fitting for the nobly born.
Again, do you not see that this same wise man, even when sold, does not appear to be a servant, but strikes those who see him with astonishment, as one who is not only free but will even become master of the one who bought him?
When Hermes is asked whether he is base, he answers: “Not base at all—quite the opposite: dignified in bearing, not servile, not overly stout as a slave would be, but splendid in dress to look at and vigorous with the club. No one wants to buy masters better than himself for his household—yet everyone who looks at you is afraid, for your eye is full of fire, like a bull glaring at a lion about to charge.” Then he adds: “Your very look, even while you are silent, shows that you would not be obedient, but would rather give orders than take them.” And when he was sent to the fields by Syleus, who had bought him,
he proved by his actions that nature cannot be enslaved. He slaughtered the best of the bulls there, on the pretext of sacrificing to Zeus, and feasted; and having brought out a great quantity of wine all at once, he reclined at his ease and drank his fill.
When Syleus arrived and was indignant both at the loss and at the servant's carelessness and excessive contempt, the man, without changing color or altering what he was doing in the least, said with the utmost boldness: “Lie down and let us drink; and in this you will straightaway have proof of me, whether I am the stronger.” Should this man, then, be declared the slave or the master of his owner,
seeing that he not only frees himself but issues commands to the one who bought him, and if he should balk, is bold enough to strike and abuse him, and if the man brings in helpers, to destroy them all at a stroke? It would be laughable, then, and utter nonsense, to speak of the documents called bills of sale, once they have been overpowered by a force stronger than the one against which they were drawn up—more invalid than blank scraps of paper, destined to be destroyed altogether by moths or time or mildew.
But someone will say: one ought not to bring forward the virtues of heroes as proof, for they, being greater than human nature, rivaled the Olympians, having obtained a mixed birth from the blending of immortal and mortal seed, and were rightly called demigods, since the mortal admixture was mastered by the imperishable portion; so there is nothing surprising if they made light of those who contrived slavery against them. Granted. But was Anaxarchus, or the Eleatic—I mean Zeno—a hero, or born of gods?
Yet even so, tortured by savage tyrants who had grown still more brutal in their cruelty against them, racked with newly devised torments, as though bearing about bodies belonging to others or to enemies, they treated the terrors with the utmost contempt.
For having trained their souls from the start, through knowledge, to love withdrawal from partnership with the passions and to cling to education and wisdom, they made the soul an emigrant from the body, and rendered it a fellow-dweller with prudence and courage and the other virtues.
Accordingly, one of them, being tried and racked to make him blurt out one of the secrets, showed himself more powerful than fire and iron, the mightiest things in nature: he bit off his own tongue with his teeth and hurled it at his torturer, so that not even under compulsion, against his will, should he utter what it was noble to keep silent about.
The other said, with the greatest endurance: “Pound away at the sack of Anaxarchus”—for these acts of daring, full of boldness as they are, do not fall much short of surpassing heroic nobility of birth; because for the heroes their renown was involuntary, coming from those who begot them, whereas these men's renown lies in voluntary virtues, which by nature make immortal those who practice them without guile.
I know of wrestlers and pancratiasts who, often, out of love of honor and eagerness to win, when their bodies have given out, still breathe and contend by soul alone—a soul which, having trained itself to hold terrors in contempt, endures steadfastly to the very end of life.
Do we then suppose that athletes in training attain such vigor of body out of fear of death, or hope of victory, or so as not to witness their own defeat, while those who exercise the invisible mind within themselves—which is, in truth, the real human being, though it carries about the perceptible form as a house—and who anoint themselves with the words of philosophy and the deeds of virtue, would not be willing to die for the sake of freedom, so as to complete their appointed journey with a mind unenslaved?
They say that in a sacred contest two athletes of equal strength, doing and suffering the same things to one another, would not give up until each of them died. “Ah, poor fellow, your own doggedness will be your ruin,” someone might say of such men.
But if death for the sake of a wild-olive wreath or of parsley brings glory to contestants, does it not bring far greater glory to the wise, for the sake of freedom—for which, to tell the truth, the longing is implanted in souls alone, as a part united to them, not something to be had at random, and if it is cut off, the whole partnership of the soul is destroyed?
There is a story sung among those whose custom it is to trace virtues to their inborn, natural unenslavability, about a Spartan boy: having been carried off as a captive by one of Antigonus's men, he submitted to the tasks of a free man, but resisted the tasks of a slave, saying he would not be a slave—even though, because of his youth, he had not yet been firmly reared in the laws of Lycurgus, but had only tasted them—judging death more fortunate than his present unlivable life, and despairing of ransom, gladly did away with himself.
It is also said that the Dardanian women, taken captive by the Macedonians, considering slavery the most shameful evil, threw into the deepest part of the river the very children they had nursed, crying out: “But you, at least, shall not be slaves; before you begin a life weighed down by misfortune, cutting short what is fated, you shall cross, as free ones, the necessary and final road.”
Euripides the tragedian brings on Polyxena caring nothing for death but concerned for freedom, in the lines where she says: “I die willingly; let no one touch me. I will offer my throat with good courage; but let me die free, as befits one who was born free—release me and kill me, by the gods.”
Do we then suppose that in mere women and boys—the one naturally weak of mind, the other prone to slip because of their age—so great a love of freedom is instilled that, rather than have it taken from them, they rush toward death as toward immortality, while those who have drunk deep of unmixed wisdom are not immediately free, having within themselves virtue as a spring of happiness, which no scheming power has ever been able to yoke, since it holds an eternal inheritance of rule and kingship?
But indeed we hear also of whole peoples who, for the sake of freedom together with loyalty to benefactors now dead, have chosen utter self-destruction, as they say the Xanthians did not long ago. For when Brutus, one of those who had attacked Julius Caesar, marched against them, they, fearing not mere pillage but slavery at the hands of a man-slayer who had killed their leader and benefactor—for Caesar had been both to them—fought back with all their strength at first, so long as they were able, and as their numbers dwindled little by little, still held out.
But when they had spent all their strength, each household drove its own women and parents and children into their houses and sacrificed them; and having heaped the victims into piles, they set fire to them and slaughtered themselves upon the pyres, fulfilling, as free men, their allotted fate out of a free and noble spirit.
These men, then, fleeing the implacable bitterness of tyrannical enemies, chose death with glory before a life without honor. But those to whom the turns of fortune permitted life endured with fortitude, imitating the daring of Heracles;
for that hero too proved himself greater than the commands of Eurystheus. The Cynic philosopher Diogenes, at any rate, showed such loftiness and greatness of spirit that, when he was captured by pirates and they grudgingly and barely supplied him the food he needed, he was bent neither by his present fortune nor frightened by the cruelty of his captors, but said: “It is quite absurd that when piglets or sheep are about to be sold, they are fattened up into good condition with richer food, while the best of living things, man, is sold off cheap after being wasted to a skeleton by starvation and continual want.”
Once he had received sufficient food, since he was about to be sold along with the other captives, he sat down beforehand and ate his meal with great cheer, sharing it with those nearby; and when one of them would not eat, but was quite downcast, he said, “Will you not stop your gloom?
Make use of what is at hand,” he said, “for even fair-haired Niobe thought of food, she whose twelve children perished in her halls, six daughters and six sons in the flower of youth.” Then, growing bold before the man who was inquiring about those interested in buying, he said, “What do you know?” and when asked replied, “How to rule men”—a spirit free and noble and by nature kingly resounding, as it seems, from within him. And now, given the usual respite in which the others, full of gloom, sat downcast, he turned even to wit; at any rate it is told,
that having noticed one of the prospective buyers who was afflicted by an effeminate disease, he told from his appearance that the man was not truly male, and approaching him said: “You should buy me—for you seem to me to need a man”—so that the man, ashamed at what he knew of himself, shrank away, while the others were struck with amazement at the boldness and accuracy of the remark. Should such a man, then, be called a slave, and not rather the very embodiment of freedom, together with a rule accountable to none?
An emulator of this man's frankness of speech was one Chaereas, a man of education. Living in Alexandria by Egypt, when Ptolemy once grew angry and threatened him without measure, he, thinking the freedom in his own nature no less than that king's kingship, answered back: “Rule over the Egyptians; as for you, I take no account of you, nor do I heed your anger.” For noble souls have something kingly about them,
A certain Chaereas, a man of learning, became a devoted emulator of this man's frankness. For living in Alexandria by Egypt, when Ptolemy once took offense and threatened him none too mildly, reckoning the freedom native to his own character no less than that king's realm, he answered back: "Rule over the Egyptians, but I care nothing for you, nor do I trouble myself over your anger." For noble souls have something kingly in them,
a brilliance not dimmed by an excess of fortune, which incites even those puffed up with rank to contend on equal terms, arraying frankness of speech against arrogance.
There is a story about Theodorus, nicknamed "the Atheist," that when he had been expelled from Athens and had come to Lysimachus, since one of the officials reproached him for his flight and added the reasons as well—that he had been condemned for atheism and for corrupting the youth, and so was expelled—he said, "I was not expelled, but I suffered the same thing as Heracles, son of Zeus."
For that one too was put ashore by the Argonauts, not because he had done wrong, but because, being all by himself a full cargo and ballast, he weighed the ship down, causing his fellow sailors to fear that the vessel would be swamped. And I too changed my abode for this same reason, since the politicians at Athens could not keep pace with the height and greatness of my thought, and I was envied besides.
When Lysimachus asked further, "Did you not also fall from your homeland through envy?" he said again, "Not through envy, but through the excesses of my nature, which my homeland could not contain.
For just as, when Semele, pregnant with Dionysus, was unable to carry him for the full time appointed until birth, Zeus, struck with wonder, drew out the unripe fruit of her womb and made it equal in honor to the gods of heaven, so too, since my homeland was too small to hold so great a weight of philosophical thought, some spirit or god raised me up and resolved to settle me in Athens, a more fortunate place."
Now if one looks for examples of the freedom found among the wise—as of other human goods as well—one may find them even among irrational animals. Roosters, at any rate, are so given to fighting recklessly that, rather than yield and give ground, even when they are getting the worse of it in strength, they do not
give way in courage, but persist even to death. Miltiades, the general of the Athenians, took note of this: when the King of the Persians, having raised up the whole flower of Asia, was crossing into Europe with many tens of thousands, intending to seize Greece at a single stroke, Miltiades gathered the allies in the Panathenaic stadium and put on cockfights for them to watch, supposing that the exhortation conveyed by such a sight would be more powerful than any speech—and he was not mistaken in his judgment.
For having seen the endurance and love of honor, unconquered to the end even in irrational creatures, they seized their weapons and rushed to war, as if about to grapple with the very bodies of their enemies, giving no thought to wounds or slaughter, so that even in death they might at least be buried in the free soil of their homeland. For nothing so spurs one on toward improvement as the success, beyond all hope, of those held in less regard.
The tragic poet Ion also recalls the fighting spirit shown in these birds, in these lines: "Not even when struck in body, and in both his eyes, does he forget his courage, but though failing in strength he still cries out; for he has chosen death before slavery."
What then should we suppose of the wise—will they not most gladly exchange death for slavery? And is it not absurd to say that the souls of the young and well-endowed, in the contests of virtue, fall short of roosters and scarcely manage to carry off second prize?
And indeed there is something else that no one who has even brushed against education is ignorant of: that freedom is a fine thing and slavery a shameful one, and that fine things belong to the good and shameful things to the base. From this it is most clearly established that none of the virtuous is a slave, even if countless people brandish the tokens of mastery and threaten them, and that none of the foolish is free, even if he happens to be Croesus, or Midas, or the Great King himself.
The celebrated beauty of freedom and the accursed disgrace of slavery are attested by the older and longer-lived—by those who are, as it were, immortals among mortals, for whom it is not lawful to lie: namely, by cities and nations.
For councils and assemblies gather on almost every single day concerning nothing so much as the confirmation of freedom where it is present, or its acquisition where it is absent. And do the Greek world and the barbarian world, split into factions by nation and forever at war, ever want anything other than to escape slavery and secure freedom for themselves?
That is why in battles the greatest exhortation given by company-commanders, battalion-commanders, and generals is this: "Fellow soldiers, let us drive off slavery, the heaviest of evils, now bearing down upon us; let us not overlook freedom, the finest good among human things. This is the beginning and the source of happiness, from which all its particular benefits flow."
This is why the Athenians—who seem to me the sharpest-sighted in intellect among the Greeks, for what the pupil is in the eye, or reasoning in the soul, Athens is that in Greece—when they arrange the procession to the Awesome Goddesses, admit no slave whatsoever to take part, but carry out each of the customary rites through free men and women, and not just any who happen to be at hand, but those who have pursued a blameless life; since even the festival cakes are prepared by the most highly regarded of the young men, who count the service itself, as it truly is, a matter of honor and esteem.
Recently, when actors were performing a tragedy and reciting the verses of Euripides—those lines, "Whoever bears the name of free, even if he has but little, should reckon that he has much"—I saw all the spectators rise on tiptoe in astonishment and, with raised voices and successive shouts, join together praise of the sentiment with praise of the poet, who glorified freedom not only in deed but in name as well.
I admire also the Argonauts, who declared the whole crew free, admitting not a single slave, not even for the necessary tasks, welcoming self-service as the sister of freedom—
—which they embraced at that time. And if it is worth paying attention to poets as well—and why should we not?—since these men are the teachers of the whole of life, just as parents are of their own children privately, so these men bring cities to their senses publicly. Nor did the Argo, with Jason as her captain, allow household slaves to come aboard, since she, endowed with a share of soul and reason, was by nature a lover of freedom. Hence Aeschylus too said of her: "Tell me, where is the sacred place of the Argo,
One must pay the least possible heed to the menaces and threats that certain people hold over wise men, and say something like what Antigenidas the flute-player said. For they say that when one of his rival craftsmen, in anger, said, "I will buy you," he replied with deep composure, "Then I in turn will teach you to play the flute."
It is fitting, then, for the virtuous man too to say to one who threatens to buy him, "Then you will be taught self-control"; and to one who threatens exile, "The whole earth is my homeland"; and to one who threatens the loss of his property, "My livelihood is within me"; and to one who threatens blows or death, "These things do not terrify me, nor am I inferior to boxers or pancratiasts, who, gazing upon dim images of virtue—since they have trained only the good condition of their bodies—endure both kinds of suffering with fortitude;
for the mind within me, the ruler of the body, braced by courage, has been so thoroughly strengthened with sinew that it can stand above every pain."
One must therefore be on guard against trying to capture such a beast, which, formidable not only in strength but even in appearance, shows itself hard to catch and not to be despised.
The inviolability of certain places has often granted safety and a truce to slaves who take refuge there, as though they were of equal honor and equal standing; and one can see those who have been slaves for generations, by a kind of hereditary succession from great-grandfathers and even earlier ancestors, when they sit as suppliants in sanctuaries, speaking with complete freedom and full assurance.
There are some who contend for their rights against their very owners, vigorously and with contempt, not merely on equal terms but from a position of far greater strength; for some, even if they are of noble birth, are by nature enslaved by the reproach of their own conscience, while others, having secured for their bodies the immunity that comes from the inviolability of the place, display souls—which God fashioned unconquerable by anything—of an entirely free and truly noble character;
unless someone is so utterly unreasoning as to suppose that mere places are the cause of confidence and free speech, while virtue, the most godlike of all things, through which places themselves, and everything else that has a share of understanding, acquire their sacred character, is not.
Indeed, those who flee to sanctuaries for asylum, though they gain safety from the place alone, are still liable to seizure from countless other quarters — a wife's gifts, a child's disgrace, a lover's deception — whereas those who take refuge in virtue, as in an unbreachable and impregnable wall, disregard the missiles that the ambushes of the passions hurl and shoot. Fortified with this power, a person could say with all frankness
that while others are captured by whatever comes along, "I know how to obey myself," as the tragedian says, "and likewise to rule, measuring everything by virtue."
It is said, at any rate, that Bias of Priene, when Croesus threatened him, retorted with utter contempt that he should go on eating onions — hinting at weeping, since the eating of onions provokes tears.
So the wise, holding nothing more kingly than virtue, which commands their whole life like a general, have no fear of the dominions of others, regarding them as subjects. This is why it is customary to call the double-minded and deceitful, one and all, servile and slavish.
Hence too the well-turned saying: "Never does a slavish head grow straight, but always crooked, with a twisted neck." For a shifting, deceptive, duplicitous character is of the basest breeding, just as a noble character is straight and unfeigned and guileless, its words in harmony with its counsels and its counsels with its words.
It is worth laughing at those who think that, once released from ownership by a master, they have thereby been made free. For household slaves who have been manumitted would no longer, indeed, be quite the same as before; but slaves they remain, all of them, obeying not men — that would be less dreadful — but the most dishonorable of soulless things: strong drink, vegetables, pastries, and whatever else the fussy contrivances of bakers and caterers produce to please the wretched belly.
Diogenes, at any rate, on seeing one of the so-called freedmen giving himself airs, with many congratulating him, marveled at the folly and lack of judgment and said, "It is just as if someone were to proclaim that from this day one of his household slaves is a grammarian, or a geometer, or a musician, though he has not so much as dreamed of these arts." For just as the proclamation does not make people knowledgeable, so neither does it make them free — since that would be something blessed indeed — but only, at most, not slaves.
Let us, then, set aside empty opinion, from which the great mass of humanity hangs suspended, and, falling in love with truth, that most sacred possession, let us not attribute citizenship or freedom to so-called free citizens, nor slavery to home-bred or purchased servants; but passing over lineage, deeds of ownership, and bodies altogether, let us examine the nature of the soul.
For if it is driven by desires, or lured by pleasure, or turns aside in fear, or is drawn tight by grief, or dragged by the neck under anger's yoke, it enslaves itself, and makes a slave even of one who possesses countless masters; but if it has fought down ignorance with prudence, licentiousness with self-control, cowardice with courage, and greed with justice, then along with its freedom from slavery it has also gained the power to rule. But souls that have not yet partaken of either condition —
neither the one that enslaves nor the one through which freedom is secured, but are naked, like the souls of quite young infants — these must be nursed, instilling in them at first, in place of milk, gentle nourishment: the teachings given through the general course of studies; then afterward stronger fare, of which philosophy is the maker, from which, once grown to maturity and come to good condition, they will arrive at a blessed end — not Zeno's alone, nor merely the one proclaimed by the Pythian oracle, but this: to live in accordance with nature.