Slave to Teacher, and the Discourses He Never Wrote

Almost everything reported about Epictetus's early life traces back to a single fact, that he began it enslaved. He belonged to Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman who served as secretary to the emperor Nero, and ancient sources describe him as lame, a condition later writers attributed to mistreatment by an owner though the story cannot be confirmed. What is better attested is that his position in Epaphroditus's household, itself close to the imperial court, gave him access to the lectures of Musonius Rufus, the leading Stoic teacher of the day, and that he was freed at some point before or after Nero's death in AD 68. He taught philosophy in Rome until AD 90, when the emperor Domitian, suspicious of philosophers as a class linked to opposition circles, banished them from the city. Epictetus relocated to Nicopolis, a city founded by Augustus in Epirus on the Greek mainland, and there ran a school that attracted young Romans of high standing, including men headed for administrative careers. He himself wrote nothing down, a choice consistent with the Socratic tradition of philosophy as spoken practice rather than authored text. Everything now read as his work, the Discourses and the shorter Enchiridion, was compiled by his student Arrian from notes taken at these lectures, which means the voice modern readers encounter is filtered through a devoted listener's memory and editorial hand rather than Epictetus's own pen.