Discourses by Epictetus (good books to read for beginners txt) 📕
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Raised a slave in Nero’s court, Epictetus would become one of the most influential philosophers in the Stoic tradition. While exiled in Greece by an emperor who considered philosophers a threat, Epictetus founded a school of philosophy at Nicopolis. His student Arrian of Nicomedia took careful notes of his sometimes cantankerous lectures, the surviving examples of which are now known as the Discourses of Epictetus.
In these discourses, Epictetus explains how to gain peace-of-mind by only willing that which is within the domain of your will. There is no point in getting upset about things that are outside of your control; that only leads to distress. Instead, let such things be however they are, and focus your effort on the things that are in your control: your own attitudes and priorities. This way, you can never be thrown off balance, and tranquility is yours for the taking.
The lessons in the Discourses of Epictetus, along with his Enchiridion, have continued to attract new adherents to Stoic philosophy down to the present day.
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- Author: Epictetus
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He means that you must not do as he does, because he does this or that act. The advice is in substance: Do not do as your friend does simply because he is your friend. ↩
See Iliad, ii 216; and for the description of Agamemnon, Iliad iii 167. ↩
See Johann Schweighäuser’s note. ↩
The text is obscure, and perhaps there is something wrong, Johann Schweighäuser has a long note on the passage. ↩
He alludes to the factions in the theatres, book III chapter IV at 4; book IV chapter II at 9. (John Upton.) ↩
See note 157; book IV chapter VII at 17. ↩
Masurius Sabinus was a great Roman jurisconsult in the times of Augustus and Tiberius. He is sometimes named Masurius only (Persius, v. 90). Gaius Cassius Longinus was also a jurist, and, it is said, a descendant of the Cassius who was one of the murderers of the dictator Julius Caesar. He lived from the time of Tiberius to that of Vespasian. ↩
ἀσπασμοί. See this chapter further on. ↩
See Bishop Butler’s remarks in the preface to his Sermons volume ii. He speaks of the “idle way of reading and considering things. By this means, time even in solitude is happily got rid of, without the pain of attention: neither is any part of it more put to the account of idleness, one can scarce forbear saying, is spent with less thought, than great part of that which is spent in reading.” ↩
“Sed verae numerosque modosque ediscere vitae.” Horace, Epistles ii 2, 144. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations iii 1. ↩
“The readers perhaps may grow tired with being so often told what they will find it very difficult to believe: That because externals are not in our power, they are nothing to us. But in excuse for this frequent repetition, it must be considered that the Stoics had reduced themselves to a necessity of dwelling on this consequence, extravagant as it is, by rejecting stronger aids. One cannot indeed avoid highly admiring the very few who attempted to amend and exalt themselves on this foundation. No one perhaps ever carried the attempt so far in practice, and no one ever spoke so well in support of the argument as Epictetus. Yet, notwithstanding his great abilities and the force of his example, one finds him strongly complaining of the want of success; and one sees from this circumstance as well as from others in the Stoic writings, that virtue cannot be maintained in the world without the hope of a future reward.” —Elizabeth Carter ↩
Compare Horace, Satires i 4, 133: “Neque enim cum lectulus” etc. ↩
See note 32; book III chapter XV at 4; and book I chapter XXIV at 1; book I chapter XXIX at 34. The athletes were oiled, but they used to rub themselves with dust to be enabled to lay hold of one another. ↩
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations i 17, thanks the Gods that he did not waste his time in the resolution of syllogisms. ↩
See book III chapter II. ↩
See Aulus Gellius Attic Nights xvii 19, where he quotes Epictetus on what Gellius expresses by “intolerantia” and “incontinentia.” Compare Marcus Aurelius (Meditations v. 33) on the precept Ἀνέχου and Ἀπέχου. ↩
Plato in the Phaedon (chapter 4) says that Socrates in his prison wrote a hymn to Apollo. ↩
Book I chapter XXII. ↩
Compare Enchiridion, 52. Cleanthes was a Stoic philosopher, who also wrote some poetry. See note 607. ↩
He alludes to the practice of dependents paying formal visits in the morning at the houses of the great and powerful at Rome. John Upton refers to Virgil, Georgics, ii 461. ↩
Compare book I chapter XIX at 6. ↩
Compare Horace Satires i 5, 83. ↩
See Marcus Aurelius, Meditations vi 2 and ix 6. “Thy present opinion founded on understanding, and thy present conduct directed to social good, and thy present disposition of contentment with everything which happens—that is enough.” ↩
Compare John Upton’s note on ἀπέχουσι, and Johann Schweighäuser’s version, and the Index Graecitatis. These commentators do not appear to be quite certain about the meaning of the text.
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