Dream of Scipio and Stoic Paradoxes

In this paradox, he wishes to prove that friendship exists among the good and not among the bad, and what a friend is, and this is more for the sake of the leader and more for one's own sake.

The end is indeed also this.

A long discussion on authority.

Definition of liberty.

Perfection in duty.

In this end is the conclusion, and this.

Nothing is good except virtue, and nothing is evil except baseness.

Definition of the rationale of good and evil.

A woodcut depicts a decorative initial letter O.

...forum continues from previous page: forum... temples with armed robbers... you placed camps in the f orums. Yet you are even accustomed to boast that you did this. How then, having been cast into exile by so many laws, do you not shudder at the name of an exile? "I am in Rome," you say. And you were indeed in the harbor. Therefore, one does not hold the right of a place just because one is there, if it is not proper to be there according to the laws.

That all the wise are free, and all the foolish are slaves. Let this commander be praised, or even called such, or let him be thought worthy of this name. How, or over whom, will this man rule as a free person, who cannot rule over his own desires? Let him first restrain his lusts, spurn pleasures, check his anger, curb avarice, and repel the other vices of the mind. Then let him begin to rule others, when he himself has ceased to obey the most wicked masters, disgrace, and baseness. While he obeys these, he shall not be considered a commander, nor even a free man at all.

For this is excellently practiced by the most learned men, whose authority I would not use if this speech had to be delivered before some rustics. But since I am speaking before the most prudent men, to whom these things are not unheard of, why should I pretend that I have lost anything if I have applied effort to these studies? It has therefore been stated by the most erudite men: no one is free except the wise man. For what is liberty? It is the power to live as you wish. Who then lives as he wishes, except he who follows what is right, who rejoices in duty, whose way of life is considered and provided for, who obeys the laws not because of fear, but follows and honors them because he judges that to be most salutary? He says nothing, does nothing, and finally thinks nothing unless willingly and freely. All his plans and all the deeds he performs proceed from himself and are directed toward the same end. There is no thing that has more power over him than his own will and judgment. To him, even that which is said to have the greatest force, namely fortune itself, yields, just as the wise poet said: each person is molded by his own character.