The teaching of Epictetus : being the 'Encheiridion of Epictetus,' with selections from the 'Dissertations' and 'Fragments' / translated from the Greek, with introduction and notes, by T.W. Rolleston.

  • Epictetus
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The teaching of Epictetus : being the 'Encheiridion of Epictetus,' with selections from the 'Dissertations' and 'Fragments' / translated from the Greek, with introduction and notes, by T.W. Rolleston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/270 (page 10)
    Encheiridion, or ^lanual, of Epictetus, by which this philosopher has hitherto been most generally known.^ It is clear that the Dissertations were not regarded by Arrian as a satisfactory representation of the teaching of his master; that he published them, indeed, with much reluctance, and only when it appeared that unless he did so, certain imperfect versions of his records would be established as the sole sources of authoritative information about Epictetua These circumstances are explained in a dedicatory letter to his friend Lucius Gellius, prefixed to the edition of the Dissertations which Arrian finally resolved to issue. I here translate this document in full:— Arrian to Lucius Gellius, haiL I did not write [in literary form and composition, <Tvyypd(f>eiv] the words of Epictetus in the manner in which a man might write such things. Neither have I put them forth among men, since, as I say, I did not even write them. But whatever I heard him speak, those things I endeavoured to set down in his very words, so to preserve to myself for future times a memorial of his thought and unstudied speech. Naturally, therefore, they are such things as one man might say to another on the occasion of • 1 The Encheiridion of Epictetus, Translated into English by T. W. Holleston. Kegau Paul, Trench, & Co., 1881.