Epictetus

About this figure

Epictetus (c. 50-135 AD) was born a slave in Hierapolis, in what is now Turkey, and belonged for years to Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman who served as secretary to the emperor Nero. At some point he gained his freedom and studied Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus in Rome. Around 93 AD the emperor Domitian banished all philosophers from the city, and Epictetus relocated to Nicopolis in Greece, where he ran a school until his death.

Like Socrates, whom he frequently invoked as a model, Epictetus wrote nothing himself. What survives is the record kept by his student Arrian, who later became a historian and Roman senator: the Discourses, an extensive set of notes on Epictetus's lectures and conversations with students, and the Enchiridion, a short handbook distilling the core of his teaching. Arrian says explicitly that he tried to preserve Epictetus's own words and manner of speaking rather than composing a polished treatise, which is why the Discourses read as spoken argument rather than formal philosophy - direct, repetitive, and often addressed to a named student sitting in front of him.

The center of that teaching is a distinction between what is "up to us" and what is not: our own judgments, choices, and reactions are within our control, while our body, possessions, reputation, and the actions of other people are not. Suffering, in this account, comes not from external events but from mistaking things that are not up to us for things that are, and demanding they go a certain way. A slave who had experienced the full force of other people's power over his body built a philosophy centered on the one thing that power could never touch: his own will. Because the Discourses are Arrian's transcription of oral teaching rather than a text Epictetus reviewed and approved, individual phrasing should be read as reported speech, even where the underlying argument is unmistakably his.

Written by Epoch Voices. Not the figure’s own words.