Epictetus (mid‐1st–2nd century ce)

Abstract Epictetus is, with Seneca, one of the two most significant Stoical ethical philosophers whose work has survived in quantity. When Domitian banished the philosophers from Rome, Epictetus settled in western Greece and founded a school, the students of which apparently briefly included the Emperor Hadrian. Epictetus followed Socrates’ example and did not write, preferring to teach by example, his Discourses and Enchiridion (or “life manual”) being written by his pupil, Arrian. In his lectures, Epictetus maintains a commitment to the Stoic doctrine that the three divisions of philosophy (physics, logic, and ethics) are mutually reinforcing parts of a single philosophical system, but he emphasizes ethics in a way that earlier Stoics apparently did not, and provides one of the best‐preserved and most rigorous accounts of Stoical practical philosophy.