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L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits by 4 BC-65 Lucius Annaeus Seneca
page 82 of 249 (32%)
give you an instance of a slave fighting for his master's safety
without regard to himself, pierced through with wounds, yet
spending the last drops of his blood, and gaining time for his
master to escape by the sacrifice of his life, will you say that
this man did not bestow a benefit upon his master because he was a
slave? If I give an instance of one who could not be bribed to
betray his master's secrets by any of the offers of a tyrant, who
was not terrified by any threats, nor overpowered by any tortures,
but who, as far as he was able, placed his questioners upon a wrong
scent, and, paid for his loyalty with his life; will you say that
this man did not confer a benefit upon his master because he was a
slave? Consider, rather, whether an example of virtue in a slave be
not all the greater because it is rarer than in free men, and
whether it be not all the more gratifying that, although to be
commanded is odious, and all submission to authority is irksome,
yet in some particular cases love for a master has been more
powerful than men's general dislike to servitude. A benefit does
not, therefore, cease to be a benefit because it is bestowed by a
slave, but is all the greater on that account, because not even
slavery could restrain him from bestowing it.

XX. It is a mistake to imagine that slavery pervades a man's whole
being; the better part of him is exempt from it: the body indeed is
subjected and in the power of a master, but the mind is
independent, and indeed is so free and wild, that it cannot be
restrained even by this prison of the body, wherein it is confined,
from following its own impulses, dealing with gigantic designs, and
soaring into the infinite, accompanied by all the host of heaven.
It is, therefore, only the body which misfortune hands over to a
master, and which he buys and sells; this inward part cannot be
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