Oration 84

Men desire above all things to be free, and they say that freedom is the greatest of goods, but that slavery is the most shameful and most wretched thing of all; yet this very thing—what it is to be free or what it is to be a slave—they do not know. And so, accordingly, they do nothing, one may say, to escape the shameful and grievous thing, slavery, and to acquire what seems to them worth much, freedom; but, on the contrary, they do the very things from which it must follow that those who practise them continue slaves the whole time and never attain to freedom.

Yet these men perhaps it is not worth wondering at, that they can neither win nor guard against a thing of which they happen to be ignorant. For if they happened to be ignorant of a sheep and a wolf, what each of the two is, yet held the one to be useful and a good thing to acquire, the other harmful and disadvantageous, it would be nothing wonderful if they feared the sheep and sometimes fled from it as a wolf, but admitted the wolf and abode with it, supposing it a sheep; for ignorance works such things upon those who do not know, and compels them to flee and pursue the opposite of what they wish and of what is beneficial.

Come, then, let us consider whether the many really know anything clear about freedom and slavery. For perhaps we accuse them in vain, and they, more than anything, know these things. If, then, one should ask them what it is to be free, they would say, perhaps, that it is to be subject to no one, but simply to do whatever seems good to oneself.

But the man who has answered thus, if one should ask him further whether a chorus-singer in a chorus, who pays no heed to the leader nor is subject to him, but sings and sings out of tune as it occurs to him—whether he thinks this fine and freeman-like, and the opposite of it, to attend to and obey the leader of the chorus, and to begin and to cease singing whenever that man bids, shameful and slavish—I do not think he would agree.

Nor, if one should ask whether a man at sea who pays no heed to the steersman and does not do whatever that man tells him—whether he should think such a thing freeman-like: for instance, when bidden to sit he stands in the ship, if it does not occur to him to obey, and when bidden at some time to bail or to haul in the sails, neither bails nor lays hand to the ropes—would he call this man free or enviable, because he does what seems good to himself.

And certainly he would not say that soldiers are slaves, because they are subject to the general, and rise up whenever he commands, and take their rations and take up their arms and form ranks and advance and retreat in no other way than as the general orders; nor again the sick, because they obey the physicians—not for this will they say that they are slaves;

and yet it is in no small nor easy matters that they obey them, but they are sometimes ordered even to hunger and thirst; and if it ever seems good to the physician to bind the patient, he is bound on the spot, and if to cut or to cauterize, he will be cauterized and cut so far as it seems good to that man; and if he does not obey, all in the household will join the physician in the struggle—not only the free men, but often the very slaves of the sick man bind down their master, and bring the fire that he may be cauterized, and render the rest of the service.

Will you not, then, say that this man is free, because he submits to many disagreeable things at another's bidding? For surely you would not say that Darius, the king of the Persians, was not free, because, having fallen from his horse in the hunt, his ankle having gone out of joint, he obeyed the physicians who pulled and twisted his foot, that the joint might be set—and these too Egyptian men; nor again Xerxes, when, retiring from Greece and tossed by storm in the ship, he obeyed the steersman in everything, and contrary to that man's judgment did not permit himself even to nod or to shift his place. Then they will no longer say that to be subject to no man, nor to do whatever one wishes, is freedom.

But perhaps they will say that these men obey for their own advantage, as those at sea obey the steersman and the soldiers the general, and the sick obey the physician for this reason. For these prescribe nothing else than what is advantageous to them. But masters do not command slaves the things that will profit them, but what they think profits themselves.

What then? Is it advantageous to the master that the slave should die, or be sick, or be wicked? No one would say so, but, on the contrary, I think, that he should live and be healthy and be good. And these same things will appear advantageous to the slave too; so that the master, no less—if indeed he has sense—will prescribe to the slave the things advantageous to him; for these appear advantageous to himself also.

But whoever it is for whom a man has paid down silver, this man is of necessity a slave. Have not many men, then, paid down silver for many free men—some giving ransom to enemies, some to brigands, and some have paid down their own ransom-price to their masters? And surely these are not therefore the slaves of those men.

But surely the man whom another is permitted to scourge and bind and put to death and do whatever else he wishes—this man is that other's slave. What then? Are not brigands permitted to do these things to those they have caught? And none the less are they not slaves. What again? Are not the judges permitted to assess penalties of bondage and death and whatever else they wish against many of those on trial? And surely these are not slaves. And if for the one day on which each is on trial—that is nothing; for indeed a man is already said to become a slave for a single day.

But surely, summing up in a word, one must declare that whoever is permitted to do what he wishes is free, and whoever is not permitted, a slave. You will not, then, say this of those at sea, nor of the sick, nor of soldiers, nor of those learning letters or to play the cithara or to wrestle or some other craft; for these are not permitted to act as they themselves wish, but as the steersman and physician and teacher prescribe. Nor, then, are the rest permitted to do what they wish; but if a man acts contrary to the established laws, he will be punished.

Then whatever is neither forbidden by the laws nor commanded—the man who has, in these matters, the power himself of acting as he wishes is free, but the man who, on the contrary, is unable, a slave. What then? Do you think you are permitted to do whatever is not forbidden by the laws in writing, but otherwise seems shameful to men and out of place?—I mean, for instance, to be a tax-farmer or a keeper of a brothel or to do other such things? No, by Zeus, I should say that such things too are not permitted to the free. For concerning these too there lies a penalty—to be hated or held in disgust by men.

What again? For licentious men, all that they do through licentiousness, and for the senseless, all that they do through folly, whether neglecting their substance or their body, or behaving unjustly and senselessly toward one another—are not all these things penal to those who do them? For they are harmed either in the body or the substance or, what is greatest, in their own soul.—That is true.—Then neither are these things permitted to do?—They are not.

In a word, then, must we say that the base and out-of-place and disadvantageous things are not permitted to do, but the just and advantageous and good things befit a man and are permitted?—So it seems to me, at least.—Then to no one is it without penalty to do the base and disadvantageous things, neither to Greek nor barbarian, nor to one for whom a man has given silver as his price?—Certainly not.—But the opposite things are alike allowed to all, and those who do the things allowed continue without penalty, while those who do the things forbidden are penalized.

Do others, then, seem to you to do the things permitted than those who understand them, and others the opposite than those who are ignorant?—By no means.—Then the prudent are permitted to do whatever they wish; but the senseless attempt to do what they wish though it is not permitted; so that it must be that the prudent are free and are permitted to do as they wish, while the senseless are slaves and do the things not permitted to them?—Perhaps.

Then we must call freedom the knowledge of what is allowed and what forbidden, and slavery the ignorance of what is permitted and what not. And by this argument nothing would prevent the Great King, wearing a very great tiara upon his head, from being a slave and from being permitted to do nothing of what he does; for he will do everything penally and disadvantageously. And some other man, reputed and named a slave—not once, but many times, should it so chance, sold, and, if it so happen, wearing very heavy fetters—would be more free than the Great King.

To me it seems very strange, if a man wearing fetters or branded or grinding in a mill shall be more free than the Great King.—What then? Have you been in Thrace?—I have.—Have you, then, seen there the free women full of brands, and having so many more brands and more varied the better and of better stock they are reputed?—What of that?—That a queen, it seems, nothing prevents from being branded; but a king, do you think, is prevented?

You, then, have not even heard of that nation among whom the king is guarded in a very lofty tower, and it is not permitted him to come down from the tower? But if you had heard, you would have known that even a king may be one shut in. And perhaps you would hear those men marvelling, if you should recount to them about the king of the Persians, and disbelieving that there is a king who drives about on a chariot and goes wherever he wishes.—But you will not prove that a king is bound.

Not, perhaps, among men; since the king of the gods, the first and eldest, is bound, as they say—if one must believe Hesiod and Homer and other wise men, who say these things about Cronus—and, by Zeus, not having suffered this unjustly at the hands of an enemy, but at the hands of the most just and most dear, plainly because that one did it as a kingly thing and advantageous to him.

But men are ignorant of this, and would never suppose that a beggar or a prisoner or a man without repute had become a king—although they hear of Odysseus, that being a beggar and asking alms of the suitors he was none the less a king and lord of the house; whereas Antinous and Eurymachus, whom Homer called kings, were wretched and ill-fated. But these things, as I said, they are ignorant of; and they put round their kings as signs tiaras and scepters and diadems, that they may not escape notice in being kings—just as, I think, masters put marks upon their cattle, that they may be recognized.

And so the king of the Persians took thought how he alone should wear the tiara upright, and if any other man did this, he straightway bade him be put to death, as though it were not seemly nor advantageous, among so many tens of thousands of men, that two should be wearing their tiaras upright; but how he should keep his judgment upright, and that no one else should be wiser than he in thought, he cared nothing at all.

Let it not be, then, that, just as of the kingship of that time such were the signs, so now too freedom must have such tokens, and a man must walk about with a felt cap upon his head, and that otherwise we shall not be able to recognize the free man from the slave.