THE MANUEL OF EPICTETUS, AN INTRODUCTION

This is a translation of a short story on the stoic slave / philosopher Epictetus. It was originally written and published in Dutch. Please forgive me my clumsy English. The text is intended to be an introduction to a blog I’ll try to write the coming year. I intend to give you each week a translation of one of the chapters of Epictetus' 'Handbook'. Coincidentally, the 'Encheiridion', as this booklet is also called, consists of exactly 52 short chapters. I will provide my translation with a brief personal explanation. You should not expect too much. My grammar Greek is, to put it mildly, rusty and the translations nor the comments do have any scientific pretention. Still, I hope that my stories will be of some use and especially that you will enjoy them.

Let's start with the simple, but not unimportant question: who was Epictetus and what is his book about? We start this story immediately with a disappointment, about the life of our hero almost nothing is known and he did not write the 'Handbook' himself. Epictetus was a Stoic philosopher and teacher who lived at the end of the first century and the beginning of the second. Much more than some anecdotes are not known about this former slave, who became the best known stoic teacher of his time.

Epictetus was around the year 50 born in Hierapolis, South-West Turkey, as a son of a slave, and he died around the year 135 in Nicopolis, Greece. As the son of a slave, he automatically became a slave himself. As a toddler, he was taken to Rome by a slave trader and sold to Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus was a liberated slave who worked as the personal secretary of Emperor Nero. He noticed that the slave had talent and the young Epictetus received a thorough Roman education. Epaphroditus employed him as his secretary and advisor. Not a bad position for a young slave.

It is a fascinating, yet speculative, idea that Epictetus must have met another famous Stoic philosopher: the philosopher, jurist, politician, scientist, businessman and playwright Seneca. As secretary of the personal secretary of Nero, it is almost impossible for him not to have met the first minister and chief advisor of this emperor. Perhaps it was this friendly old man who was known to treat slaves as his equals, who made the young slave of Epaphroditus enthusiastic about Stoicism. Epictetus was even apprenticed to the then-renowned Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus.

Epictetus was lame and had to use a stick or crutches for walking. Epaphroditus, by way of punishment, would have twisted the leg of the disobedient Epictetus. Epictetus didn’t shrunk and said the leg would break if he were to twist it even further. When the angry Epaphroditus did indeed break the leg, Epictetus said nothing more than: I told you it would break. Somewhere else, however, it is told that he suffered from rheumatism and therefore had difficulty walking. The latter could also explain that no books of Epictetus himself are known. With hands cramped from rheumatism it was too difficult for him to write himself. But elsewhere is stated that he would have written a lot. Yet almost everything we know about his philosophy comes from the lecture notes of his pupil Flavius Arrian.

After the forced suicide of Nero, the former imperial secretary no longer needed a secretary and Epictetus was released. He had since become an avid Stoic and started his own stoic school in Rome. Such philosophy schools were the universities of Antiquity. In addition to a certain philosophical theory, all knowledge known at the time was taught at these schools. One of Nero's successors, Emperor Domitian, had a problem with Stoic philosophers. Stoics had a tendency to be quite critical and were not impressed by the imperial authority. In the year 89 all philosophical universities in Rome were banned and all philosophers had to leave the city. Epictetus moved to Nicopolis, the current Epirus in North-western Greece, and founded there a stoic school.

That school was a huge success and many Roman dignitaries sent their sons to Nicopolis to be educated by Epictetus. Epictetus’ school became even more popular than the Academy of Plato and the Lyceum of Aristotle in Athens. Emperor Hadrian, the foster father of the later Stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius, also attended a number of lectures by the now old Epictetus. Marcus Aurelius was in possession of the works of Epictetus. In his 'Meditations' there are even a number of quotations from further lost books attributed to Epictetus.

One of his pupils was the above-mentioned Flavius Arrian. Arrian became a high government official under Emperor Hadrian and also became known as a historian. The notes Arrian made during his lectures are the only texts that have been handed down to us from Epictetus. The so-called Digests (Diatribae in Greek) form the real lecture notes and the 'Handbook' (the Encheiridion in Greek) is an excerpt of the most important doctrines from those Digests. Although there are contemporaries of him who claim Epictetus has written a lot, nothing else was preserved. It is therefore very questionable whether he really wrote something himself. Some scholars believe that the Digests and the Handbook were written or dictated by Epictetus themselves and that Arrian had just published them. The truth of this remains completely unclear.

Epictetus died around the year 135 and has always remained unmarried. He seems to have advised his students to live as 'normal' as possible. They should make themselves useful to fellow human beings and simply marry and provide a successor. A former pupil, the cynical philosopher Demonax, heard this and asked Epictetus sarcastically if he could not marry one of his daughters. Evidently, Epictetus took this to his heart. In old age, he adopted the child of a deceased pupil and took a housekeeper to raise it with her.

These were pretty much all the legends and anecdotes that are known about Epictetus. Fortunately, his philosophical ideas have managed to stand the centuries. It immediately catches the eye that philosophy for Epictetus was more than theoretical knowledge alone, it was mainly a way of life. You did not learn Stoicism from books, but by living it. It was and is a real art of living. The doctrine was important, but became meaningless if you did not live to it.

"Show me that you have really learned something from the philosophers! No, I do not want you to repeat the comments on their work! Make sure you get away if that is all you can do! Find someone else to perform your tricks! If only theories fascinate you, then go and brood in a corner, but do not call yourself stoic. "(Epictetus, Colleges III-21).

Thus the philosophy of Epictetus had to be lived. That is why the Stoics thought it important to regularly remind themselves of their most important doctrines. By constantly thinking it over and repeating, these values could penetrate to their character. Epictetus texts are penetrating, he provokes, irritates and shocks. What he writes stays in your mind and that is exactly his intention. The handbook of Epictitus was more than just a summary of his lessons. Pupils of Stoicism should learn the short chapters of the booklet by heart so that they could immediately have a suitable quote at hand during difficult moments. He uses examples from the daily life of his students. Situations that were well known and that stuck easily in the mind.

So the 'Handbook' was actually teaching material. By constantly re-reading, the doctrines had to become part of the essence of the pupil. Studying the ‘Handbook’ was seen as a kind of spiritual exercise. An exercise which was intended to change and build your character. Epictetus was probably the most spiritually oriented Stoic. His life as a teacher and stoic philosopher seems to be dominated by a personal quest, a search for a kind of stoic enlightenment. He encouraged his pupils to independently look for that enlightenment. As a teacher, he tried to elevate people from the crowd and urge them to start their own spiritual search. A quest with which he manages to inspire people to this day.