About this ebook
New Greek-to-English translation with a detailed commentary. Epictetus lived in Rome as a slave. His teachings would later help shape the thinking of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. After gaining his freedom, he became a teacher whose central question still has a sharp edge: how can we live freely when our bodies, our possessions, and other people’s opinions are beyond our command? Alongside Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus remains one of the great surviving voices of Stoic philosophy. The Enchiridion, or Handbook, puts that philosophy within reach. His pupil Arrian gathered its lessons into fifty-three short chapters, making it a compact entry into the Stoic practice of living well. It begins by asking us to distinguish what is up to us from what is not, then follows the consequences into friendship, ambition, grief, and everyday irritation. Someone insults you. Someone else gets the invitation you wanted. You lose something you love. Epictetus keeps bringing philosophy to the moment when a judgment takes hold and a response begins. His examples can be funny, his advice abrupt, and his demands unsettling. A little book can ask a great deal of its reader. The title has a curious life beyond philosophy, too. Fans of Adventure Time may recognize the Enchiridion as the name of the series’ handbook for heroes. The Greek word means “handbook.” Here, the adventures involve the stubborn work of facing fear, handling desire, and deciding how to act. This edition offers Kaede Hozumi’s new translation from the Ancient Greek, with all fifty-three chapters and a substantial Translator’s Commentary. The commentary opens up difficult passages, explains the choices behind the English, and places the book’s ideas about loss, family, slavery, and the gods in context. Read it to meet a forceful mind from the ancient world—and to see what happens when its questions enter your own day.
New Greek-to-English translation with a detailed commentary. Epictetus lived in Rome as a slave. His teachings would later help shape the thinking of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. After gaining his freedom, he became a teacher whose central question still has a sharp edge: how can we live freely w...
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