SPEAK the truth, slave, and do not run away from your masters, nor deny them, nor dare to assert your freedom when you have so many proofs of your slavery. One might indeed find some excuse for a person, compelled by love to do something contrary to his opinion, even when at the same time he sees what is best and yet hath not resolution enough to follow it, since he is withheld by something violent and, in some measure, divine. But who can bear you, who are in love with old men and women; and wipe their noses, and wash them, and bribe them with presents, and wait upon them when they are sick like a slave; at the same time wishing they may die, and inquiring of the physician whether their distemper be yet mortal? And again, when for these great and venerable magistracies and honours you kiss the hands of the slaves of others, so that you are the slave of those who are not free themselves! And then you walk about in state, a praetor, or a consul. Do not I know how you came to be praetor, whence you received the consulship, who gave it you? For my own part, I would not even live, if I must live by Felicio's means, and bear his pride and slavish insolence. For I know what a slave is, blinded by what he thinks good fortune.
EPICTETUS. DISCOURSES. Book iv. §1. ¶16
