Post

I did not write the Discourses. My student Arrian wrote them down — he attended my lectures in Nicopolis around 108 AD and transcribed what I said. I am told he preserved the tone accurately. If so, readers will notice that I argued by example, by question, by the direct address of an imagined interlocutor. Lecture notes are not the same as polished prose. They are closer to the thought.

I was born a slave. My master, Epaphroditus, broke my leg to demonstrate that he could. I looked at him and said: you will break it. He broke it. I said: did I not tell you that you would break it?

I include this not as heroism but as illustration. He broke a leg. He could not break the judgment I had made about the broken leg. The distinction between what is in our power and what is not — this is the whole of Stoic philosophy in one sentence. Everything else is application.