BOOK III. XXIV. 66-75
freedom is achieved. That is why he used to say, "From the time that Antisthenes[1] set me free, I have ceased to be a slave." How did Antisthenes set him free? Listen to what Diogenes says. "He taught me what was mine, and what was not mine. Property is not mine; kinsmen, members of my household, friends, reputation, familiar places, converse with men—all these are not my own. 'What, then, is yours? Power to deal with external impressions.' He showed me that I possess this beyond all hindrance and constraint; no one can hamper me; no one can force me to deal with them otherwise than as I will. 70Who, then, has authority over me? Philip, or Alexander, or Perdiccas, or the Great King?[2] Where can they get it? For the man who is destined to be overpowered by a man must long before that have been overpowered by things." Therefore, the man over whom pleasure has no power, nor evil, nor fame, nor wealth, and who, whenever it seems good to him, can spit his whole paltry body into some oppressor's face[3] and depart from this life—whose slave can he any longer be, whose subject? But if he had gone on living pleasantly in Athens, and had been enamoured of his life there, his fortune would have been in every man's control, and the man who was stronger than he would have had power to cause him grief. How do you imagine he would have wheedled the pirates to sell him to some Athenian, so that he might some time see the beautiful Piraeus, and the Long Walls and the Acropolis! Who are you that you should see them, slave? A thrall and a person of abject spirit; 75and what good are they to you?—No, not a slave, but a free man.—Show me how you are free.
- ↑ His teacher, the famous philosopher.
- ↑ Of Persia.
- ↑ Perhaps a reference to the story that Anaxarchus, when Nicocreon ordered that his tongue be cut out, bit it off and spat it in the other's face. Diogenes Laertius, 9, 59.
