Epictetus

Epictetus (Template:IPAc-en, Template:Respell;<ref>Jones, Daniel; Roach, Peter, James Hartman and Jane Setter, eds. Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. 17th edition. Cambridge UP, 2006.</ref> Template:Langx, Epíktētos; Template:Circa 50 Template:Ndash Template:Circa 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher.<ref name="CarterEpictetus2017">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Stevens2022">Template:Cite book</ref> He was born into slavery at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present-day Pamukkale, in western Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece, where he spent the rest of his life.

Epictetus studied Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus and after manumission, his formal emancipation from slavery, he began to teach philosophy. Subject to the banishment of all philosophers from Rome by Emperor Domitian toward the end of the first century, Epictetus founded a school of philosophy in Nicopolis. Epictetus taught that philosophy is a way of life and not simply a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control; he argues that we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, he held that individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses and Enchiridion. They influenced many later thinkers, including Marcus Aurelius, Pascal, Diderot, Montesquieu, Rabelais, and Samuel Johnson.

Life

Having described himself as old in 108 AD, Epictetus is presumed to have been born around AD 50,<ref>Template:Cite SEP</ref><ref>The year of his birth is uncertain. He was born a slave. We do know that he was born early enough to be teaching philosophy by around AD 93, when Domitian banished all philosophers from Rome, because he was among those who left the city under that decree. Around 108 AD, he described himself to Arrian as being an old man cf. Discourses, i.9.10; i.16.20; ii.6.23; etc.</ref> at Hierapolis, Phrygia.<ref>Suda. Epictetus.</ref> The name given by his parents is unknown. The name by which he is known is derived from the word epíktētos (ἐπίκτητος) that in Greek, simply means "gained" or "acquired";<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the Greek philosopher Plato, in his Laws, used that term to mean property that is "added to one's hereditary property".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Epictetus spent his youth in Rome as a slave to Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman who was secretary to Nero.<ref>Epaphroditus Template:Webarchive, livius.org</ref> His social position was thus complicated, combining the low status of a slave with the high status of one with a personal connection to Imperial power.<ref>P. Christoforou, Imagining the Roman Emperor (2023), p. 22</ref>

Early in life, Epictetus acquired a passion for philosophy and, with the permission of his wealthy master, he studied Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus.<ref>Epictetus, Discourses. i.7.32.</ref> Becoming more educated in this way raised his social status.<ref>Epictetus, Discourses, i.9.29.</ref> At some point, he became disabled. Celsus, quoted by Origen, wrote that this was because his leg had been deliberately broken by his master.<ref>Origen, Contra Celcus. vii.</ref> Without citing a cause, Simplicius wrote that Epictetus had been disabled from childhood.<ref name="simpl1">Simplicius, Commentary on the Enchiridion, 13.</ref>

Epictetus obtained his freedom sometime after the death of Nero in AD 68,<ref>Douglas J. Soccio, Archetypes of Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy (2012), p. 197</ref> and he began to teach philosophy in Rome. Around AD 93, when the Roman emperor Domitian banished all philosophers from the city,<ref>Suetonius, Domitian, x.</ref> Epictetus moved to Nicopolis in Epirus, Greece, where he founded a school of philosophy.<ref>Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, xv. 11.</ref>

His most famous pupil, Arrian, studied under him as a young man (around AD 108) and claimed to have written his famous Discourses based on the notes he took about lectures by Epictetus. Arrian argued that his Discourses should be considered comparable to the Socratic literature.<ref>Hendrik Selle: Dichtung oder Wahrheit – Der Autor der Epiktetischen Predigten. Philologus 145 [2001] 269–290</ref> Arrian described Epictetus as a powerful speaker who could "induce his listener to feel just what Epictetus wanted him to feel".<ref name="arrian1">Epictetus, Discourses, prologue.</ref> Many eminent figures sought conversations with him.<ref>Epictetus, Discourses, i.11; ii.14; iii.4; iii. 7; etc.</ref> Emperor Hadrian was friendly with him,<ref>Historia Augusta, Hadrian, 16.</ref> possibly having heard Epictetus speak at his school in Nicopolis.<ref>Fox, Robin The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian Basic Books. 2006 p. 578</ref><ref>A surviving second- or third-century work, Altercatio Hadriani Et Epicteti gives a fictitious account of a conversation between Hadrian and Epictetus.</ref>

Epictetus lived a life of great simplicity, with few possessions.<ref name="simpl1"/> He lived alone for a long time,<ref>Simplicius, Commentary on the Enchiridion, 46. There is a joke at Epictetus' expense in Lucian's Life of Demonax about the fact that he had no family.</ref> but in his old age, he adopted the child of a friend who otherwise would have been left to die, and raised him with the aid of a woman.<ref>Simplicius, Commentary on the Enchiridion, 46. It is possible that they were married, but Simplicius' language on that subject is ambiguous.</ref> It is unclear whether Epictetus and she were married.<ref>Lucian, Demoxan, c. 55, torn, ii., ed Hemsterh., p. 393; as quoted in A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion (2009), p. 6</ref> He died sometime around AD 135.<ref>He apparently was alive in the reign of Hadrian (117–138). Marcus Aurelius (born AD 121) was an admirer, but never met him, and Aulus Gellius (ii.18.10) writing mid-second century, speaks of him as if he belonged to the recent past.</ref> After his death, according to Lucian, his oil lamp was purchased by an admirer for 3,000 drachmae.<ref>Lucian, Remarks to an illiterate book-lover.</ref>

Thought

File:Epictetus.png

An eighteenth century engraving depicting Epictetus

Epictetus maintains that the foundation of all philosophy is self-knowledge; that is, the conviction of our ignorance and gullibility ought to be the first subject of our study.<ref>Epictetus, Discourses, ii.11.1</ref> Logic provides valid reasoning and certainty in judgment, but it is subordinate to practical needs.<ref>Epictetus, Discourses, i.7.1–8</ref> He also maintained that the first and most necessary part of philosophy concerns the application of doctrine, for example, that people should not lie. The second concerns reasons, e.g., why people should not lie. The third, lastly, examines and establishes the reasons.<ref name="ritter201">Heinrich Ritter, Alexander James William Morrison, (1846), The History of Ancient Philosophy, Volume 4, p. 201</ref> This is the logical part, which finds reasons, shows what is a reason, and that a given reason is a correct one.<ref name="ritter201"/> This last part is necessary, but only on account of the second, which again is rendered necessary by the first.<ref>Epictetus, Discourses, iii.2.1–6; Enchiridion, 52</ref>

Legacy

File:MS. Canon. Misc. 378 fols. 78r - Bodleian library - Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi.jpg

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 (Template:Circa).<ref name="arrian1"/> The main work is The Discourses, four books of which have been preserved (out of the original eight).<ref>Photius, Bibliotheca, states that there were eight books.</ref> Arrian also compiled a popular digest, entitled the 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>Template:Cite journal</ref> Epictetus also appears in a second or third century Dialogue Between the Emperor Hadrian and Epictetus the Philosopher.<ref name="boter">Template:Cite book</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 Enlightenment philosophers, such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, and Baron d'Holbach, who all read the Enchiridion when they were students.<ref>Template:Cite book</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>Template:Cite book</ref>

In the sixth century, the Neoplatonist philosopher 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>

See also

• List of slaves

References

• Origen's Contra Celcus, Book vii, episode is in chapter LIII, with a secondary mention of the episode in chapter LIV.

Further reading

Primary sources

• All the Works of Epictetus, Which Are Now Extant, Elizabeth Carter (trans.) (1758). Template:ISBN
• The Complete Works: Handbook, Discourses, and Fragments, Robin Waterfield (trans.) (2022). Template:ISBN
• Discourses, Fragments, Handbook, Robin Hard (trans.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Template:ISBN
• Discourses and Selected Writings, Robert Dobbin (trans.), Oxford: Penguin Classics, 2008. Template:ISBN.
• The Discourses (The Handbook, Fragments), Robin Hard (trans.), Christopher Gill (contrib.), Everyman Edition, 2003. Template:ISBN.
• Epictetus Discourses: Book 1, Robert Dobbin (trans.), (Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Template:ISBN.
• The Handbook, Nicholas P. White (trans.), Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983. Template:ISBN.
• Enchiridion, George Long (trans.), New York: A. L. Burt, 1955 (reprint: New York: Dover, 2004). Template:ISBN.
• The Discourses, trans. W. A. Oldfather. 2 vols. (Loeb Classical Library edition.) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925 and 1928. Template:ISBN.
• Moral Discourses, Enchiridion and Fragments (at Open Library), Elizabeth Carter (trans.), W. H. D. Rouse (ed.), London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1910.

Studies

• Scott Aikin and William O. Stephens, Epictetus's Encheiridion: A New Translation and Guide to Stoic Ethics, London: Bloomsbury, 2023 Template:ISBN.
• Jonathan Barnes, Logic and the Imperial Stoa, Leiden: Brill, 1997 (Chapter Three: Epictetuts, pp. 24–127).Template:ISBN.
• Adolf Friedrich Bonhöffer, The Ethics of the Stoic Epictetus, rev. edn., William O. Stephens trans., New York: Peter Lang, 2021 Template:ISBN.
• Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981–1982, New York: Picador, 2005 Template:ISBN.
• Pedro P. Fuentes González. art. "Épictète", in R. Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des Philosophes Antiques III, Paris, CNRS, 2000, pp. 106–151 Template:ISBN.
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book.
• Brian E. Johnson, The Role Ethics of Epictetus: Stoicism in Ordinary Life, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014 Template:ISBN.
• A. A. Long, Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 Template:ISBN.
• Theodore Scaltsas, Andrew S. Mason (ed.), The Philosophy of Epictetus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 Template:ISBN.
• Keith Seddon, Epictetus' Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes: Guides to Stoic Living, Routledge, 2005.
• Werner Sohn, Epictetus: Ein erzkonservativer Bildungsroman mit liberalen Eselsohren (German version) Norderstedt: BoD, 2010 Template:ISBN.
• William O. Stephens, Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom, London: Continuum, 2007 Template:ISBN.

External links

• Template:StandardEbooks
• Template:Gutenberg author
• Template:Internet Archive author
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• Works by Epictetus at the Internet Classics Archive
• Works by Epictetus Template:Webarchive at the Stoic Therapy eLibrary
• Who Was Epictetus?
• Template:Cite SEP
• Template:Cite IEP
• "Dialogue Between Hadrian and Epictetus" – a fictitious 2nd or 3rd century composition, translated into English in The Knickerbocker magazine, August 1857
• Commentary on the Enchiridion of Epictetus by Simplicius of Cilicia (6th century)
• Stockdale on Stoicism I: The Stoic Warrior's Triad (Template:Webarchive) by James Stockdale
• Stockdale on Stoicism II: Master of My Fate (Template:Webarchive) by James Stockdale
• Epicteti dissertationes ab Arriano digestae, Heinrich Schenkl (ed.), Lipsiae, in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, 1916.