nothing?"
And how do slaves, and runaways, on what do they rely when they
leave their masters? Do they rely on their lands or slaves, or their
vessels of silver? They rely on nothing but themselves, and food
does not fail them. And shall it be necessary for one among us who
is a philosopher to travel into foreign parts, and trust to and rely
on others, and not to take care of himself, and shall he be inferior
to irrational animals and more cowardly, each of which, being
self-sufficient, neither fails to get its proper food, nor to find a
suitable way of living, and one conformable to nature?
I indeed think that the old man ought to be sitting here, not to
contrive how you may have no mean thoughts nor mean and ignoble talk
about yourselves, but to take care that there be not among us any
young men of such a mind that, when they have recognized their kinship
to God, and that we are fettered by these bonds, the body, I mean, and
its possessions, and whatever else on account of them is necessary
to us for the economy and commerce of life, they should intend to
throw off these things as if they were burdens painful and
intolerable, and to depart to their kinsmen. But this is the labour
that your teacher and instructor ought to be employed upon, if he
really were what he should be. You should come to him and say,
"Epictetus, we can no longer endure being bound to this poor body, and
feeding it and giving it drink, and rest, and cleaning it, and for the
sake of the body complying with the wishes of these and of those.
Are not these things indifferent and nothing to us, and is not death
no evil? And are we not in a manner kinsmen of God, and did we not
come from Him? Allow us to depart to the place from which we came;
allow us to be released at last from these bonds by which we are bound
and weighed down. Here there are robbers and thieves and courts of
justice, and those who are named tyrants, and think that they have
some power over us by means of the body and its possessions. Permit us
to show them that they have no power over any man." And I on my part
would say, "Friends, wait for God; when He shall give the signal and
release you from this service, then go to Him; but for the present
endure to dwell in this place where He has put you: short indeed is
this time of your dwelling here, and easy to bear for those who are so
disposed: for what tyrant or what thief, or what courts of justice,
are formidable to those who have thus considered as things of no value
the body and the possessions of the body? Wait then, do not depart
without a reason."
Something like this ought to be said by the teacher to ingenuous
youths. But now what happens? The teacher is a lifeless body, and
you are lifeless bodies. When you have been well filled to-day, you
sit down and lament about the morrow, how you shall get something to
eat. Wretch, if you have it, you will have it; if you have it not, you
will depart from life. The door is open. Why do you grieve? where does
there remain any room for tears? and where is there occasion for
flattery? why shall one man envy another? why should a man admire
the rich or the powerful, even if they be both very strong and of
violent temper? for what will they do to us? We shall not care for