VI. (32) And of the assertion that the being compelled to perform services to others is not of itself an indication of slavery, there is a most clear proof in what occurs in war; for one can behold men engaged in military expeditions, all acting by their own means, and not only carrying complete armour, but being also loaded like beasts of burden with everything required for their necessary wants, and going out to fetch water, and fuel, and fodder for the cattle. (33) And why need I dwell at length on what is done against the enemy in such expeditions, in respect of their labours in cutting ditches, or erecting walls, or building ships, and doing with their hands and their whole bodies everything which relates to every kind of necessary employment or art. (34) Moreover, there is in peace also another kind of war not wholly dissimilar from that which is carried on under arms, which want or reputation, and poverty, and terrible want of necessary things excites, by which men are compelled and constrained to put their hands to the most ignominious and slavish tasks, digging and cultivating the ground and labouring at the employments of handicrafts-men, and serving without hesitation for the sake of procuring food to support life; very often even bearing burdens through the middle of the market-place, in the sight of those who are of their own age, and have grown up with them, and been their school-fellows and companions through life. (35) There are others also who are slaves by birth, and who have nevertheless been raised by the bounty of fortune to the condition of freemen; for they have become stewards of houses, and properties, and large possessions, and sometimes they are even appointed rulers of their fellow slaves. And many such have had committed to them the guardianship of the wives and orphan children of their masters, being preferred to the confidential offices which belong properly to friends and relations, but, nevertheless they are slaves, though employed in borrowing, in buying, in collecting revenues, and though they are themselves attended by other servants. What is there wonderful then if, on the contrary also, some persons, originally nobly born, by a sudden failure of good fortune, are subjected to such necessities as properly belong to slaves, (36) and by being compelled to obey others are deprived of their own freedom? Moreover, in some degree, children are forced to submit to the commands of their father or their mother; and pupils, also, submit to whatever their teachers enjoin; for no one is willingly a slave. Now, parents will never display such an extravagant and unnatural dislike to their children as to compel their own offspring to submit to such menial offices as are only a symbol of slavery. (37) And if any one beholding some persons who may have been bought and sold by traffickers in men, looks upon them at once as slaves, he is widely removed from the truth; for an act of selling does not make him who purchases the master, nor him who is sold the slave, since fathers at times have paid a price for their sons, and sons have often laid down a ransom for their fathers, in cases where they have been carried away as prisoners by some piratical sally, or have been taken captive in regular warfare, though still the laws of nature, which are more stable than those of men, describe them as free. (38) And, before now, some persons in the excess of their confidence have brought matters into so completely altered a condition that they have actually become masters instead of slaves, in spite of having been bought. At all events, I have often seen some young persons of great beauty, and of great wit in conversation, getting the complete mastery over those who had purchased them, by two great incentives, the exquisiteness of their beauty and the elegance of their language; for these are engines able to overthrow any soul which wants stability and a solid foundation, being the most powerful of all the contrivances which were ever invented for the overthrow of cities. (39) And a proof of this may easily be given; for we may see that those who have become the masters of such persons serve them, and address entreaties to them, and eagerly entreat their favour as they would that of fortune or of the good genius; and if they are neglected by them they are vexed, and if they only obtain a gentle or favourable look from them they dance for joy. (40) Unless, indeed, any one would say that a man who has bought a lion has become the master of the lion, when if he merely look with a threatening glance at him he will soon learn to his cost what kind of a master, what a savage and ferocious tyrant he has purchased. What shall we say then? Shall we not look upon a wise man as more difficult to enslave than a lion, when he in his freedom and invincible soul has much more courage than any creature can have which consists of a body which is by nature a slave, however great his strength may be by which he resists his masters.