Epictetus his manuall

The text which follows is the second printed English translation of the Manual or Handbook of Epictetus. The English title translates the Greek ἐγχειρίδιον “in the hand”, “ready to hand”. This little book condenses Epicurus’ philosophical teachings, for which Herodes Atticus hailed him as “the greatest of Stoics” (according to Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 1.2.6). Epictetus was born at about AD 55 in Hierapolis, in Phrygia.^[1] As the name ἐπίκτητος, “acquired”, reveals, he was a slave: he belonged to Epaphroditus, himself a former slave of the emperor Nero, then a rich and powerful freedman. Epictetus joined his master in Rome, where he also may have met Seneca (Seddon 2005, 5). After being at some point manumitted, Epictetus left Rome in AD 89, following the decree of expulsion of all philosophers from Italy issued by Domitian. Thus, he opened his own school in Nicopolis in Epirus, which attracted many upper-class Romans as disciples. Among them, Flavius Arrianus was to become a reputed historian, now best known for his Anabasis of Alexander and Indica. It was he who took on the task of putting the master’s teachings in writing. While in the prefatory letter (addressed to an otherwise unknown Lucius Gellius), Arrian professes that his book adheres to the oral teachings of Epictetus, it has been suggested that its content is Arrian’s own creation (Wirth 1967). On the other hand, it has been argued that Epictetus himself, not Arrian, was the author (Dobbin 1998). However, the majority of scholars remains convinced of Arrian’s authorship (see e.g. Long 1982; Hadot 1996). Although we cannot ascertain to what extent Arrian’s words reflect Epictetus’ teaching verbatim, it is true that they “were intended to present Stoic moral philosophy in the terms and the style that Epictetus employed as a teacher intent on bringing his students to philosophic enlightenment as the Stoics had understood this enterprise” (Seddon 2005, 6-7).

The two works which were written by Arrian and are connected with Epictetus’ teachings are the Discourses and the Manual. The former appear as a recording of the daily discussions between Epictetus and his students after formal lessons had concluded for the day, ranging on a variety of topics related to Stoic philosophy. The Manual can be considered an abstract of the Discourses and part of its text is derived from the main work. It is a succinct exposition of the Stoic philosophic system, revolving around the central concept of virtue (ἀρετή) as the access key to happiness (εὐδαιμονία). While common human beings are subject to the twists and turns of fortune, stoic philosophers know that happiness is in us and depends on the capacity of regarding everything which is outside us with indifference. Moreover, stoic philosophers firmly believe that the world has been rationally ordered by the divine mind in the best possible way. Therefore, they strive to act according to the rational order of the universe and accept their place in it. This is the core of the stoic doctrine, as it is expounded in the Manual also by means of similes and images: humans are like actors of a play, which is as long as the playwright chooses it to be (Handbook 17); philosophical training is comparable to training as a wrestler for the Olympic games (29).

Epictetus’ Encheiridion enjoyed wide success in Renaissance Europe. Together with Plato’s dialogues, Neoplatonic treatises (Plotinus, Iambichus, Synesius), Cicero’s Academica, and the Outlines of Pyrronism by Sextus Empiricus, it provided early modern readers with new, un-Aristotelian models for explaining psychological phenomena, with a new emphasis on the emotions (Park and Kessler 1988, 460). It was first published in Greek in 1529 in two editions: one in Venice, together with Simplicius’ commentary from the beginning of the sixth century (USTC 856490); the other in Nurnberg (USTC 649345). But the text became popular especially through the Latin translation of Angelus Politianus (Angelo Poliziano), first printed in 1498 in the edition of all his works (USTC 991842), then frequently reprinted. A previous translation by Nicolaus Perottus (Niccolò Perotti), made in the early 1450s, is preserved in nineteen manuscripts but was to be published only in 1954. Politianus’ translation remained the standard one until the early 1560s and the two further Latin translations by Hieronymus Verlenius (Den Bosch, 1543; USTC 410903) and Thomas Naogeorgus (Strasbourg, 1554; USTC 676441) failed to challenge its primacy. It was instead the 1561 translation by Hieronymus Wolfius (Wolf), published in Basel, which gradually superseded Politianus’ one.^[2]

As regards the sixteenth-century vernacular translations outside England, the Manual was first translated in French in 1538 by Antoine Du Moulin (USTC 38009; reprinted in 1544, 1546, and 1558), then in 1567 by André de Rivandeau (USTC 5933), in 1591 by Guillaume Du Vair (USTC 48009). It was translated in Italian in 1564 by Giulio Ballino (USTC 828169, reprinted in 1565) and in 1582 by Matteo Franceschi, together with Simplicius’ commentary^[3] (USTC 856521, reprinted in 1583). It was also translated in Dutch in 1564 (USTC 409532).

The first English translation of the Manual was made by James Sanford and published in 1567 (fl. 1567–1582). About forty years later, John Healey made a second English translation, which was published in 1610 in a book packaging Epictetus with the Table of Cebes.[4] Healey attended St John's College, Cambridge, but left to travel through the Low Countries, France, and Germany to Italy, where he became catholic. After returning to England in 1604, in 1606 he was imprisoned and interrogated in the aftermath of the Gunpowder plot. We are poorly informed on the rest of his life. We know that a John Healey dedicated verses to Lord Salisbury in 1607, probably in order to obtain his favour or patronage.[5] In 1616, Thomas Thorpe reprinted Healey's Epictetus and Cebes with a translation of the Characters of Theophrastus which he attributed to Healey. According to the dedication, Healey had already died; the place and cause of his death are unknown.

Healey’s career as translator began in 1609 with two works. One, Philip Mornay, Lord of Plessis, his Teares for the Death of his Sonne (USTC 3003625), is a translation of an essay by Philippe de Mornay. The other, The Discoverie of a New World (USTC 3004029), is freely translated from Joseph Hall’s satire Mundus alter et idem. 1610 was the year of Healey’s main translations. In addition to Epictetus and Cebes, he published St Augustine's The City of God with the long commentary of Juan Luis Vives.

The part of the book containing Epictetus is composed of the following sections: dedicatory epistle to John Florio (A3<r> – <A4v>); life of Epictetus (<A5r> – <A6v>); the English translation of the Manual (B<1r> – F4<r>); the Table of Cebes (<F5r> – <H12r>).

As Lathrope noticed (1967, 262) Healey made use not only of the Greek text, but also of the Latin translation by Wolf: he “controlled the Latin by the Greek, sometimes failing to notice a discrepancy, and translated with great freedom, occasionally rendering a metaphor by a totally different one” (ibid.). The lively style of his translation contrast with the plain style of Epictetus’ exposition.

[1] On Epictetus’ life see Inwood 2006.

[2] On the Latin translations of the Manual, see Boter 2011; Oldfather 1952

[3] c. AD 490-560, a Neoplatonic philosopher from Cilicia. In addition to the commentary to the Manual, we still have his commentaries on writings of Aristotle: on the Categoriae, the Physica, De caelo and De anima.

[4] The printer George Eld issued two variant editions: for Th. Thorpe (USTC 3004440); for Edward Blount and William Barret (USTC 3004441).

[5] More on Healey’s life in Considine 2008.

Boter, Gerard J. 2011. “Epictetus”. In Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum: Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, Volume IX, 1-54. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press.

Considine, John. 2008. “Healey, John”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/12817 (accessed 13 February 2023).

Dobbin, Robert F., ed. 1998. Epictetus. Discourses, Book 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Hadot, Ilsetraut, ed. 1996. Simplicius. Commentaire sur le Manuel d’Epictète. Leiden: Brill.

Inwood, Brad. 2006. “Epictetus”. In: Brill’s New Pauly, edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, English Edition by Christine F. Salazar. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e332560 (accessed 7 February 2023).

Long, A. A. “Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius”. In Ancient Writers: Greece and Rome, edited by T. James Luce, volume 2, 985-1002. New York: Scribner.

Park, Katharine, and Eckhard Kessler. 1988. “The concept of Psychology”. In The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, general editor Charles B. Schmitt, 455-63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Seddon, Keith. 2005. Epictetus’ Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes: Guides to Stoic Living. London and New York: Routledge.

Wirth, Theo. 1967. “Arrians Errinerungen an Epiktet” MuseumHelveticum 24: 149-89, 197-216.