Epictetus

Epictetus was born a slave around 50 CE in Hierapolis, in Phrygia (modern Turkey), and grew up in Rome as the property of Epaphroditus, a freedman and secretary to the emperor Nero. His master allowed him to study with the Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus. After being freed, he taught philosophy in Rome until the emperor Domitian expelled all philosophers around 93 CE. He then founded a school at Nicopolis in Epirus, on the western coast of Greece, where he taught for the rest of his long life. He lived simply — the story goes that his only possessions were a straw mat, a rush mat, and an iron lamp; when the lamp was stolen, he bought a clay one, remarking that the thief had paid more for it than he had.

He wrote nothing. His student Arrian of Nicomedia — later a Roman consul and historian of Alexander — wrote down his lectures as the Discourses (four of an original eight books survive) and compiled a short digest, the Enchiridion (“Handbook”).

What is up to us

The Handbook begins with the sentence that sums up his philosophy:

Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.

The things within our power are “by nature free, unhindered, unimpeded”; the things outside it are “weak, slavish, hindered, not our own”. If you treat what is not your own as your own, “you will be hindered, you will grieve, you will be disturbed, you will blame both gods and men.”

Judgments

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the opinions about things. Death, for instance, is nothing terrible, or else it would have appeared so to Socrates; the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible. (Handbook 5)

This is the core of Stoic psychology, and the direct ancestor of cognitive behavioural therapy: change the judgment, and the emotion changes.

Prohairesis

Epictetus’s central concept is prohairesis — the faculty of choice or moral will. It is our true self, and nothing outside can compel it: “You may fetter my leg, but my will not even Zeus himself can overpower.” In a famous exchange (Discourses 1.1), he imagines a tyrant threatening him: “I will chain you.” — “My leg you will chain; my will not even Zeus can conquer.” — “I will throw you into prison.” — “My body.” — “I will behead you.” — “When did I tell you that mine was the only neck that cannot be cut off?”

Roles and the banquet

Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a kind as the author pleases to make it. If short, of a short one; if long, of a long one. If it is his pleasure you should act a poor man, a cripple, a governor, or a private person, see that you act it naturally. For this is your business, to act well the character assigned you; to choose it is another’s. (Handbook 17)

And on desire: life is like a banquet. When a dish comes round to you, take a moderate share; if it passes you, do not stretch out after it; if it has not yet come, do not send your desire ahead of it (Handbook 15).

On loss

Never say of anything, “I have lost it”; but, “I have returned it.” Is your child dead? It is returned. Is your wife dead? She is returned. (Handbook 11)

This is the hardest of his teachings, and the one critics find most inhuman. Epictetus means that nothing external is truly ours; we have it as a traveller has an inn.

Influence

Marcus Aurelius thanked his teacher Rusticus for lending him Epictetus’s discourses. The Handbook was adapted as a manual for Christian monks. Pascal discussed Epictetus as the philosopher who best understood human duty but exaggerated human power. Albert Ellis, founder of rational emotive behaviour therapy, cited him; James Stockdale, shot down over Vietnam in 1965, recalled as he parachuted down, “I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.” Tom Wolfe’s novel A Man in Full (1998) has a prisoner converted by the Discourses.

Using Epictetus in conversation

• On worry: is it up to you? If not, let it go.
• On anger and insult: it is not the insult but your judgment of it that harms you.
• On roles: play well the part you have been given.
• On freedom: no one can enslave your will.