escape. So much do they desire their natural liberty, and to be independent and free from hindrance. And what harm is there to you in this? What do you say? I am formed by nature to fly where I choose, to live in the open air, to sing when I choose: you deprive me of all this, and say, what harm is it to you? For this reason we shall say that those animals only are free, which cannot endure capture, but as soon as they are caught, escape from captivity by death. So Diogenes also somewhere says that there is only one way to freedom, and that is to die content: and he writes to the Persian king, You cannot enslave the Athenian state any more than you can enslave fishes. How is that? cannot I catch them? If you catch them, says Diogenes, they will immediately leave you, as fishes do; for if you catch a fish, it dies; and if these men that are caught shall die, of what use to you is the preparation for war? These are the words of a free man who had carefully examined the thing, and, as was natural, had discovered it. But if you look for it in a different place from where it is, what wonder if you never find it?
The slave wishes to be set free immediately. Why? Do you think that he wishes to pay money to the collectors of twentieths?[1] No; but because he imagines that hitherto through not having obtained this, he is hindered and unfortunate. If I shall be set free, immediately it is all happiness, I care for no man, I speak to all as an equal and like to them, I go where I choose, I come from any place I choose, and go where I choose. Then he is set free; and forthwith having no place where he can eat, he looks for some man to flatter, some one with whom he shall sup: then he either works with his body and endures the most dreadful things;[2] and if he can obtain a manger, he falls into a slavery much worse than his former
- ↑ See ii. 1. 26. The εἰκοστώναι were the Publicani, men who farmed this and other taxes. A tax of a twentieth of the value of a slave when manumitted was established at an early time (Livy vii. 16). It appears from this passage that the manumitted slave paid the tax out of his savings (peculium). See ii. 1. note 7.
- ↑ The reader may guess the meaning.
