Date: c. 501 B.C.

"Poor witnesses for people are eyes and ears if they possess barbarian souls."

— Heraklitus (fl. 504-1 BCE)

Date: 380-360 B.C.

"When soul and body are both in the same place, nature teaches the one to serve and be subject, the other to rule and govern."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 370-300 B.C.

"So too when you state the next point in your argument, that those who train their bodies but neglect their souls are guilty of another action of the same sort--neglecting the part that should rule, and attending to that which should be ruled."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"After this their happiness depends upon their self-control; if the better elements of the mind which lead to order and philosophy prevail, then they pass their life here in happiness and harmony--masters of themselves and orderly--enslaving the vicious and emancipating the virtuous elements of t...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 350 B.C.

"For the body is the soul's tool born with it, a slave is as it were a member or tool of his master, a tool is a sort of inanimate slave."

— Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Date: 25 B.C.

"But, Venus, my devoted heart is ever at your service [your slave]. / Have mercy. Why in rancour burn the harvest that is yours?"

— Tibullus, Abius (c. 54-19 B.C.)

Date: w. 56-64

"It is a mistake to imagine that slavery pervades a man's whole being; the better part of him is exempt from it: the body indeed is subjected and in the power of a master, but the mind is independent, and indeed is so free and wild, that it cannot be restrained even by this prison of the body, wh...

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

Date: w. 56-64

"It is, therefore, only the body which misfortune hands over to a master, and which he buys and sells; this inward part cannot be transferred as a chattel."

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

Date: 58

"See, on the other hand, how evil and guilty a slavery the man is forced to serve who is dominated in turn by pleasures and pains, those most untrustworthy and passionate of masters."

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)

Date: 58

"To live happily, then, is the same thing as to live according to Nature: what this may be, I will explain. If we guard the endowments of the body and the advantages of nature with care and fearlessness, as things soon to depart and given to us only for a day; if we do not fall under their domini...

— Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (c. 4 B.C. - A.D. 65)