BOOK IV. I. 27-33
and if ever they find any opening, make their escape. Such is their desire for physical freedom, and a life of independence and freedom from restraint. And what is wrong with you here in your cage? "What a question! My nature is to fly where I please, to live in the open air, to sing when I please. You rob me of all this, and then ask, 'What is wrong with you?'"
That is why we shall call free only those animals which do not submit to captivity, but escape by dying as soon as they are captured. 30So also Diogenes says somewhere:[1] "The one sure way to secure freedom is to die cheerfully"; and to the Persian[2] king he writes: "You cannot enslave the Athenian State any more than you can enslave the fish." "How so? Shall I not lay hold of them?" "If you do," he replies, "they will forthwith leave you and escape, like the fish. And that is true, for if you lay hold of one of them, it dies; and if these Athenians die when you lay hold of them, what good will you get from your armament?"[† 1] That is the word of a free man who has seriously examined the matter, and, as you might expect, had discovered truth about it. But if you look for it where it does not exist, why be surprised if you never find it?
It is the slave's prayer that he be set free immediately. Why? Do you think it is because he is eager to pay his money to the men who collect
- ↑ Here as in II. 3 and in § 156 of this same chapter Epictetus seems to have used a larger collection of letters ascribed to Diogenes than that which has survived to our time. See Schenkl's note on § 156 below.
- ↑ Schenkl deletes the word, and Orelli conjectures Μακεδόνων, making the reference to Philip or Alexander; but about 355 Artaxerxes Ochus seems actually to have threatened war against Athens. See Judeich in the Real-Encyclopädie², 2, 1319, 25 ff.
- ↑ There is some uncertainty about the extent of the quotation from Diogenes. Capps extends it as far as this point, while Schenkl thought it stopped with ἰχθύες, three lines above.
