על שכל אדם ישר הוא בן חורין ט״זEvery Good Man is Free 16
א׳
1XVI. [105] But it is not fair, an objector will say, to cite the achievements of the heroes as evidence. They have a greatness above human nature; they vie with the Olympians and as inheritors of a mixed parentage, a blend of mortal and immortal seed, are rightly called demigods, because the mortal ingredient is overpowered by the immortal part, so that there is nothing extraordinary in their contempt for those who plan to enslave them.
ב׳
2[106] Be it so! But what of Anaxarchus or Zeno the Eleatic? Are they heroes or the offspring of gods? Nevertheless in the hands of cruel-hearted tyrants, naturally bitter and stirred to still greater ferocity by anger with them, though racked with strange and ingeniously invented tortures, they behaved as though the bodies in which they lay belonged to strangers or enemies, and with high disdain set the terrors of the tormentors at nought.
ג׳
3[107] For having inured the soul from the first to hold aloof through love of knowledge from association with the passions, and to cleave to culture and wisdom, they set it wandering away from the body and brought it to make its home with wisdom and courage and the other virtues.
ד׳
4[108] So it was that Zeno when suspended and stretched on the wheel, to make him tell something which should not be disclosed, showed himself mightier than the strongest things in nature, fire and iron. He gnawed off his tongue and shot it at the torturer, lest under violence he should involuntarily utter what honour would leave unspoken.
ה׳
5[109] Anaxarchus’s speech showed the staunchest endurance. “Pound Anaxarchus’s skin,” he said, “Anaxarchus you cannot pound.” These examples of true courage, full of the spirit of defiance, have a value far exceeding the inherited nobleness of the heroes. Their glory belongs to their parentage and is not of their own volition. The glory of the philosophers rests upon achievements of virtue, freely willed by themselves, and these being what they are, immortalize those who practise them in sincerity.