XIX. [131] The freedom of the wise like all other human good gifts may be seen exemplified also in the irrational animals. Thus cocks are wont to fight with such intrepidity that rather than yield and withdraw, though outdone in strength yet not outdone in courage they continue fighting until they die.
[132] This Miltiades, the general of the Athenians, had observed, and when the Persian king having pressed into the ranks all the flower of Asia crossed into Europe with many myriads, thinking to seize Greece without a struggle, Miltiades collected his fellow soldiers at the Panathenaea and showed them some cocks fighting, holding that the spectacle would speak with a persuasion which no words could have. His judgement did not err,
[133] for when they saw this invincible gallantry and endurance asserting itself even to death in irrational creatures, they seized their arms and rushed to war, where the rivals against whom they were matched would be the bodies of the foes, and recked not of the wounds nor of the slaughter in their hope to secure that if they fell at least their native soil in which they lay would still be free. For nothing so creates an impulse to do better, as that those of less repute than ourselves should rise to heights of achievement beyond our expectation.
[134] Cock-fighting is also mentioned by the Tragedian Ion in these words:
Battered his body and blind each eye
He rallies his courage, and faint, still crows,
For death he prefers to slavery.
[135] Why then should we suppose that the wise would not most gladly choose death rather than slavery? Is it not against all reason that the souls of the young and highly gifted should be worsted in the contests of virtue by birds and take only the second place and that barely?
[136] This too is a truth well known to everyone who has taken even a slight hold of culture, that freedom is an honourable thing, and slavery a disgraceful thing, and that honourable things are associated with good men and disgraceful things with bad men. Hence, it clearly follows that no person of true worth is a slave, though threatened by a host of claimants who produce contracts to prove their ownership, nor is any fool a free man, even though he be a Croesus or a Midas or the Great King himself.