Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today we're getting
into the story of one of the most, I think, compelling
figures in all of ancient philosophy. Absolutely.
A man whose life was in itself the most powerful
argument for his ideas. We're talking about Epictetus.
He was a Greek Stoic philosopher, lived from
about 50 to 135 AD. And our mission today is
to really unpack his life, his teachings, and,
well, the incredible story of how we even know
about him at all. And that story starts with
a paradox, a really stunning piece of irony that
you just can't ignore. Our sources for this,
you know, they're mainly biographical bits and
pieces, plus the philosophical notes taken from
his lectures. The famous discourses and the Enchiridion.
Exactly. And what they show is a man who was,
in the legal sense, property. He was a slave.
Yeah. Yet he became the... Well, the intellectual
guide for the people who had all the power in
the world, including Roman emperors. And that
tension, that right there is what we want you
to walk away with today. This isn't just a deep
dive into some abstract theory. No, not at all.
You're going to see stoicism being forged under
the most extreme pressure imaginable. The whole
point is to really get that foundational concept
of stoicism. You know, the split between what
you can control and what you absolutely can't.
We're going to see it through the eyes of a man
who lived that split every single day. We're
going to dig into the details, the surprising
stuff, the meaning of his name, for instance,
which is just wow. That's unbelievable. The story
behind his physical disability and the... Well,
the sheer dedication of his student, Arian, who's
the only reason we're even having this conversation.
Without Arian, Epictetus would just be a name.
His life was the lesson, and Arian was the one
who wrote it down. Okay, so let's get into it.
Let's start at the beginning. To understand Epictetus'
philosophy, you have to understand his life.
The context is everything. And it starts with,
of all things, his name. Right. So he was born
around 50 AD in a place called Hierapolis in
Phrygia. That's in modern -day Turkey. But the
name we know him by, Epictetus, that wasn't his
birth name, was it? No. We have no idea what
name his parents gave him. The name Epictetus
isn't really a name in that sense. It's a Greek
word, Epictetos. And it means what exactly? It
means gained or acquired. Wow. So acquired property?
Literally, yes. Plato even used that exact term
in his work to talk about property that you add
to what you've already inherited. So this man,
who would go on to teach the world about inner
freedom and self -possession, his very identity,
the name everyone called him, was a label that
meant chattel, something I own. That is, I mean,
that's an incredible mental burden to carry around
every single day. Or, for a Stoic, the perfect
training ground. It forces that distinction,
doesn't it? Between the external label the world
puts on you and the internal reality you choose
for yourself. And he experienced this up close
during his youth in Rome. Because he was a slave
there. He was a slave to a man named Epaphroditus.
And you have to understand who this Epaphroditus
was. This wasn't just some random wealthy Roman.
He was a freedman, meaning he had been a slave
himself. And he'd risen to an incredible position
of power. He was the secretary for correspondence
to Emperor Nero. Wait, to Nero? To Nero himself.
So Epictetus wasn't just, you know, a slave in
some quiet country estate. He was living and
working right in the nerve center of the Roman
Empire, in the household of a man who was one
of the emperor's closest administrators. That's
a mind -boggling social position to be in. It's
what we call the paradox of status. Legally,
he's at the absolute bottom of the social ladder.
He's property. But in terms of proximity, he's
at the very top. He's right there in the orbit
of one of the most powerful and, frankly, one
of the most unstable and dangerous men in the
world. He would have seen everything, the luxury,
the absolute power. And the paranoia, the fear,
the incredible fragility of it all. He saw firsthand
that Nero, this man who could order anyone's
death on a whim, was himself a slave to his own
passions, his own anger, his own insecurities.
That must have been the ultimate lesson, that
external power means nothing if you're your internal
world is a mess. Exactly. It proved his later
teachings. He saw that the emperor had no control
over the one thing that truly mattered, his own
character. And Epictetus, the slave, did. And
somehow in the middle of all this, he found philosophy.
He did. And this is a, well, a point in his master's
favor, I suppose. Epaphroditus gave him permission
to study. Maybe he saw it as a good investment,
making his slave more valuable. Who did he study
with? Musonius Rufus. A huge name in Roman Stoicism.
A really respected teacher. And this was Epictetus'
lifeline. Getting that education, it was more
than just learning. It started to change his
status, even as a slave. It was his first taste
of real freedom, the freedom of the mind. Which
he would need, given what happened to him physically.
His disability is one of the most famous parts
of his story, but... There are conflicting accounts,
right? Very conflicting, and they each tell a
different powerful story. The most famous one,
the one you hear most often, comes to us from
a writer named Celsus. And what's that version?
It's brutal. The story goes that his master,
Epiphronitus, was twisting his leg for some reason,
maybe as a punishment, maybe just out of cruelty.
And as he was doing it, Epictetus supposedly
said, very calmly, you will break it. Wow. And
when the bone snapped, he just looked at his
master and said, I told you you would break it.
That story is, it's the perfect illustration
of the Stoic ideal, isn't it? The complete detachment
of the mind from the suffering of the body. It's
the ultimate practical exam for a Stoic. If it's
true, it's a moment of just horrific cruelty.
But for Epictetus, it was a moment of total philosophical
victory. He proved that his master could break
his body, but could not touch his mind, his judgment.
But there is another version of the story. There
is. Much later, the philosopher Simplicius wrote
that Epictetus had been disabled since he was
a child, that it was due to some illness or condition
he was born with. So we don't actually know for
sure. We don't. And in a way, that almost makes
the point even stronger. Because whether the
damage was inflicted by a cruel human being or
just by random chance, by fortune, to Epictetus,
it made no difference. It was an external event.
Beyond his control. Precisely. And so it was
something to be accepted, not raged against.
His philosophy wasn't some idea he read in a
book. It was tested on his own leg. His life
takes another huge turn after Nero dies in 68
AD. Yes. After that whole chaotic period, the
year of the four emperors, Epictetus eventually
gained his freedom. He was manumitted. So now
he's a free man, a former slave, a philosopher
living and teaching in Rome. He starts his own
school. Right there in the city where he'd been
bought and sold. But Roman politics are never
that simple. His career in Rome didn't last long.
What happened? The Emperor Domitian. Around AD
93, Domitian, who was famously paranoid and autocratic,
got it in his head that philosophers were a threat.
That they encouraged independent thinking and
dissent. Who just kicked him out. He banished
all philosophers from Rome. Just like that. An
imperial decree. and Epictetus was one of them.
It's the same pattern again, a massive external
event, completely beyond his control, changing
his life. And once again, what looks like a disaster
turns into the single most important moment of
his career. He was forced to leave Italy, so
he moved to a place called Nicopolis in western
Greece. And that's where he set up the school
that he became famous for. That's it. This is
where he founded his own major philosophical
school. The banishment, which was meant to silence
him, actually gave him the platform that secured
his legacy. In Nicopolis, he wasn't just another
teacher in a busy city. He was the authority.
This is where the lectures, the discourses were
given. And what was his life like there? Did
he cash in on his fame? The complete opposite.
He lived a life of extreme simplicity, very few
possessions. He was practicing what he preached,
that happiness comes from virtue, not from external
things. A simple house, a straw mat, an oil lamp.
That was about it. But there's that one story
that kind of pushes back against the idea of
the stoic as this cold, detached person. Oh,
it's one of my favorite anecdotes about him.
It's so humanizing. For most of his life, he
lived alone. But when he was an old man, a friend
of his had a child and was going to abandon it,
which was unfortunately a common practice. And
Epictetus stepped in. He did. He couldn't let
the child die. So he adopted this infant and
raised him. He even brought in a woman to help
him. We don't know if they were married. The
sources are vague. But they shared the duty of
caring for this child. That's not... That's not
detachment. That's active engagement with the
world. He took on a huge responsibility because
it was the right thing to do. It shows that for
Epictetus... Stoicism wasn't about running away
from your duties. It was about fulfilling them
virtuously. It wasn't about being unfeeling.
It was about having your feelings guided by reason
and compassion. He lived to be quite old, right?
About 85. Around that, yeah. He died about 135
AD. And there's a final story about his lamp
that says everything about the reputation he'd
built. The oil lamp he used for studying. That's
the one. Just a simple, cheap iron lamp. Yeah.
After he died, an admirer bought it at auction
for 3 ,000 drachmae. Which was a huge amount
of money. An astronomical sum for an ordinary
lamp. Its only value was that it had belonged
to him. It just goes to show the man who was
named acquired property had, in the end, acquired
something priceless. A reputation for wisdom
that people would, well... literally pay a fortune
for. So we have the man, we have the life. Let's
pivot now to the ideas themselves. The philosophy
that this incredible life produced. He insisted,
didn't he, that philosophy wasn't just something
you think about. Not at all. That was his core
conviction. For Epictetus, philosophy was a techne.
That's a Greek word that means a craft, a skill,
like being a carpenter or a doctor. It's something
you do. It's a way of life. Not just a theory.
No. If your studies didn't result in you living
a better, more virtuous life, then you were just
wasting your time. It was knowledge for immediate
practical application. And where did he say you
should start? What's the first step? Self -knowledge.
But a very specific kind of self -knowledge.
He said the absolute beginning of all philosophy
is to become convinced of your own ignorance.
So admitting you don't know anything. And more
than that, admitting your own gullibility. realizing
how easily you're fooled by your first impressions,
by what other people say, by what society tells
you is important. He said that had to be the
first subject you study, the weaknesses and flaws
in your own thinking. And once you've done that,
you can get to his central idea, the one that,
you know, changes everything. The great dividing
line. The dichotomy of control. It's the absolute
foundation of his entire system. And it sounds
simple, but it is radical. Okay, lay it out for
us. His argument is this. Some things in the
universe are up to us, and some things are not.
Everything external, your health, your wealth,
your reputation, what other people do, whether
it rains tomorrow, all of that is ultimately
beyond your control. So you have to accept it.
You have to accept it calmly and without judgment.
It is what it is. To fight against it is not
only useless, it's a form of insanity. It's like
a dog barking at the tide. So this is where people
get the idea that stoicism is about being passive
or fatalistic, just accepting whatever bad things
happen. Right. And that is the single biggest
misunderstanding of Epictetus. It's a huge misreading.
Because he contrasts that acceptance with an
area of ferocious, absolute individual responsibility.
The things that are up to us. Exactly. The only
things that are truly in our power are internal.
Our judgments about things, our opinions, our
desires, our aversions, the decisions we make.
He used a special term for this, pro -heresis.
It's often translated as our moral purpose or
our will. That, he said, is the only thing that
is truly yours. So his broken leg was not up
to him. Not up to him. But his judgment about
the broken leg, whether he saw it as a catastrophe
that ruined his life or simply a fact about his
body that didn't affect his character, that was
100 % up to him. It's an incredibly active philosophy,
then. the work is constant it's strenuous it's
a constant training of your mind to examine your
impressions to challenge your automatic reactions
and to only give your assent to rational virtuous
judgments the goal isn't to change the world
outside it's to build what marcus aurelius would
later call an inner citadel a fortress inside
your mind that no external event can ever breach
And to make this practical, Epictetus didn't
just give his students a big idea. He gave them
a structure, a kind of curriculum for how to
study philosophy. Yes, a three -part framework.
And the order is the most important thing about
it because it shows you his priorities. It tells
you what matters most. So what's at the top?
What's the most essential part? Part one. He
called it the application of doctrine. This is
the goal. It's all about how you should act.
It's ethics in practice. The simple stuff like
you should not lie. You should be fair to your
neighbors. You should fulfill your duties. This
is the output. This is what a philosophical life
actually looks like in the real world. OK, so
it starts with action. But if that's the goal,
why do you need the other two parts? Because
just following rules isn't enough. You need to
understand why. So part two is reasons. This
is the theory behind the practice. It explains
the principles. Why shouldn't you lie? Because
it harms your moral character, your pro -heresy
is, why should you be fair? Because humans are
social creatures meant to cooperate. This part
gives you the solid foundation so you're not
just blindly obeying. So part one is the what
to do and part two is the why you do it. Precisely.
And that leads to the final and in his view,
the least important part. Which is? Part three,
logic or establishment. This is the technical
side of philosophy. It's where you learn how
to analyze arguments, spot fallacies, and establish
that the reasons you came up with in part two
are actually valid and sound. It's about making
sure your thinking is clear and not based on
mistakes. So it's like a quality control for
your principles. The perfect way to put it. It's
quality control. But here's his crucial point.
Part three is only necessary because of part
two. And part two is only necessary because of
part one. The logic serves the principles. And
the principles serve the action. He was worried
people would get stuck in the logic part, wasn't
he? Deeply worried. He saw it all the time. Students
who were brilliant at debating logical puzzles
but were still dishonest or cowardly in their
actual lives. He said that's like a builder who
spends all his time studying blueprints and learning
how to make perfect measurements but never actually
builds the house. The point is to live in the
house. The point is to live the good life. The
logic is just the scaffolding. It's a tool to
help you build, but it's not the building itself.
If your philosophy doesn't make you a better
person, then for Epictetus, it's completely workless.
That's a powerful challenge. Okay, so we have
the life, we have the core philosophy. Now we
get to maybe the most amazing part of the story.
how any of this survived. Yeah, this is the historical
miracle. Given how much Epictetus stressed that
philosophy was a lived practice, an oral tradition
between a teacher and a student. He didn't write
any of it down himself. Not a single word that
we know of. No original works. The only reason
we can talk about the discourses or the Incaridian
today is because of one person, his student,
Arian. Tell us about Arian. Arian was a Greek
who became a prominent Roman official and historian.
He studied with Epictetus in Nicopolis around
the year 108, and he was just completely captivated.
He realized he was in the presence of someone
extraordinary, and he made it his personal mission
to preserve what he was hearing. So he basically
became a stenographer? That's exactly how he
described his own project. He claimed that he
wrote down what he heard word for word as best
I could. He said he wasn't trying to compose
a book, but to create a memorial of his teacher's
way of thinking and his frankness of speech.
He was trying to capture the live performance.
And that tells you a lot about how Epictetus
must have taught. It wasn't a dry lecture. No.
Arian says he was this incredibly powerful, charismatic
speaker. He could induce his listener to feel
just what Epictetus wanted him to feel. It was
dynamic. It was personal. It was probably challenging.
He was trying to provoke a change in the people
sitting in front of him. And Arian's notes became
the two books we have today. That's right. He
compiled the discourses, which are the longer,
more detailed classroom conversations. We think
there were originally eight books of those, but
only four have survived. And the other one? That's
Incaridia, which means handbook or manual. And
that's exactly what it is. Arian took the core
principles from the discourses and distilled
them into a short, practical guide. that you
could, you know, carry with you and consult every
day. It's the ultimate field guide to Stoicism.
So this philosophy, written down by a student,
then starts to spread. And it reaches the highest
levels of power. It's another incredible irony.
The teachings of a former slave become the go
-to philosophy for the Roman elite. We know that
even while Epictetus was alive, his fame was
huge. Important people would travel to Nicopolis
just to talk to him. Including an emperor, right.
Emperor Hadrian. He was known to be friendly
with Epictetus and is very likely they met. And
just imagine that scene. The most powerful man
in the world, the emperor, seeking out a lame
former slave to ask for advice on how to live.
That relationship, or at least the idea of it,
became really famous later on. It did. A text
appeared in the second or third century called
The Dialogue Between the Emperor Hadrian and
Epictetus the Philosopher. It's almost certainly
not a real transcript, but it was hugely popular
for centuries, especially in the Middle Ages.
It's basically a series of 73 questions from
the emperor with short, wise answers from Epictetus.
It cemented his reputation as this great sage.
But the really undeniable link to imperial power
comes a little later with the most famous Stoic
of them all. Marcus Aurelius. The emperor philosopher.
He is the ultimate case study. Marcus, in his
own private journal, the book we now call The
Meditations, directly quotes Epictetus. He thanks
one of his teachers for introducing him to Epictetus'
works. And it wasn't just a casual influence,
was it? Oh no, it was foundational. When you
read The Meditations, you are reading a man actively
practicing Epictetian philosophy. Every time
Marcus reminds himself to distinguish between
what's in his control and what isn't, every time
he talks about retreating to his inner citadel.
That's pure Epictetus. It's pure Epictetus. He's
taking those lessons and applying them to the
unimaginable stress of ruling the Roman Empire.
It is the absolute historical peak of the philosophy.
A former slave's ideas on freedom being used
by an emperor to rule himself. And the story
doesn't stop there. The influence just keeps
going right through the centuries. It's incredibly
resilient. The Enchiridion, the handbook, just
never went away. In the 6th century, a Neoplatonist
philosopher named Simplicius wrote a huge commentary
on it, keeping it alive in the intellectual world.
And then it has a massive revival during the
Enlightenment. A huge one. Thinkers in the 17th
and 18th centuries loved Epictetus. Why? Because
he offered a complete system for living a good,
rational, ethical life that didn't rely on divine
revelation. It was based on reason. Purely on
human reason and self -discipline. So guys like
Voltaire, Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, and Franz,
they all read the Enchiridion when they were
students. It gave them a model for secular morality,
which was exactly what they were looking for.
Even someone like Blaise Pascal, who is deeply
religious, was a huge admirer. Pascal is a great
example. He was a devout Christian, but he had
incredible respect for Aptetus. He called him
a great mind and said he was one of the philosophers
who had best understood the duties of a person.
For Pascal, Epictetus had basically gotten as
far as any human being could possibly get using
reason alone. That's an incredible endorsement.
It shows just how universal the ideas are. It
really does. It proves that a philosophy that
is focused on practice, on the core challenges
of being human, can cross any cultural or historical
boundary. The lessons that worked for a slave
in Rome worked for an emperor, and they still
worked for the revolutionaries and thinkers of
the Enlightenment. So as we wrap up this deep
dive, it's been an incredible journey from a
slave market in Turkey to the emperor's palace
in Rome and beyond. Let's just quickly recap
the main takeaways for everyone listening. I
think the first has to be that personal story.
The journey from being named Epictetus acquired
to becoming this beacon of inner freedom. His
life is the proof of concept. Absolutely. And
second, that core lesson. It's the one thing
to take away if you take nothing else. The strict,
ruthless separation of what is in your control
from what is not. You accept the externals with
calm. You work on the internals, your judgments,
your actions, your character with intense, relentless
discipline. That's the whole game right there.
And third, the structure he gave us, that clear
hierarchy. Philosophy is about action first.
Right. Application is the king. The principles
and the logic, parts two and three, are there
only to serve that primary goal, living a virtuous
life. Don't get lost in the theory. OK, so that
brings us to our final thought, and it connects
everything back to how his work survived. We've
said over and over that Epictetus taught that
philosophy was a way of life, an oral practice.
Right. It was something lived, not just read.
And yet the only reason we have it is because
Arian wrote it down. We are reading lecture notes.
Which leads to the provocative question we want
to leave you with. Epictetus himself said that
part one, the application, the actual living
of the philosophy is the most important part.
But what we have in the discourses is a record
of parts two and three, the reasons and the logic.
We're reading the textbook, not living the practice.
So the question is, how much of the real essence
of his teaching is inevitably lost in translation
from a lived experience to a written text? If
the whole point was the immediate practical application,
what does it mean that we can only access it
through someone else's notes about the theory?
It's like the difference between reading a manual
on how to swim and actually jumping in the water.
We have the best manual ever written. But Epictetus
would say the real work only begins when you
close the book and face the day. How do you bridge
that gap? That's the challenge he left for all
of us.