Freedom and slavery

If, then, you decline to punish the men before you, in a very little time the People will be in slavery to those beasts of prey.

If, gentlemen of the jury, you will turn over in your minds the question what is the difference between being a slave and being a free man, you will find that the biggest difference is that the body of a slave is made responsible for all his misdeeds, whereas corporal punishment is the last penalty to inflict on a free man.

And what better can you wish than to snatch yourself from this slavery which weighs on all, which even slaves of the lowest condition, born in this filth, strive by every means to throw off?

Freedom cannot be bought.

For life, if the courage to die is wanting, is slavery.

And you, at the moment when such abundant freedom reveals itself to you, when you are sailing to the very place where you have long been eager to go and the mightiest are suing for your aid, when pay is within sight and the Lacedaemonians, who are deemed the most powerful leaders, have come to lead you—do you, I say, think that now is the proper time to put me to death with all speed?

Why, for my part I think I have abundant satisfaction as it is, if these people are to be slaves instead of free men.

You hold me in your power, then, and not as a captive that you have taken in flight or as a runaway slave;