His influence has been extensive and has not yet waned. Hadrian was his friend, and, in the next generation, Marcus Aurelius was his ardent disciple. Celsus, Gellius, and Lucian lauded him, and Galen wrote a special treatise in his defence. His merits were recognized by Christians like Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Augustine, while Origen rated him in some respects even above Plato. His Manual, with a few simple changes, principally in the proper names, was adapted by two diftierent Christian ascetics as a rule and guide of monastic life.37
In modern times his vogue started rather slowly with translations by Perotti and Politian, but vernacular versions began to appear in the sixteenth century, and at the end of that century and the first part of the subsequent one, Epictetus was one of the most powerful forces in the movement of Neo-Stoicism, especially under the protagonists Justus Lipsius and Bishop Guillaume Du Vair.38 His work and the essays of Montaigne were the principal secular readings of Pascal, and it was with Epictetus and his disciple Marcus Aurelius that the Earl of Shaftesbury "was most thoroughly conversant."39 Men as different as Touissant L'Ouverture and Landor, Frederick the Great and Leopardi, have been among his admirers. The number of editions and new printings of his works, or of portions or translations of the same, averages considerably more than one for each year since the invention of printing. In the twentieth century, through the inclusion of Crossley's Golden Sayings of Epictetus in Charles William Eliot's Harvard Series of Classics, and of the Manual in Carl Hilty's Glück, of which two works upwards of three hundred and fifty thousand copies had, at a recent date, been sold, it may safely be asserted that more copies of portions of his work have been printed in the last two decades than ever existed all told from his own day down to that time.
In concluding one can hardly refrain from translating a portion of the sincere and stirring passage in which Justus Lipsius, a great man and a distinguished scholar, paid Epictetus the tribute of his homage:
"So much for Seneca; another brilliant star arises, Epictetus, his second in time, but not in merit; comparable with him in the weight, if not in the bulk, of his writings; superior in his life. He was a man who relied wholly upon himself and God, but not on Fortune. In origin low and servile, in body lame and feeble, in mind most exalted, and brilliant among the lights of every age. . . .
"But few of his works remain: the Encheiridion, assuredly a noble piece, and as it were the soul of Stoic moral philosophy; besides that, the Discourses, which he delivered on the streets, in his house, and in the school, collected and arranged by Arrian. Nor are these all extant. . . . But, so help me God, what a keen and lofty spirit in them! a soul aflame, and burning with love of the honourable! There is nothing in Greek their like, unless I am mistaken; I mean with such notable vigour and fire. A novice or one unacquainted with true philosophy he will hardly stir or affect, but when a man has made some progress or is already far advanced, it is amazing how Epictetus stirs him up, and though he is always touching some tender spot, yet he gives delight also. . . . There is no one who better influences and shapes a good mind. I never read that old man without a stirring of my soul within me, and, as with Homer, I think the more of him each time I re-read him, for he seems always new; and even after I have returned to him I feel that I ought to return to him yet once more."
Bibliography40
The editio princeps of Epictetus was prepared by Victor Trincavelli at Venice, in 1535, from a singularly faulty MS., so that it is valueless for the purposes of textual criticism. The first substantial work of a critical character was done by Jacob Schegk, a distinguished professor of medicine at Tübingen, in the edition of Basel, 1554. Although few changes were made in the Greek text, Schegk employed his admirable Latin version as a medium for the correction of hundreds of passages. Even greater were the services of Hieronymus Wolf, whose edition, with translation and commentary, Basel, 1560, is perhaps the most important landmark in Epictetean studies, but for some reason failed to influence markedly the common tradition, which long thereafter continued to reproduce the inferior Greek text of Schegk (Trincavelli).
The next advance is connected with the name of John Upton, whose work appeared in parts, London, 1739-41. Upton had some knowledge of a number of MSS., and in particular a "codex," which was a copy of the Trincavelli edition that contained in the margins numerous readings of a MS. now in Mutina, and possibly other MSS., together with notes and emendations from Wolf, Salmasius, and others, so that one cannot be certain always just what "authority" is behind any particular reading whose source is otherwise not accounted for. He had, moreover, the annotations of Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, and the assistance of the learned James Harris, and his contributions to the interpretation of Epictetus in the elaborate commentary are numerous. Richard Bentley's sagacious and often brilliant emendations entered in the margins of his copy of the Trincavelli edition remained unfortunately unknown until quite recently, as also the ingenious and stimulating, but on the whole less carefully considered, annotations of J. J. Reiske (in H. Schenkl's edition).
Appropriately designated Monumenta (Epicteteae Philosophiae Monumenta) is the great work in five large volumes by Johannes Schweighäuser, Leipzig, 1799-1800, immediately following a notable edition, in fact the only really critical edition, of the Encheiridion (1798), which, despite its imperfections, subsequent editors have been content merely to reprint. Schweighäuser's work is characterized by acumen, industry, and lucidity, and it will be long before it is entirely superseded. The edition by A. Koraes, Paris, 1826, although its author was a learned and ingenious scholar, is marred by a number of unnecessary rewritings.
A substantial critical edition we owe to the painstaking labours of Heinrich Schenkl (Leipzig, 1894; editio minor, 1898; second edition, 1916). This is based upon the Bodleian MS. Misc. Graec. 251, s. xi/xii, which Schenkl and, it would appear, J. L. G. Mowat before him (Journ. of. Philol. 1877, 60 ff.; cf. J. B. Mayor, Cl. Rev. 1895, 31 f., and Schenkl, ed. minor, 1898, p. iv; ed. 1916, p. iv) have shown to be the archetype of all the numerous existing MSS. of the Discourses.41 For the editio minor (1898) a new collation was prepared by the skilled hand of W. M. Lindsay, and for the second edition (1916) Schenkl himself had photographs of the complete MS. to work with, while T. W. Allen furnished an expert's transcription of the Scholia, with the result that, although the first edition by Schenkl left something to be desired in the accuracy and fullness of its MS. readings, one can approach the apparatus criticus of the second edition with all reasonable confidence. Schenkl's own contributions to the constitution of the text by way of emendation are considerable, the number of emendations, however, wisely somewhat reduced in the latest printing. A very full index verborum greatly facilitates studies of all kinds.
Of the Encheiridion scores of editions have appeared, but hardly any that deserve mention either for critical or exegetical value, except those that form parts of the above-mentioned editions by Wolf, Upton, and Schweighäuser (a better text in his separate edition of the Encheiridion, Leipzig, 1798). But a few necessary remarks about that work and the Fragments will be given in the introduction to the second volume of the present work.
A brief list of some of the most important titles bearing upon the criticism of Epictetus:—
H. von Arnim, article "Epiktetos," in Pauly's Realencyclopädie, etc., Zweite Bearbeitung, VI. 126-31. Contains an excellent summary of his teaching.
E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism. Cambridge, 1911. Article "Epictetus," in Hastings, Enc. of Rel. VI, 323 f.
R. Asmus, Quaestiones Epicteteae. Freiburg i. B. 1888.
R. Bentley's critical notes on Arrian's "Discourses of Epictetus"; Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc. 1921, 53, 40-52 (by W. A. Oldfather).
A. Bonhöffer, Epiktet und die Stoa. Stuttgart, 1890.