ile, tell me, if I give you
an instance of a slave fighting for his master's safety without regard
to himself, pierced through with wounds, yet spending the last drops of
his blood, and gaining time for his master to escape by the sacrifice of
his life, will you say that this man did not bestow a benefit upon his
master because he was a slave? If I give an instance of one who could
not be bribed to betray his master's secrets by any of the offers of
a tyrant, who was not terrified by any threats, nor overpowered by any
tortures, but who, as far as he was able, placed his questioners upon a
wrong scent, and, paid for his loyalty with his life; will you say
that this man did not confer a benefit upon his master because he was a
slave? Consider, rather, whether an example of virtue in a slave be not
all the greater because it is rarer than in free men, and whether it be
not all the more gratifying that, although to be commanded is odious,
and all submission to authority is irksome, yet in some particular cases
love for a master has been more powerful than men's general dislike to
servitude. A benefit does not, therefore, cease to be a benefit because
it is bestowed by a slave, but is all the greater on that account,
because not even slavery could restrain him from bestowing it.

XX. It is a mistake to imagine that slavery pervades a man's whole
being; the better part of him is exempt from it: the body indeed is
subjected and in the power of a master, but the mind is independent, and
indeed is so free and wild, that it cannot be restrained even by this
prison of the body, wherein it is confined, from following its own
impulses, dealing with gigantic designs, and soaring into the infinite,
accompanied by all the host of heaven. It is, therefore, only the body
which misfortune hands over to a master, and which he buys and sells;
this inward part cannot be transferred as a chattel. Whatever comes
from this, is free; indeed, we are not allowed to order all things to be
done, nor are slaves compelled to obey us in all things; they will not
carry out treasonable orders, or lend their hands to an act of crime.

XXI. There are some things which the law neither enjoins nor forbids; it
is in these that a slave finds the means of bestowing benefits. As long
as we only receive what is generally demanded from a slave, that is
mere service; when more is given than a slave need afford us, it is a
benefit; as soon as what he does begins to