BOOK I. IX. 8-12
shall I be fed, asks one, if I have nothing?—And how of slaves, how of runaways, on what do they rely when they leave their masters? On their lands, their slaves, or their vessels of silver? No, on nothing but themselves; and nevertheless food does not fail them. And shall it be necessary for our philosopher, forsooth, when he goes abroad, to depend upon others for his assurance and his refreshment, instead of taking care of himself, and to be more vile and craven than the irrational animals, every one of which is sufficient to himself, and lacks neither its own proper food nor that way of life which is appropriate to it and in harmony with nature?
10As for me, I think that the elder man[1] ought not to be sitting here devising how to keep you from thinking too meanly of yourselves or from taking in your debates a mean or ignoble position regarding yourselves;[2] he should rather be striving to prevent there being among you any young men of such a sort that, when once they have realized their kinship to the gods and that we have these fetters as it were fastened upon us,—the body and its possessions, and whatever things on their account are necessary to us for the management of life, and our tarrying therein,—they may desire to throw aside all these things as burdensome and vexatious and unprofitable and depart to their kindred. And this is the struggle in which your teacher and trainer, if he really amounted to anything, ought to be engaged; you, for your part, would come to him saying: "Epictetus, we can no longer endure to be
- ↑ Referring to himself.
- ↑ There is less need of his urging them to regard themselves as sons of God than of preventing them, if they are convinced of this, from acting as if the life of the body were a thing to throw aside, and so committing suicide,—a practice which was defended by many Stoics.
