Epictetus - The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness

How do I live a happy, fulfilling life?

How can I be a good person?

Answering these two questions was the single-minded passion of Epictetus, the great Stoic philosopher. Although his works are less well-known today, due to the decline of classical education, they have had enormous influence on leading thinkers on the art of living for almost two millennia.

Epictetus was born a slave about A.D. 55 in Hierapolis, Phrygia, in the eastern outreaches of the Roman Empire. His master was Epaphroditus, Neros administrative secretary. From an early age, Epictetus exhibited superior intellectual talent, and Epaphroditus was so impressed that he sent the young man to Rome to study with the famous Stoic teacher, Gaius Musonius Rufus. Musonius Rufuss works, which survive in Greek, include arguments in favor of equal education for women and against the sexual double standard in marriage, and Epictetuss famous egalitarian spirit may have been nurtured under his tutelage. Epictetus became Musonius Rufuss most acclaimed student and was eventually freed from slavery.

Epictetus taught in Rome until A.D. 94, when the emperor Domitian, threatened by the growing influence of philosophers, banished him from Rome. He spent the rest of his life in exile in Nicopolis, on the northwest coast of Greece. There he established a philosophical school, and spent his days delivering lectures on how to live with greater dignity and tranquility. Among his most distinguished students was the young Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who eventually became ruler of the Roman Empire. He was also the author of the famous Meditations , whose Stoic roots were in Epictetuss moral doctrines.

Even though Epictetus was a brilliant master of logic and disputation, he didnt flaunt his exceptional rhetorical skill. His demeanor was that of a lighthearted, humble teacher urging his students to take the business of living wisely very seriously. Epictetus walked his talk: He lived modestly in a small hut and eschewed any interest in fame, fortune, and power. He died about A.D. 135, in Nicopolis.

Epictetus believed that the primary job of philosophy is to help ordinary people effectively meet the everyday challenges of daily life, and to deal with lifes inevitable major losses, disappointments, and griefs. His was a moral teaching stripped of sentimentality, piousness, and metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. What remains is the Wests first and best primer for living the best possible life.

While many readers have turned to Eastern sources for nonsectarian spiritual guidance, the West has had a vital, if overlooked, classic treasury of such helpful action-wisdom all along. One of the wittiest teachers who ever lived, Epictetuss teachings rank with those contained in the greatest wisdom literature of human civilization. The Discourses could be thought of as the Wests answer to Buddhisms Dhammapada or Lao Tzus Tao Te Ching . Those who fault Western philosophy with being overly cerebral and inadequately addressing the nonrational dimensions of life may be surprised to learn that The Art of Living is actually a philosophy of inner freedom and tranquility, a way of life whose purpose is to lighten our hearts.

An unexpectedly East-West flavor enlivens The Art of Living . On the one hand, its style is irrefutably Western: It exalts reason and is full of stern, no-nonsense moral directives. On the other hand, a soft Easterly wind seems to blow when Epictetus discusses the nature of the universe. His depiction of Ultimate Reality, for instance, which he equates with Nature itself, is remarkably fluid and elusive: startlingly reminiscent of the Tao.