2. Euphrates, a Stoic philosopher, and contemporary of Epictetus. He was tutor of Pliny, the younger. 3. The pentathlos contended in five athletic exercises—viz., running, leaping, throwing the quoit, throwing the javelin, wrestling. 4. Much of this must refer to the period of probation or discipleship, for Epictetus is clear that the ordinary Stoic (who had not embraced the special mission of Cynicism) was not required to forsake his family, or his affairs, or his duties as a citizen, nor even justified in doing so. BOOK III. CHAPTER II. 1. The husk is, of course, the body. If it is maintained that Nature has made the ease of this our only proper pursuit, of course the altruistic, or social instincts have to be rejected and denied. 2. The text is here almost certainly corrupt. It runs πῶς οὖν ὑπονοητικοί ἐσμεν, οἷς μὴ φυσική ἐστι πρὸς τὰ ἔκγονα φιλοστοργία. All the MSS. agree in ὑπονοητικοί, for which Schweighäuser desires to read προνοητικοί, and Wolf, ἔτι κοινωνικοί. Salmasius declares emphatically for πῶς οὖν ἐπινοεῖς ὅτι κοινωνικοί ἐσμεν, and this, with a slight alteration suggested to me by an eminent living scholar, is the reading I have adopted: Let us suppose that Epictetus said πῶς οὖν ὑπονοεῖς ὅτι κ.ε., and that this was written in the short lines common in Greek MSS.:— ΠΩΣΟΥΝΥΠΟ ΝΟΕΙΣΟΤΙΚΟΙ ΝΩΝΙΚΟΙ The second line, beginning with the same letter as the third, might easily be dropped by a transcriber, and the next transcriber would certainly change the resulting ὑπονωνικοί to ὑπονοητικοί. The existing reading might give the sense, “How are we, then, suspicious of those (if any there be) to whom Nature has given no affection for their offspring?” 3. Outward things—such as making provision for one’s family, serving the State, etc.,—actions which are not directly concerned with our spiritual good. CHAPTER III. 1. Phrygia, the birthplace of Epictetus, was one of the great centers of the wild and fearful cult of Cybele, whose priests gashed and mutilated themselves in the excitement of the orgie. 2. Philosophy is brought upon the scene, speaking first through the mouth of a Stoic, afterwards through that of an Epicurean, and the practical results of each system are exhibited. 3. The Athenians, rather than submit to Xerxes, abandoned their city to be plundered, and took to their fleet, the victory at Salamis rewarding their resolve. Those who died at Thermopylæ were the three hundred Spartans under Leonidas, who held the pass against the Persian host till all were slain. Often as their heroism has been celebrated, perhaps nothing more worthy of their valor has been written than the truly laconic epitaph composed for them by Simonides: “Stranger, the Spartans bade us die: Go, tell them, thou, that here we lie.” CHAPTER IV.