על שכל אדם ישר הוא בן חורין י״חEvery Good Man is Free 18
א׳
1XVIII. [117] Then can we suppose that while women and lads, the former endowed by nature with little sense, the latter at so insecure an age, are imbued with so profound a love of liberty, that to save themselves from losing it they seek death as eagerly as if it were immortality—can we suppose, I say, that those who have drunk deep of wisdom undiluted can be anything but free—those who bear within them a well-spring of happiness in the high courage which no malignant force has ever yet subdued because sovereignty and kingship is its everlasting heritage?
ב׳
2[118] Indeed we hear of whole populations voluntarily suffering annihilation to safeguard their liberty and at the same time their good faith to dead benefactors. Such is the story told of the Xanthians in recent years. When one of the assassins of Julius Caesar, namely Brutus, marched with an army against them, what they feared was not the sack of their city, but enslavement to a murderer, who had killed his own leader and benefactor, for Caesar had been both to him.
ג׳
3[119] As long as they could they fought on and at first made a powerful defence, and while their numbers were gradually wasting away they still held out. But when their whole strength was spent, they drove their women and parents and children each to their several homes and there slaughtered them, and after piling the bodies in a heap fired it and slew themselves upon it, thus completing their allotted term as free men inspired by a free and noble resolution.
ד׳
4[120] Now these to escape the merciless cruelty of tyrannical enemies chose death with honour in preference to an inglorious life, but others whom the circumstances of their lot permitted to live, endured in patience, imitating the courage of Heracles, who proved himself superior to the tasks imposed by Eurystheus.
ה׳
5[121] Thus it was with the cynic philosopher Diogenes. So great and lofty was his spirit, that when captured by robbers, who grudgingly provided him with the barest minimum of food, still remained unmoved by his present position and had no fear of the cruelty of those who held him in their power. “It is surely very preposterous,” he said, “that while sucking pigs and sheep when they are going to be sold are fed up with greater care to make them fat and well favoured, man the best of animals should be reduced to a skeleton by want of food and constant privations and so fetch a lower price.”
ו׳
6[122] He then received adequate allowances of food and when he was about to be brought to market with the other captives, he first sat down and took his dinner in the highest spirits, and gave some of it to those near him. To one of them who could not resign himself, and, indeed, was exceedingly dejected, he said, “Stop this repining and make the best of things, for
E’en fair-haired Niobe took thought for food
Though she had lost twelve children in the halls—
Six daughters and six sons in prime of youth.”
E’en fair-haired Niobe took thought for food
Though she had lost twelve children in the halls—
Six daughters and six sons in prime of youth.”
ז׳
7[123] Then when one of the prospective purchasers asked him what he was skilled at, he said with all boldness “at ruling men,” a reply which, showing freedom, nobility, and natural kingliness, was clearly dictated by the soul within him. Again we find him with his wonted licence making witticisms out of a situation which filled the others with melancholy and dejection.
ח׳
8[124] It is said, for instance, that looking at one of the purchasers, an addict to effeminacy, whose face showed that he had nothing of the male about him, he went up to him and said, “You should buy me, for you seem to me to need a husband,” whereat the person concerned conscience-stricken into shame subsided, and the others were amazed at the courage and the aptness of the sally. Must we apply the term slavery to such as him, or any other word but liberty, over which irresponsible domination has no power?
ט׳
9[125] His freedom of speech was emulated by Chaereas, a man of culture. When he was living in Alexandria by Egypt, he once incurred the anger of Ptolemy, who threatened him in no mild terms. Chaereas considering that his own natural freedom was not a whit inferior to the other’s kingship replied:
Be King of Egypt; I care not for you—
A fig for all your anger.
For noble souls,
Be King of Egypt; I care not for you—
A fig for all your anger.
For noble souls,
י׳
10[126] whose brightness the greed of fortune cannot dim, have a kingly something, which urges them to contend on an equal footing with persons of the most massive dignity and pits freedom of speech against arrogance.
י״א
11[127] A story is told of Theodorus surnamed the atheist, that when he had been banished from Athens and had joined Lysimachus, his flight was brought up against him by a person of authority, who recited the circumstances which caused it and declared that he had been ejected after being condemned as an atheist and corrupter of youth. “I was ejected,” he answered, “but I shared that fortune with the son of Zeus Heracles, for he was thrown overboard by the Argonauts,
י״ב
12[128] not for any wrongdoing, but because he himself alone was freight and ballast enough to overload the vessel, and made his fellow sailors afraid that it would be water-logged. And I, too, changed my residence for this reason, because the politicians at Athens were unable to keep pace with the loftiness and magnitude of my intellect; also I was the object of envy.”
י״ג
13[129] When Lysimachus put the further question, “Was it then for envy that you were ejected?” he answered, “No, not through envy but because of the transcendence of my natural gifts which the country could not hold.
י״ד
14[130] For just as when Semele, while carrying Dionysus, was unable to bear the weight till the time appointed for her delivery, and Zeus in consternation pulled out the fruit of her womb in a premature stage of being and made it rank equal to the celestial gods, so it was with me: my country was too small to hold such a mass of philosophical thinking, and some lower or higher deity dislodged me and resolved to transplant me to a place more favoured by fortune than Athens.”