The complete surviving works of Epictetus, the most influential Stoic philosopher from antiquity.

“Some things are up to us and some are not.”
 
Epictetus was born into slavery around the year 50 CE, and, upon being granted his freedom, he set himself up as a philosophy teacher. After being expelled from Rome, he spent the rest of his life living and teaching in Greece. He is now considered the most important exponent of Stoicism, and his surviving work comprises a series of impassioned discourses, delivered live and recorded by his student Arrian, and the Handbook, Arrian’s own take on the heart of Epictetus’s teaching.
 
In Discourses, Epictetus argues that happiness depends on knowing what is in our power to affect and what is not. Our internal states and our responses to events are up to us, but the events themselves are assigned to us by the benevolent deity, and we should treat them—along with our bodies, possessions, and families—as matters of indifference, simply making the best use of them we can. Together, the Discourses and Handbook constitute a practical guide to moral self-improvement, as Epictetus explains the work and exercises aspirants need to do to enrich and deepen their lives. Edited and translated by renowned scholar Robin Waterfield, this book collects the complete works of Epictetus, bringing to modern readers his insights on how to cope with death, exile, the people around us, the whims of the emperor, fear, illness, and much more.

CUSTOMER NOTE: THE HARDCOVER IS FOR LIBRARIES AND HAS NO JACKET.

 

From slave to sage.

Epictetus was a crippled Greek slave of Phrygia during Nero’s reign (AD 54–68) who heard lectures by the Stoic Musonius before he was freed. Expelled with other philosophers by the emperor Domitian in 89 or 92, he settled permanently in Nicopolis in Epirus. There, in a school that he called “healing place for sick souls” he taught a practical philosophy, details of which were recorded by Arrian, a student of his, and survive in four books of Discourses and a smaller Encheiridion, a handbook that gives briefly the chief doctrines of the Discourses. He apparently lived into the reign of Hadrian (AD 117–138).

Epictetus was a teacher of Stoic ethics, broad and firm in method, sublime in thought, and now humorous, now sad or severe in spirit. How should one live righteously? Our god-given will is our paramount possession, and we must not covet others’. We must not resist fortune. Man is part of a system; humans are reasoning beings (in feeble bodies) and must conform to god’s mind and the will of nature. Epictetus presents us also with a pungent picture of the perfect (Stoic) man.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Epictetus is in two volumes.

From slave to sage.

Epictetus was a crippled Greek slave of Phrygia during Nero’s reign (AD 54–68) who heard lectures by the Stoic Musonius before he was freed. Expelled with other philosophers by the emperor Domitian in 89 or 92, he settled permanently in Nicopolis in Epirus. There, in a school that he called “healing place for sick souls” he taught a practical philosophy, details of which were recorded by Arrian, a student of his, and survive in four books of Discourses and a smaller Encheiridion, a handbook that gives briefly the chief doctrines of the Discourses. He apparently lived into the reign of Hadrian (AD 117–138).

Epictetus was a teacher of Stoic ethics, broad and firm in method, sublime in thought, and now humorous, now sad or severe in spirit. How should one live righteously? Our god-given will is our paramount possession, and we must not covet others’. We must not resist fortune. Man is part of a system; humans are reasoning beings (in feeble bodies) and must conform to god’s mind and the will of nature. Epictetus presents us also with a pungent picture of the perfect (Stoic) man.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Epictetus is in two volumes.