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EPICTETUS, a native of Hierapolis in Phrygia, lived for a great part of his life as a slave in Rome, his master being Epaphroditus, the freedman of Nero, and officer of his guard, who aided the emperor in his suicide. How different ancient slavery was from what we now know by that name is shown by the fact that Epaphroditus, a man of loose character, allowed the young Epictetus to attend the lectures of an eminent Stoic, Musonius Rufus. Wealthy citizens took a pride in having well-educated slaves about them. Ultimately Epictetus gained his freedom and taught in Rome till Domitian, 89 A.D., banished all philosophers from the city. He retired to Nicopolis in Epirus, where he opened a school and taught for the rest of his life. We owe the collection of his thoughts to his pupil, Arrian.
Epictetus was a Stoic, but of the Roman school. Zeno's principle--to live conformably to Nature--was too vague. But the solid social order which the Roman Commonwealth and Empire had established gave those words a new meaning. Above and beyond the narrow patriotism of the Greek State, or even of Greek culture, Roman conquest and law had enabled men to see that there was a citizenship of the world; and that this was a part of the order of Nature to which men should conform, if they were to be truly free. This thought is very prominent in the teachings of Epictetus. "Take," he said, "the organs of the body. Looked at separately, it might be said, that the nature of the foot was to be clean; but looked at as a bodily organ it has to tread on mud and thorns, and sometimes to be cut off for the sake of the body. So with man. Considered as detached from men, it is according to his nature to live to old age, and in wealth and health. But as a member of a social whole, for the sake of that whole he has to expose himself to sickness, toil, danger, and premature death."
His theology was simple, noble, free from dogma. There was a guardian, a god, within us. "When you have shut the doors and made darkness within, remember that you are not alone, for God is within: and to this God you should swear allegiance as the soldier to Caesar. What oath? Never to be disobedient, never to complain, never to find fault with anything that He has given, never unwillingly to do or to suffer what is necessary." "You carry God within yourself, and do you not see that you pollute him by impure thoughts and foul deeds? Thus only can men be free; for without self-mastery and resignation to the supreme will, the highest and the lowest of men are alike."
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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