ave myself many slaves." In the first place, most worthy sir, perhaps
your father too was a slave of the same kind; and your mother, and
your grandfather, and all your series of ancestors. But even were they
ever so free, what is that to you? For what if they were of a
generous, you of a mean spirit; they brave, and you a coward; they
sober, and you dissolute?

"But what," he says, "has this to do with my being a slave?" Is it no
part of slavery to act against your will, under compulsion, and
lamenting? "Be it so. But who can compel me but the master of all,
Caesar?" By your own confession, then, you have one master; and let not
his being, as you say, master of all, give you any comfort; for then
you are merely a slave in a large family. Thus the Nicopolitans, too,
frequently cry out, "By the genius of Caesar we are free!"

For the present, however, if you please, we will let Caesar alone. But
tell me this. Have you never been in love with any one, either of a
servile or liberal condition? "Why, what has that to do with being
slave or free?" Were you never commanded anything by your mistress
that you did not choose? Have you never flattered your fair slave?
Have you never kissed her feet? And yet if you were commanded to kiss
Caesar's feet, you would think it an outrage and an excess of tyranny.
What else is this than slavery? Have you never gone out by night where
you did not desire? Have you never spent more than you chose? Have you
not sometimes uttered your words with sighs and groans? Have you never
borne to be reviled and shut out-of-doors? But if you are ashamed to
confess your own follies, see what Thrasonides says and does; who,
after having fought more battles perhaps than you, went out by night,
when [his slave] Geta would not dare to go; nay, had he been compelled
to do it, would have gone bewailing and lamenting the bitterness of
servitude. And what says he afterward? "A contemptible girl has
enslaved me, whom no enemy ever enslaved." Wretch! to be the slave of
a girl and a contemptible girl too! Why, then, do you still call
yourself free? Why do you boast your military expeditions? Then he
calls for a sword, and is angry with the person who, out of kindness,
denies it; and sends presents to her who hates him; and begs, and
weeps, and then again is elated on every little success. But what
elation? Is he raised above desire or fear?

Consider what is our idea of freedom in animals. Some keep tame lions,
a