Politics

​It is clear, then, that there are by nature some who are free and others who are slaves, for whom to be a slave is both beneficial and just. But it is not difficult to see that those who assert the contrary also speak correctly in a certain way. For “to be a slave” and “slave” are spoken of in two ways. For there is also someone who is a slave and in slavery according to law. For the law is a kind of agreement under which they say that what is conquered in war belongs to the conquerors. Indeed, many of those versed in the laws indict this “justice” as they would a rhetorician for unconstitutional proposals, on the ground that it is a terrible thing if that which is forced is to be a slave and subject to that which is capable of using force and is superior in power. And some think this way, others that way, even among the wise. The cause of this dispute, and what makes the arguments overlap, is that in a way virtue, when it obtains equipment, is also best able to use force, and that which conquers is always in superiority of some good, so that force seems not to be without virtue, but the dispute is only about what is just. (For because of this, some think that justice is folly, while others think that this very thing is justice, namely that the superior should rule.) For if these arguments are separated and stand apart, the other arguments have nothing strong or persuasive in them to the effect that that which is better in virtue ought not to rule and master. But on the whole, some, clinging as they think to a kind of justice (for the law is a kind of justice), assert that slavery resulting from war is just, yet at the same time they deny it. For it is possible that the beginning of wars is not just, and no one would ever say that a person who is undeserving of being a slave is a slave. Otherwise, it will turn out that those who are thought to be of the most noble birth are slaves and descendants of slaves, if they happen to be captured and sold. For this reason they do not wish to call themselves slaves, but rather the barbarians. And yet when they say this, they are seeking nothing other than the “slave by nature” which we spoke of at the beginning. For it is necessary to say that some are slaves everywhere, and others nowhere. And the same manner holds also concerning noble birth; for they regard themselves as noble not only among themselves but everywhere, but the barbarians only at home, as though there were something that is noble and free absolutely, and something that is not so absolutely, just as Theodectes’ Helen says: “Of divine roots on both sides descended, who would deem it worthy to call her a servant?” And when they say this, they distinguish the slave and the free, and those of noble and low birth, by nothing other than virtue and vice.