too, one deceit is not greater than another, nor one sin than another. For the man who is a hundred furlongs from Canopus, and the man who is only one, are both equally not in Canopus; and so too, he who commits a greater sin, and he who commits a less, are both equally not in the right path.
Heraclides of Tarsus, indeed, the friend of Antipater, of Tarsus, and Athenodorus, both assert that offences are not equal.
Again, the Stoics, as for instance, Chrysippus, in the first book of his work on Lives, say, that the wise man will take a part in the affairs of the state, if nothing hinders him. For that he will restrain vice, and excite men to virtue. Also, they say that he will marry, as Zeno says, in his Republic, and beget children. Moreover, that the wise man will never form mere opinions, that is to say, he will never agree to anything that is false; and that he will become a Cynic; for that Cynicism is a short path to virtue, as Apollodorus calls it in his Ethics; that he will even eat human flesh, if there should be occasion; that he is the only free man, and that the bad are slaves; for that freedom is a power of independent action, but slavery a deprivation of the same. That there is besides, another slavery, which consists in subjection, and a third which consists in possession and subjection; the contrary of which is masterhood, which is likewise bad.
And they say, that not only are the wise free, but that they are also kings, since kingly power is an irresponsible dominion, which can only exist in the case of the wise man, as Chrysippus says in his treatise on the Proper Application of his Terms made by Zeno; for he says that a ruler ought to give decisions on good and evil, and that none of the wicked understand these things. In the same