The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose Volume I - Greece Part 17

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 105: From the "Life of Mark Antony." Translated by Sir Thomas North.]

[Footnote 106: That is Octavius, afterward the Emperor Augustus.]

[Footnote 107: Antony's mother was Julia, sister of Julius Caesar; his wife was Octavia, sister of Octavius, the Emperor Augustus.]

[Footnote 108: Caesarion was born in 47 B.C., and is believed to have gone to Rome with his mother Cleopatra in the following year. It has been pointed out that there could be no reason for putting Caesarion to death as a possible compet.i.tor with Octavius at Rome, for tho Octavius was only the nephew of Julius Caesar, Caesarion, his son, was not a Roman citizen. Inasmuch, however, as it was the object of Octavius to retain Egypt, Caesarion might have been an obstacle to him there.]

[Footnote 109: A son of the elder Dolabella by his first marriage.

Dolabella the elder married Cicero's daughter Tullia, and became one of Caesar's murderers.]

EPICTETUS

Born, about the middle of the first century, A.D., in Hierapolis, Phrygia; originally a slave, but became a freedman of Epaphroditus, a favorite of the emperor Nero; a pupil of Musonius Rufus; taught philosophy at Rome; banished with other philosophers by Domitian and settled in Nicopolis, Epirus, where he taught philosophy, his doctrines being compiled by his pupil Arrian, the historian; he wrote nothing himself.

I

OF FREEDOM[110]

He is free who lives as he likes; who is not subject to compulsion, to restraint, or to violence; whose pursuits are unhindered, his desires successful, his aversions unincurred. Who, then, would wish to lead a wrong course of life? "No one." Who would live deceived, erring, unjust, dissolute, discontented, dejected? "No one." No wicked man, then, lives as he likes; therefore no such man is free. And who would live in sorrow, fear, envy, pity, with disappointed desires and unavailing aversions? "No one." Do we then find any of the wicked exempt from these evils? "Not one." Consequently, then, they are not free.

If some person who has been twice Consul should hear this, he will forgive you, provided you add, "but you are wise, and this has no reference to you." But if you tell him the truth, that, in point of slavery, he does not necessarily differ from those who have been thrice sold, what but chastis.e.m.e.nt can you expect? "For how," he says, "am I a slave? My father was free, my mother free. Besides, I am a senator, too, and the friend of Caesar, and have been twice Consul, and have 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, and feed them and even lead them about; and who will say that any such lion is free? Nay, does he not live the more slavishly the more he lives at ease? And who that had sense and reason would wish to be one of those lions? Again, how much will caged birds suffer in trying to escape? Nay, some of them starve themselves rather than undergo such a life; others are saved only with difficulty and in a pining condition; and the moment they find any opening, out they go. Such a desire have they for their natural freedom, and to be at their own disposal, and unrestrained. "And what harm can this confinement do you?" "What say you? I was born to fly where I please, to live in the open air, to sing when I please. You deprive me of all this, and then ask what harm I suffer?"

Hence we will allow those only to be free who will not endure captivity, but, so soon as they are taken, die and escape. Thus Diogenes somewhere says that the only way to freedom is to die with ease. And he writes to the Persian king, "You can no more enslave the Athenians than you can fish." "How? Can I not get possession of them?"

"If you do," said he, "they will leave you and be gone like fish. For catch a fish, and it dies. And if the Athenians, too, die as soon as you have caught them, of what use are your warlike preparations?" This is the voice of a free man who had examined the matter in earnest, and, as it might be expected, found it all out. But if you seek it where it is not, what wonder if you never find it?

A slave wishes to be immediately set free. Think you it is because he is desirous to pay his fee [of manumission] to the officer? No, but because he fancies that, for want of acquiring his freedom, he has. .h.i.therto lived under restraint and unprosperously. "If I am once set free," he says, "it is all prosperity; I care for no one; I can speak to all as being their equal and on a level with them. I go where I will, I come when and how I will." He is at last made free, and presently having nowhere to eat he seeks whom he may flatter, with whom he may sup. He then either submits to the basest and most infamous degradation, and if he can obtain admission to some great man's table, falls into a slavery much worse than the former; or perhaps, if the ignorant fellow should grow rich, he dotes upon some girl, laments, and is unhappy, and wishes for slavery again. "For what harm did it do me? Another clothed me, another shod me, another fed me, another took care of me when I was sick. It was but in a few things, by way of return, I used to serve him. But now, miserable wretch! what do I suffer, in being a slave to many, instead of one!

Yet, if I can be promoted to equestrian rank, I shall live in the utmost prosperity and happiness." In order to obtain this, he first deservedly suffers; and as soon as he has obtained it, it is all the same again. "But then," he says, "if I do but get a military command, I shall be delivered from all my troubles." He gets a military command. He suffers as much as the vilest rogue of a slave; and, nevertheless, he asks for a second command and a third; and when he has put the finishing touch, and is made a senator, then he is a slave indeed. When he comes into the public a.s.sembly, it is then that he undergoes his finest and most splendid slavery.

[It is needful] not to be foolish, but to learn what Socrates taught, the nature of things; and not rashly to apply general principles to particulars. For the cause of all human evils is the not being able to apply general principles to special cases. But different people have different grounds of complaint; one, for instance, that he is sick. That is not the trouble; it is in his principles. Another, that he is poor; another, that he has a harsh father and mother; another, that he is not in the good graces of Caesar. This is nothing else but not understanding how to apply our principles. For who has not an idea of evil, that it is hurtful; that it is to be avoided; that it is by all means to be prudently guarded against? One principle does not contradict another, except when it comes to be applied. What, then, is this evil--thus hurtful and to be avoided? "Not to be the friend of Caesar," says some one. He is gone; he has failed in applying his principles; he is embarra.s.sed; he seeks what is nothing to the purpose. For if he comes to be Caesar's friend, he is still no nearer to what he sought. For what is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion. When he becomes the friend of Caesar, then does he cease to be restrained; to be compelled? Is he secure? Is he happy? Whom shall we ask? Whom can we better credit than this very man who has been his friend? Come forth and tell us whether you sleep more quietly now than before you were the friend of Caesar. You presently hear him cry, "Leave off, for Heaven's sake! and do not insult me. You know not the miseries I suffer; there is no sleep for me; but one comes and says that Caesar is already awake; another, that he is just going out. Then follow perturbations, then cares." Well, and when did you use to sup the more pleasantly--formerly, or now? Hear what he says about this too. When he is not invited, he is distracted; and if he is, he sups like a slave with his master, solicitous all the while not to say or do anything foolish. And what think you? Is he afraid of being whipt like a slave! No such easy penalty. No; but rather, as becomes so great a man, Caesar's friend, of losing his head. And when did you bathe the more quietly; when did you perform your exercises the more at your leisure; in short, which life would you rather wish to live--your present, or the former? I could swear there is no one so stupid and insensible as not to deplore his miseries, in proportion as he is the more the friend of Caesar.

Since, then, neither they who are called kings nor the friends of kings live as they like, who, then, after all, is free?...

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 110: From the "Discourses." Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Copyright, 1865 and 1890, by Little, Brown & Co. Epictetus has been valued not alone as an exposition of the Stoic philosophy, but as a specimen of Greek of the later or Silver Age. Marcus Aurelius, who in a later generation wrote in Greek himself, is said to have ranked Epictetus with Socrates as a teacher. Origen, the early Christian father, a.s.serted that his writings had been of more value to the world's morals than those of Plato.]

II

OF FRIENDSHIP[111]

To whatever objects a person devotes his attention, these objects he probably loves. Do men ever devote their attention, then, to [what they think] evils? By no means. Or even to things indifferent? No, nor this. It remains, then, that good must be the sole object of their attention; and if of their attention, of their love too. Whoever, therefore, understands good, is capable likewise of love; and he who can not distinguish good from evil, and things indifferent from both, how is it possible that he can love? The wise person alone, then, is capable of loving.

"How so? I am not this wise person, yet I love my child."

I protest it surprizes me that you should, in the first place, confess yourself unwise. For in what are you deficient? Have not you the use of your senses? Do you not distinguish the semblances of things? Do you not provide such food and clothing and habitation as are suitable to you? Why then do you confess that you want wisdom? In truth, because you are often struck and disconcerted by semblances, and their speciousness gets the better of you; and hence you sometimes suppose the very same things to be good, then evil, and lastly, neither; and, in a word, you grieve, you fear, you envy, you are disconcerted, you change. Is it from this that you confess yourself unwise? And are you not changeable too in love? Riches, pleasure, in short, the very same things, you sometimes esteem good, and at other times evil. And do you not esteem the same persons too alternately as good and bad, at one time treating them with kindness, at another with enmity; at one time commending, and at another time censuring them?

"Yes. This too is the case with me."

Well, then; can he who is deceived in another be his friend, think you?

"No, surely."

Or does he who loves him with a changeable affection bear him genuine good-will?

"Nor he, neither."

Or he who now vilifies, then admires him?

"Nor he."

Do you not often see little dogs caressing and playing with each other, so that you would say nothing could be more friendly? But to learn what this friendship is, throw a bit of meat between them, and you will see. Do you too throw a bit of an estate betwixt you and your son, and you will see that he will quickly wish you under ground, and you him; and then you, no doubt, on the other hand will exclaim, What a son have I brought up! He would bury me alive! Throw in a pretty girl, and the old fellow and the young one will both fall in love with her; or let fame or danger intervene, the words of the father of Admetus will be yours:

"You love to see the light. Doth not your father?

You fain would still behold it. Would not he?"

Do you suppose that he did not love his own child when it was little; that he was not in agonies when it had a fever, and often wished to undergo that fever in its stead? But, after all, when the trial comes home, you see what expressions he uses. Were not Eteocles and Polynices born of the same mother and of the same father? Were they not brought up, and did they not live and eat and sleep, together? Did not they kiss and fondle each other? So that any one, who saw them, would have laughed at all the paradoxes which philosophers utter about love. And yet when a kingdom, like a bit of meat, was thrown betwixt them, see what they say--

_Polynices._ Where wilt thou stand before the towers?

_Eteocles._ Why askest thou this of me?

_Polynices._ I will oppose myself to thee, to slay thee.

_Eteocles._ Me too the desire of this seizes.

Such are the prayers they offer. Be not therefore deceived. No living being is held by anything so strongly as by its own needs. Whatever therefore appears a hindrance to these, be it brother or father or child or mistress or friend, is hated, abhorred, execrated; for by nature it loves nothing like its own needs. This motive is father and brother and family and country and G.o.d. Whenever, therefore, the G.o.ds seem to hinder this, we vilify even them, and throw down their statues, and burn their temples; as Alexander ordered the temple of aesculapius to be burnt, because he had lost the man he loved.

When, therefore, any one identifies his interest with those of sanct.i.ty, virtue, country, parents, and friends, all these are secured; but whenever he places his interest in anything else than friends, country, family and justice, then these all give way, borne down by the weight of self-interest. For wherever I and mine are placed, thither must every living being gravitate. If in body, that will sway us; if in our own will, that; if in externals, these. If, therefore, I rest my personality in the will, then only shall I be a friend, a son, or a father, such as I ought. For in that case it will be for my interest to preserve the faithful, the modest, the patient, the abstinent, the beneficent character; to keep the relations of life inviolate. But if I place my personality in one thing, and virtue in another, the doctrine of Epicurus will stand its ground, that virtue is nothing, or mere opinion.

From this ignorance it was that the Athenians and Lacedaemonians quarreled with each other, and the Thebans with both; the Persian king with Greece, and the Macedonians with both; and now the Romans with the Getes.[112] And in still remoter times the Trojan war arose from the same cause. Alexander [Paris] was the guest of Menelaus; and whoever had seen the mutual proofs of good-will that pa.s.sed between them would never have believed that they were not friends. But a tempting bait, a pretty woman, was thrown in between them; and thence came war. At present, therefore, when you see that dear brothers have, in appearance, but one soul, do not immediately p.r.o.nounce upon their love; not tho they should swear it, and affirm it was impossible to live asunder. For the governing faculty of a bad man is faithless, unsettled, undiscriminating, successively vanquished by different semblances. But inquire, not as others do, whether they were born of the same parents, and brought up together, and under the same preceptor; but this thing only, in what they place their interest--in externals or in their own wills. If in externals, you can no more p.r.o.nounce them friends, than you can call them faithful, or constant, or brave, or free; nay, nor even truly men, if you are wise. For it is no principle of humanity that makes them bite and vilify each other, and take possession of public a.s.semblies, as wild beasts do of solitudes and mountains; and convert courts of justice into dens of robbers; that prompts them to be intemperate, adulterers, seducers; or leads them into other offenses that men commit against each other--all from that one single error, by which they risk themselves and their own concerns on things uncontrollable by will.