 According to the Stoics, both the virtuous, wise person and the vicious fool are responsible for their actions, because the actions of each of them are equally a result of their assent, which is under their control. Nonetheless, in another sense, only the wise person is truly free (DL 7.33). The later Stoic Epictetus often compares the foolish person to a slave, under the yolk of vicious and damaging desires (for instance, Handbook 14 and Discourses 2.2). Similarly, the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius likens the fool to a puppet who is jerked here and there by irrational impulses (for instance, Meditations 2.2, 6.16). The fool is dominated by desires and beliefs that are alien to his nature as a rational being, because right reason commands all virtuous actions and forbids all vicious actions. Only the wise person is free from these alienating and disturbing desires and beliefs; only the wise person has mastered himself and is in harmony with himself.