Discourses by Epictetus (good books to read for beginners txt) 📕

“By ‘self’ is here meant the proper Good, or, as Solomon expresses it, Ecclesiastes 7:13, ‘the whole of man.’ The Stoic proves excellently the inconvenience of placing this in anything but a right choice (a right disposition and behavior): but how it is the interest of each individual in every case to make that choice in preference to present pleasure and in defiance of present sufferings, appears only from the doctrine of a future recompense.” —⁠Elizabeth Carter. Compare Cicero, De Finibus ii 15, where he is speaking of Epicurus, and translates the words ἀποφαίνειν ἢ μηδὲν εἶναι τὸ καλὸν ἢ ἄρα τὸ ἔνδοξον, “ut enim consuetudo loquitur, id solum dicitur Honestum quod est populari fama gloriosum (ἔνδοξον).” See Johann Schweighäuser’s note. ↩

The quarrels of the Athenians with the Lacedaemonians appear chiefly in the history of the Peloponnesian war. (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War i 1). The quarrel of the great king, the king of Persia, is the subject of the history of Herodotus (The Histories i 1). The great quarrel of the Macedonians with the Persians is the subject of Arrian’s Expedition of Alexander. The Romans were at war with the Getae or Daci in the time of Trajan, and we may assume that Epictetus was still living then. ↩

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics viii chapter 8. (Elizabeth Carter.) ↩

Johann Schweighäuser thinks that this is the plain meaning: “as wild beasts in the mountains lie in wait for men, so men lie in wait for men, not only in deserted places, but even in the forum.” ↩

ὅπου δόσις τοῦ καλοῦ. Lord Shaftesbury suggested δόσις καὶ λῆψις τοῦ καλοῦ: which John Upton approved, and he refers to book II chapter IX at 12, αἱ ἀκατάλληλοι λήψεις καὶ δόσεις. Johann Schweighäuser suggests διαδόσις which I have followed in the version. Schweighäuser refers to book I chapter XII at 6; book I chapter XIV at 9. The manuscripts give no help. ↩

The old story about Eriphyle who betrayed her husband for a necklace. ↩

See Johann Schweighäuser’s note ↩

The word for “spirit” is πνεῦμα, a vital spirit, an animal spirit, a nervous fluid, as Johann Schweighäuser explains it, or as Plutarch says (De Placitis Philosophorum iv 15), “the spirit which has the power of vision, which permeates from the chief faculty of the mind to the pupil of the eye;” and in another passage of the same treatise (iv 8), “the instruments of perception are said to be intelligent spirits (πνεύματα νοερά) which have a motion from the chief faculty of the mind to the organs.” ↩

See Johann Schweighäuser’s note. ↩

See book I chapter I. ↩

Johann Schweighäuser has this note: “That which Epictetus names the προαιρετικὴ δυναμίς and afterwards frequently προαίρεσις, is generally translated by ‘voluntas’ (will); but it has a wider meaning than is generally given to the Latin word, and it comprehends the intellect with the will, and all the active power of the mind which we sometimes designate by the general name Reason.” ↩

On the Greek text John Upton remarks that, “there are many passages in these dissertations which are ambiguous or rather confused on account of the small questions, and because the matter is not expanded by oratorical copiousness, not to mention other causes.” ↩

The general reading is καὶ προαιρετά. Claudius Salmasius proposes καὶ ἀπροαίρετα, which Johann Schweighäuser says in a note that he accepts, and so he translates it in the Latin; but in his text he has καὶ προαιρετά. ↩

This appears to be the book which Cicero (Tusculan Disputations iii 18) entitles on the “supreme good” (de summo bono), which, as Cicero, says, contains all the doctrine of Epicurus. The book on the Canon or Rule is mentioned by Velleius in Cicero De Natura Deorum i chapter 16 as “that celestial volume of Epicurus on the Rule and Judgment.” See also De Finibus i 19. ↩

This is said in a letter written by Epicurus, when he was dying in great pain (Diogenes Laërtius Lives x 22); Cicero (De Finibus ii chapter 30) quotes this letter. ↩

The manuscripts have προαιρετικῆς δυνάμεως. Lord Shaftesbury suggested φραστικῆς and Claudius Salmasius also. Johann Schweighäuser has put φραστικῆς in the text, and he has done right. ↩

The Stoics taught that a man should lead an active life. Horace (Epodes i 1, 16) represents himself as sometimes following the Stoic principles:

Nune agilis fio et mersor civilibus undis.

but this was only talk. The Stoic should discharge all the duties of a citizen, says Epictetus; he should even marry and beget children. But the marrying may be done without any sense of duty; and the continuance of the human race is secured by the natural love of the male and of the female for conjunction. Still it is good advice, which the Roman censor Metellus gave to his fellow citizens, that, as they could not live without women, they should make the best of this business of marriage. (Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights i 6.) ↩

The rest of the verses are quoted in the Enchiridion, s. 52. ↩