BOOK IV. I. 167-173
had been you or I, we should forthwith have fallen into the philosophic vein, and said, "One ought to repay evil-doers in kind," and added, "If I save my life I shall be useful to many persons, but if I die I shall be useful to no one"; yes, indeed, and if we had had to crawl out through a hole to escape, we should have done so! And how should we have been of use to anybody? For where could we have been of use, if the others still remained in Athens?[1] Or if we were useful to men by living, should we not have done much more good to men by dying when we ought, and as we ought? And now that Socrates is dead the memory of him is no less useful to men, nay, is perhaps even more useful, than what he did or said while he still lived.
170Study these things, these judgements, these arguments, look at these examples, if you wish to be free, if you desire the thing itself in proportion to its value. And what wonder is there if you buy something so great at the price of things so many and so great? For the sake of what is called freedom some men hang themselves, others leap over precipices, sometimes whole cities perish; for true freedom, which cannot be plotted against and is secure, will you not yield up to God, at His demand, what He has given? Will you not, as Plato[2] says, study not merely to die, but even to be tortured on the rack, and to go into exile, and to be severely flogged, and, in a word, to give up everything that is not your own? If not, you will be a slave among slaves; even if you are consul ten thousand times, even if you go up to the
- ↑ This is probably the best emendation that has been suggested for a corrupt passage, but I do not feel certain that it is what Epictetus actually said.
- ↑ Phaedo, 64 A, and Republic, II. 361 E.
