Volume 1 - Discourses - Books I - II - College of Stoic Philosophers

INTRODUCTIONthis connection it should also be observed that hisgeneral literary education was not extensiveHomer, of course., a little Plato and Xenophon,principally for their testimony about Socrates, a fewstock references to tragedy, and the professional'sacquaintance with the philosophy of the later schools.,and this is all. practically It can scarcely bedoubted, as Schenkl observes (p. xci), that thisliterary apparatus comes almost entirely from theextensive collections of Chrysippus. And the samemay be said of his aesthetic culture. He seems tohave seen and been impressed by the gold-andivorystatues of Zeus and Athena, at Olympia andAthens respectively, but he set no very high valueupon the work of artists, for he allowed himselfonce the almost blasphemous characterization of theAcropolis and its incomparable marbles as " prettybits of stone and a pretty rock." Epictetus wasmerely moralist and teacher, but yet of such transcendentattainments as such that it seems almostimpertinent to expect anything more of him.The dates of his birth and of his death cannotbe determined with any accuracy. The burningof the Capitol in A.n. 69 was yet a vivid memorywhile he was still a pupil of Musonius *;he enjoyedthe personal acquaintance of Hadrian, but not ofMarcus Aurelius, for all the latter 's admiration ofhim ;and he speaks freely of himself as an oldman, and is characterized as such by Lucian (Adv.1The Capitol was burned in 69 and aga,in in A.E>. 80, butthe reference to the event (I. 7, 32) as a crime suggests thatthe earlier date should be understood, since the burningthen was due to revolution, while that in A.D. 80 wasaccidental.