Abstract

One might argue that Epictetus has been the most influential Stoic writer of all time. A former slave, he lectured and taught in Rome and later in Nicopolis during the late first and early second centuries C.E. He was famous in his own lifetime, exercised considerable impact on Marcus Aurelius, and inspired one of his students, Lucius Flavianus Arrianus, to preserve the record of his oral teaching and publish it for posterity. Four books of Discourses, plus the compendium of Epictetus’s thought entitled The Handbook, have survived. The latter was so important in later antiquity that the Neoplatonist Simplicius devoted a massive commentary to it. Widely read in the Renaissance and the early modern period, The Handbook was imitated by many and translated often. In our own century, the influence of Epictetus is attested by so unlikely a figure as the naval fighter pilot, Vice Admiral James Bond Stockwell.