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Library Epictetus

Discourses, Book III — Epictetus

Recorded oral teaching

Discourses, Book III

Epicteto en la portada de las obras de Séneca (Amberes, 1605)
byEpictetus

The book of exercises: how to train against impressions, bear illness and solitude, and the famous portrait of the true Cynic (III.22) as Zeus' messenger. Chapters (26): 1. Of finery in dress; 2. In what a man who has made proficiency ought to be exercised; 3. What is the matter on which a good man should be employed; 4. Against a person who showed his partisanship in a theatre; 5. Against those who on account of sickness go away home; 6. Miscellaneous; 7. To the administrator of the free cities who was an Epicurean; 8. How we must exercise ourselves against appearances; 9. To a rhetorician going up to Rome on a suit; 10. In what manner we ought to bear sickness; 11. Certain miscellaneous matters; 12. About exercise; 13. What solitude is, and what kind of person a solitary man is; 14. Certain miscellaneous matters (II); 15. That we ought to proceed with circumspection to everything; 16. That we ought with caution to enter into familiar intercourse with men; 17. Of providence; 18. That we ought not to be disturbed by any news; 19. The condition of a common man and of a philosopher; 20. That we can derive advantage from all external things; 21. Against those who readily come to the profession of sophists; 22. About Cynism; 23. To those who read and discuss for the sake of ostentation; 24. That we ought not to be moved by a desire of things not in our power; 25. To those who desist from their purpose; 26. To those who fear want.

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Authorship note

Epictetus wrote nothing. The Discourses are notes of his lectures taken by his pupil Flavius Arrian, who says in the prefatory letter to Lucius Gellius that he transcribed them word for word; the language (colloquial Koine, unlike the Attic of Arrian's own works) supports the view that they preserve the master's voice, though the selection and final wording are Arrian's. A minority of scholars (Robert Dobbin) has argued that Epictetus wrote them himself.

Editions and translations

Editions in your language first, without hiding the others. Each with its cover and its store.

English

  • The Discourses of Epictetus; with the Encheiridion and Fragments

    George Bell and Sons; Wikisource, 1877

    Translation: George Long

    Dominio público.

Español

  • Disertaciones por Arriano — Epictetus

    Disertaciones por Arriano

    Gredos (Biblioteca Clásica Gredos, 185), 1993

    Translation: Paloma Ortiz García

    ISBN 9788424916282

    Introducción, traducción y notas.

Other works by Epictetus

Sources

  • Epicteto. Disertaciones (por Arriano) y Manual. Texto griego en Wikisource en griego; trad. inglesa de George Long, The Discourses of Epictetus; with the Encheiridion and Fragments (Londres: George Bell, 1877), en Wikisource en inglés.

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