Some Fragments of Epictetus Omitted by Upton and by Meibomius
CLXIX
Of the things which are, God has put some of them in our power, and some he has not. In our own power he has placed that which is the best and the most important, that indeed through which he himself is happy, the use of appearances (φαντασιῶν). For when this use is rightly employed, there is freedom, happiness, tranquillity, constancy: and this is also justice and law, and temperance, and every virtue. But all other things he has not placed in our power. Wherefore we also ought to be of one mind with God, and making this division of things, to look after those which are in our power; and of the things not in our power, to entrust them to the Universe (τῷ κόσμῳ), and whether it should require our children, or our country, or our body, or anything else, willingly to give them up.
CLXX
When a young man was boasting in the theatre and saying, I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men; Epictetus said, I also have conversed with many rich men, but I am not rich.
CLXXI
The same person said, It is not good for him who has been well taught to talk among the untaught, as it is not right for him who is sober to talk among those who are drunk.
CLXXII
Epictetus being asked, What man is rich, answered, He who is content (who has enough).
CLXXIII
Xanthippe was blaming Socrates, because he was making small preparation for receiving his friends: but Socrates said, If they are our friends, they will not care about it; and if they are not, we shall care nothing about them.
CLXXIV
When Archelaus was sending for Socrates to make him rich, Socrates told the messengers to return this answer: At Athens four measures (choenices) of meal are sold for one obolus (the sixth of a drachme), and the fountains run with water: if what I have is not enough (sufficient) for me, yet I am sufficient for what I have, and so it becomes sufficient for me. Do you not see that it was with no nobler voice that Polus acted the part of Oedipus as king than of Oedipus as a wanderer and beggar at Colonus? Then shall the good man appear to be inferior to Polus, and unable to act well every character (personage) imposed on him by the Deity? and shall he not imitate Ulysses, who even in rags made no worse figure than in the soft purple robe?
CLXXV
What do I care, he (Epictetus) says, whether all things are composed of atoms (ἀτόμων), or of similar parts (ὁμοιομερῶν) or of fire and earth? for is it not enough to know the nature of the good and the evil, and the measures (μέτρα) of the desires and the aversions (ἐκκλίσεων), and also the movements towards things and from them; and using these as rules to administer the affairs of life, but not to trouble ourselves about the things above us? For these things are perhaps incomprehensible to the human mind: and if any man should even suppose them to be in the highest degree comprehensible, what then is the profit of them, if they are comprehended? And must we not say that those men have needless trouble who assign these things as necessary to the philosopher’s discourse? Is then also the precept written at Delphi superfluous, which is Know thyself? It is not so, he says. What then is the meaning of it? If a man gave to a choreutes (member of chorus) the precept to know himself, would he not have observed in the precept that he must direct his attention to himself?
CLXXVI
You are a little soul carrying a dead body, as Epictetus said.
CLXXVII
He (Epictetus) said that he had discovered an art in giving assent; and in the topic (matter) of the movements he had discovered that we must observe attention, that the movements be subject to exception, (μεφ’ ὑπεξαιρέσεως), that they be social, that they be according to the worth of each thing; and that we ought to abstain entirely from desire, and to employ aversion (ἐκκλίσει) to none of the things which are not in our power.
CLXXVIII
About no common thing, he said, the contest (dispute) is, but about being mad or not.