Stoicism - College of Stoic Philosophers

EPICTETUS, OR STOICISM IN THE COTTAGE. l8lI pray ? ' Then ifany of us asked, ' What is masterdoing?' the answer was, he isconsulting aboutsomethingwith FeHcion. Had he not sold the manas good for nothing? Who then made him wise all atonce."^There was probably no sympathy for culture,almost certainly no love for the special doctrinesof the Stoa in the confidant of Nero's revels, yethe gave his poor slave a liberal education, and senthim even to the lectures of the famous MusoniusRufus, one of the first teachers of the day. Butthe household of a wealthy Roman included itslibrarians, poets, rhetoricians, and philosophers, whoministered in various ways to the pride and vanity ofthe great men whom they served, and the master ofEpictetus doubtless aimed no higher than the rest ;yet freedom came in time, we know not how, andfame enough to make it needful for him to retirefrom Rome when Domitian put philosophy under aban. He crossed the seas, and made Nicopolis hishome henceforth, living a life of cheerful poverty,withoutparade, and winning many a hearer to listento his homely words and weighty thoughts ; leaving,however, nothing in literary shape behind him morethan the fragments of his conversation, gathered upby the loving care of his friend and pupil, Arrian.Nothing can well be simpler and more unadorned,though the speaker often found a telling phrase orvivid figure to give force and illustration to his'Epict. Diss. i. 19 ; Long's translation.