A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the EncheiridionEpictetus
Philosophy
A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion
Epictetus
Philosophy -- Early works to 1800
Some writers assume that Epictetus was manumitted by his master, but I
can find no evidence for this statement. Epaphroditus accompanied Nero
when he fled from Rome before his enemies, and he aided the miserable
tyrant in killing himself. Domitian (Sueton., Domit. 14), afterwards
put Epaphroditus to death for this service to Nero. We may conclude
that Epictetus in some way obtained his freedom, and that he began to
teach at Rome; but after the expulsion of the philosophers from Rome by
Domitian, A.D. 89, he retired to Nicopolis in Epirus, a city built by
Augustus to commemorate the victory at Actium. Epictetus opened a
school or lecture room at Nicopolis, where he taught till he was an old
man. The time of his death is unknown. Epictetus was never married, as
we learn from Lucian (Demonax, c. 55, torn, ii., ed. Hemsterh., p.
393). When Epictetus was finding fault with Demonax, and advising him
to take a wife and beget children, for this also, as Epictetus said,
was a philosopher’s duty, to leave in place of himself another in the
universe, Demonax refuted the doctrine by answering: Give me then,
Epictetus, one of your own daughters. Simplicius says (Comment., c. 46,
p. 432, ed. Schweigh.) that Epictetus lived alone a long time. At last
he took a woman into his house as a nurse for a child, which one of
Epictetus’ friends was going to expose on account of his poverty, but
Epictetus took the child and brought it up.
Epictetus wrote nothing; and all that we have under his name was
written
Photius (Biblioth., 58) mentions among Arrian’s works “Conversations
with Epictetus,” [Greek: Homiliai Epichtaeton], in twelve books. Upton
thinks that this work is only another name for the Discourses, and that
Photius has made the mistake of taking the Conversations to be a
different work from the Discourses. Yet Photius has enumerated eight
books of the Discourses and twelve books of the Conversations.
Schweighaeuser observes that Photius had not seen these works of Arrian
on Epictetus, for so he concludes from the brief notice of these works
by Photius. The fact is that Photius does not say that he had read
these books, as he generally does when he is speaking of the books
which he enumerates in his Bibliotheca. The conclusion is that we are
not certain that there was a work of Arrian entitled “The Conversations
of Epictetus.”
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