The Enchiridion

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

Epictetus was born a slave around 50 AD, in what is now Turkey, owned by a wealthy freedman of Nero. While still a slave, he studied Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus. Eventually freed, he began teaching in Rome — until the emperor Domitian banished all philosophers from the city around 93 AD. He moved to Nicopolis on the Greek coast and ran a school there for the rest of his life. He never wrote down a word. The teachings we have come from a student named Arrian, who took notes during the classroom sessions and later compiled them. The Enchiridion — the 'handbook' — is Arrian's distillation: fifty-two short lessons on what is in our power and what is not, and what follows from getting that distinction right. His main influence was Socrates, whom he quotes throughout. His teachings have echoed forward through Marcus Aurelius, who quoted him in the Meditations; through the Christian writers who admired him; through the Renaissance humanists who copied his manuscripts; and through every modern Stoic revival from Pierre Hadot to the readers of today.