The Teaching of Epictetus Part 22

CHAPTER XXV.

1. This is the reading of one of the Christian Paraphrases. The other versions add the words p??? ???????? after ?? ?? ?? d?afe??e?a, giving the sense "from things in which we do not differ from each other." It is no uncommon thing for all the versions of Epictetus to unite in a manifestly corrupt reading, and though in this case the received text is not an impossible one, I have thought myself justified in following the variant of the Paraphrase.

CHAPTER XXVII.

1. There is an allusion to this curious feature of the Olympic contests in the Fourth Idyll of Theocritus. Casaubon (_Lect. Theocr._ ad Idyll.

4) quoted by Schweighauser, in his note on this pa.s.sage (_Diss._ III.

xv. 4), shows from Festus Pompeius that there was a statue in the Capitol of a youth bearing a spade after the manner of the Olympic combatants.

2. Euphrates, a Stoic philosopher, and contemporary of Epictetus. He was tutor of Pliny, the younger.

3. The pentathlos contended in five athletic exercises-viz., running, leaping, throwing the quoit, throwing the javelin, wrestling.

4. Much of this must refer to the period of probation or discipleship, for Epictetus is clear that the ordinary Stoic (who had not embraced the special mission of Cynicism) was not required to forsake his family, or his affairs, or his duties as a citizen, nor even justified in doing so.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER II.

1. The husk is, of course, the body. If it is maintained that Nature has made the ease of this our only proper pursuit, of course the altruistic, or social instincts have to be rejected and denied.

2. The text is here almost certainly corrupt. It runs p?? ???

?p????t???? ?se?, ??? ? f?s??? ?st? p??? t? ?????a f???st????a. All the MSS. agree in ?p????t????, for which Schweighauser desires to read p?????t????, and Wolf, ?t? ??????????. Salmasius declares emphatically for p?? ??? ?p???e?? ?t? ?????????? ?se?, and this, with a slight alteration suggested to me by an eminent living scholar, is the reading I have adopted: Let us suppose that Epictetus said p?? ??? ?p???e?? ?t?

?.e., and that this was written in the short lines common in Greek MSS.:-

?OS??????

????S??????

?O?????

The second line, beginning with the same letter as the third, might easily be dropped by a transcriber, and the next transcriber would certainly change the resulting ?p???????? to ?p????t????. The existing reading might give the sense, "How are we, then, suspicious of those (if any there be) to whom Nature has given no affection for their offspring?"

3. Outward things-such as making provision for one's family, serving the State, etc.,-actions which are not directly concerned with our spiritual good.

CHAPTER III.

1. Phrygia, the birthplace of Epictetus, was one of the great centers of the wild and fearful cult of Cybele, whose priests gashed and mutilated themselves in the excitement of the orgie.

2. Philosophy is brought upon the scene, speaking first through the mouth of a Stoic, afterwards through that of an Epicurean, and the practical results of each system are exhibited.

3. The Athenians, rather than submit to Xerxes, abandoned their city to be plundered, and took to their fleet, the victory at Salamis rewarding their resolve.

Those who died at Thermopylae were the three hundred Spartans under Leonidas, who held the pa.s.s against the Persian host till all were slain. Often as their heroism has been celebrated, perhaps nothing more worthy of their valor has been written than the truly laconic epitaph composed for them by Simonides:

"Stranger, the Spartans bade us die: Go, tell them, thou, that here we lie."

CHAPTER IV.

1. The sense of human dignity was strong in Epictetus, and he would have it practically observed in men's relations with each other. Compare Ch. v. 7. Zeller must have overlooked these Fragments of Epictetus when he a.s.serted (p. 301) that no Stoic philosopher had ever condemned slavery. So far as we know, however, this is the only condemnation of that inst.i.tution ever uttered by any Pagan thinker. The usual Stoic view was laid down by Chrysippus, who defined the slave very much as Carlyle does, as a "perpetuus mercenarius"-a man "hired for life, from whom work was to be required, a just return for it being accorded (_operam exegendam, justa prbenda_)." This utterance of Epictetus, as of one who knew slavery from within, and certainly was not inclined to exaggerate its discomforts, is noteworthy enough.

CHAPTER V.

1. Administrator, d?????t??; in Latin, _Corrector_-a State officer of whom inscriptions, etc., make frequent mention, but of whose functions not much appears to be known beyond what the present chapter of Epictetus reveals.

2. Ca.s.siope was a port of Epirus, not far from Nicopolis, where Epictetus taught. Schw. conjectures that Maximus was sending his son to study philosophy at Nicopolis under Epictetus.

3. "For a correct view of these matters will reduce every movement of preference and avoidance to health of body and tranquillity of soul; for this is the perfection of a happy life."-Epicurus, _Diog. Laert._ x.

128. Epictetus's a.n.a.lysis of the Epicurean theory amounts to this, that the pleasure of the soul is the chief good, but that it is only felt through the body and its conditions.

4. _The overseer of youth._-An officer in certain Greek cities. See Mahaffy's _Greek Life and Thought_, ch. xvii., on the organization of the _ephebi_.

5. _Aid in works that are according to Nature._-The Greek is-?? t???

?at? f?s?? ?????? pa?a??at?. There is some difference of opinion among commentators as to the meaning of pa?a??at?. Wolf translates, "hold the chief place" in natural works. Upton, Schw., and Long render it by "keep us constant," "sustain us," in such works. I do not see why we should not take the word in its plainest sense-that pleasure should _act together with other forces_ in leading us to do well.

CHAPTER VII.

1. _Zealous for evil things._-Epictetus must mean things which they know to be evil-evil things _as_ evil. It was a Socratic doctrine which we find again alluded to in this chapter, that no evil is ever willingly or wittingly done.

2. A favorite theme of later Greek and of Roman comedy was the rivalship in love of a father and a son.

3. Admetus, husband of Alcestis, being told by an oracle that his wife must die if no one offered himself in her stead, thought to lay the obligation on his father, as being an old man with but few more years to live. The first verse quoted is from the _Alcestis_ of Euripides; the second is not found in any extant version of that play.

4. Eteocles and Polyneices, sons of dipus, quarreled with each other about the inheritance of their father's kingdom. Eteocles having gained possession of it, Polyneices brought up the famous seven kings, his allies, against Thebes, and fell in battle there by his brother's hand, whom he also killed. The verses quoted are from the _Phnissae_ of Euripides.

5. Schweighauser interprets this pa.s.sage to mean that these men occupy the public places as wild beasts do the mountains, to prey on others. If we might read ?? t? ????a for ?? t? ???, we should get a less obscure sense, "haunt the wilderness-I should say the public places-like wild beasts." The pa.s.sage is clearly corrupt somewhere.

6. Polyneices bribed Eriphyle with the gift of this necklace to persuade her unwilling husband to march with him against Thebes where he died.

CHAPTER VIII.

1. The allusion is to _Odyssey_, v. 82-4. "But he was sitting on the beach and weeping, where he was wont; and tormented his spirit with tears and groanings and woes, and wept as he gazed over the barren sea."

2. _Let him pity._-See Bk. I., ch. viii., _note_ 3.

CHAPTER IX.

1. _The conflagration._-See Preface for an account of the Stoic Doctrine of the _Weltverbrennung_.

2. Long suggests that the words translated "air to air" might be equally well rendered "spirit to spirit" (?s?? p?e?at??? e?? p?e??t???), thus finding a place for the soul in this enumeration of the elements of man.