Transcript for Interview with AA Long on Epictetus

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0. Introduction

The key Stoic message from Epictetus is that happiness is always possible no matter the circumstance, no matter what tragedies may happen, no matter the state of the external world, happiness is always up to you. Epictetus wasn't just talking out of his ass here, because he was born a slave. And yet even slavery did not rob him of his happiness. In some very real sense then, Epictetus was a slave who was free.

Now, when Epictetus was actually freed, he quickly became one of the most sought after teachers in Rome. The elite would pay vast sums to send their sons to learn his Stoic art of life. And so, ironically, this ex-slave became the teacher to an entire generation of ambitious young men.

My guest today is the legendary Epictetus scholar, Anthony Long. Professor Long is going to synthesize for us this Stoic curriculum designed to prepare young men to enter the very upper echelons of society. You're going to learn the key ideas of the Stoic grandmaster and how to achieve a happiness that rises above fortune.

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1. The Life of Epictetus

Johnathan Bi: Tell us about the incredible life of Epictetus.

Anthony Long: Right, so Epictetus was born in about the middle years of the first century AD of our era, probably into a slave household. His mother was probably a slave. And this is in what we call central Turkey today, Anatolia. He must have come to Rome as a pretty young guy, perhaps a teenager, and was employed in the household of a man called a very prominent freedman, not a slave, but a freedman called Epaphroditus, who was a very prominent sort of bureaucrat working for the Emperor Nero.

And he came across a prominent Roman Stoic philosopher called Musonius Rufus, probably again in his teens and we don't know much about the next few years, but he was probably consorting with other Roman Stoic philosophers in Rome. And we do know that when the Emperor Domitian, who was a pretty nasty piece of work, came into power towards the end of the century, Stoic philosophers were expelled from Rome. And Epictetus went out with them. A number of prominent Romans who had been aspiring to Stoicism were very critical of the empire. So they got into trouble that way.

And then by now he was obviously pretty much esteemed by people. And although he didn't have many resources of his own, he must have had enough to be able to move to a very fine Greek city called Nicopolis on the coast of the Adriatic and founded his own school there. And we know about that school quite a lot because he refers to students in his Discourses. And he must have been quite famous by now because he was almost certainly visited by the Emperor Hadrian, which is quite something for the Emperor to come and visit an ex-slave.

Yes, I should have explained, of course, that he was manumitted. He received his freedom again, probably during the time he was with Epaphroditus. But it's very important, I think, for understanding Epictetus, some of his preoccupations, to realize that he had been born a slave. And freedom is such a very important notion in his writings.

And we don't know too much about his life. I mean, he taught in the school. And the record of his work that we have is very much something like a transcript of his lectures. And the people he's talking to in his Discourses are very young guys. I mean, they're males, they're only males, probably varying in age from about 16 to 24. Although the message of the Discourses can be extremely grown up and even brutal at times. But it's important to recognize that these are guys, young guys, whose parents have wanted them to go and study with Epictetus.

Johnathan Bi: And they were from prominent families, and a lot of them wanted to go into public service, right?

Anthony Long: Absolutely. And in fact, the writer called Arrian. Arrian, who is the source of our knowledge of Epictetus, became an extremely prominent Roman. He became a Roman consul. He wrote copiously on various things. He wrote the history of Alexander the Great, and he produced eight volumes of these transcripts of Epictetus.

He's trying to capture the way Epictetus spoke, and it clearly has done, because the style is totally different from his other style. It's in the colloquial Greek called the Koine, the Greek of the New Testament. And sometimes the Discourses are Epictetus simply speaking. Sometimes they're like a dialogue where he's meeting somebody else. And they're quite unique, I think. I mean, there's nothing really else like this in ancient Greek and Roman literature. I mean, Marcus Aurelius, of course, is writing to himself, but here is some...

Johnathan Bi: And Epictetus was one of his big inspirations.

Anthony Long: Oh, huge, huge. It's mind boggling to think that the most powerful man in the world is putting himself at the feet of this ex-slave.

Johnathan Bi: Yes. And that is what I found most attractive about Epictetus' life. And this quote of your book summarizes quite well.

[Epictetus] contrasts radically with the immensely wealthy and powerful Seneca, who was not a practicing teacher and whose Stoicism, though certainly sincere, was fully tested only in old age when Nero forced him to commit suicide … Freedom and slavery had long been metaphors for states of mind and attitudes pertaining to people irrespective of their social status. Yet when, as often, Epictetus calls one of his free-born students, ‘slave’, [we ought remember that Epictetus actually] knew the indignity of slavery from direct experience and who had also lived under the tyrannical regime of Domitian, Epictetus’ philosophy acquires an experiential dimension that removes from it any vestige of mere theorizing or posturing.

(Anthony Long, Epictetus)

That is what I find so attractive about this philosophy, is that it is born out of, and engenders, a very admirable life.