XX. [137] And this doctrine that freedom is glorious and honourable, slavery execrable and disgraceful, is attested by cities and nations, which are more ancient, more permanent, and, as far as mortals may be, immortal, and for immortals it is a law of their being that their every word is true.
[138] The senates and national assemblies meet almost every day to discuss more than anything else how to confirm their freedom if they have it, or to acquire it if they have it not. The Greek and the outside world are perpetually engaged in feuds and wars, nation against nation, and with what object save to escape from slavery and to win freedom?
[139] And so on the battlefield, the commanders of armies and regiments and companies couch their exhortations to their men mainly in this form. “Fellow soldiers, slavery is the most grievous of evils. Let us repel its assault. Freedom is the noblest of human blessings; let us not suffer it to be lost. Freedom is the source and fountain of happiness and from it flow all particular benefits.”
[140] This I think is the reason why the Athenians, the keenest in intelligence among the Greeks—for Athens is in Greece what the pupil is in the eye and the reason in the soul—when they celebrate the procession in honour of the Venerable Goddesses, admit no slave to the company, but employ free men and women to carry out all the solemnities, and these not chosen at haphazard, but such as have earnestly pursued a blameless life. On the same principle, the cakes for the feast are made by the youths who have best passed their test, and they consider this service to be an honour and glory as indeed it is.
[141] A short time ago, when some players were acting a tragedy, and reciting those lines of Euripides,
The name of freedom is worth all the world;
If one has little, let him think that much,
I saw the whole audience so carried away by enthusiasm that they stood upright to their full height, and raising their voices above the actors, burst into shout after shout of applause, combining praise of the maxim with praise of the poet, who glorified not only freedom for what it does, but even its name.
[142] I also admire the Argonauts, who made their crew consist entirely of the free and admitted no slave, not even those who would do the necessary menial labours, welcoming personal service in these circumstances as the sister of freedom.
[143] And if we are justified in listening to the poets,—and why should we not, since they are our educators through all our days, and as parents in private life teach wisdom to their children, so do they in public life to their cities—if I say we believe them, even the Argo, which captained by Jason was endowed with soul and reason, a sentient being filled with love of freedom, would not let bond servants board her. So Aeschylus says of her:
Where is the sacred bark of Argo? Speak.
[144] The menacing gestures and speeches with which some people threaten the wise should be treated with little respect and meet with a reply like that of Antigenidas, the flute-player. When a rival professional said to him in anger, “I’ll buy you,” he answered him with great irony, “Then I’ll teach you to play.”
[145] So then, too, the man of worth may say to his prospective purchaser, “Then you will have lessons in self-control.” If one threatens him with banishment, he can say, “Every land is my native country”; if with loss of money,
[146] “A moderate livelihood suffices me”; if the threat takes the form of blows or death, he can say, “These bugbears do not scare me; I am not inferior to boxers or pancratiasts, who though they see but dim shadows of true excellence, since they only cultivate robustness of body, yet endure both bravely. For the mind within me which rules the body is by courage so well-braced and nerved, that it can stand superior to any kind of pain.”