Epictetus Volume 1
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Epictetus
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page 13
EPICTETUS
THE DISCOURSES AS REPORTED
BY ARRIAN, THE MANUAL,
AND FRAGMENTS
WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY
W,
A.
OLDFATHER
UNIVKHH1TY" OK ILLINOIS
TWO VOLUMES
IN
VOL. 1
DIHdOURSEH, HOOKS
I
AND It
LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN
O. P, PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK
:
:
MCMXXV
page 17, segment 1/2
INTRODUCTION
Slave, poor an Irus, halting as I trod,
Iy Epicietus, was the friend of God. 1
EPIOTKTUH was a slave woman's son,, and for many
2
The tone and temper of
years a slave himself.
tiis whole life were
determined thereby. An allengulfing passion for independence and freedom so
1
AouAos
tyoy
ical
T
*EirlKTif)'ro$
4>iA.osr
Kcd
tfplf]v
An anonymous epigram
(John
yevdjmiiv
aQavdrots.
ical
crw/j?
avairrjpos
LX. Ill; Macroh. Sat.. I. 11,45; Antli.
Pol. VI L 67(5), ug translated by H. Maenaghten. The ascrip-
Chrys., Patrol.
(1r.
tion to Leonidas i,s merely a pnlaoographical blunder in part
of the MS. tradition, that to Kpictetus himself (by Macrobius)
a patent absurdity.
Thin IH tho explicit testimony of an undated but fairly
early inneription from Fisidia (J. R. S. Sterrett: Papers
>J
of the Amer. School of Hl<m. M-ud. <tt Athcm, 18B4--5, 3, 3151
(}.
Kaibd: Herm^, 1888, 2U, 542(1".), and of Palladiua
(TH.'-CJallifiUumoH, IIL H) ed. (\ M (ill or), and is distinctly
implied by a phram^ in a letter professedly addreaaod to him
by one of the PhiloBtrati (Kj>, (JO: ^(harOdi'ecrQai rts ? KOI
I
rtvuiv yiyovas],
Het^, therefore, no reason to doubt the
Htutement, an doo.s Sehonkl ("2nd ed., p. xvi). The phrase
8<>iUo$.,.7p<{jUtyi' in the (epigram oito<l above cannot be used
tVH c.ortain ovid(Mi<so, Iw^cauHd ytyimffQatt n& Sehenkl obnervoa,
too frCMjuoTitly e<|ualn *I^i in tl\<^ poc^tn, but, in view of tho
other testimony, it in probable that nervile origin was what
fhe author of it bad in mind. There in lit/tie reason to
think, with Martha (to Afora/'tntw olo,, 150), that Kpictetus
wan not hin real imiu<, and that tho. employment of it IH
iudioativo of a modeHty so real that* it nought even a kind of
anonymity, ninee the deHignation JH by no meann
page 17, segment 2/2
reBtrieted
to ftlaven, while hi
mod<mty, hooaiiHo coupled with Stoic
;
?
t
fttrai^htforwftrdncw, in far 'removed
humility that Hooka wolf effacsement,
from
the shrinking
vii
page 18
INTRODUCTION
preoccupied him in his youth, that throughout his life
he was obsessed with the fear of restraint,, and
tended to regard mere liberty, even in its negative
aspect alone, as almost the highest conceivable
It is perhaps no less noteworthy that he
good.
came from Hierapolis in Phrygia. f"From of old the
Phrygians had conceived of their deities with a
singular intensity and entered into their worship
with a passion that was often fanaticism, and
sometimes downright frenzy. It is, therefore, not
unnatural that the one Greek philosopher who,
despite the monistic and necessitarian postulates of
his philosophy, conceived of his God in as vivid
a fashion as the writers of the New Testament, and
almost as intimately as the founder of Christianity
himself, should have inherited the passion for a personal god from the folk and land of his nativity. IWJ
Beside these two illuminating' facts, the oilier
details of his life history are of relatively little imHe was owned for a time by Rpaphroportance.
ditus, the freedman and administrative secretary ol
Nero, and it was while yet in his service that he
began to take lessons from Musonius Rufus, the
greatest Stoic teacher of the age, whose influence
was the dominant one in his career. 2 He was of
1
1 It in
noteworthy, afl Lagran^o, p. 201, obwTvtw, that
**
MontamtH, who BOOH after the time of Kipiotetuti threatened
Christianity with tho invuHi'on of imdtHoipliued Bpiritnal
graces," wan alnc ft Phrygian.
a
Wo many passages in Kpietetiw can be paralleled ckmely
from tho remaining fragincniH of RufuH (an Kpictc*UiH alwayn
calln him) that thorc can b<^ no tlouht but t.he HVHt(4ni cf
thought in tho pupil is little more than an echo, with
changes of emphamH <lue to tho pernonal equation, of that of
tho master.
page 19, segment 1/2
INTRODUCTION
feeble health., and lame, the latter probably because
of the brutality of a master in his early years ; 1
1
This is generally doubted nowadays, especially since
Bentley's emphatic pronouncement (cf. Trans. Am. Philol.
1921, 53, 42) in favour of the account in Suidas,
to the effect that his lameness was the result of rheumatism.
Qeteris paribus one would, of course, accept as probable the
less sensational story.
But it requires unusual powers of
credulity to believe Suidas against any authority whomsoever, and in this case the other authorities are several,
In the first place Celsus (in Origen,
early, and excellent.
conira Celsum, Vfl, 53), who was probably a younger
contemporary of Kpictotus and had every occasion to be
well informed; further, Origon (I.e.), who clearly accepted
and believed the story, since his very answer to the
argument admits the authenticity of the account, while
tho easiest or most convincing retort would have been to
then Gregory of Nusdanxus and his brother
deny it
CaosuriuH (in a number of places, sec the testimonial, in
Schenkl 2 pp. viii-ix of course the absurdities in PseudoNonnuR, CJoHiuas of Jerusalem, Klias of Crete, et id genus
Now the fact that such
wn-ne, have no bearing cither way).
men an Origon and Gregory accepted and propagated the
account (even though Kpietetus, and in this particular
instance especially, bad boon exploited as a pagan saint, the
equal or tho superior of even Jesus himself) is sufficient to
show tliat tho bent- in Formed Christians of the third and
fourth centuries know of no otlier record. To my feeling
it is dintinctly probabh^ that tho denial of the incident
may havo cmatuitod from some ovor-xcnlous Christian, in
a period of Iww H<irupulonH apologetics, W)KV thought to take
down the Pagans a
page 19, segment 2/2
notch or two, The very brief statement
;
,
in HimplioiuH,
;
"that ho was lame from an early period of
his lift}*' ((JoWHL Oil tkrt ftinc.heiridioii) 102l> HeiiiH,), catahlishcs
nothing and would agree perfectly with either story. Tho
connection in which the wordn occur would make any
explanatory digression unnatural, and, whereas similar
conctHoneMH in Plutarch might perhaps argue ignorance of
further details, auch an inference would be false for
HimpllcuiH, the dullneHB of whose commentary is so porttmtou that it cannot be explained as merely the unavoidable
ix
page 20
INTRODUCTION
he took a wife
long unmarried, until in his old age
to help him bring up a little child whose parents,
1 so
simple
friends of his, were about to expose it
locked
never
he
that in Rome
of
in his
;
style
living,
the doors of a habitation, whose only furniture was
said to be a pallet and a rush mat, and in Nicopolis
contented himself with
(in Epirus, opposite Actium)
an earthenware lamp after the theft of his iron one.
of his career it should
Of the external
aspects
be noted that he had a recognized position as a
banished all such
philosopher when Domitian
in A. P. 89 or 92);
persons from Rome (presumably
that he settled in Nicopolis, where he conducted
what seems to have been a fairly large and wella
regarded school that he travelled little, probably
2
In
to Olympia, and certainly once to Athens.
;
1
He had been stung, no doubt, by the bitter and
in
Demonax, who, on hearing Epictetus'
exhortation to marry, had sarcastically asked the hand of
his case unfair gibe of
one of his daughters (Lucian, Demon. 55).
2
Lucian, Demon. 55 would not be
Philostratus, JSpist. 69
inconsistent with the idea of such a visit, but does not
;
necessarily presuppose
it.
concomitant of vast scholarship and erudition, but niunt
have required a deliberate effort directed to the suppression
of the elements of human interest.
Epictetus' own allusions
to his lameness are non-committal, but of course ho would
have been the last person to boast about such things. And
.w
general 1
...
.
.
anlustionH
very numerous as compared with the physical
which come iu the course of nature, that it is altogether
reasonable to think of his imagination having been profoundly
affected during his impressionable years by a personal
experience of this very sort.
x
page 21
INTRODUCTION
this
connection it should also be observed that his
literary education was not extensive
general
Homer, of
course., a
little
Plato
and Xenophon,
principally for their testimony about Socrates, a few
stock references to tragedy, and the professional's
acquaintance with the philosophy of the later schools.,
and
It can scarcely be
this is practically all.
doubted, as Schenkl observes (p. xci), that this
literary apparatus comes almost entirely from the
extensive collections of Chrysippus.
And the same
of
his
aesthetic
culture.
He seems to
be
said
may
have seen and been impressed by the gold-andivory statues of Zeus and Athena, at Olympia and
Athens respectively, but he set no very high value
upon the work of artists, for he allowed himself
once the almost blasphemous characterization of the
"
Acropolis and its incomparable marbles as
pretty
bits of stone and a pretty rock."
Epictetus was
merely moralist and teacher, but yet of such transcendent attainments as such that it seems almost
impertinent to expect anything more of him.
The dates of his birth and of his death cannot
be determined with any accuracy. The burning
of the Capitol in A.n. 69 was yet a vivid memory
while he was still a pupil of Musonius ; * he enjoyed
the personal acquaintance of Hadrian, but not of
Marcus Aurelius, for all the latter 's admiration of
him and he speaks freely of himself as an old
man, and is characterized as such by Lucian (Adv.
;
1
The Capitol was burned in 69 and aga,in in A.E>. 80, but
the reference to the event (I. 7, 32) as a crime suggests that
the earlier date should be understood, since the burning
then was due to revolution, while that in A.D. 80 was
accidental.
page 22, segment 1/2
INTRODUCTION
accordingly his life must have covered
ca. A.D. 50-120, with which
the
period
roughly
limits the rare and rather vague references to
contemporary events agree. He was,, accordingly,
an almost exact contemporary of Plutarch and
Indoctum, 13)
;
Tacitus.
Like Socrates and others whom he admired, he
1
wrote nothing for publication, and but little
of him had not a
survived
have
would
memory
faithful pupil, successful as historian and adminisa discourse
trator, Fla.yju^ATrKm, recorded many
and informal conversation. These are saved to us
four books of Atarpi^at, or Discourses* out of
the original eight, and in a very brief compendium,
3 a Manual
or Handbook, in which,
the
in
'Eyx^pt'&or,
for his own
Although he must have written much
his argumentation by dialectic,
purposes in elaborating
since he lauds Socrates for such a practice and speaks of
1
itas usualfor a "philosopher." Besides, in his own discourses
he is always looking for. an interlocutor, whom he often
finds in the person of pupil and visitor, but, failing these,
he carries on both sides of the debate himself. Of. Colardeau,
294 f.
p.
Some, especially Schenkl, have believed in the existence
of other collections, and it was long thought that Arrian
had composed a special biography. But the evidence for
the other works seems to be based entirely upon those
variations in title and form of reference which ancient
2
citation freely allowed, and it is improbable
that there ever existed any but the works just mentioned.
See the special study by R. Asmus, whose conclusions have
been accepted by Zeller, 767, n., and many others.
3
This has occasionally been translated by Pugio, or
with, a halfDagger, in early modern editions, possibly
conscious memory of Hebrews iv. 12 For the word of &od
is quick
page 22, segment 2/2
and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged &word,
soul and spirit, and
piercing even to the dividing asunder of
the thoughts
of the joints and marrow\ and is a discerner of
methods of
:
XII
page 23
INTRODUCTION
of a general public which could not
take time to read the larger ones., the elements
for the sake
of his doctrine were somewhat mechanically put
together out of verbatim, or practically verbatim,,
extracts from the Discourses.
That Arrian's report
is a stenographic 1 record of the
ipsissima verba of
the master there can be no doubt.
His own
compositions are in Attic, while these works are
in the Koine, and there are such marked differences
in style, especially in the use of several of the
prepositions, as Miicke has pointed out, that one
is clearly dealing with another personality.
Add
to that the utter difference in spirit and tempo,
and Arrian's inability when writing propria persona
to characterize sharply a personality, while the
conversations of Epictetus are nothing if not vivid.
We have, accordingly, in Arrian's Discourses a
work which, if my knowledge does not fail me,
is really unique in literature, the actual words of
an extraordinarily gifted teacher upon scores, not
to say hundreds, of occasions in his own class-room,
conversing with visitors, reproving, exhorting,
encouraging his pupils, enlivening the dullness of
the formal instruction, and, pn his own parable,
shooting it through with tKe red stripe of a
conscious moral purpose in preparation for the
1
Hartmann, p. 252 ff., has settled this point.
Biit despite the not inappropriate
aiid intents of the heart.
character of such a designation, and the fact that Simplicius
himself (preface to his commentary) misunderstood the
application, there can be no doubt but the word /tySA/ov
is to be supplied and that the correct meaning is Handbook
or Compendium ;
of.
Colardeau's discussion, p. 25.