The ancient Greek Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, was born into slavery, but his study of Stoicism made him a free man who became an influential Stoic whose ideas resonate today.
Epictetus was born c. 50 CE at Hierapolis, in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). His name, in Greek, means the “Acquired One.”
He spent his youth in Rome as a slave to Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman and secretary to Emperor Nero. In 68, Epaphroditus assisted Nero in committing suicide since Nero could not bear to stab himself. While dying, the conceited emperor lamented, Qualis artifex pereo (“What an artist dies in me!”).
Epictetus found love for philosophy and even though he was a slave he managed to study under the charismatic Roman Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus.
Around this time, he developed a disability, which may have been caused by rheumatoid arthritis, although the Christian theologian Origen claims that it was his master who injured him.
According to the story, one day, Epaphroditus lost his temper and grabbed Epictetus by the leg. He twisted it so forcefully that Epictetus warned him that it would break. When it snapped, the ancient Greek Stoic did not wince or cry but calmly said, “Did I not tell you that it would break?”
Upon receiving his freedom, Epictetus began lecturing on his account but was forced to leave Rome in 89 when Emperor Domitian issued an edict banning philosophers from the Italian peninsula.
He then moved to Nicopolis, an important commercial hub and administrative center in Epirus, on the Adriatic coast of northwest Greece. He established his school there and lectured for the remainder of his life until his death around 135.
Like many early philosophers, as far as can be determined, Epictetus wrote nothing down, unless nothing of his writings remain. The philosophy attributed to him is documented
in the notes taken by his pupil Arrian, the philosopher and historian who wrote The Anabasis of Alexander.
Epictetus was an exponent of Stoicism, one of the most popular philosophical systems in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. It was founded by Zeno of Citium about 300 BCE and named after the Porch or Arcade (Stoa) in which Zeno taught.
Epictetus is one of the three major late Stoics along with Roman statesman Seneca (c. 5 CE–65 CE), Epictetus, and Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE).
Stoics and logos
Stoic ethics define virtue as living following logos. Epictetus asserted that humans are free to choose in all circumstances, albeit within the constraints imposed by the functioning of the logos. In Greek, logos means ‘word’ or ‘speech,’ but it also means one’s ability to convey a much greater range of meaning, including ‘to convey thought’ and ‘to reason.” It is an eternal force that moved through all things and all people, which created and guided the universe’s operation and which had always existed.
It is intrinsically connected with logic and physics in that only a clear grasp of reality allows a person to be virtuous. Evil is defined negatively as not living per logos, a kind of ignorance.
Along with logos, the ancient Greek Stoic stresses the importance of gnome (γνώμη), one’s capacity to judge circumstances and form a concise opinion. Logos and gnome separate humans from the animals. Epictetus says that the capacity for judgment is unique to human beings and, alongside reason (logos), is proof of God (Zeus) dwelling within us.
For Epictetus, philosophy was not just a theoretical discipline but a way of life. According to the ancient Greek Stoic, all external events are determined by fate and, thus, beyond our control. However, while we cannot control external events, we can accept what happens to us calmly and dispassionately, and, more importantly, we can control how we respond to these events. For Epictetus, we should only emotionally respond to what we can control. Good and evil are exclusively involved in things under our control, not external events. The events themselves are neither good nor evil, but our view of events defines them as good or evil.
Philosophy of the best life possible
Epictetus’ philosophy focused on a person’s responsibility to live the best life possible. Like other Stoics, he made a distinction between pleasure and happiness. For the ancient Greek Stoic, happiness arises from freedom from passion and disturbance and the sense that one’s affairs are in order.
Along with all other philosophers of the Hellenistic period, he saw moral philosophy as having the practical purpose of guiding people towards leading better lives. The aim was to live well and secure eudaimonia (happiness or a flourishing life) for oneself. He claimed suffering arises from attempting to control what is beyond our control or by failing to manage or put order on that which is within our power to do so.
For Epictetus, the chief source of our misery comes not from circumstances but from our judgments about our circumstances. Most of our problems, save the question about what lies in our control, are self-created. Epictetus presents this idea clearly: Our psychological faculties present the potential for success and failure.
The ancient Greek Stoic often calls the will the most essential faculty, and even the very thing that makes us human—“for you are not flesh or hair, but you are will”. The will is the faculty whose central component is to choose for us.
At the core of Epictetus’s Stoicism lies the power and responsibility of personal choice and free will, all while recognizing that many aspects of life remain beyond individual control.
Epictetus quotes
Several of the ancient Greek Stoic’s quotes are popular today for his insights in human psychology.
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”
“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”
“To accuse others for one’s own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.”
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
“Attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do. Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.”
“What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.”
“The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.”
“It is our attitude toward events, not the events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous—even death is terrible only if we fear it.”
“Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men’s desires, but by the removal of desire.”
“Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.”
“Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.”
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