Discourses and Selected Writings

by Epictetus

  66. you will tell us all about… ever will: Epictetus plays on the terms of the third principle in the Master Argument, above.

  67. ‘The wind… Ciconians’: Homer, Odyssey IX 39.

  68. Diogenes: This is Diogenes of Babylon, head of the Stoic school in the early to mid-second century BC.

  69. Peripatetics: The Peripatetics were the followers of Aristotle. Unlike the Stoics, Aristotle and his school taught that some portion of what Epictetus calls ‘externals’ or ‘indifferents’ (such as health or social status) were indispensable for happiness.

  70. you cannot be certain of anything: On the Sceptic philosophy of the Academics see I 5, and further below.

  71. Epicurus is the same way… distinction: This passage tries to convict Epicurus of self-refutation, as the preceding passage aimed to do for the Sceptic philosophy of the New Academy. The claim that scepticism is internally incoherent made along the lines laid out in §§1-5, was not new; Aristotle already cites and discusses the problem in Metaphysics III 5. A different kind of self-refutation argument, also aimed at the Academics, is used below, in §§28-29: the Sceptics refute their doctrines in the process of performing life’s most basic tasks. This resembles the argument levelled at Epicurus here, in that he is shown negating his doctrines by the way he acts – indeed, by the act of writing and publishing his doctrines. The close relation of the things that are supposed to be mutually incompatible brings the argument close in kind to the first one made against the Academics; accusations of self-refutation in this form were supposed to have particular force.

  A simpler form of the argument in §§ 6-11 is used in I 23. This one is more involved, and requires some explanation. In the view of Epictetus, Epicurus’ social philosophy amounts to a kind of nihilism which, if enforced, would loose a free-for-all in which his followers would be as much at risk as the rest; so that, (Epictetus facetiously implies) if Epicurus were intelligent he would have allowed the mass of men to be neutralized by exposure to the social teachings of the Stoics, and only shared the truth with his disciples, who would then be better prepared for the state of war that naturally prevails among men, and therefore be in a better position to impose their will on the ‘sheep’, who are ready to be ‘shorn and milked’.

  Epictetus is not entirely unfair to Epicurus in representing his philosophy this way; as another Epicurean philosopher put it, ‘[Without sound government] we would live a life of beasts, and one man on meeting another would all but devour him’ (Colotes, third-century BC, in Plutarch, Against Colotes 1124D). By deliberately omitting any reference to ‘sound government’, however, i.e. to the Epicurean social contract, he might be charged with only giving half the story. Be that as it may, Epictetus does correctly imply, in the last section (§14), that, according to Epicurus again, men historically have been selective in who they make peace with, i.e. social relations are made on an ad hoc basis and for motives of self-interest – or, as Epictetus puts it, they ‘make… a distinction’: ‘sociability should be extended to some, but not others’.

  72. We hear of Orestes… irresistible: The myth involving Orestes’ murder of his mother, and subsequent persecution by the allegorized figures of Furies and Avengers, is best known from Aeschylus’ dramatic trilogy, The Oresteia. Cybele was an agricultural deity whose priests in their drunken frenzy went so far as to castrate themselves. Epictetus implies that Epicurus’ doctrines amount to sanctioning murder of the worst sort, such as Orestes’ matricide, and encouraging drunken abandon, as represented by the behaviour of Cybele’s priests.

  73. here come the refutations: The following passage is meant to illustrate the Academics’ ability to argue either side of any argument, a practice that played an integral part in their Sceptic attitude, ‘in order to show that their [opponents] had no certain or firm arguments about [any subject]’ (Lactantius, Divine Institutes V 14, 5).

  74. slavery is no more bad than good… quit their city?: Thermopylae was the site of one of the battles in the Persian War, which was also the occasion for the Athenians’ twice evacuating their city (490-479 BC). ‘No more this than that’ was a formula of Sceptic epistemology, which Epictetus mimics above, and again in §30 below.

  75. a Demeter, a Persephone, or a Pluto: Demeter was the Greek goddess of agriculture generally, and of grain in particular; Persephone was her daughter, Pluto (= Hades) was Persephone’s husband. Academics argued from the doubtful deity of minor gods notes like Persephone to challenge belief in the existence of major gods like Demeter. Epictetus suggests that, since bread was the staff of life, and in traditional Greek religion was the gift of Demeter, the Sceptics’ agnosticism is proof of ingratitude as well as deliberate obtuseness.

  76. most will allow that they are liable to feel pity: Stoics stigmatized pity (like most emotions) as a fault of character; but I 28, 9 shows that exceptions were allowed.

  77. ‘You want to see the light… father does too?’: From a passage in Euripides’ Alcestis (line 691) where Admetus is roundly refused his request of his elderly father, Pheres, that he die in his place.

  78. Anyone seeing them… views on friendship: The reference is probably to the Epicureans, who held that pleasure is the foundation of friendship, and that friends are not chosen for themselves, but for the benefits they bring; cf. Epicurus, Vatican Sayings 23: ‘All friendship is an intrinsic virtue, but it originates from benefiting.’ In light of what is argued in §§15-21 below, however, conceivably it could include Epictetus’ own views.

  79. ‘Where before the tower… same desire’: From the Phoenissae of Euripides, lines 621-2. Eteocles and Polyneices battle for control of Thebes after their father, Oedipus, blinds himself.

  80. his beloved: Hephaestion, often described as Alexander’s ‘alter ego’, who died on campaign with him in 324 BC.

  81. ‘Honour is nothing… approved’: Possibly an allusion to the statement of Epicurus that ‘I spit on honour if it does not involve pleasure’ (H. Usener, Epicurea, Leipzig, 1887, p. 512).

  82. And Eriphyle… came between them: Eriphyle was induced by the bribe of a necklace to get her husband to join Polyneices in his war on Eteocles for control of Thebes.

  83. ‘Every soul… will’: A paraphrase of Plato’s Sophist, 228c, quoted again at I 28, 4.

  84. endowed them with breath… their shape: The Stoics explained vision as an active rather than a passive process, whereby the ‘breath’ (pneuma) of which the soul is composed exits the eyes and apprehends objects by essentially modelling them.

  85. Which part let your beard grow long?: A long beard was the badge of a philosopher.

  86. Your goal was different… citizen yourself: A Greek citizen traditionally served a term in the army (‘help insure the safety of the citizenry’) before settling down to civilian life. In urging his students to return to their native cities after studying under him, and deprecating the study of rhetoric, Epictetus evidently wanted to discourage his students from adopting the life of a travelling sophist, which was fashionable in his day (the movement collectively known as the ‘Second Sophistic’).

  87. ‘‘Lead me, Zeus… Destiny’: From Cleanthes’ ‘Hymn to Zeus’; cf. III 22, 95 and Enchiridion 53.

  88. Demosthenes: A famous Athenian orator of the fourth century bc.

  BOOK III

  1. another from within: An allusion to God, as at I 25, 13.

  2. breath: ‘Breath’ translates pneuma, one of the elements in Stoic physics and the substance of the human soul. Epictetus alludes to pneuma again, at II 23, 3.

  3. The soul… normal also: This last paragraph is irrelevant here and probably displaced from its original context. We find other fragments of this kind appended to the end of III 8, 7.

  4. Nemean, Pythian, Isthmian and Olympic Games conjointly: A list of the four Panhellenic festivals.

  5. One person… self-improvement: A paraphrase of Xenophon, Memorabilia I 6, 8 sq., or Plato, Protagoras 318a.

  6. These are the things… Protagoras or Hippias: Protagor
as and Hippias were prominent teachers of rhetoric, or ‘Sophists’, contemporaneous with Socrates in Athens. This passage is influenced by two traditions concerning Socrates: 1) that he was the first philosopher devoted primarily to the pursuit of knowledge about ethical as opposed to physical questions; and 2) that he simultaneously claimed to know nothing except that he knew nothing. He can be found escorting young men to Protagoras and Hippias, respectively, at Plato, Protagoras 310e and Theaetetus 151b.

  7. cognitive impression: (Phantasia kataleˆptikeˆ), the centrepiece of Stoic epistemology: an impression so clear and accurate that there could be no doubt as to its veracity.

  8. If you care to know… like him: That the Romans had a low opinion of philosophers, and believed philosophy was a waste of time at best, at worst a brand of charlatanry, is a well-known half-truth; but as the otherwise unknown Italicus is described as ‘one of [Rome’s] finest philosophers’, his remark is unlikely to reflect that attitude. Clearly he intends no compliment, however, in protesting that his friends ‘want me to end up like [Epictetus]’. It may be that Romans by this time were so corrupted by materialism that no one who lived as simply and frugally as Epictetus could be considered a success at anything, philosophy included; by this time they had the example of Seneca before them – both fabulously rich and the first philosopher of his day. If more were known about this Italicus (and it is possible that he and the whole anecdote are an invention), all might be made clear, but as it stands the passage is obscure.

  9. It was no small advantage… after all: In Greek myth, Menoeceus sacrificed his life to save his native Thebes.

  10. the father of Admetus: Pheres, by name, who in Euripides’ play Alcestis refuses to die in his son’s place despite his advanced age.

  11. I bless Lesbios… nothing: Lesbios is otherwise unknown.

  12. On Cynicism: Cynicism was a school of philosophy founded in the fourth century BC by Diogenes of Sinope. Like the Stoics, Cynics taught that the key to happiness was living in agreement with nature. To a unique degree, however, Cynics emphasized the need for training (Greek askeˆsis), both mental and physical, to achieve this end – thus the stories about Diogenes walking barefoot in the snow, embracing marble statues naked in winter and so on. From Diogenes’ point of view, the fewer artifacts and less technology he needed for survival, the more his life was in ‘agreement’ with nature. For this reason, too, his only shelter, supposedly, was an empty wine vat (or ‘tub’). Although he is said to have imitated animals in systematically ridding himself of inessentials, he believed that it was not enough in man’s case to reduce one’s possessions to the minimum; human beings also had to live virtuously. Indeed, one point of shedding inessentials was to prove decisively that virtue alone, without the need of material goods, was enough to secure human happiness. Thus the negative side of Cynicism, its primitivism, was subordinate to this positive aspect, the belief it shared with the Stoics that virtue was man’s end and a necessary and sufficient condition for his happiness.

  Stoics called Cynicism ‘a shortcut to virtue’ (Diogenes Laertius, The Lives of the Philosophers VII 121). Implicit in this description is not only the Cynics’ ethical absolutism but also their rejection of physics and logic (ibid. VI 103). Cynicism enjoyed a revival in the first century ad owing in part to the fact that their message resonated in a society (Rome) that regretted the loss of the virtues and values that originally made her great, in favour of materialism, hedonism and duplicity. What the Romans could not accept or imitate was the shameless side of Cynicism: the ‘dog’ side (Cynic means ‘dog-like’), that is, their sometimes outrageous lack of dignity (cf. §80 below). Epictetus does his part here to rescue Cynicism for his Roman audience by replacing anaideia, a byword of early Cynicism meaning ‘shamelessness’ or ‘brazenness’, with its opposite, aidos, ‘dignity’, calling it the Cynic’s proper ‘protection’. And whereas the Stoic sage was a remote abstraction, the Cynic, the embodiment of virtue, was a very public figure, a man of the streets – devoted to showing others by his example that happiness was compatible with a life lived at the limits of purity and privation. The Cynic was avowedly extreme; but by demonstrating in tangible terms that such contempt for wealth, luxury and fame as he evinced was feasible, he also showed that loss of these things was nothing to fear: he was a living incitement to ataraxia: ‘serenity’, ‘peace of mind’. As Seneca writes, Diogenes proved that nature imposes nothing that is impossible to bear (Letters 90. 14). Thus, the Cynic was for the Romans an inspiration as much as a realistic model for imitation. It is noteworthy that Epictetus in this Discourse has nothing good to say about the Cynics of his own day and spends more time discouraging rather than recruiting for the Cynic vocation. This may be just a test of the seriousness of one’s commitment to the cause. But overall the Discourse is less a protreptic, that is, an exhortation to Cynic philosophy, than a doctrinal study of Cynicism, and an extended encomium of Diogenes, the ethical model cited most often in the Discourses, Socrates only excepted.

  13. he is also a spy: The Cynic is compared to a ‘spy’ in several ancient sources. As a spy abandons the safety of his own camp and risks solitary incursion into enemy territory, relying on darkness and his own wits to survive, so the Cynic eschews the support of a family and the security of four walls and a roof in favour of a solitary and itinerant lifestyle among an enemy of his own creation, the homme moyen sensuel, whom he aims to shock and ridicule with his brashness and his outrageous theatrics. By calling him a ‘spy’ Epictetus also implies that the Cynic ideally plies his trade in the service of others, not for selfish or personal reasons. He ‘spies out’ the conditions of life that most men fear – poverty, austerity, exile, social ignominy – and reports – just by the example of his freedom, his good spirits and his wit – that far from being things to fear, and worth compromising one’s integrity in order to avoid, these conditions comprise life nearer to, and therefore more like, the life nature meant for us to lead.

  14. He needs to be like Diogenes… Philip: On this incident cf. I 24, 3-10 (above), and Diogenes Laertius, The Lives of the Philosophers VI 43.

  15. look at Myron or Ophellius… which they are not: Myron and Ophellius were contemporary athletes or gladiators – and presumably came to a bad end like Croesus. Reference to the plight of ‘the rich of today’ may allude to the practice of the first emperors of charging prominent citizens with treason (maiestas), with the covert goal of appropriating their assets for themselves. These paradoxical unfortunates may overlap with the statesmen who drew unwelcome attention to themselves by holding more than one consulship.

  16. Sardanapalus: The last king of Babylon, and proverbial for luxury.

  17. He pulled many a hair… my chest: The quotes relating to Agamemnon are from the Iliad 10. 15, 91, and 94-5.

  18. You are rich in gold and bronze: Epictetus quotes Iliad 18. 289.

  19. identify the Cynic… leaves bare: A Cynic characteristically wore his signature rough mantle (the tribon) with one shoulder exposed; this helps, for instance, to identify Diogenes in Raphael’s painting The School of Athens. Sarcastic reference to ‘large jaws’ evokes the popular reputation of the Cynic as a parasitic glutton, a malicious parody of his true nature for which the writers of comedy were no doubt responsible.

  20. Take me to the proconsul at once: The proconsul functioned as a judge in the provinces of the Roman Empire.

  21. the Great King: The common designation for the king of the Persian empire, proverbially the most fortunate person on earth.

  22. the sceptre and the kingdom: The Cynic’s signature staff is featured as a royal sceptre, in line with the paradoxical presentation of the Cynic as the true king; cf. §34 above. At the same time he is ‘minister’ to Zeus, who sent him to rule among men; cf. §69 below.

  23. Friendship… indefinitely: As the Cynic was lampooned in ancient comedy as a parasite, so Epictetus represents parasitism as antithetical to the Cynic ideal of independence.

  24. who has the
people… concerns: Homer, Iliad 2. 25

  25. his children will not be Cynics straight out of the womb: I.e. they are not yet ready to survive on the Cynic’s meagre regimen; they still have various material needs.

  26. Crates had a wife: Crates’ wife was named Hipparchia. Crates made adoption of his philosophy a condition of their marriage, and out of love for him she complied: Diogenes Laertius, The Lives of the Philosophers VI 96.

  27. Epaminondas… Priam… Danaus, or Aeolus: Epaminondas was a fourth-century BC Theban general who scored several notable victories over Sparta. Priam, Danaus and Aeolus are figures from the Greek epic cycle, which is why they are contrasted here with Homer, their chronicler. Like Priam, Danaus and Aeolus were mythical kings credited with epic-sized families; Homer, according to tradition, lacked both home and family.

  28. dogs who beg… gate: Iliad 22. 69; the word ‘Cynic’ comes from the Greek word for dog.

  29. A man charged… concerns: Homer, Iliad 2. 24–5; cf. §72 above. Diogenes’ ability to give the next line of Homer’s text and finish Alexander’s thought instantaneously shows, in fact, that he was not ‘sleeping the night away’ but even when sleeping was actually half-awake – as Homer said a leader of men ought to be.

  30. what sleep he gets… lay down: I.e. his reason does not desert him even when asleep; so that, unlike most people, he is not prey to indecent dreams. Cf. I 18, 23 on the dangers posed by sleep, madness and intoxication.

  31. make Argus seem blind by comparison: Argus was a mythical creature with many eyes.

  32. No, go inside… in particular: Homer, Iliad 6. 490 sq., partly paraphrased.

  33. The one where I described Pan and the Nymphs: Evidently a reference to ekphrasis, description of a work of art, and a staple of epideictic oratory, which flourished when other types of oratory dried up after the establishment of the Principate, parallelling the history of rhetoric in Greece following Alexander the Great.