# Epictetus

Epictetus (c. 50 – 135 CE) was born a slave in Hierapolis, in Phrygia, and
spent his youth in Rome in the household of Epaphroditus, a freedman of Nero.
He was lame, by one account because his master broke his leg. He was permitted
to attend the lectures of the Stoic Musonius Rufus, was freed, and taught in
Rome until Domitian expelled the philosophers in 93 CE. He then set up a school
at Nicopolis in Greece and taught there for the rest of his life. He wrote
nothing; his pupil Arrian took down the *Discourses* and compiled the short
*Handbook*.

## What is up to us

The whole of his teaching hangs on one distinction, stated in the first line of
the *Handbook*:

> Some things are up to us and some are not. Up to us are opinion, impulse,
> desire, aversion, in a word whatever is our own doing. Not up to us are the
> body, property, reputation, office, in a word whatever is not our own doing.

Everything that is not up to us is, by that fact, not good or bad. It is
material for us to use well or badly. What is up to us is the use we make of
our impressions: whether we assent to the thought that a loss is terrible, or
withhold assent and look again.

## The discipline of the impression

An impression arrives: *this is bad news*. Epictetus told his students to stop
it at the door and question it. Is the thing that happened within my power? If
not, then it is nothing to me. The practice is repeated until it becomes habit,
and habit is what he meant by philosophy. Reading Chrysippus was not the point;
being able to bear a loss without complaint was.

## Three fields of training

- **Desire and aversion**, so that one wants nothing that can fail and fears
  nothing that must come.
- **Impulse to act**, so that one does one's duties in each role, as child,
  citizen, neighbour, without excuse.
- **Assent**, so that one is not carried away by an impression before testing
  it.

## Influence

The *Handbook* was copied by Christian monks who changed only the names of the
gods. Marcus Aurelius quotes him. Frederick the Great kept the book in his
saddlebag. Modern cognitive therapy borrows his first move, that it is not
events but judgements about events that disturb us, almost word for word.

---

*Stoa Press · Philosophy Essays · Markdown edition*