[p. 173] Besides these, Pompylus, the slave of the Peripatetic Theophrastus, and the slave of the Stoic Zeno who was called Persaeus, and the slave of Epicurus whose name was Mys, were philosophers of repute. 1 Diogenes the Cynic also served as a slave, but he was a freeborn man, who was sold into slavery. When Xeniades of Corinth wished to buy him and asked whether he knew any trade, Diogenes replied: “I know how to govern free men.” 2 Then Xeniades, in admiration of his answer, bought him, set him free, and entrusting to him his own children, said: “Take my children to govern.” But as to the well-known philosopher Epictetus, the fact that he too was a slave is too fresh in our memory to need to be committed to writing, as if it had been forgotten.
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[19arg] On the nature of the verb rescire; and its true and distinctive meaning.I HAVE observed that the verb rescire has a peculiar force, which is not in accord with the general meaning of other words compounded with that same preposition; for we do not use rescire in the same way that we do rescribere (write in reply), relegere (reread), restituere (restore), . . . and substituere (put in the place of); 3 but rescire is properly said of one who learns of something that is hidden, or unlooked for and unexpected.