than undergo so unequal a war?  Among private men themselves, do not the stronger and more bold trample on the weaker?” “To the end, therefore, that this may not happen to me,” said Aristippus, “I confine myself not to any republic, but am sometimes here, sometimes there, and think it best to be a stranger wherever I am.”  “This invention of yours,” replied Socrates, “is very extraordinary.  Travellers, I believe, are not now so much infested on the roads by robbers as formerly, deterred, I suppose, by the fate of Sinnis, Scyron, Procrustes, and the rest of that gang.  What then?  They who are settled in their own country, and are concerned in the administration of the public affairs, they have the laws in their favours, have their relations and friends to assist them, have fortified towns and arms for their defence:  over and above, they have alliances with their neighbours:  and yet all these favourable circumstances cannot entirely shelter them from the attempts and surprises of wicked men.  But can you, who have none of these advantages, who are, for the most part, travelling on the roads, often dangerous to most men, who never enter a town, where you have not less credit than the meanest inhabitant, and are as obscure as the wretches who prey on the properties of others; in these circumstances, can you, I say, expect to be safe, merely because you are a stranger, or perhaps have got passports from the States that promise you all manner of safety coming or going, or should it be your hard fortune to be made a slave, you would make such a bad one, that a master would be never the better for you?  For, who would suffer in his family a man who would not work, and yet expected to live well?  But let us see how masters use such servants.

“When they are too lascivious, they compel them to fast till they have brought them so low, that they have no great stomach to make love, if they are thieves, they prevent them from stealing, by carefully locking up whatever they could take:  they chain them for fear they should run away:  if they are dull and lazy, then stripes and scourges are the rewards we give them.  If you yourself, my friend, had a worthless slave, would you not take the same measures with him?” “I would treat such a fellow,” answered Aristippus, “with all manner of severity, till I had brought him to serve me better.  But, Socrates, let us resume our former discourse.”

“In what do they who are educated in the art of government, which you seem to think a great happiness, differ from those who suffer through necessity?  For you say they must accustom themselves to hunger and thirst, to endure cold and heat, to sleep little, and that they must voluntarily expose themselves to a thousand other fatigues and hardships.  Now, I cannot conceive what difference there is between being whipped willingly and by force, and tormenting one’s body either one way or the other, except that it is a folly in a man to be willing to suffer