Memorabilia

Ah, said Socrates, if only that path can avoid the world as well as rule and slavery, there may be something in what you say. But, since you are in the world, if you intend neither to rule nor to be ruled, and do not choose to truckle to the rulers

— I think you must see that the stronger have a way of making the weaker rue their lot both in public and in private life, and treating them like slaves. You cannot be unaware that where some have sown and planted, others cut their corn and fell their trees, and in all manner of ways harass the weaker if they refuse to bow down, until they are persuaded to accept slavery as an escape from war with the stronger. So, too, in private life do not brave and mighty men enslave and plunder the cowardly and feeble folk?Yes, but my plan for avoiding such treatment is this. I do not shut myself up in the four corners of a community, but am a stranger in every land.

A very cunning trick, that! cried Socrates, for ever since the death of Sinis and Sceiron and Procrustes[*](Highwaymen slain by Theseus, Plutarch, Thes. c. 8 f.) no one injures strangers! And yet nowadays those who take a hand in the affairs of their homeland pass laws to protect themselves from injury, get friends to help them over and above those whom nature has given them, encompass their cities with fortresses, get themselves weapons to ward off the workers of mischief; and besides all this seek to make allies in other lands; and in spite of all these precautions, they are still wronged.

But you, with none of these advantages, spend much time on the open road, where so many come to harm; and into whatever city you enter, you rank below all its citizens, and are one of those specially marked down for attack by intending wrongdoers; and yet, because you are a stranger, do you expect to escape injury? What gives you confidence? Is it that the cities by proclamation guarantee your safety in your coming and going? Or is it the thought that no master would find you worth having among his slaves? For who would care to have a man in his house who wants to do no work and has a weakness for high living?

But now let us see how masters treat such servants. Do they not starve them to keep them from immorality, lock up the stores to stop their stealing, clap fetters on them so that they can’t run away, and beat the laziness out of them with whips? What do you do yourself to cure such faults among your servants?

I make their lives a burden to them until I reduce them to submission. But how about those who are trained in the art of kingship, Socrates, which you appear to identify with happiness? How are they better off than those whose sufferings are compulsory, if they must bear hunger, thirst, cold, sleeplessness, and endure all these tortures willingly? For if the same back gets the flogging whether its owner kicks or consents, or, in short, if the same body, consenting or objecting, is besieged by all these torments, I see no difference, apart from the folly of voluntary suffering.

What, Aristippus, exclaimed Socrates, don’t you think that there is just this difference between these voluntary and involuntary sufferings, that if you bear hunger or thirst willingly, you can eat, drink, or what not, when you choose, whereas compulsory suffering is not to be ended at will? Besides, he who endures willingly enjoys his work because he is comforted by hope; hunters, for instance, toil gladly in hope of game.