Epictetus
Epictetus
Mid first to second centuries c.e.
Slave, stoic philosopher
Practical Philosopher. Epictetus was born in Phrygia in the middle of the first century c.e. and taken to Rome, where he was sold as a slave. He was later freed and studied philosophy under Gaius Musonius Rufus the Stoic. When the emperor Domitian banished philosophers from the city in 89 c.e., Epictetus went across the Adriatic Sea to Nicopolis on the west coast of Greece and established his school there. His disciple Arrian published his teachings, contained in the Discourses and the shorter Manual. Epictetus was very much a practical philosopher. He argued that philosophy must be applied in daily lives, not undertaken as an abstract study only. The moral choices one makes, how one comes to terms with those things that are not in their power, how one forms their character, these were the issues that most concerned Epictetus. On these points Epictetus looked back to Panaetius as his model. In many ways the Stoicism of Epictetus was highly compatible with the tenets of early Christianity, and had considerable effect on the future emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Sources
Jonathan Barnes, Logic and the Imperial Stoa (Leiden & New York: E. J. Brill, 1997).
Adolf Friedrich Bonhöffer, The Ethics of the Stoic Epictetus: An English Translation, translated by William O. Stephens (New York: Lang, 1996).
Lason Xenakis, Epictetus: Philosopher-Therapist (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969).