What else, then, is slavery? Did you never go out by night to some
place whither you did not wish to go, did you not expend what you
did not wish to expend, did you not utter words with sighs and groans,
did you not submit to abuse and to be excluded? But if you are ashamed
to confess your own acts, see what Thrasonides says and does, who
having seen so much military service as perhaps not even you have,
first of all went out by night, when Geta does not venture out, but if
he were compelled by his master, would have cried out much and would
have gone out lamenting his bitter slavery. Next, what does
Thrasonides say? "A worthless girl has enslaved me, me whom no
enemy, ever did." Unhappy man, who are the slave even of a girl, and a
worthless girl. Why then do you still call yourself free? and why do
you talk of your service in the army? Then he calls for a sword and is
angry with him who out of kindness refuses it; and he sends presents
to her who hates him, and entreats and weeps, and on the other hand,
having had a little success, he is elated. But even then how? was he
free enough neither to desire nor to fear?
Now consider in the case of animals, how we employ the notion of
liberty. Men keep tame lions shut up, and feed them, and some take
them about; and who will say that this lion is free? Is it not the
fact that the more he lives at his ease, so much the more he is in a
slavish condition? and who if he had perception and reason would
wish to be one of these lions? Well, these birds when they are
caught and are kept shut up, how much do they suffer in their attempts
to escape? and some of them die of hunger rather than submit to such a
kind of life. And as many of them as live, hardly live and with
suffering pine away; and if they ever find any opening, they make
their 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 says that there is 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? 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