Epictetus' Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes

Guides to Stoic Living

Keith Seddon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134346042
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This new translation presents two works, one by Epictetus and the other by Cebes, two ancient Greek philosophers of the Imperial period, in new translations of clear, straightforward English.

In this book, readers will learn how to sustain emotional harmony and a 'good flow of life' whatever fortune may hold in store for them.

This modern English translation of the complete Handbook is supported by and includes:

* the first thorough commentary since that of Simplicius, 1500 years ago
* a detailed introduction
* extensive glossary
* index of key terms
* chapter-by-chapter discussion of themes
* helpful tables that clarify Stoic ethical doctrines as a glance.

Accompanying the Handbook is the Tablet of Cebes, a curious and engaging text. In complete contrast, yet complementing the Handbook's more conventional philosophical presentation, the Tablet shows progress to philosophical wisdom as a journey through a landscape inhabited by personifications of happiness, fortune, the virtues and vices.

Part I
The Handbook of Epictetus

Stoic transformation of the soul

Introduction to Epictetus

Overview

Epictetus (pronounced Epic-TEE-tus) was an exponent of Stoicism who flourished in the early second century AD about 400 years after the Stoic school of Zeno of Citium was established in Athens. (He was probably born sometime around AD 55, and died about AD 135.) He lived and worked, first as a student and teacher in Rome, and then as a teacher with his own school in Nicopolis in Greece. Our knowledge of his philosophy and his method as a teacher comes to us via two works composed by his student Arrian, the Discourses and the Handbook. Although Epictetus based his teaching on the works of the early Stoics (none of which survives) which dealt with the three branches of Stoic thought, logic, physics and ethics, the Discourses and the Handbook concentrate almost exclusively on ethics.

The role of the Stoic teacher was to encourage his students to live the philosophic life, whose end was eudaimonia (‘happiness’ or ‘flourishing’), to be secured by living the life of reason, which – for Stoics – meant living virtuously and living ‘in accordance with nature’. The eudaimonia (‘happiness’) of those who attain this ideal consists of ataraxia (imperturbability), apatheia (freedom from passion), eupatheiai (‘good feelings’), and an awareness of, and capacity to attain, what counts as living as a rational being should.

The key to transforming oneself into the Stoic sophos (wise person) is to learn what is ‘in one’s power’, and this is ‘the correct use of impressions’ (phantasiai), which in outline involves not judging as good or bad anything that appears to one. For the only thing that is good is acting virtuously (that is, motivated by virtue), and the only thing that is bad is the opposite, acting viciously (that is, motivated by vice). The person who seeks to make progress as a Stoic (ho prokoptôn) understands that their power of rationality is a fragment of God whose material body – a sort of rarefied fiery air – blends with the whole of creation, intelligently forming and directing undifferentiated matter to make the world as we experience it. The task of the prokoptôn, therefore, is to ‘live according to nature’, which means (a) pursuing a course through life intelligently responding to one’s own needs and duties as a sociable human being, but also (b) wholly accepting one’s fate and the fate of the world as coming directly from the divine intelligence which makes the world the best that is possible.

Life

It is possible to draw only a basic sketch of Epictetus’ life. Resources at our disposal include just a handful of references in the ancient texts, to which we can add the few allusions that Epictetus makes to his own life in the Discourses – see for instance 1.18.15 (his lamp is stolen), 2.24.18 (liked to join the play of children), 4.1.151 (mentions his own infirmities).

Epictetus was born in about AD 55 in Hierapolis in Phrygia (modernday Pamukkale, in south-western Turkey). ‘Epiktêtos’ means ‘acquired’, and we may reasonably suppose that this name originated in consequence of his somehow coming to Rome, probably when still a boy, to be the slave of Epaphroditus who was a rich and powerful freedman, having himself been a slave of the Emperor Nero. (Epaphroditus had been Nero’s secretary until the latter’s forced suicide in AD 68, and in AD 81 he resumed his secretarial role under the Emperor Domitian at whose orders he was put to death in AD 95 for the offence of assisting Nero’s suicide.) Whilst still a slave, Epictetus studied with the Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus, a proportion of whose teachings survive as extracts in the anthologies of Stobaeus, and as fragments in the writings of Aulus Gellius and others (see Lutz 1947, 6–9; for references to Musonius in the Discourses see 1.1.26–7, 1.7.32, 1.9.29–31, 3.6.10, 3.15.14, 3.23.29, and in Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights see 5.1, 9.2.8–11, 16.1.1–2, 18.2.1). As we might expect, the teachings of Epictetus display a distinct affinity with those of his own teacher; Oldfather (1926, viii n.2) goes so far as to state that:

So many passages in Epictetus can be paralleled closely from the remaining fragments of Rufus (as Epictetus always calls him) that there can be no doubt but the system of thought in the pupil is little more than an echo, with changes of emphasis due to the personal equation, of that of the master.

A conjecture I find hard to resist is the possibility that as a boy Epictetus may have met Seneca. His master, Epaphroditus, as one of Nero’s secretaries, would almost certainly have invited all members of the court, including Seneca, to his private residence at some time or another, and it is undoubtedly the case that Epaphroditus would have had frequent business with Seneca at an official level. This at least makes it feasible – so long as Epictetus was not born any later than the early to mid-fifties AD, and was acquired by Epaphroditus before AD 68 – that Seneca and Epictetus actually met on one of Seneca’s visits to Epaphroditus’ house. The boy of about ten who served wine to the elderly statesman may well have been Epictetus. And it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Seneca sparked Epictetus’ interest in Stoic philosophy. After all, we know from Seneca’s writings (Ep. 47) that he urged people to treat their slaves as friends, and in contrast to many of the visitors to the house it is easy to imagine Seneca engaging the slaveboy in friendly conversation.

There is a story told by the author Celsus (probably a younger contemporary of Epictetus) – quoted by the early Christian Origen (c. AD 185–254) at Contra Celsum 7.53 – that when still a slave, Epictetus was tortured by his master who twisted his leg. Enduring the pain with complete composure, Epictetus warned that his leg would soon break, and when it did break, he said, ‘There, did I not tell you that it would break?’ And from that time Epictetus was lame. The Suda (tenth century), however, although confirming that Epictetus was lame, attributes his affliction to rheumatism (see Discourses 1.8.14, 1.16.20). Simplicius (commentary to Chapter 9) also confirms Epictetus’ lameness, but does not identify any cause.

At some point Epictetus was manumitted, and in about AD 89, along with other philosophers then in Rome, was banished by the Emperor Domitian. He went to Nicopolis in Epirus (in north-western Greece) where he opened his own school which acquired a good reputation, attracting many upper-class Romans. One such student was Flavius Arrian (c. AD 86–160) who would compose the Discourses and the Handbook, and who later served in public office under the Emperor Hadrian and made his mark as a respected historian (some of his historical writings survive). Origen (Contra Celsum 6.2) observed that whilst Plato’s books were to be found only in the hands of those who professed to be learned, it was the ordinary person desiring to be benefited and improved who instead admired the writings of Epictetus. Aulus Gellius (c. AD 125–c.165) reports that one of Marcus Aurelius’ teachers, Herodes Atticus (c. AD 101–177), considered Epictetus to be ‘the greatest of Stoics’ (Attic Nights 1.2.6; for further references to Epictetus in Attic Nights see 1.2.6–13, 2.18.10, 15.11.5, 17.19, 19.1.14–21: Epictetus is mentioned a third time in Contra Celsum at 3.54).

Our sources report that Epictetus did not marry, had no children, and lived to an old age. With respect to marriage and children we may note the story from Lucian (Demonax) about the Cynic philosopher Demonax who had been a pupil of Epictetus. On being exhorted by Epictetus to marry and have children (for it was a philosopher’s duty to provide a substitute ready for the time when they would die), he sarcastically asked Epictetus whether he could marry one of his daughters. Demonax’ criticism may be somewhat mitigated by the story of Epictetus late in life adopting the child of a friend who, under the pressure of poverty, was going to expose it, and also taking in a woman to serve as the child’s nursemaid (Simpl. D116).

Writings

It appears that Epictetus wrote nothing himself. The works we have that present his philosophy were written by his student, Arrian (Lucius Flavius Arrianus, c. AD 86–160). We may conjecture that the Discourses and the Handbook were written some time around the years AD 104–107, at the time when Arrian was most likely to have been a student.

Dobbin (1998), though, holds the view that the Discourses and the Handbook were actually written by Epictetus himself; the Suda does say, after all, that Epictetus ‘wrote a great deal’. Dobbin is not entirely convinced by Arrian’s claim in his dedicatory preface that he wrote down Epictetus’ words verbatim; first, stenographic techniques at this time were primitive, and anyway were the preserve of civil servants; second, most of the discourses are too polished, and look too much like carefully crafted prose to be the product of impromptu discussions; and third, some of the discourses (notably 1.29, 3.22 and 4.1) are too long for extempore conversations.

There is no way to resolve this question with certainty. Whether the texts we have do indeed represent a serious attempt to record Epictetus at work verbatim, whether draft texts were later edited and rewritten (as seems wholly likely), possibly by Epictetus, or whether Epictetus did in fact write the texts himself, drawing on his recollections as a lecturer with only occasional attempts at strictly verbatim accuracy, we shall never know. But what we can be certain of, regardless of who actually wrote the words onto the papyrus to make the first draft of the text as we have it today, is that those words were intended to present Stoic moral philosophy in the terms and the style that Epictetus employed as a teacher intent on bringing his students to philosophic enlightenment as the Stoics had understood this enterprise.

The Discourses

A diatribê is a short ethical treatise or lecture, and ‘Discourses’ translates the plural Greek diatribai. Written in Koine Greek, the everyday contemporary form of the language, the Discourses appear to record the exchanges between Epictetus and his students after formal teaching had concluded for the day. Internal textual evidence confirms that the works of the early Stoic philosophers (Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus) were read and discussed in Epictetus’ classes, but this aspect of Epictetus’ teaching is not recorded by Arrian. What we have, then, are intimate and earnest discussions in which Epictetus aims to make his students consider carefully what the philosophic life – for a Stoic – consists in, and how to live it oneself. He discusses a wide range of topics, from friendship to illness, from fear to poverty, on how to acquire and maintain tranquillity, and why we should not be angry with other people.

It is possible that not all of the Discourses have survived: Aulus Gellius informs us that once a fellow traveller brought out and read from the fifth book of the Discourses (Attic Nights 19.1.14 = Epictetus, Fragment 9), whereas today all we have are four books.

The Handbook

‘Handbook’ or ‘Manual’ translates the Greek title of this work, Encheiridion, which is cognate with the adjective encheiridios, meaning ‘in the hand’ or ‘ready to hand’, and with the verb encheireô, meaning ‘to take something in hand; to undertake or attempt something’. This little book, my translation of which features in the present volume, appears to be an abstract of the Discourses, focusing on key themes in Epictetus’ teaching of Stoic ethics. Some of the text is taken from the Discourses, but the fact that not all of it can be correlated with passages in the larger work further supports the view that some of the Discourses have indeed been lost.

Fragments

Modern editions of Epictetus from Matheson and Oldfather onwards, include 36 fragments comprising sayings of Epictetus that survive in the writing of other authors: Arnobius, Aulus Gellius, Marcus Aurelius, and Stobaeus (who preserves by far the most). Earlier editions included a much larger collection of aphorisms purporting to come from Epictetus which Oldfather rejects as spurious, whose inclusion ‘would scarcely serve any useful purpose’ (1928, 439), though his last eight fragments intriguingly follow the heading ‘Doubtful and Spurious Fragments’.

Epictetus’ Stoicism

The writings of the early Stoics, of Zeno (335–263 BC), the founder of the school, of Chrysippus (c. 280–c. 207 BC), the extremely influential third head of the Stoa, and of others, survive only as quoted fragments found in later works. The question arises as to what extent Epictetus preserved the original doctrines of the Stoic school, and to what extent, if any, he branched out with new emphases and innovations of his own. The nineteenth-century Epictetan scholar Adolf Bonhöffer (1998, 3) remarks: ‘[Epictetus] is completely free of the eclecticism of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius; and, compared with his teacher Musonius Rufus … his work reveals a considerably clos...