Works of Lucian of Samosata, vol 2 | Page 7

let
him name a sum, at once worthy of your acceptance, and not
burdensome to his purse, which has so many more urgent calls upon it.
'Sir,' says this officious old gentleman, who has been a toady from his
youth, 'Sir, you are the luckiest man in Rome. Deny it if you can! You
have gained a privilege which many a man has longed for, and is not
like to obtain at Fortune's hands. You have been admitted to enjoy the
company and share the hearth and home of the first citizen of our
empire. Used aright, such a privilege will be more to you than the
wealth of a Croesus or a Midas. Knowing as I do how many there
are--persons of high standing --who would be glad to pay money down,
merely for the honour and glory of the acquaintanceship, of being seen
in his company, and ranking as his friends and intimates,--knowing this,
I am at a loss for words in which to express my sense of your good
fortune. You are not only to enjoy this happiness, but to be paid for
enjoying it! Under the circumstances, I think we shall satisfy your most
extravagant expectations, if we say'-- and he names a sum which in
itself is of the smallest, quite apart from all reference to your brilliant
hopes. However, there is nothing for it but to submit with a good grace.
It is too late now for escape; you are in the toils. So you open your
mouth for the bit, and are very manageable from the first. You give
your rider no occasion to keep a tight rein, or to use the spur; and at last
by imperceptible degrees you are quite broken in to him.
The outside world from that time watches you with envy. You dwell
within his courts; you have free access; you are become a person of
consequence. Yet it is now incomprehensible to you how they can
suppose you to be happy. At the same time, you are not without a
certain exultation: you cheat yourself from day to day with the thought
that there are better things to come. Quite the contrary turns out to be
the case. Your prospects, like the proverbial sacrifice of Mandrobulus,
dwindle and contract from day to day. Gradually you get some faint
glimmerings of the truth. It begins to dawn upon you at last, that those
golden hopes were neither more nor less than gilded bubbles: the

vexations, on the other hand, are realities; solid, abiding,
uncompromising realities. 'And what are these vexations?' you will
perhaps exclaim; 'I see nothing so vexatious about the matter; I know
not what are the hardships and the drudgery alluded to.' Then listen.
And do not confine yourself to the article of drudgery, but keep a sharp
look-out for ignominy, for degradation, for everything, in short, that is
unworthy of a free man.
Let me remind you then, to begin with, that you are no longer free-born,
no longer a man of family. Birth, freedom, ancestry, all these you will
leave on the other side of the door, when you enter upon the fulfilment
of your servile contract; for Freedom will never bear you company in
that ignoble station. You are a slave, wince as you may at the word; and,
be assured, a slave of many masters; a downward-looking drudge, from
morning till night
serving for sorry wage.
Then again, you are a backward pupil: Servitude was not the nurse of
your childhood; you are getting on in years when she takes you in hand;
accordingly, you will do her little credit, and give little satisfaction to
your lord. Recollections of Freedom will exercise their demoralizing
influence upon you, causing you to jib at times, and you will make
villanous work of your new profession. Or will your aspirations after
Freedom be satisfied, perhaps, with the thought, that you are no son of
a Pyrrhias or a Zopyrion, no Bithynian, to be knocked down under the
hammer of a bawling auctioneer? My dear sir, when pay-day comes
round each month, and you mingle in the herd of Pyrrhiases and
Zopyrions, and hold out your hand for the wage that is due to you, what
is that but a sale? No need of an auctioneer, for the man who can cry
his own wares, and hawks his liberty about from day to day. Wretch!
(one is prompted to exclaim, and particularly when the culprit is a
professed philosopher) Wretch! Were you captured and sold by a pirate
or a brigand, you would bewail your lot, and think that Fortune had
dealt hardly with you. Were a man to lay violent hands on you, and
claim a master's rights in you, loud and bitter would be your