Editing Epictetus (section)

== Legacy ==
[[File:MS. Canon. Misc. 378 fols. 78r - Bodleian library - Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi.jpg|thumb|right|Hadrian and Epictetus are depicted in a fifteenth century manuscript, Bodleian library]]
No writings by Epictetus are known. His discourses were transcribed and compiled by his pupil [[Arrian]] ({{circa|86/89|after 146/160 AD}}).<ref name="arrian1"/> The main work is ''[[Discourses of Epictetus|The Discourses]]'', four books of which have been preserved (out of the original eight).<ref>[[Photios I of Constantinople|Photius]], ''Bibliotheca,'' states that there were eight books.</ref> Arrian also compiled a popular digest, entitled the ''[[Enchiridion of Epictetus|Enchiridion]]'', or ''Handbook'', of Epictetus. In a preface to the ''Discourses'' that is addressed to Lucius Gellius, Arrian states that "whatever I heard him say I used to write down, word for word, as best I could, endeavouring to preserve it as a memorial, for my own future use, of his way of thinking and the frankness of his speech".<ref name="arrian1"/> 

The philosophy of Epictetus influenced the Roman emperor [[Marcus Aurelius]] (AD 121 to AD 180), who cites Epictetus in his ''[[Meditations]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Marcus Aurelius, Emperor and Philosopher |first=G. R. |last=Stanton |journal=[[Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte]] |year=1969 |volume=18 |issue=5 |pages=570–587 |jstor=4435105}}</ref> Epictetus also appears in a second or third century ''[[Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi|Dialogue Between the Emperor Hadrian and Epictetus the Philosopher]]''.<ref name="boter">{{Cite book|author-last=Boter|author-first=Gerard J.|contribution=Epictetus|page=6|editor1-last=Brown|editor1-first=Virginia|editor2-last=Hankins|editor2-first=James|editor3-last=Kaster|editor3-first=Robert A.|title=Catalogus Translationum Et Commentariorum: Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries|volume=9|year=2011|publisher=The Catholic University of America Press|isbn=978-0813217291}}</ref> This short Latin text consists of seventy-three short questions supposedly posed by [[Hadrian]] and answered by Epictetus.<ref name="boter"/> This dialogue was very popular in the [[Middle Ages]] with many translations and adaptations.<ref name="boter"/>

Epictetus exhibited an influence on French [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] philosophers, such as [[Voltaire]], [[Montesquieu]], [[Denis Diderot]], and [[Baron d'Holbach]], who all read the [[Enchiridion of Epictetus|''Enchiridion'']] when they were students.<ref>{{cite book|title=Atheism in France, 1650–1729, Volume 1: The Orthodox Sources of Disbelief|last=Kors|first=Alan Charles|date=1990|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=0691055750|location=Princeton, New Jersey|page=188}}</ref> [[Blaise Pascal]] listed Epictetus as among those philosophers he was most familiar with, describing him as a "great mind" who is "among the philosophers of the world who have best understood the duties" of an individual.<ref>{{cite book |title=Blaise Pascal Thoughts, Letters, and Minor Works |date=2007 |publisher=Cosimo |page=393}}</ref>

In the sixth century, the [[Neoplatonist]] philosopher [[Simplicius of Cilicia|Simplicius]] wrote an extant commentary on the ''Enchiridion''.<ref>George Long, (1890), ''The Discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheridion and Fragments'', p. 390. George Bell and Sons</ref>