Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus
Eteocles. See Polyneices.
Euphrates of Tyre, died c.120 AD. Stoic philosopher; like Epictetus, a former student of Musonius Rufus. He was known for his powers of oratory.
Eurystheus. In Greek mythology Eurystheus was king of Tiryns in the Peloponnese. Partly out of fear for Heracles’ strength he devised and imposed on him the twelve famous labours.
Favorinus, fl. late first–early second centuries AD. Academic philosopher and contemporary of Epictetus.
Gratilla. Wife of a Roman senator exiled by Domitian; also mentioned in III.11 of Pliny the Younger’s Letters.
Gyara (or Gyaros). A barren island in the Aegean that served as a place of exile during the early Principate.
Hector. In Homer’s Iliad a prince of Troy and the chief Trojan warrior.
Helvidius Priscus. Roman senator and Stoic, son-in-law of Thrasea Paetus, executed by the emperor Vespasian in 75 AD for challenging the power of the Principate.
Heracles. Most famous of the Greek heroes of legend; completed twelve labours at the behest of King Eurystheus; adopted by the Cynics and Stoics as a model of manly virtue.
Heraclitus, fl. c.500–480 BC. Major Presocratic philosopher, acknowledged to be a major influence on the Stoics, with whom he shared a belief in the periodicity of time and other doctrines.
Lateranus. Platius Lateranus, Roman senator and consul designate in 65 AD, member of the Pisonian conspiracy to replace the emperor Nero; condemned with the rest and executed.
Meletus. One of the Athenians who in 399 BC brought charges against Socrates leading to his execution.
Milo. Name of a famous ancient Greek athlete.
Musonius Rufus. Stoic philosopher, and Epictetus’ teacher at Rome.
Nero. Emperor of Rome (54–68 AD), the very type of the ‘tyrant.’ Epictetus resided at his court when he was slave to Epaphroditus in Rome.
Panthoides, fl. early third century BC. Member of the Dialectical school, a contributor to the debate on the Master Argument.
Paris. In Greek mythology Paris was a prince of Troy. Tradition has it that he ran off with Helen, wife of his then host, Menelaus, the king of Sparta. As Homer relates it in the Iliad, this blatant breach of hospitality precipitated the Trojan War.
Patroclus. In Homer’s Iliad Patroclus is a Greek warrior close to Achilles; when he dies at Hector’s hands Achilles indulges in a dramatic and protracted bout of grief.
Peripatetic School and Peripatetics. Name given to the school founded in Athens by Aristotle in the fourth century BC, and its adherents.
Phidias, fifth century BC. Greek sculptor, best known for his gold-and-ivory statues of Zeus at Olympia, and of Athena in the Parthenon at Athens.
Philip II. King of Macedon (359–336 bc) and father of Alexander the Great.
Plato of Athens, 427–347 BC. Student of Socrates, founder of the Academy, author of the Apology, Gorgias and other dialogues that are frequently quoted in the Discourses with approval. In Epictetus’ day, the Academy had become, along with Pyrrhonism, one of the two main Sceptical schools of philosophy.
Polyneices and Eteocles. In Greek mythology, brothers who fight each other for control of Thebes after their father, Oedipus, went into self-exile.
Posidonius of Apamea, c.135–c.50 BC. Major Stoic philosopher, noted for his scientific researches and historical writings.
Pyrrho of Elis, c.365–270 BC. Semi-legendary founder of the Sceptical movement in philosophy, figurehead of the revived Pyrrhonism (so-called) of Epictetus’ day.
Pythia (or Pythian priestess). The mouthpiece of Apollo’s oracles delivered in Delphi.
Rufus. See Musonius Rufus.
Saturnalia. Major Roman holiday, lasting five days, marked by inversion rituals such as releasing slaves from their duties and allowing them certain privileges usually reserved to their masters.
Sceptics. Generic title for the Academics and Pyrrhonists, philosophers committed to the doctrine, contra the Stoics, that nothing can be known with absolute certainty.
Socrates, 470–399 BC. Philosopher and dialectician. Native of Athens. Served honourably in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. Convicted on politically motivated charges of impiety and corrupting the youth and executed. Plato’s Apology purports to transmit his defence speech at the trial. Socrates continues as main speaker in most of Plato’s dialogues.
Syrians. Generic name for the non-Jewish Semitic peoples of the Near East.
Thermopylae. Narrow pass in Greece, site of a desperate stand made by the Spartans in 480 BC against a far larger invading troop from Persia.
Thersites. In Greek mythology Thersites was a low-ranking soldier in the Greek army during the Trojan War. He is described as ugly inside and out: bow-legged, hunched, bald – also vulgar and rude to his superior officers.
Thrasea Paetus. Roman senator and Stoic, father-in-law of Helvidius Priscus; committed suicide in 66 AD after being implicated in the Pisonian conspiracy against Nero.
Trajan. Emperor of Rome (98–117 AD), the pattern of the ‘good emperor’, as Nero represented the typical tyrant for Epictetus and his generation.
Vespasian. Emperor of Rome (69–79 AD), restored order and dignity to the imperial office after Nero’s disastrous reign, but still had to contend with republican sentiment among certain senators, including the Stoic Helvidius Priscus, who was put to death by the emperor in 75 AD.
Xanthippe. Wife of Socrates, a proverbial nag.
Xenophon of Athens, c.430–c.355 BC. Follower of Socrates, author of the Memorabilia, considered inferior only to Plato’s dialogues as a primary source for our knowledge of Socrates’ life and teachings.
Zeno of Citium (Cyprus), 334–262 BC. Founder of the Stoa at Athens, c.300 BC.
Zephyrus (Zephyr). In Greek mythology, name of the west wind.
Notes
THE DISCOURSES
BOOK 1
1. when Epaphroditus… to your master: The meaning of the anecdote in §20 is obscure.
2. I would sooner be killed… tomorrow: Thrasea was a Roman senator with Republican sympathies. He literally regarded exile as a fate worse than death; ‘tomorrow’ stands for any date in the future.
3. the purple stripe: A toga with a purple stripe was the uniform of a Roman senator.
4. five denarii: A sum that might buy a modestly priced book.
5. Dear Crito… so be it: A quotation of Socrates from Plato’s Crito 43d. It is cited again at I 29, 18; IV 4, 21; and Enchiridion 53, 3. ‘Prison’ and ‘hemlock’ allude to the circumstances of Socrates’ death.
6. A benefactor… has shown us the way: The reference is to Chrysippus.
7. Triptolemus: In Greek mythology, Triptolemus was inventor of the plough and the first person to sow grain.
8. Against the Sceptics: The Sceptics maintained that nothing could be known for certain. In Epictetus’ day, Sceptics were represented by two schools: the Academics and the Pyrrhonists. This essay seems directed not only against these philosophers but against the common human frailty of ‘a foolish consistency’.
9. two kinds of petrifaction: Actually, three forms of petrifaction are described in this section. Two generic forms of petrifaction, that of the body, and that of the soul, are recognized. Then within the soul two species of petrifaction are distinguished, of the intellect, and of the sense of honour.
10. add and subtract impressions… related: Epictetus alludes first to the formation of such concepts as a pygmy (by picking a concept formed by a sense impression – e.g. a man – then ‘subtracting’), or a giant (by ‘adding’), or a centaur (by ‘combining’), or a painting of a man (by analogy, i.e. by ‘passing from certain things to others in some way connected’). Compare I 14, 7-8.
11. If not, it’s left to us… on their own: Epictetus indirectly opposes the Epicurean explanation of nature as the product of ‘accident and chance’.
12. God needed animals… their use: Epictetus means that the beasts use their impressions, and so do we; but what distinguishes us
13. You eagerly travel… sight: The colossal gold-and-ivory statue of Zeus inside his temple at Olympia was designed by Phidias in the fifth century BC; it was numbered among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
14. So what should I do… premises: This paragraph alludes to the subject of changing arguments, mentioned above in §1. In Stoicism changing arguments contain a temporal component and involve the element of ‘truth-at-a-time’. Sextus Empiricus (Outlines of Pyrrhonism II 229) gives an example: ‘It is not the case both that I have already presented you with a proposition and that it is not the case that the stars are even in number. But I have presented you with a proposition. Therefore the number of the stars is even.’ The truth-value of the first premise – ‘I have already presented you with a proposition’ – changes in the course of the argument, indeed during the time the premise itself is propounded; or, as Epictetus puts it (§20), ‘in the very process of questioning, answering, [or] drawing conclusions’. The argument as a whole is fallacious, insofar as it leads to the conclusion that the stars are not even in number when the argument begins, but odd by the time the argument ends. Moreover, it is fallacious on purpose – a sophism of the kind Epictetus says ‘cause[s] the untutored to become confused when confronted with the conclusions’ – since the number of the stars was the standard example of something that could not be certainly decided one way or another. The first premise, however, does change its truth-value in the course of being articulated, if we conceive of the argument literally as a sequence of words, articulated aloud, in real time, in a prearranged order.
15. I will make you accept… impossible: On hypothetical arguments in general cf. I 25, 11-12; for an example of an ‘impossible’ proposition in Stoic logic, cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Aristotle’s Prior Analytics 177. 27-30: ‘Chrysippus… says that in the conditional “If John is dead, this one is dead,” which is true when John is being demonstratively referred to, the antecedent “John is dead” is possible, since it can one day become true that John is dead; but “This one is dead” is impossible. For when John has died the proposition “This one is dead” is destroyed, the object of the demonstrative reference no longer existing.’
16. But wasn’t Plato a philosopher?: The objection is based on the stylistic elegance of Plato’s dialogues.
17. if I were a philosopher… lame as well?: Epictetus was lame – and of course a philosopher also, but he modestly disclaims this title.
18. Can Jews… for example?: The Jews were well known for their elaborate dietary laws, and peculiarities of diet are duly noted by ancient authors in the case of the Syrians and Egyptians as well; like the Jews, for instance, Egyptian priests were forbidden to eat pork. The line of questioning in this passage assumes that the races are not just different in this respect, but actually either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, the reason being that the basis of their dietary laws was assumed to be religious (cf. I 22, 4); and the Stoics had very definite views about the gods, as the next discourse (I 12) shows, and confidence that they were right (and other schools of philosophy wrong).
19. On the subject of the gods… God’s notice: These five groups can be roughly identified. The atheists of the first group include Diagoras of Melos and Critias of Athens. The second group, those who say ‘that God exists… and does not pay attention to anything’, are the Epicureans. The third group represents Aristotle and his followers. The view that God looks after the greater good, and ‘doesn’t sweat the details’ (as a contemporary expression has it) is widely attested, even for some Stoics. The fifth group presents the orthodox Stoic view; it was also attributed to Socrates. The quotation, ‘I cannot make a move…’ is from the Iliad 10. 279-280, where Odysseus addresses his patron deity, Athena.
20. follow the gods: A Stoic and Platonic motto.
21. He arranged for there to be… family and friends: The form of theodicy outlined here, which seeks to show that good cannot exist without evil, was argued by Chrysippus: ‘Nothing is more foolish than to maintain that there could have been goods without the coexistence of evils. For since goods are opposite to evils, the two must necessarily exist in opposition to each other, supported by a kind of opposed interdependence. And there is no such quality without its matching opposite. For how could there be perception of justice if there were no injustice? What else is justice, if not the removal of injustice?… Goods and evils, fortune and misfortune, pain and pleasure, are tied to each other in polar opposition’ (Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights VII 1,1). The idea of ‘opposed interdependence’ is similar to what Epictetus calls ‘the harmony of the whole’. The last clause – ‘and he gave us each a body… and associates’ – anticipates another defence of Stoic providence found below (§18), and elsewhere (e.g. I 1, 8–9) motivated by the problems entailed in having a body, and living in a community, with people not all of whom, unfortunately, were Stoics.
22. Conversely, Socrates… chose to be there: In Plato’s Phaedo (98e–99b), Socrates is shown making light of his imprisonment, and in the Crito he gives reasons for declining a hypothetical offer of escape.
23. the small shadow that the earth casts: This is what astronomers call the ‘umbra’ and what the rest of us call ‘night’, i.e. the darkness that covers a hemisphere of the earth at any one time.
24. Who says so?… I mean?: In other words, it was not just Stoics (like Chrysippus, Zeno and Cleanthes), other notable philosophers also gave priority to the definition of terms – and (according to the Stoics), definition of terms was part of logic. Antisthenes was a Cynic philosopher; the position ascribed to him here is supported by Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers VI 17. Socrates’ interest in definition motivates many of the dialogues of Plato in which he participates. The reference to Xenophon is apparently to his Memorabilia I 1, 16.
25. we always err unwillingly: The famous Socratic ‘paradox’, which the Stoics bravely defended. Here ‘unwillingly’ means ‘unwittingly’, i.e. because we do not know better.
26. what if he’s drunk?… Or dreaming?: ‘Really delusive impressions may come in sleep, or under the influence of wine, or insanity’ (Cicero, Academica II 51).
27. the Altar of Fever at Rome: Fever, or Febris in Latin, actually had three temples in Rome, the principal one on the Palatine. The cult was apotropaic, i.e. people prayed and sacrificed to it to keep it at bay.
28. The sun moves across the sky for its own ends: Stoics, in a departure from traditional Greek religion, held that the sun, the moon and the stars were full-fledged divinities; these celestial objects led a nomadic life in search of sustenance from the rivers, lakes and oceans below, explaining (the Stoics believed) their steady motion across the sky.
29. appropriation: This is one of several possible translations for the Greek word oikeiosis, a key concept of Stoic ethics. The principle of ‘appropriation’ views animal and human development in terms of a creature’s growing self-awareness of its own mental and physical faculties. The egoism or ‘selfishness’ that Epictetus describes and defends in this section he ties to ‘appropriation’ by way of the correlative view that, as a creature comes to appreciate its natural gifts, it wants nothing more than to protect and develop them to their fullest extent. Here Epictetus argues that in the case of man and the gods reason brings with it the realization that self-interest and altruism are compatible.
30. Felicio: A common name for a slave or (as here) a freedman.
31. priesthood of Augustus: Augustus, the first Roman emperor, received divine honours in his lifetime and continued to have his own cult in Rome and elsewhere after his death. As Nicopolis had been founded by Augustus himself after his victory over Antony, his cult was especially prominent in Epictetus’ hometown, and the priesthood of Augustus was an important public office. The priest had to lay out his own money to perform the essential functions of sacrifice, etc.
32. once he has identi
33. we who supposedly… our children?: Epicurus (341-271 bc) maintained that pleasure, especially bodily pleasure, was humanity’s chief good and denied that there was any natural affection between parents and children.
34. Mouse: (Mus in Greek), the pet name of one of Epicurus’ household slaves, liberated by the terms of his will (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers X 10 and 21).
35. exposed: A euphemism for the ancient practice of infanticide.
36. Diogenes: This is Diogenes the Cynic.
37. I’ll wear the ordinary toga now: The broad hem distinguished the senator’s toga, the narrow hem was reserved to the class of knights (equites) at Rome, and the unadorned toga was what the common person (or pleb) wore, so that this sequence of commands outlines a gradual loss in rank.
38. ‘Deck the palace halls… receive me’: The first citation is from a choral ode of an unknown play; the second is line 1390 of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King.
39. The chief thing… the door is open: Cf. I 25, 18.
40. At the Saturnalia… convention: Play-acting, including the naming of a mock king to preside over the festivities, was a defining feature of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia.
41. The way we handle… behaviour: Cf. I 29, 39-41.
42. there is another who won’t let me: Cf. I 30, 1.
43. Gyara: (Or Gyaros), a barren island in the Aegean Sea that during the early Principate served as a place of penal exile.
44. the Pyrrhonists and the Academics: Cf. I 5; the Pyrrhonists and Academics of Epictetus’ day were Sceptic philosophers who argued that it was impossible for anything to be known with absolute certainty.
45. I will go… to gain it: A paraphrase of Homer, Iliad 12. 322-8.
46. convention: ‘Convention’ (sunetheia) in this context means normal (complacent) reliance on the senses as a guide to everyday behaviour.