Recording Epictetus’s Discourses

For a long time, scholars have maintained that Arrian of Nicomedia, the historian of Alexander, had taken down the text of Epictetus’s Discourses as class notes. Arrian was at that point a young man just out of school, having attended the classes of a grammarian and a rhetor. Probably in the period between 117 and 120, he took the classes of the philosopher in Nicopolis (Epirus). It appears that his relationship with the philosopher was close, but it is far from certain whether Epictetus left an impact on him that lasted beyond his school years.¹ The question of whether he remained faithful to Stoicism should remain open. Arrian then embarked on a senatorial career, engaged in politics and administration for many years, and later retired and devoted himself to historical writing. His prose shows no philosophical influence or historical moralizing, but he followed his historical sources with diligence, using a style that nowadays is regarded as quite rhetorical.²His somewhat cold and unimaginative prose is very different from the extant text of Epictetus.

The traditional theory of the text of Epictetus being taken down by Arrian has been challenged and the question even regarded as impossible to resolve. I shall argue in favor of the traditional opinion, with some modifications. In the sections that follow, as I present the opinions of various scholars concerning the basis of this text, I also confute their theories and argue that Arrian took notes in class. My rationale takes into account the discussion of stenography given earlier, the evidence of papyrology, and further, the characteristics of Epictetus’s text that prove that it consisted originally of notes drawn by Arrian. Altogether, this evidence implicates Arrian’s traditional and spontaneous intervention in the text.

Arrian’s letter to one Lucius Gellius, which prefaces the Discourses in the manuscripts, reveals his loyalty to his master and enthusiasm for his message.³ Arrian says that when Epictetus was teaching, he took down the oral text “word for word, as best as I could.” Though not ready for an audience and far from being a finished text, these notes started to circulate without Arrian’s knowledge.

Neither did I compose these discourses of Epictetus in the way in which one might compose such things; nor did I make them known to the public, as I declare that I did not compose them. However, I attempted to write down whatever I heard him say as best as I could, word for word, as notes for myself to remember in the future his thoughts and his frankness of speech (parrhesia). All these, as you might expect, are like a spontaneous conversation among people and not as one would compose for those who chanced upon them later. Now, since they were like that, I do not know how they fell into the hands of others without either my consent or knowledge. I am not much concerned if I shall appear incompetent in writing, and it should not concern Epictetus at all if anyone shall scorn his words; for when he uttered them, it was clear that he had no other purpose than to inspire the minds of his hearers to the best things. If, indeed, his words should accomplish this, they will surely have, I think, the same effect which the words of philosophers ought to have. Otherwise, let those who encounter them know that, when Epictetus delivered them, the hearer must have felt exactly as Epictetus wished him to feel. But if the words don’t accomplish this by themselves perhaps it is my fault or perhaps things have to be like that. Farewell.

Arrian makes some notable disclaimers here. First, he states that he did not compose the work himself but rather recorded the voice of the philosopher. Second, he recognizes that Epictetus’s vivid and impetuous prose was different from the writing style that Arrian had practiced in school, to the point that he feared being regarded as incompetent. Sometimes one wonders if Arrian really did a service to his teacher by putting in relief his parrhesia.⁴ Arrian paid attention to the fleeting moods of Epictetus, his authoritative presence in class, and his occasionally amusing performances. He reported on the harsh “therapy” to which Epictetus subjected his pupils, their tacit and sheepish resistance, and their acute nostalgia for home. Epictetus practiced “frankness of speech” in dealing with his students, something that at times seems surprising. Arrian then confesses that he had lost track of his notes, which had fallen into the hands of unknown persons.

The questions of how Arrian was able to take down the text of the philosopher and of whether he left it intact or altered it have been debated extensively, but with no solution so far. Scholars have even claimed that the issue cannot be resolved satisfactorily. Recent work on the philosopher has mentioned the matter once again, with the result that it may be useful to recapitulate the various stages of the discussion before offering some new observations.⁵ In the past, several scholars have discussed whether stenography was a sine qua non for the redaction of these notes. The idea that Arrian himself recorded the voice of Epictetus by using stenography himself is illogical, as noted in the section about stenographers, because neither educated people nor scholars practiced stenography personally at that time, when it had only recently been adopted among the Greeks. In 1905 Karl Hartmann contributed to disseminating the mistaken view that it was surely stenographers who had taken down Epictetus’s words, because Arrian would not have been able to reproduce the rapidly spoken words of Epictetus. In 1926 W. A. Oldfather embraced Hartmann’s views.⁶ His observations, however, can be disproved. Since Oldfather’s translations and his introduction are still used extensively, it is worthwhile to discuss his views a bit further. He argued that the difference in style between the Epictetus’s text and the rest of Arrian’s works is so remarkable that “one is clearly dealing with another personality.”⁷ Oldfather also pointed to the fact that Arrian always wrote in Attic, while Epictetus’s works are in Koine. In Arrian’s time, however, Koine (the common usage of Greek) was not only the language of the papyri, inscriptions, the Gospels, and lower strata of society, but was also used by educated people. In school, for example, students learned to use Attic when writing but functioned in Koine in their everyday life interactions.⁸ Copying down Epictetus’s words in Koine would have been easy for Arrian, whose public life would largely have been conducted in Koine.

The scholar Theo Wirth was alone, in 1967, in insisting on the literary aspects of the Discourses, claiming that Arrian had composed them in the tradition of Xenophon in order to offer an idealized portrait of his master.⁹ This theory still finds some followers when the issue is approached superficially. Even before Wirth, in 1903, Théodore Colardeau, a fine and sensitive reader, amusedly remarked that it was fortunate for us and Epictetus that Arrian did not follow Plato or Xenophon.¹⁰ Colardeau went so far as to affirm that if Epictetus himself had composed the Discourses, he would have given us a different image of his philosophy, one certainly more complete and correct but less extemporaneous and natural. In 1996 Ilsetraut Hadot also rejected Wirth’s interpretation that because the Discourses are not set precisely in time, in terms of the locality where the teaching took place, or in the identification of the interlocutors, they should be seen as fiction and a literary production. To the contrary, she argued that these characteristics were a mark of authenticity.¹¹ A. A. Long later remarked that when the Discourses started to circulate, Epictetus had already attained a notable reputation, and any attempt by Arrian to make significant interventions in the philosopher’s text would have been unmasked.¹²

A good point of comparison for Epictetus’s text is the extant work of the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus, who lived in Rome and was exiled several times because of his Stoic beliefs.¹³ Musonius was apparently an influential teacher and counted among his students Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Dio Chrysostom. He did not write anything, like Socrates and Epictetus. It is thus difficult to fairly assess his practice of philosophy in action because his work has been preserved only to a limited extent. In the fifth century, Stobaeus (books 2, 3 and 4) transmitted twenty-one summaries of his lectures that an unknown pupil named Lucius put together. There are also fragments from sayings and anecdotes in writers such as Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. Lucius apparently had recorded the lectures in the form of notes. Lucius or someone else subsequently edited the notes, adapting them into a conventionalized text that does not shed much light on Musonius’s actual doctrine and method of teaching.¹⁴ The form and tone of these remnants are completely different from those of Epictetus.

In the polemic regarding the origin of Epictetus’s Discourses, two scholars particularly deserve to be mentioned. In 1998 Robert F. Dobbin¹⁵ reopened the question of the authorship of the Discourses by arguing that Epictetus himself had composed and written them down. Yet Dobbin could not explain why sometimes the third personal pronoun “he” (that is, Epictetus) is used. Dobbin reclaimed the perspective of a 1933 book by H. W. F. Stellwag, who had maintained that Epictetus was the direct author and had himself written a work consisting of notes for his courses that he emended years later.¹⁶ This scholar considered the letter to Gellius inauthentic and supposed that it had been mistakenly inserted later by an editor. This of course is an attractive thesis, because it allows for Epictetus’s voice to be considered completely genuine and unfiltered, but no convincing evidence was brought in its support.

Thus we should consider other reasons to argue that Arrian recorded the voice of his master. As noted above, it is extremely unlikely that Arrian used stenographers himself or trusted the work of any stenographers hypothetically present in Epictetus’s class. The pace of delivery was not a great obstacle—keeping up with the pace of speech while recording a text by hand ad verbum is a function not only of a notetaker’s speed but also of the speaker’s pace of delivery. Arrian, then, need not have struggled to keep up with his teacher’s pace because of the way in which Epictetus conducted his classes. Scholars have considered the meanings of the term epanagignoskein as used by the philosopher. This rather rare term is employed in the context of reading, with reference to grammarians, rhetors, or philosophers.¹⁷ It is used for situations in which the reading of a text is accompanied by explanations and discussions. Epictetus conducted his readings by going through a text and interpreting its meaning in a leisurely way that allowed his pupils to understand and assimilate the content, and that could have permitted Arrian to jot down notes.¹⁸ We will see in part III that the philosopher Philoponus needed to go slowly through his class to ascertain that his students were following.

There was a great difference between the teaching practice of philosophers and rhetors. Accomplished rhetors who delivered a text usually needed an uninterrupted flow of words and expressions in order to emphasize their elegant skill; for philosophers there was no such need. For example, an educator from fifth-century Alexandria, Olympiodorus, who worked in the alchemical tradition and is to be distinguished from the Olympiodorus whom we will consider in part III, was an accomplished rhetor (dynatos legein). An anecdote in the Life of Proclus by Marinus of Neapolis concerning him shows the challenge that a rhetor could pose.¹⁹ Proclus had trouble following the ipsissima verba of Olympiodorus, even though he was a very advanced student. He had to entrust his teacher’s words to his formidable memory:

Olympiodorus was a polished speaker, and few of his listeners were able to follow him on account of his cleverness and volubility. Proclus, however, when he left the seminar after hearing him, recited the entire proceedings in the very same words to his companions, a long text.²⁰

Proclus recorded words by memorizing them, because Olympiodorus’s pace of delivery did not allow him to write them down at that moment. Olympiodorus, who knew rhetoric well, fully used this skill. His rapidity and fluency were such that he seemed inaccessible, but Proclus managed to make sense of him even though he could not write notes.

Abbreviations

Arrian was an educated writer and a scholar, and his success in keeping up with Epictetus’s flow without much difficulty might also be attributed to his utilization of abbreviations. It is not surprising that the modern scholars who engaged with various theories with regard to the origin of the Discourses did not take into account this practice, as the world of the papyri does not often intersect with that of literary texts. Abbreviations effectively illustrate this point. Little attention has thus far been paid to this practice or the advantages it offered a writer. But which kinds of people used abbreviations while penning literary and subliterary texts?²¹ Texts by classical authors naturally do not contain those informal abbreviations visible in working copies of hypomnemata (commentaries) and in marginalia. In the interest of speed, the desire to economize, and the advantage of using less writing material for a working copy, writers found it insufferable to constantly repeat certain words. Therefore they abbreviated them in various ways, whether by suspension or by using certain symbols. In 1902 F. G. W. Foat (136) admired the fact that Greek writers “relied on the perspicacity of the reader’s intelligence abbreviating so much.” This is not the venue for considering papyri in great detail. Numerous abbreviations are visible in a papyrus written by Philodemus of Gadara, P.Herc. 152/157, with corrections and abbreviations by the author.²² Abbreviations also appear in commentaries.²³ The writers who employed abbreviations frequently and used them in ὑπομνήματα were educated persons and aimed for speed and convenience. Thus Arrian must have been familiar with this system of abbreviations, which was commonly accepted and could have been used when jotting down notes and writing commentaries to texts.

The Letter to Gellius Again

Were Arrian’s words a rhetorical pronouncement? Or did he respond to an actual situation? We should return now to the letter to Gellius in order to look at it from another point of view. So far, scholars have regarded the letter with suspicion, as a product of rhetorical posture, with the result that its value as a witness has been impaired. In order to fairly evaluate this prefatory epistle, however, we should consider it not in isolation but in the light of other, similar prefaces that survive from antiquity. The authors who, like Arrian, denounced the practice of disseminating texts against their will were responding to an actual need to protect their work. The routes of distribution of texts were uncontrolled. In a recent article on the dissemination of drafts, I collected more examples of introductory prefaces in which a number of authors made some declarations concerning the genesis of their work.²⁴ As in the case of Arrian, their texts started to circulate among the public prematurely, without their authors’ awareness. They, therefore, had been unable to revise them. The mathematician Apollonius of Perga, Archimedes, Galen, Augustine, Tertullian, and Sulpicius Severus found themselves in similar situations.²⁵

Galen, on several occasions, denounced the fact that his work had leaked to the public before it was ready to be disseminated, with the result that he had been prevented from editing the work. The texts that were circulating were incomplete, abridged, and incorrect. Other authors became aware that their work had disappeared. Diodorus Siculus, in the first century BCE, and the Christian Tertullian in the third century, and Augustine and Sulpicius Severus in the fourth and fifth centuries were outraged and spoke openly about thieves. In most cases, as for Augustine, the thieves were people the authors knew in their immediate circles.

These works were drafts or incomplete texts that, like Arrian’s, had fallen into the hands of other people. The authors who denounced the practice of disseminating texts against their will were responding to an actual need to protect their work, as they could not exercise any control over their property. In a world where no law existed to protect literary property, some action was necessary. Their prefaces are a mark of anxiety dictated by their wish to defend the proper identity of their work, making sure that nobody would introduce extraneous material. These are all authorial declarations. The phenomenon Arrian laments, that his notes had disappeared and that some men facilitated their circulation, was a familiar one in a world where drafts and notes did not go through a formal publication process. Arrian’s letter to Gellius is not a rhetorical construction that should be regarded with suspicion, but in fact corresponds to a well-known situation faced by other authors who were trying to protect the legitimacy of their writing.²⁶

Several important questions remain. Were the prefaces that we have examined along with the letter to Gellius rhetorical pronouncements? In which way are they different from other literary prefaces?²⁷ Prefaces appear rarely in literature but are found sometimes in prose and poetic works and were written after a work was completed. They presented a work in some of its literary features and asked politely for a reader’s understanding and toleration of eventual errors.²⁸ In historical works, they also defended the veracity of their accounts. In the imperial period prefaces became fashionable in Latin literature even if they were always somewhat superfluous. These prefaces differ drastically from the letter to Gellius. They do not reveal the authorial anxiety of their writers to protect their work. Arrian’s letter to Gellius, however, does show these features. I argue not only that it is authentic but also that its claim that Arrian is the author of the notes he recorded from Epictetus’s classes is realistic.

Before trying to summarize my arguments in favor of the traditional explanation that Arrian recorded Epictetus’s voice, it is necessary to consider another feature of the Discourses: the titles of the essays.²⁹ From the Bodleianus on (Bodl. Auct. T 4.13), the various chapters of the Discourses that commence after the letter to Gellius are, in fact, prefixed by titles that are either detailed or consist of short phrases alluding to their content. Were later readers responsible for the titles?³⁰ Or could these titles have been introduced by Arrian when he went through his notes? The essays of Epictetus do not usually follow a single theme but meander here and there. So, for example, it is curious that the title of Diss. 4.4 is “To those who are eager to live in tranquility.” This theme is introduced by the opening sentence of the essay, but other themes follow, such as the futility of excessive reading and writing per se, the fact that we are similar to the majority (oi polloi), and the need to follow the will of God. Likewise, Diss. 2.19 is a very rich essay, but its title alludes to only part of it. It is possible that later readers decided to provide guidance to the notes by giving them titles. These “editors” were not as familiar with Epictetus’s words as Arrian was. When assigning titles to the sections they were not particularly accurate, but instead chose the obvious.

Let us now recapitulate the reasons why I argue that Arrian took down the ipsissima verba of his teacher as they were delivered in the Koine language and without altering them significantly, but probably omitting some parts. I have shown that Arrian neither used stenography personally to record Epictetus’s voice nor relied on stenographers present in the class to do so because there was no need of that. No weight should be attributed to the fact that the historical works that he wrote later in life were in the Attic language and showed a style very different from that of the Discourses. Actually, these are compelling reasons why the proposition that Arrian composed them on his own as a literary work has to be repudiated. If he had done that, he would have adopted the Attic language and a different style. There are no reasons to suppose that Arrian composed the work entirely, as Xenophon had done with Socrates. A comparison with the extant work of Musonius emphasizes the fundamental difference with the Discourses, which are lively, spontaneous, and not well ordered. Further, there is nothing to indicate that it was Epictetus himself who wrote them. The possible objection that Arrian would have found it impossible to keep up with the pace of the lectures can be countered by supposing that Epictetus did not speak very quickly, but often stopped to address and question his students. Arrian omitted unnecessary details and could use abbreviations in jotting down his notes. Moreover, a new examination of the letter to Gellius and a comparison with similar messages by other writers who denounced the leaking of their work confirms the letter’s value as evidence that Arrian wrote notes that then leaked to the public.

In evaluating the question of whether Arrian as a young student jotted down notes while he was present at Epictetus’s lectures, as the letter to Gellius attests, we have made notable progress. Jackson Hershbell wrote in 1989, “The controversy about Arrian’s reliability as the source for Epictetus may never be settled (except by scholarly fiat) since the evidence is not conclusive.”³¹ I hope to have shown, however, that many important factors do point in that direction. Arrian noted down the voice of his master, whom he revered. In what follows, we will have to assess whether the Discourses reveal the note-taking in some detail and how the personal tastes of Arrian affected the narration. It will be significant to try to ascertain in which ways Arrian proceeded and whether he recorded Epictetus’s full parrhesia and reported the various lectures in their entirety, including students’ questions and reactions to them.

Epictetus’s School: Learning Philosophy in Epirus

The text of Epictetus consists of notes taken down as he was teaching. The Discourses are similar in this respect to the assemblages of notes written in class that I will examine in part III. But one might ask why this chapter on Epictetus is so much more extensive and far-reaching. Is this detailed treatment and the heightened attention devoted to Epictetus disproportionate? In my opinion, the thorough examination of this text is fully justified by its nature and importance. In comparison, the lectures of Philodemus, Didymus, and Olympiodorus are not very long and require less attention. Their value rests eminently on the different ways they put in relief pedagogic methods of teaching philosophy that need to be investigated. Not only does the text of Epictetus clarify those issues but its richness and dramatic quality also validate a complex account. Nowadays the Stoics are attracting more public attention than before, but usually it is Seneca and Marcus Aurelius who are quoted and analyzed.³² In comparison Epictetus is not as widely known, and the aspects of his character and teaching that I explore have been largely ignored.³³

Did Epictetus teach in “the wrestling schools and cloistered walks,” as Dio Chrysostom imagined philosophical instruction taking place, or perhaps in the countryside in total symbiosis with his pupils, as Musonius recommended?³⁴ Almost no information is available as to where Epictetus held his classes in Nicopolis, which lay on the main route between Rome and Athens.³⁵ In 2.21.19 he mentions a covered walk close to the school where students would stroll, discussing what they had learned.³⁶ Philosophers were often presented as strolling under porticoes. Dicaearchus contrasts their nonchalant stroll with more practical ones.³⁷Epictetus very occasionally appears to advertise for the school, as when he shows visitors the advantages of a philosophical training, which is in sharp contrast with advertisement in rhetorical schools.³⁸ And yet, while a location in Epirus forced young men to travel from afar, its relative isolation made the place more conducive to concentration and intense philosophical studies. Epictetus, in fact, often mentioned the dangerous distractions in other localities. In an essay on social relations, which he argues must be entered with caution because of the human tendency to emulate others to one’s own detriment, Epictetus says, “That is why philosophers recommend that we should even leave our native land, since old habits pull us back and do not allow us to take a new course.”³⁹ It seems that he was not referring to his students alone but included himself among those in search of a new beginning. But why did Epictetus choose Nicopolis as the seat of his school? In Hierapolis and in Phrygia in general philosophy was strong enough that he could have remained there. He must have had more precise reasons not to teach in his native Hierapolis. He may have known people who had inspired him or invited him to come to Nicopolis. In one of his essays he represents the governor of Epirus coming to consult him, displeased that a certain comic actor he supported had been booed by other people.⁴⁰ Apparently, when the citizens saw the governor’s open display of partiality, they took the other side. The situation has comic overtones. The philosopher gave the novel “tyrant” a lesson in democracy that he probably did not appreciate.

Evidence for the accommodations of other educators suggests that Epictetus may have taught in his residence or in rooms that he rented for the purpose.⁴¹ His students likely leased rooms close to the school, as their counterparts did in Egypt.⁴² A letter of Seneca seems to suggest an interesting possibility.⁴³ In letter 6 Seneca contrasts students who learned in the classroom with others, as he said, who learned directly from their teacher by living together with him. Since Epictetus mentions certain particularly outstanding young men living under the same roof with him, it seems possible that he shared his accommodations with the most promising of his students.⁴⁴ Because his class probably had fewer students than that of Libanius, who offered a more popular discipline, it is less likely that Epictetus used an existing building devoted to this purpose.⁴⁵ Did his classroom resemble the configuration of the much later Kom el-Dikka rooms in Alexandria that we will encounter in part III? There students sat in a semicircle around a teacher who expounded on philosophy and stood or sat in the middle. This does not seem to be the case. In 2.13.26 Epictetus disdainfully dismisses a student by telling him to go and sit in his corner (gonia). In 2.21.19 the same student is described as sitting at his side. Clearly Arrian was not interested in these specifics.

It is unknown how large the student body was; some pupils seem to have stayed with him for a number of years, while others were dissatisfied and frustrated, and longed to return home. Also present were visitors of varied age and status who would remain in Nicopolis for a day or a relatively short time.⁴⁶ Most of the visitors appear to have come from Rome, which is often mentioned in discussions of imperial careers. The ages of the students must have ranged between fifteen and twenty-five, depending on whether they had previously attended a school of rhetoric or only the classes of a grammarian.⁴⁷ They came from prominent families and not from the middle class, as has mistakenly been supposed.⁴⁸ Two passages in the Discourses concern students who are rather young. In 1.26.13 Epictetus interrupts an inexperienced young man who is butchering a passage. The youth was having difficulty reading the hypothetical arguments, a task that an older student had assigned to him.⁴⁹ The philosopher rebukes the older student for laughing at the struggles of the other, saying that he had failed to prepare his classmate; yet another passage is permeated with the wistfulness of a young student yearning for home.⁵⁰ As Epictetus scornfully puts it, the young man is grieving for “a little gymnasium, a little colonnade, a group of youngsters, and that way of spending time.” The student had been confronting demanding studies, while the memories of what he had left behind were still vivid. In general Epictetus did not have any sympathy for people who complained or felt dejected, and this extended to his students. To someone who apparently asked him for advice, he says that God favors people who participate in the “dance” and revel, and not those who are grumpy and dour, for the latter do not appreciate what they have, but instead whine and curse their fate.⁵¹

The Discourses sometimes allude to a number of students.⁵² The philosopher derided rivalries for preeminence that arose, such as a case in which two students each claimed superiority over the other: one’s father was a consul, while the other was of the rank of tribune.⁵³ Epictetus humorously (and acridly) compares them to racehorses who boasted about their special food and neckpieces, an appropriate comparison because young students were sometimes called poloi (colts) in educational sources.⁵⁴ Maximus of Tyre in 14.11–17 presents the philosopher as “the man who elevates the souls of the young and guides their ambitions. He is like a horse trainer who maintains a balance.”

Often, however, the scenario is less clearly defined, and the philosopher appears to have conflictual interactions with individual students. Epictetus admonishes and restrains. The students are mostly silent and stay in the background. Occasionally families or other figures make fleeting appearances. One vignette recalls Philodemus, Peri parresias 60: “Men who are charlatans divert many, seizing them after some stress and enchanting them with their subtle kindnesses.” Philodemus refers to people from outside the school who would exploit some students’ malaise in order to lure them away. Epictetus describes a similar man, real or imaginary, coming to the school to deride the profession of philosophy and challenging Epictetus’s assertion that the moral good is a mandatory choice. This man is characterized as a bon vivant; he is old and wears many gold rings to signal wealth and worldly experience.⁵⁵ He shakes his head and proclaims that the whole thing is nonsense. Though some philosophy might be all right, one should be sure to “keep one’s head.” Was this man real or imaginary? The scene attracted the attention of Arrian, who put it down in his notes.

Home

Young men came from their homes with solemn demeanors and the desire to impress their teacher with their learning.⁵⁶ Epictetus was far from being captivated. At home his students would have fought with slaves, perturbed their households, and disturbed their neighbors, but now they wanted to pass themselves off as philosophers (2.21.11). This realistic depiction of youthful misbehavior and futile hopes is not dissimilar from what the papyri reveal at earlier stages of education.⁵⁷ These students’ desire to demonstrate the agility of their minds may have partly derived from the fact that now they feared new obstacles and had to show their fathers at home that they had made a good choice.

Plato in the Gorgias had ironically approved of young men learning philosophy.⁵⁸ “Philosophy was a pretty and charming thing” that fit them and made them people of liberal mind. Those who did not follow it were ungenerous and illiberal. And yet whereas learning a bit of this discipline at a young age was appropriate, older men had to avoid it, because they would never engage with the affairs of the city and pass on to greater things. It is not surprising, therefore, that some fathers appear to have been hostile to philosophy on the grounds that it taught unpractical notions.

In a letter to Lucilius about vegetarianism, Seneca reveals that his father hated (oderat) philosophy.⁵⁹ We know from Gellius (2.7) that a favorite topic of philosophers was children’s obedience. This was a subject on which many expressed their thoughts and left copious quotations. Musonius Rufus also expanded on this topic.⁶⁰ When prevented by his father from studying philosophy, a student could disobey on several rational grounds. If the imposition was not right, he had no obligation to respect it. If the father did not know much about philosophy, he was obliged to instruct him. The son could show how much better he would become with the aid of that discipline. If the father remained unpersuaded, the young man said that he would obey the will of the common father of all, Zeus, who guided men to justice and honesty, a goal that could be achieved through the study of philosophy. At the end of the piece, Musonius, appearing to have exhausted his rational resources, gives up. Taking refuge in worn-out arguments, he advises the student not to irritate his father by wearing a worn philosopher’s cloak or growing long hair.⁶¹

Epictetus’s rendering of the same situation is much livelier than that of either Gellius or Musonius. Instead of a frigid and rational account, here we have an imaginary dialogue between a youth and his absent father, rendered in Epictetus’s voice.⁶² As he begs to learn philosophy and be rid of his ignorance, the son’s words are a point-by-point response to the objections of his father. Undoubtedly Epictetus took advantage of rhetoric and his knowledge of ethopoiia.⁶³ The angry father claims that philosophy should not be taught as a specific discipline because life itself could instill the same notions. The frustrated young man retorts that in that case his father himself should teach him, but if he were not capable of doing so, he should allow the son to receive lessons from an expert teacher. It is true that these passages are inspired by tradition, as when in the fourth century Eunapius of Sardis reported similar difficulties that the young philosopher Aedesius had with his father.⁶⁴ He was expelled from his house, but when he told his father that philosophy taught him to love him, he was recalled. In reality, however, some fathers retorted that their sons learned futile and unpractical notions. By contrast, rhetorical studies had always aroused parental enthusiasm because they were believed to open the way to concrete, remunerative careers and prestigious positions.⁶⁵

The role of philosophers in the human world was not well defined. Pierre Hadot commented on its atopia, as related to Socrates.⁶⁶ Socrates was atopos because he did not accept life as people of his time conceived it. Lucian had battled with unworthy philosophers whom he considered charlatans, but even when philosophers were competent, they stood somewhat outside of common expectations. Epictetus was aware of this obstacle. Two further passages evoke related concepts. In one he warns a young man that in order to be able to make serious decisions he would need to join the school, even though “a student (of philosophy) is a creature that everyone mocks.”⁶⁷ And in a different essay he cautions another about the common saying that “nobody derives any advantage from school.” In his opinion, the problem was that young men would return home with the same judgments they had brought in, without having corrected them or replaced them with others.⁶⁸

Students would remain in touch with their families at least emotionally, but conflicts and unfulfilled expectations emerge from the Discourses. A section on Providence mentions the composure one should attain when confronting issues of prosperity and poverty.⁶⁹ This frequently expressed message of Epictetus elicited a dry response from one young man: “My father doesn’t give me anything.” In another ethopoiia, Epictetus gives voice to a young man who becomes distracted by disturbing thoughts during a lecture.⁷⁰ This student was troubled because he anticipated that his father and brother at home expected that “he would know everything” on his return.⁷¹ His initial goodwill and enthusiasm for the school had been dampened by the hard work requested of him. His anxiety over an apparently imminent encounter with his relatives and his discontent with himself unleash a general gloominess in the student: he also complains that he received no supplies from home, the baths in Nicopolis were rotten, and his lodgings and the school itself were awful. His bitter voice is filtered through that of his teacher, but protests of this kind do not seem unusual when compared to the reality of ancient schooling. When young men studied away from home, supplies would be sent back and forth, but some fathers may have shown a lack of interest in their sons’ needs.⁷²

Diseases might strike young men away from home, and Libanius mentions that illnesses were not uncommon among his students. They would arrive in Antioch in the company of pedagogues, who were supposed to take care of them and would remain in touch with their families. When a student fell ill, his pedagogue supposedly would tend to him better than a mother and would be inconsolable if the worst happened.⁷³ No mention is made of pedagogues in Epictetus’s school, and so perhaps the advanced ages of the students made them unnecessary.⁷⁴ In one essay a young man manifests his desire to go back home because he is sick.⁷⁵ The gravity and discomfort of his disease are unknown, but Epictetus certainly treats it with nonchalance, as an excuse for the student to go back to his former life. After quickly mentioning that by doing so the student would have studied in vain, Epictetus debunks his reasons for leaving. He predicts that on returning home, the young man would stroll in the marketplace, take care of his old father and brother, increase his fortune, and occupy an office. According to Epictetus, disease and death should find one occupied in ethical concerns, “with no passions, constraints, and limitations, and free” (apathes, akolutos, ananagkastos, and eleutheros). A moving prayer follows, addressed to God, in which the philosopher describes himself as suffering disease, poverty, and a modest lifestyle without losing his smile. He expects to encounter death too, but he prays, “may death grab me as I am thinking, writing, and reading.” The touching prayer is so sincere that the irony and mockery that follow seem out of place. In another of his solo dialogues, Epictetus depicts the student complaining that he needs his mother to support his neck, and that he wants to sleep in the “pretty little bed” he has at home.⁷⁶ The ironic words are of course the philosopher’s and belong to those expressions that Arrian, the good student, does not fail to record.

The Responsibilities of Teaching

The Discourses show that lethargic young men abounded in the school, at least in Epictetus’s opinion. Such students may have lost their initial enthusiasm and begun to react apathetically to instruction in philosophy.⁷⁷ We shall see that Epictetus confronted their reactions forcefully but occasionally asked himself who was ultimately responsible. “I am your teacher,” he told one student who did not complete his work, “and you are educated by me and my purpose is to make you strong.”⁷⁸ He declared that he had not only the will to teach but also the right kind of preparation. He was like an able craftsman with all his material ready and, unlike many other things in life, teaching and learning were within his control. “So why don’t you finish the work? Tell me the reason, for it lies either in me or in you or in the nature of the thing.” He does not always show the same humility (1.5.1–5). On the contrary.

Young men would leave their countries and their parents not just to hear philosophical commentaries but also to assimilate and practice certain principles, thereby becoming able to return home stronger, without passions, and ready to render service.⁷⁹ And yet, on leaving Nicopolis some of his students were less than humble and considered becoming teachers of philosophy right away and opening their own schools.⁸⁰ The information from the Discourses is intriguing (though, of course, filtered through Arrian) because little is known about the nonchalance with which the profession was approached.⁸¹ Fascinated by philosophy (psychagogein), these young men called themselves philosophers and were identified as such by others. Epictetus’s response was that youth was an obstacle to teaching; it was indispensable to be of the right age, as well as to adhere to a proper way of life, and to have God as a guide.⁸² Having received the bare principles, these students intended “to vomit them back” without digesting them, unaware that at this point they “could not be eaten again.”⁸³ With these extreme words he jeered at some of his students who had not truly assimilated philosophy. Otherwise, Epictetus proposed with his usual exasperation, it was better to play dice (kydeuein) and engage in customary behaviors without worthy ambitions.

One wonders how truly objective his judgment was. The example of Libanius shows that teachers would have liked to extend their pupils’ attendance forever. The matter was serious enough that Epictetus even suggested that wisdom itself was not sufficient to shape would-be philosophers. Teachers of philosophy, whose calling came from God, had to be endowed with special qualities and a true vocation.⁸⁴ Among the prerequisites, the mention of the necessary qualification of “a certain kind of body” (soma poion) is surprising.⁸⁵ By this, Epictetus was probably alluding to the fact that a young teacher would not yet be endowed with the physical dignity that he thought mandatory for the profession. Whiteness in hair and beard were probably a sine qua non. The statue of old Chrysippus showed these characteristics and had an inspired look.⁸⁶ All of the philosophers whose portraits were studied by Paul Zanker, beginning from the third century BCE onward, are distinguished by these features.⁸⁷ The later shield portraits from Aphrodisias are also suitable comparanda, especially because they show a philosopher and a pupil. Two bearded portraits have been identified as Socrates and a mature philosopher, with Socrates’s facial hair looking somewhat unkempt. Smith defined the tondo of the unidentified philosopher as that of “an inspired, visionary philosopher, a man of the spirit, an impassioned thinker of divine thoughts.”⁸⁸ Another portrait represents a pupil of roughly the same age as those taught by Epictetus, with full cheeks, cropped hair, and a smooth chin. The contrast with the tondo of the philosopher is remarkable. Aside from hair and beard, Epictetus may have had other physical features in mind for his perfect philosopher. In a portrait of the Cynic, he mentions that this philosopher needed to show his fitness and competence not only in his thoughts but also with his bodily characteristics.⁸⁹ His message would not spread with equal force if he were sickly looking, pale, and thin. Through his physique he had to show that a simple life outside would benefit body and soul.

Authority and Emotions in Class

Stoics define emotions in two steps: a belief generates a motive, which then causes an emotional reaction. Though some scholars have mentioned Epictetus’s position on emotions and his pedagogy, no one has examined the passages of the Discourses that show this. Thus in this section I confront the harsh “therapy” to which he subjected his students.⁹⁰ Once more Arrian registered everything in his notes, even those aspects of Epictetus’s teaching that are not very alluring to our mind. The more relevant question, of course, is how they might have looked to someone of his own time. In what follows I concentrate on instances in which Epictetus displays his authority over his students by exercising harsh restraint and strict control over them.⁹¹ I will evaluate specific passages trying to understand whether Epictetus was an exception among Stoic educators. This is of course difficult to ascertain given the fact that there are only fragments surviving to inform us about the attitudes of other Stoics, though, for example, a passage of Chrysippus is illuminating.⁹² Where was Epictetus’s unimpassioned Stoic composure in these circumstances? And most importantly, did these outbursts of seeming anger affect him personally?

In antiquity a system of power relations in education was always defined by some form of violence. In classical Greece and in the Roman period, physical punishment was applied, sometimes brutally, to correct academic and behavioral infractions and transgressions; it was an expected part of teacher-student relationships.⁹³ The violence of punishment was in inverse proportion to students’ ages. Teachers inflicted on young students the same harsh degree of corporal punishment that was administered by parents in the home. The occasional voices that condemned such methods remained in the realm of theory.⁹⁴ At higher levels of schooling, students were apparently treated more mildly because of their age, the discipline in order and self-control in which they had been trained, their invariably upper-class status, and occasionally the close relationship existing between families and educators.⁹⁵ At that point, moreover, families showed less interest in problems of comportment and concentrated on academic results.⁹⁶ Plutarch claimed that at higher levels of learning, teachers did not rule over students.⁹⁷ In his opinion, they were supposed to admonish, praise, and avoid harshness and sharp refutations.⁹⁸ They had to refrain from displays of temper and avoid inflicting pain. Teachers were like surgeons who treated the healing body part with soothing lotions.

Epictetus declared that “the school of a philosopher is a hospital,” and, like Seneca, he used medical imagery related to healing.⁹⁹ He argued that students should suffer as they acquired an education because learning and struggling with the message go together. Confronting “sick” young men in need of therapy, the philosopher was not supposed to sit by their bedside reciting clever phrases or calmly using reason but should instead correct and heal them promptly. A relationship of pedagogic communication implied the transmission and receipt of a message of authority that students had to swallow, apparently with limited reactions.¹⁰⁰ We do not know the particularities of the space Epictetus occupied, including whether he used the imposing teaching chair traditional in higher stages of education.¹⁰¹ Even if he did not, the symbolic conditions of his teaching and his oratorical manners and long monologues rendered him an authoritative figure.

On occasion, Epictetus presented himself in a humble way, as when he called himself a “layman” (idiotes) in greeting an Epicurean philosopher, and in general he was reticent to use the term “philosopher” for himself.¹⁰² This is evident in the previously examined passage in which he asked whether he was personally responsible for a student’s failure and called himself simply a “teacher/trainer” (paideutes).¹⁰³ His reticence to use the term “philosopher” was probably related to Socrates’s ironic denial of knowledge and to the modesty of demeanor that he recommended to his pupils. In antiquity and even today, there was a close relationship between an educator and a learner, in which the former became a paternal figure, as sometimes appears to be the case with Epictetus.¹⁰⁴ However, it is unquestionable that in his dealings with many of them, he projected an image of authority.¹⁰⁵

Epictetus seems to have resembled the sophist Maximus of Tyre in his treatment of students. These two teachers may not have approved of corporal punishment, but they were firm in checking young men’s negative traits and promoting their positive qualities. As a philosopher/pedagogue, Maximus had to administer “pains and pleasures,” that is, administer some form of coercion but also grant them some rewards.¹⁰⁶ He had to guide their ambition and help them achieve self-control. Yet an imposition of some degree of force did continue to characterize pedagogic relations at upper levels of learning.

The “therapy” Epictetus offered his students was challenging.¹⁰⁷ His message of authority was framed in intimidating language. His term of address “slave” constantly underscored his superiority.¹⁰⁸ He remarked that it was impossible to “hook” students who were “soft”: they were like cheese and could not be turned toward philosophy.¹⁰⁹ At times, however, he calls these young men malakoi (weak) and “stones,” a pedagogic term of denigration later used by Libanius that had a ring of finality.¹¹⁰ He reported that his teacher Musonius had made a distinction between dull students and those who were naturally well endowed. “If one threw a stone up in the air it would fall to the ground because of its nature.”¹¹¹ Students such as these could not fly and were hopeless. “Petrification” was not only an inborn condition but could also affect an advanced student who would harden to stone when entrapped in an argument. There were two kinds of petrification, Epictetus said: one affected the intellect that had lost its flexibility, and the other made a student lose his sense of shame when he acquired “a belligerent stance” and refused to surrender to the truth.¹¹²

Pedagogic rebukes might have a different tenor and need to be differentiated. Epictetus’s indictment of students who liked gladiatorial combats and other spectacles in the gymnasium, along with his stern condemnation of their frequent attendance at them, is part of a traditional representation of youthful pleasures that stretches from Aristophanes to Libanius.¹¹³ Accusations of laziness also had a conventional place in schooling.¹¹⁴ Discourses 1.7 argues that logic needs to be studied and to have a place in the training of the good man. It has relevance and moral significance in everyday life. Failure to train in logic would have crucial repercussions on moral values and could not be regarded lightly. Toward the end of the chapter, the theoretical and important discussion descends to the level of students who apparently were not passionate about the subject. Confronting their laziness, Epictetus snaps: “Why are we still indolent, sluggish, and dull? Why do we seek excuses not to toil nor to spend sleepless nights working on our own reason?” This reproach appears bitter only at its beginning; its tone changes perceptibly when Epictetus injects a note of caustic humor in the dialogue. The student admits he has made a mistake but tries to minimize its import with a common saying: “I did not kill my father.” Epictetus promptly retorts, “No, slave, for there was no father for you to kill.”¹¹⁵ Then softening his tone considerably, he returns to his years of training under Musonius Rufus, who had reproached him for a similar mistake in logic. Here, an acrimonious remark becomes a rare point of closeness between the educator and the educated.

However, when the philosopher’s voice makes students painfully confront their imperfect nature, his “therapy” is bitter and difficult to digest (especially for us). The entire section 24 in book 2 is titled: To One of Those Whom He Did Not Consider Worthy.¹¹⁶ The man in question appears to have consulted Epictetus many times. The philosopher derisively sets various mythological Homeric figures against his claim of being wealthy, handsome, strong, and of noble ancestry before losing his patience. “This is all I have to say to you, and even this without wishing you well, because you did not excite me.”¹¹⁷ Horse trainers, by analogy, felt excited and stimulated when they encountered thoroughbred horses. This student was vain, handsome, well dressed, arrogant, and quite ordinary. A philosopher had to feel stimulated in order to teach with satisfaction.

The contexts of conversations in the Discourses are not always evident, but in 3.16 it appears that a student has been trying to leave the school. Epictetus sternly discourages him, saying that he is too weak to confront outside forces. People in society with insane desires and propensities have firm convictions that strengthen their stances and make them invincible, while the student proclaims honorable opinions and utters theoretical exhortations that do not go any further than his lips. Exposed to regular individuals (idiotes), he would encounter extreme situations and see what he had learned in school melt like wax. Since his opinions are faint, washed out, and soft like wax, it is mandatory for him to keep away from the sun and from outside contacts.¹¹⁸ Epictetus displays no sympathy for the young man’s efforts. He describes him cruelly as “babbling on” about “wretched virtue,” saying that his words have no effect because they are “flabby and dead” (atona kai nekra). Those who could hear him “were disgusted”—these were abrasive and offensive words.

Chapter 1.6 is devoted to the gratitude men should have for Providence and for the concept that God exists and cares for nature and the universe, which was particularly important to Epictetus.¹¹⁹ Toward the end of the argument he concentrates on the moral and physical faculties (magnanimity, courage, and endurance) that can help one withstand difficult predicaments. One should be able to endure anything without groaning over challenging events. This essay on the way in which God provides for the universe is serious and momentous.¹²⁰ The Stoics postulated the existence of a creator God, from whom progress in the world derived and who imposed a virtuous behavior on men. A single god caused the progress of the world and imposed the obligation to act virtuously. The world of nature depended on Zeus, and living in agreement meant to agree with Zeus’s thoughts.¹²¹ Yet from the thought of a creator God the reader is suddenly plunged among complaining boys. These, of course, were the “slaves.” One wonders if this is the actual voice of a specific student, or if Epictetus is simply belittling his class. Probably the latter is true, and the suppositious boy is a symbol for others who are young and unprepared for the discipline. Epictetus impatiently concludes, “It is so much better for you to wipe your nose than to find fault!” This is an exercise in mortification.

In another chapter the single boy is replaced by many paidia (children) who have so far studied in vain. Despite their readings and exercises and their being “spirited and vocal” (gorgoi kai kataglossoi) in the classroom, these “children” did not even begin to “enter the door of the philosopher.”¹²² They were incapable of making practical application of what they learned and were like sailors lost at sea. Studying Socrates and Diogenes was useless. Epictetus presents these young men whining like little children who want a cookie, longing for friends, nurses, and their mommies. They are not willing “to be weaned and to partake of more solid food.” They fear they have caused sorrow to the women back home. Is Epictetus here menacing distressed students who want to leave Nicopolis? The sharp response of the philosopher appears out of bounds: “Sit rather in the house as girls do and wait for your mommy until she feeds you.”¹²³

Chapter 1.9 finds the philosopher frustrated as he tries to instill into his audience the concept that attaining freedom from outside forces requires one to be indifferent to externals. Here he addresses boys who do not respond to the instructions, driving him to burst out furiously, “A corpse is your teacher, and corpses are you!” Teaching and learning are dead and have produced cadavers of education. Young men do not live day by day, he complains, but are projected into the future by their concerns. “Whenever you have eaten your fill today, you whine about tomorrow, where your food will come from. Slave, if you get it, you will have it; if you don’t, leave: the door stands open! Why do you grieve? What cause is there anymore for tears? Why do you start flattering?” The sharp rebuke brings the student to tears. Crushed and overpowered, the “slave” appears to have become a slavish flatterer in reality.¹²⁴

On a very few occasions, Epictetus seems aware that he might cause offense by berating “feverish desires and inconsistent purposes.” He was a mirror that could not lie but had to represent truthful likenesses. He was the doctor who ministered strong, unavoidable remedies for a disease. In one case, a man is able to withstand an accusation of being ignorant in philosophical matters but not the rebuke that he does not know himself. “What harm have I done to you?” Epictetus asks, but the interlocutor is stung by what he perceives to be an insult.¹²⁵ A chapter on “Beautifying Oneself” concerns the visit of a rhetor.¹²⁶ It is unclear whether this was a one-time encounter, or if the man intended to stay for a while in the school. Everything about this visitor showed extreme personal care: his clothes, a fanciful coiffure, the removal of hair from his body. Epictetus tries to convince him that if he wants to be beautiful, he needs to achieve spiritual beauty and human perfection. He presents himself in philosophical garb, with white hair and a rough coat, and tells him he is not going to treat him “cruelly” (omos) since the man has come to him as to a philosopher.¹²⁷ Epictetus manifests some concern that he might offend the man by telling him his criticisms right away, and yet he recognizes that sincerity is in order because a visit to a philosopher must bring some profit.¹²⁸ These passages appear to address two interlocutors older than the other students, perhaps visitors.

In an otherwise still valuable book, Théodore Colardeau presented a peculiar, idyllic, and romantic vision of the rapport Epictetus had with his students: the philosopher would take them by the hand, avoid discouraging them, and lead them where he wanted with wisdom and gentleness (un sentiment assez délicat). According to this scholar, Epictetus showed patience and thus imitated a virtue of Socrates.¹²⁹ The examples I have shown, however, tell a different story, even though the philosopher’s strict teaching mode might not have been the norm and might have been directed only at the more mediocre students.

The harsh therapy Epictetus offered his students is not directly reflected in our limited knowledge of other Stoic teachers; it seems unique in its concrete manifestations at the beginning of the philosophical instruction. Setaioli remarked that the writings of Seneca were instruments of education, but none of those that are extant addresses someone starting on the path of Stoic knowledge. Seneca’s addressees were already progressing toward virtue. Through pervasive medical imagery, Seneca shows the obligation to intervene when someone is in need of healing and moral improvement.¹³⁰ The therapeutic process at this first stage could not depend entirely on reason but had to adopt disciplinary and aggressive measures.¹³¹ Musonius had aimed at educating the young by Stoic principles, but his message, as we have received it, may have been made more palatable by his pupil Lucius, who presented summaries of his discourses. We know little about the philosopher’s direct interactions with the young men under his tutelage. Interestingly, however, Epictetus suggests that in class Rufus was very intuitive about the backgrounds of his students and vividly evoked their own private faults as if he had been informed by another source.¹³² As I mentioned earlier, Paul Zanker brought attention to a remarkable earlier portrait of the Stoic Chrysippus in discussion with an interlocutor.¹³³ Emotions do not seem to affect the philosopher’s intellect.

Epictetus, however, displayed an apparent lack of empathy for those of his students who struggled with his message; still, the popular view of his philosophy as advocating complete emotional repression is not correct. The Stoics recognized that feelings of irritation, disappointment, dislike, or hatred can occur, but they are prerational feelings, something similar to propatheia, a premonitory reaction as in Plutarch and in some Christian writers.¹³⁴ The ideal Stoic, exhibiting a life free from disturbing emotions, sometimes described as “malfunctions of reason,” did not exist.¹³⁵ Epictetus, in any case, did not expand on a theory of the emotions as systematically as other Stoics did.¹³⁶ Stoicism offered a way to cope with emotions and reach tranquility of mind that distinguished between an emotional outburst at a specific event (of the kind Epictetus might have occasionally suffered) and a continuous feeling of anger (which was alien to him). People may have become accustomed to feeling irritated or upset under certain circumstances, but that feeling was not anger, in the sense of a movement of the soul that convinces them that there are good reasons to be disgruntled and act with anger. As a Stoic thinker, Epictetus could only share in other people’s adversities and troubles from afar, without being touched by them personally. His participation was minimal. He could express words of sympathy when confronting others in distress without becoming moved inside and experiencing distress himself. “I cannot be insensitive like a statue,” he declares, “but should maintain my relations, both those natural and those acquired.”¹³⁷ Emotions are actions, and people are as responsible for them as they are for other actions.¹³⁸ Negative emotions, such as passions of various kinds, should not involve sudden irrational forces overcoming one. Emotions must be under people’s control, and when they arise powerfully, it is because one has judged a situation wrongly.¹³⁹

Was this a traditional pedagogic method, or had Epictetus devised and tested it himself? Of course, there is no direct testimony of earlier Stoic thinkers. As a Stoic educator, Epictetus did not have an attitude of indifference and did not wait passively for his students to improve. The goal (telos) of a stay in Nicopolis was to achieve knowledge concerning previous thinkers, and especially the application of principles to practical concerns, a whole way of life. Epictetus wanted to eradicate false ethical beliefs in his students and change the whole person.¹⁴⁰ He would follow a student for a while, but ultimately the young man was supposed to progress by himself, monitoring his own improvements as he went through life. At times he would have to contain his expectations; when school was left behind, its principles stayed back too: “No one takes them with him when he reaches home. War then immediately breaks out with slaves and neighbors.”¹⁴¹

Seneca’s distinction between true anger and a preliminary to anger is helpful in attempting to evaluate the meaning of Epictetus’s aggressive approach to his students.¹⁴² According to it, anger has two components: an initial refusal to be wronged and a desire to take revenge. Neither is present in Epictetus. What we see here is the preliminary to the emotion, an involuntary impulse caused by judgment that something or a behavior is inappropriate; Seneca calls it “biting,” morsus.¹⁴³ An emotional reaction is caused by the initial judgment, which then causes a supposedly angry outcome.¹⁴⁴ It is also essential to keep two things in mind. First, it is possible that the existence of more concrete attestations of emotional outbursts in philosophers’ classes would make Epictetus’s way of dealing with students appear more ordinary and less extreme. Second, there is no way of knowing whether the therapeutic approach Epictetus adopted affected him personally, and if so in what measure. Did he really lose his composure? Were his reactions due to the misuse of reason and the failure to interpret situations correctly? Are we witnessing passions and a real desire to hurt and mortify hopeless students? The intensity of his rapport with some students and his rage at failing them might only have been external manifestations of his desire to affect them deeply. In trying to stimulate them, in shaking them to provoke a spark in them that was not there, he was reacting to their conditions in urgent need of healing. Without a prompt and decisive intervention, those students would have been lost to philosophy. The doctor of the soul needed to cut and burn, not to restrict himself to medications and advice.

1. Brunt (1977) based his analysis on Arrian’s assessment of Alexander.

2. Leon-Ruiz 2021. Arrian wrote about the campaigns of Alexander the Great, calling the work Anabasis, presumably to recall the Anabasis of Xenophon. He was interested only in militaristic aspects.

3. On the identity of Gellius, see Bowersock 1967; Stadter 1980, 28, 198n88 with more bibliography. Gellius belonged to a family of Corinthian philanthropists who dedicated a statue to Arrian.

4. We will see that the term parrhesia is the same that had appeared in the work of Philodemus by that name in the first century BCE.

5. Dobbin 1998.

6. Oldfather 1926.

7. Oldfather 1926, xiii. We are indeed dealing with another personality.

8. Among its characteristics are the disappearance of the dual, different use of prepositions and conjunctions and a more frequent usage of the subjunctive. In writing people could choose to adopt Attic or a more purified Koine. Swain (1996, 19 and passim) discusses the situation. He also brings the example of Galen, who chose purism but not Atticism. Medical and technical writing employed Koine. On diglossia, see Kim 2017.

9. Wirth 1967, 197–216. He briefly discusses stenography on 150–51.

10. Colardeau 1903/2004, 33–34. Both Plato and Xenophon would have redone the text.

11. See Wirth 1967, 209, 186; I. Hadot 1996, 54.

12. Long 2002, 41. This conclusion has only a limited weight.

13. Cf. Hense 1905. Cf. also Dio Or. 7. Dio had studied with Musonius. The philosopher was born around 30 CE and his family was of equestrian rank.

14. See Gill 2000, 601–3.

15. Dobbin 1998, xx–xxii.

16. Stellwag 1933, 7–16. Stellwag’s assessment had fallen into oblivion and for good reason: it is only wishful thinking.

17. Snyder (2000, 23–28) renders the meaning as “authoritative readings.” See Del Corso (2005, 31–49) on reading in the class of a philosopher.

18. His style of teaching is reminiscent in many places of that of Socrates and Plato.

19. In the fifth century Marinus was a student of Proclus and then became his successor.

20. Life of Proclus 9. I have adapted the translation of Edwards 2000, 70.

21. Documentary scribes often used abbreviations of the same kind that appear in literary and semiliterary texts, but here I will refer only to the latter. These are visible in texts from the first century BCE.

22. Essler 2017.

23. Commentaries like P.Lond.Lit.176 = P.Oxy.VIII 1086: this is a long commentary on Iliad 2.751–827. See also an ostracon O.Bodl. I 46 on the Clouds of Aristophanes 974–75. Haslam 1994, 44–45; GMAW plate 58. See P.Lond.Lit. 138 and P.Oxy. LXXVI 5093. Abbreviations are also frequent in inscriptions.

24. Cribiore 2019, 281–84.

25. Galen, De libris ix 1.2, XIV 16. 12–14 and I 12–13; Boudon-Millot 2007; Tertullian, Ad Marc. 1.1; Sulpicius Severus, Ep. 3; Augustine, Retract. 2.1 (39); Epist. of James 2.32 (58). See also Archimedes, De lineis spiralibus.

26. Galen, who was always involved in the reception of his work, was clearly preoccupied to be criticized. See Raiola 2015.

27. Cf. Cribiore 2019, 281–84.

28. See Cicero’s letter to Varro, Fam. 9.8 254 SB, presenting his books Academica.

29. All the manuscripts stem from an archetype edited by H. Schenkl in 1916, the Bodleianus Misc. Graec. 251, which dates to the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. See Schenkl 1916; J. Souilhé 1948, I lxxii–lxxxiv; and Long 2002, 42, who concluded that the essays originally did not have titles.

30. Schenkl 1916, lx5 identifies with some contempt a homuncio writing with greenish ink.

31. Hershbell 1989.

32. See, e.g., Holiday 2014; Holiday and Hanselman 2017.

33. But see now A. A. Long’s translation of selections in Epictetus 2018.

34. Or. 13.31, in the manner of Socrates; Musonius 11 Hense/Lutz, avoiding those philosophers, “spoiled and effeminate men.” Cf. Hense 1905; Dio Or. 7.

35. On Epirus, see Dominguez 2018.

36. It is suggestive to compare the long walk that passed alongside the Kom el-Dikka classrooms of the fifth and sixth centuries.

37. Plutarch, Mor. Old Men in Public Affairs 796.

38. Libanius mentions very frequently his school and his need to have better enrollment; cf. Cribiore 2007a.

39. Diss. 3.16.11.

40. “To someone who became a little too excited in the theater” (Diss. 3.4).

41. Libanius, Or.1. 15; he taught fifteen students at home. Cf. Cribiore 2007b. It is unlikely that Epictetus taught outside where passers-by could hear him as Long (2002, 43) suggests, because such a setting was appropriate only for elementary instruction.

42. Cribiore 2001b, 115–18.

43. Seneca, Ep.6.5–6.

44. In compiling his notes, Arrian disregarded information of this sort.

45. In his best days, when he was the “sophist of the city,” Libanius had eighty students so that he occupied Antioch’s town hall. There were other sophists in the city who occupied less desirable locations.

46. Brunt 1977, 20–21.

47. Perhaps some students were even younger when they received the first notions of philosophy. John Sellars (2021, 7) reports passages from the biography of Marcus Aurelius in the Historia Augusta (4.1.1 and 4.2.6). Marcus supposedly had started to study philosophy at the age of twelve. On the ages of students of rhetoric, see Cribiore 2007a, 31–32, 154, 181.

48. Colardeau (1903, 92) calls them bourgeois who were dissatisfied that their sons did not take lucrative professions. But see Reydams-Schils 2010, 561; “the elite among the elite” attended a school of philosophy.

49. We have no knowledge otherwise of an assistant teacher in the school, but the practice of using more advanced students to teach is well known. Perhaps the younger student had difficulty reading also because he had not encountered the text before; see Gellius 13.31.

50. See Dobbin 1998, 213; Diss. 2.16.29.

51. Diss. 4.1.108–109.

52. Diss. 1.26.13; Dobbin 1998, 213.

53. Diss. 3.14.11–13.

54. See, e.g., Libanius, Ep. 285.1.

55. Diss. 1.22.18. The old man has lost his idealism and appeals to the bitter lesson of experience.

56. Cf. the beginning of this Part.

57. See P.Oxy. XVIII 2190; Cribiore 2001b, 121–23.

58. See the whole passage in Gorgias 484b–485e.

59. Seneca, Ep.108.22. See, however, the commentary of Summers (1910: 338) on the fact that the older Seneca appreciated philosophy for himself.

60. Lutz 1947, 101–7; 16 Hense/Lutz.

61. On long hair and beards appropriate for philosophers, see Epictetus, Disc. 1.2.29, 3.22.9–11; 4.11.28. Cf. Lucian, Icar. 5. However, in Aristophanes, Clouds 14 the long hair of Pheidippides is considered a sign of luxury and sophistication.

62. Diss.1.26.5–7; Dobbin 1998, 22.

63. A speech in character, one of the basic progymnasmata. On ethopoiia see Amato and Schamp 2005; Peirano 2012.

64. Eunapius, VS 461; the episode is idealized.

65. See Philostratus, VS 521; later Libanius constantly applauded parents’ decisions that would allow their sons to become part of the administration. Cf. Van Hoof 2013. See Cribiore 2007a, 205–13. Cf., e.g., his letter 886 (Cribiore 2007a, no. 80).

66. See P. Hadot 1990, 492–93. The best example of the atopos philosopher was Socrates.

67. Diss. 1.11.39. The whole section 1.11 is titled “On Family Affections.”

68. Diss. 2.21.15.

69. Diss. 3.17. Cf. below for the harsh reaction of Epictetus. On the Stoics and providence, see Collette 2021.

70. See the many ways in which young men could disturb lectures in Plutarch, On Listening to Lectures by not paying attention and thinking of personal issues.

71. Diss. 2.21.12–14.

72. Cf. the mention of supplies for students from fathers that appears in some letters on papyrus (Cribiore 2001b, 115–18). A letter of Libanius reveals the pain of one of his students who did not receive any money from home and declared that his father had forgotten him. See Cribiore 2007a, 422; Norman 1992, 1, 376–77.

73. Cribiore 2001b, 119–20; Cribiore 2007a, 118. Of course, some rhetoric is involved. Two inscriptions from Claudiopolis in Asia Minor show that dying in a foreign land was not just a topos. The student in question, who had arrived in that city to study rhetoric, died “in alien bosoms stretching out his hands to his mother.” See SEG 34.1259 from the first century CE.

74. But in Diss. 3.22.17 the Cynic philosopher is called the universal pedagogue. On edition, translation, and commentary of this discourse, see Billerbeck 1978.

75. Diss. 3.5; see also 3.10.11–13. Cf. also Diss. 3.22.62 where another young man asks the hypothetical question if, in case he would fall ill, he would be able to go to a friend and stay with him. See in 3.22.73–74 the mention of various diseases and even surgery.

76. Diss. 3.5.12–13. On mothers and nurses left at home, see the section on emotions.

77. Epictetus calls them “stones.” See the section about emotions.

78. Diss. 2.19.29–34. Epictetus’s unusually humble reaction suggests that he may have been very interested in this young man.

79. Diss. 3.21.8–10.

80. Diss. 3.21.1–24.

81. Libanius gives mixed messages (Cribiore 2007a, 200–201). The students he deemed ready to occupy his place had attended the school for many years. He also presented cases of young men who attended only two years but were very successful as lawyers. The sophist’s most meaningful letter regarding competence in officials is F366. Symmachus’s letter V. 74 plays on competence as a meaningful requirement. However, the question of competence in antiquity needs to be researched. On competence of officials, see Cribiore 2007a, 198–99, and of sophists, 202–5. Passages that judge qualification for a profession based on skills or attitude are almost nonexistent. Competence was judged according to personal and social criteria.

82. On God who was in charge of all of us, see 1.14.

83. Epictetus in his feeling of disgust may have been referring to dogs. On the theme of vomiting notions of previous education, see below the section on books.

84. See also Diss. 3.22: exercising the profession badly will arouse God’s rage.

85. Diss. 3.21.18.

86. Zanker 1995, 98–102. For Chrysippus, see the section on emotions.

87. The beards could be long or closely shorn. See the portrait of a second-century BCE Stoic philosopher in Zanker 1995, 184. Cf. above Epictetus on beards.

88. Smith 1990.

89. Diss. 3.22.86–89.

90. On emotions in philosophers of the imperial period, see Trapp 2007, 63–97.

91. Gill (2022, 214–19) divides emotions in two groups: defective emotions (bad, sometimes called passions) and good emotions.

92. See Long 1999, 582; Gal. PHP IV.2. 1018.

93. Cribiore 2001b, 65–73.

94. Ps. Plutarch, De liberis educandis 8f; Quintilian 1.3.14 argued that the student who was treated harshly developed the fear typical of a slave.

95. Roskam 2004.

96. Cribiore 2007a, 128.

97. Plutarch is referring to the rhetorical and philosophical levels. See Plutarch, De adulatore et amico 73e–74a and 74d–e. On punishment and disregard for students’ feelings, see Diogenes Laertius 6.21 where Antisthenes strikes a student who was following him in the hope to become his student.

98. In Listening to Lectures 46c–d he showed students laughing at and disregarding the criticism.

99. Diss. 3.23.30. See Nussbaum 1954. Cf. chapter 8 about Philodemus.

100. Bourdieu and Passeron 1990, 108–14.

101. See Libanius Or. 5 and the exercise called chria and also Cribiore 2007b.

102. Diss. 3.7.1; cf. Long 2002, 121–25. Reydams-Schils (2010, 571n7) remarks on the modesty of Musonius Rufus who in counseling a youth does not present himself as a figure of authority (16 Hense/Lutz).

103. Diss. 2.19.29.

104. However, Epictetus did not regard his students as sons.

105. On loss of teachers’ authority nowadays, cf. Kincheloe et al. 2013.

106. 14.11.12; Koniaris 1983, 225.

107. Gill 2000, 601. Lucian in Demon. 55 represents him with a reproaching attitude.

108. See Diss. 2.16.41–42: “Lift up your neck at last like a man escaped from slavery.” It probably had some relation to his past status of slave. On moral slavery and freedom, cf. Diss. 4.1. Cf. Musonius on some of the terms applied to students.

109. Cf. Musonius fr. 46. See also Diogenes Laertius 6.36: a teacher asks a student to hold a fish or a cheese in order to mortify him.

110. Libanius Or. 4.18; Cribiore 2007a, 133–34. See also in Lucian, Vit. Auct. 25, the disquisition about a man turned to stone and ending up an animal.

111. See Diss. 3.6.9–10.

112. Diss. 1.5. See Dobbin 1998, 99–100.

113. Diss. 3.16.4 and 14, where Epictetus remarks on the continuous going from the school to those places. Cf. Aristophanes, Clouds 27; cf. Libanius, Or. 3.12. See also Libanius, Declamation 33.15, where a father’s reproach appears commonplace.

114. Diss. 1.7.30–33.

115. Diss. 1.7.31–32. The implication is that this was a serious mistake that could have compromised his understanding of logic. Killing one’s father was traditionally considered a monstrous crime on the same plane as burning the Capitol, which is mentioned later. See Dobbin 1998, 113–18. Cf. Musonius fr. 44.

116. Diss. 2.24.24–29.

117. Diss. 2.24.28. Oldfather translated the verb as “stimulate.” Epictetus means that the student was not interesting and he did not feel inspired by him who failed to light up in him the spark.

118. Diss. 3.16.10–11. In 3.23.27, however, a philosopher represents the sun.

119. See the commentary of Dobbin 1998, 101–13. For another section of this essay see previously.

120. See the long comment of Dobbin 1998, 101–13.

121. See Cooper 2012, 152–53.

122. See Diss. 2.16.20 and 34 and the whole chapter. The students become competitive when they think they know something.

123. Centuries before, when threatening a terrified student, the teacher Lampriskos had said, “I will make you more orderly than a girl.” Herodas, Mime 3.66, a vague threat of castration.

124. Epictetus says in Diss. 3.23.29, “(Musonius) Rufus used to say: If you have nothing better to do than praise me, I am speaking to no effect.”

125. Diss. 2.14.20–22.

126. Diss. 3.1.

127. Diss. 3.1.24. The term shows his awareness that his behavior with his audience might be excessive at times.

128. In spite of showing initial concerns, however, Epictetus regaled the rhetor with plenty of admonitions telling him that he had to be different from a woman and an effeminate homosexual (kinaidos).

129. Colardeau 1903/2004, 79.

130. Setaioli 2013.

131. Stoicorum veterorum fragmenta III 389.

132. Diss. 3.23.29.

133. Zanker 1995, 97–102, 134–35. Cf. Sorabji (2000, 8), who thought that the statue portrayed Chrysippus in the act of teaching. The statue probably dates to the period after the philosopher’s death and represents him as a frail old man concentrating on his thoughts and absorbed in argumentation and judgment.

134. Plutarch “Advice about Keeping Well” e.g. 128 B 7. Propatheia then is an initial reaction, present in Christian writers such as Didymus the Blind, Comm. In Psalmos 35–39, which we will consider in chapter 9.

135. On Stoic psychology see Long 1999, esp. 83.

136. Several scholars discussed emotions in the Stoics. Among them, see Nussbaum 2004, 183–99; Gill 2005; Graver 2007.

137. Diss. 3.2.4. For a discussion of the philosopher’s attitude toward emotions, see Long 2002, 231–58.

138. Graver 2013.

139. In the Discourses he also displayed positive emotions such as cheerfulness, enthusiasm, love for families, and a sense of humor.

140. Gill 2000, 607.

141. See Diss. 3.20.18.

142. Cf. Graver 2013, 270–71.

143. De ira 2.11.4.

144. Cf. Gill 2022, 211–46, a whole section on Stoics and emotions.