CHAPTER IV.
on slavery.
1. A certain man having inquired how one may make his meals in a manner pleasing to the Gods, If he do it uprightly, said Epictetus, and considerately, and equably, and temperately, and orderly, shall it not also be thus pleasing to the Gods? But when you ask for hot water, and the boy does not hear, or, hearing, brings it only luke-warm; or if he is not even to be found in the house, then is it not pleasing to the Gods if you refrain from indignation, and do not burst with passion? How shall one endure such fellows? Wretch, wilt thou not bear with thine own brother, who is of the progeny of Zeus, like a son sprung of the same seed as thyself, and of the same heavenly descent, but thou must straightway make thyself a tyrant, for the place of command in which thou art set? Wilt thou not remember who thou art, and whom thou rulest—that they are kinsmen, brethren by nature, the progeny of Zeus? But I have bought them, and they have not bought me! Seest thou, then, whither thou art looking—towards the earth, towards the pit of perdition, towards these miserable laws of dead men? but towards the laws of the Gods thou dost not look.
2. That which thou wouldst not suffer thyself, seek not to lay upon others. Thou wouldst not be a slave—look to it that others be not slaves to thee. For if thou endure to have slaves, it seems that thou thyself art first of all a slave. For virtue hath no communion with vice nor freedom with slavery.
3. As one who is in health would not choose to be served by the sick, nor that those dwelling with him should be sick, so neither would one that is free bear to be served by slaves, or that those living with him should be slaves.[1]