Dream of Scipio and Stoic Paradoxes

Matellis original: "Matellis" — likely a reference to chamber pots or vessels, used here as a term of derision for those who serve lowly, material ends.

But those who are considered to have a more refined position among the slaves of this sort, those who handle the vessels, those who serve the wine, those who sweep the floors, are not considered the most fortunate in the household. Instead, they are burdened by the most menial tasks. Just so, those who are slaves to their own appetites and who find their worth in material things are in truth the lowest of servants. They believe they are elevated because they possess more, yet they are more deeply trapped by the weight of their own ownership. Who would call a man free who is governed by his own greed, who is enslaved to the commands of his own lusts?

A man is truly free only when he governs himself by reason and is not moved by external forces or the dictates of his own passions. But if a man is ruled by his impulses, he is a slave to a master more cruel than any human tyrant. He cannot refuse what his desires command. He cannot ignore the call of his own covetousness. He must perform whatever his master demands, and he lives in constant fear of being deprived of his objects of desire.

It is a great irony that those who boast of their liberty are often the most bound. They are bound by the need to acquire, by the fear of losing, and by the constant agitation of a mind that has no stability. The wise man alone is free, for he possesses a spirit that is whole and independent, guided by wisdom rather than by the shifting winds of fortune or the demands of the flesh. All others are merely servants in the grand, chaotic household of their own making.