Discourses

Informal talks of the Stoic teacher Epictetus, a former slave who ran a school at Nicopolis in Greece, written down by his student Arrian. Four books survive from what may have been eight. The very first discourse sets the theme: some things are up to us and some are not. Only our own faculty of choice, how we judge, desire and act, is truly ours; body, property, reputation and office are not. Even a tyrant who can chain a person's leg cannot force their will. Our distress comes not from events but from our judgements about them, so we must test our impressions before assenting to them. Training covers three areas: desire and aversion, action and duty, and assent. Other discourses deal with providence, family roles, anger, the fear of death, the true Cynic, and freedom, the subject of the longest discourse. Socrates and Diogenes appear as models. The tone is blunt, humorous and often scolding.

It is the fullest record of a Stoic teacher at work, and its focus on what is and is not up to us influenced modern cognitive therapy and today's interest in Stoicism.