Arrian (p. xii), to whom we owe the extant works of Epictetus, described the Encheiridion as “a selection from Epictetus’s speeches containing those that are most timely and most essential to philosophy, and which most stir the soul” (Britain and Brennan 2002, vol. 1, p. 38). This information comes to us from Simplicius, a Platonist philosopher and commentator on Aristotle, who composed a commentary on the text in the sixth century AD, treating it anachronistically as an introduction to Platonism. In the heyday of medieval monasticism, the Encheiridion was adapted and paraphrased to suit the needs of Christians (Boter 1999). No fewer than fifty-nine Greek manuscripts attest to the work’s early popularity.
As a book title, encheiridion was not Arrian’s invention. The Greek word cheir means hand, and an encheiridion is literally a little thing for carrying in the hand. The word had been previously used by an Epicurean philosopher to describe a “handy” collection of subject matter. In choosing the word encheiridion for his compendium of Epictetus, Arrian’s meaning can be largely conveyed by “handbook” or “manual,” but I prefer to keep the Greek word. In its earliest usage encheiridion refers to a hand-knife or dagger. Arrian may have wished to suggest that connotation of the work’s defensive or protective function. It fits his admonition at the beginning and end of the text to keep Epictetus’s message “to hand” (procheiron). In obvious imitation, Erasmus in 1501 published a work in Latin with the title Enchiridion militis Christiani (A Christian Soldier’s Manual).
The fifty-three sections of the Encheiridion range in length from essays of several hundred words (23, 24, 29) and a long list of do’s and dont’s (33) to a mere couple of sentences (37, 41, 50). Each section is self-contained, but the collection as a whole has a discernible structure. The first passage, detailing the things up to us or not up to us, is clearly introductory and expository. Item 53 with its admonitory quotations rounds off the whole. Near the middle, at section 22, Epictetus shifts his focus from general advice on securing freedom and tranquility to specific counsel for would-be philosophers. He does not call these addressees Stoics, probably because his main concern is not school affiliation but the lifestyle that any philosopher worthy of the name should commit to—a manner of life that is demanding and austere but also modest and unostentatious. However, some of these later sections (e.g., 36, 42, 45, 49, and 52) allude to specific Stoic doctrines and terminology, as I explain in the glossary.
In the Discourses, as will be seen from the excerpts of them in this book, Epictetus often writes in a dialogical style. Section 24 of the Encheiridion is written like that, and section 29 repeats Discourses 3.15 more or less word for word. In general, however, the Encheiridion is more peremptory than the Discourses and less discursive (“keep this in mind,” “you will have to do that” etc.). Even so, when the sections are read in sequence, a consistent philosophy of life emerges, grounded in the initial postulates concerning the kind of freedom made available by the Stoic view of nature. I recommend readers to spot the implicit arguments that Epictetus constantly employs by his use of conditional clauses: “if you want this, then the consequence will be that,” etc.
Unlike many ancient Greek books, the transmission of Epictetus’s work is free from serious contamination and scribal error for the most part. My translation of the Encheiridion largely follows Oldfather’s Greek text of the Loeb Classical Library edition (1925–1928), itself based on the edition of Schenkl (1916). Oldfather’s text is reprinted here with permission of Harvard University Press. In a few instances, I follow the edition of Boter (1999) in my translation of a word or a phrase, as indicated with the mark +. These changes are indicated in the same way in the Greek text. My excerpts from the Discourses reproduce the Loeb Classical Library text without any changes.
In the translation I append the mark * to the first occurrence of words that are explained in the glossary.