Author Guide · Stoic Philosophy
Books Written by
Epictetus was born into slavery around AD 50 in Hierapolis, in what is now western Turkey, and spent his youth in Rome as the slave of Epaphroditus, a freedman who served as Nero’s secretary. He was allowed to study Stoic philosophy with Musonius Rufus, was freed after Nero’s death, and taught in Rome until the emperor Domitian banished the philosophers around AD 93. He then opened a school at Nicopolis in north-western Greece. He wrote nothing himself. Around AD 108 a young student, Arrian, took down his lectures as nearly word for word as he could; those notes became the Discourses, and Arrian later boiled them down into the short Enchiridion, or Handbook. For an English reader the next question is which translation to pick. This guide covers his 10 key works and translations, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key works and translations · 108–2022 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Epictetus wrote nothing himself. His teaching survives in two works recorded by his student Arrian: the Discourses (c. AD 108; four of eight books survive) and the Enchiridion or Handbook (c. AD 125), a digest in 53 short chapters. Start with the Enchiridion, then read the Discourses in a complete modern translation such as Robin Hard’s (2014) or Robin Waterfield’s (2022).
Where to Start with Epictetus
If you want the core of his teaching in an evening
→ Enchiridion (125) — 53 short chapters.
If you want the Handbook with the Greek alongside
→ How to Be Free (2018) — A. A. Long’s translation.
If you want everything that survives in modern English
→ Hard (2014) — Discourses, fragments and Handbook in one volume.
If you want a free, public-domain translation
→ Higginson (1865).
10 Epictetus Works and Translations, in Order
Discourses
Informal talks from Epictetus’s classroom at Nicopolis, written down by Arrian around AD 108; Epictetus mentions coins of Trajan, which places them in that reign. Arrian says in his preface that he wrote down what he heard in Epictetus’s own words as nearly as he could, as a memorial for himself, and did not publish the notes himself. Of eight original books, four survive, plus fragments quoted by later writers such as Stobaeus, Aulus Gellius and Marcus Aurelius. Nearly every manuscript goes back to a single twelfth-century copy now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Enchiridion
Arrian’s digest of the teaching, compiled in the early second century and usually dated around AD 125: 53 short chapters, most of them a paragraph or two, drawn largely from the Discourses and reworked into practical precepts. It opens with the distinction at the centre of his thought, between what is up to us and what is not. It was translated into Latin by Angelo Poliziano in 1497, adapted by Byzantine monks with Socrates sometimes renamed Paul, and was a standard book in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.
Elizabeth Carter: All the Works of Epictetus, Which Are Now Extant
The scholar and poet Elizabeth Carter began the translation in 1749, finished the Discourses in December 1752 and published the whole in 1758, funded by subscriptions her friends collected; she made a clear profit of £1,000. It went through three editions and kept a high reputation long after. Samuel Johnson said his old friend could “make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus from the Greek”.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson: The Works of Epictetus
The American writer and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson published his version of the Discourses, Enchiridion and fragments in 1865. Its plain nineteenth-century English is still readable, and it is in the public domain: the Perseus project hosts it online, chapter by chapter.
George Long: The Discourses of Epictetus
The English classical scholar George Long published his Discourses with the Enchiridion and fragments in 1877. Close and sober rather than elegant, it has been reprinted many times, including by Dover, and is free in the public domain.
W. A. Oldfather: Epictetus (Loeb Classical Library)
William Abbott Oldfather’s two volumes for the Loeb Classical Library, published in 1925 and 1928, print the Greek and the English on facing pages and include the Discourses, the Enchiridion and the fragments. It is the edition for readers who want to check a phrase in the original.
Robert Dobbin: Discourses and Selected Writings
Robert Dobbin’s Penguin Classics edition, published in 2008, is a modern translation with an introduction and notes. It is a selection rather than the whole: it gives 64 of the 95 surviving discourses, so readers who want everything should choose Hard or Waterfield.
Robin Hard: Discourses, Fragments, Handbook
Robin Hard’s complete translation for Oxford World’s Classics, published in February 2014, with an introduction and notes by Christopher Gill of the University of Exeter. It puts all four surviving books of the Discourses, the fragments and the Handbook in one paperback.
A. A. Long: How to Be Free
Anthony Long, professor emeritus of classics at the University of California, Berkeley, translates the Encheiridion with selected passages from the Discourses, the Greek on facing pages. Princeton University Press published it in October 2018, with an introduction and a glossary of key terms.
Robin Waterfield: The Complete Works
Robin Waterfield’s The Complete Works: Handbook, Discourses, and Fragments, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2022, is the most recent complete translation, edited and annotated by the translator, with maps, a bibliography and an index.
In What Order to Read Epictetus
Read the Enchiridion first. It is Arrian’s own summary of the Discourses, so it gives you the whole framework in an hour: what is up to us and what is not, and how to train desire, action and judgement around that line. Then go to the Discourses, where the same ideas come with the jokes, the examples and the arguments with students that make them stick.
For the Discourses, choose a complete translation if you can (Hard, Waterfield or, free online, Higginson and Long); Dobbin’s Penguin is a selection. For the Enchiridion, any version will do, but A. A. Long’s puts the Greek beside the English for the key words.
A reading path
1. Enchiridion, in A. A. Long’s How to Be Free (2018)
2. Discourses, Book 1, in Hard (2014) or Waterfield (2022)
3. Discourses, Books 2–4 and the fragments
4. Then Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, which quotes him
More Translations of Epictetus
Beyond the 10 key works and translations: 4 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other English translations
4
4 books · 1916–2023
- 1916The Discourses and ManualPercy Ewing Matheson’s translation, Oxford
- 1983The Handbook of Epictetusa short modern version of the Enchiridion
- 1995The DiscoursesRobin Hard’s revision of Carter, for Everyman
- 2023Epictetus’s Encheiridiona new translation with commentary
The years · 50–2022
Quick facts about Epictetus
- Known for
- Stoic teaching that we should care only about what is up to us, our own judgements and choices, and accept everything else calmly
- 50
- Born into slavery in Hierapolis
- 108
- Discourses recorded by Arrian
- 1758
- Elizabeth Carter’s English translation
- 2022
- Waterfield’s Complete Works
- Born
- c. AD 50, Hierapolis, Phrygia (now Pamukkale, Turkey), into slavery
- Died
- c. AD 135, probably at Nicopolis, Epirus, Greece
- Enslaved to
- Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman and secretary to Nero; freed after Nero’s death in 68
- Teacher
- The Stoic Musonius Rufus
- School
- Nicopolis, from about AD 93, after Domitian banished the philosophers from Rome
- Recorded by
- His student Arrian, around AD 108
- School of thought
- Stoicism
The red mark is about AD 108, when Arrian took down the lectures that became the Discourses.
How Epictetus Taught: Philosophy as Training
The Discourses are classroom talk, not treatises. Epictetus argues with a student or an imagined objector, asks short questions, mocks, tells stories and reaches for everyday examples: a ship’s passenger, a slave, a man in prison, a guest at a banquet. Socrates and Diogenes are his models. Arrian wrote that he could make a listener feel exactly what he wanted him to feel, and the notes keep that voice.
Everything turns on one distinction, set out in the first line of the Enchiridion: some things are up to us and some are not. Our judgements, choices, desires and aversions are ours; the body, property, reputation and office are not. He calls the faculty of choice prohairesis, and trains it in three areas: desire and aversion, action and duty, and assent, the judgement we give to impressions. Philosophy, for him, is practice; a student who can explain a doctrine but not live by it has learned nothing.
That practical bent explains his later readers: Marcus Aurelius, who quotes him in the Meditations; Pascal, who called him a great mind; and James Stockdale, who used him to get through seven years as a prisoner of war. For writers who carry the same ideas, from Seneca to Montaigne, see Authors like Epictetus.
Frequently asked questions about Epictetus’s books
How many books has Epictetus written?
None himself: he taught out loud. Two works recorded by his student Arrian survive, the Discourses (four of eight books) and the Enchiridion, plus fragments quoted by later writers. This page lists those two works and eight key English translations, with four more translations below.
What are Epictetus’s books in order?
The Discourses, recorded by Arrian around AD 108, then the Enchiridion, Arrian’s digest, usually dated around AD 125. In English, the key translations run from Elizabeth Carter (1758), Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1865) and George Long (1877) to W. A. Oldfather (1925), Robert Dobbin (2008), Robin Hard (2014), A. A. Long (2018) and Robin Waterfield (2022).
Where should I start with Epictetus?
With the Enchiridion. It is 53 short chapters and gives you the whole framework before the longer Discourses. A. A. Long’s How to Be Free (2018) prints it with the Greek alongside.
What is Epictetus’s most famous book?
The Enchiridion, or Handbook, is the most read; it was a standard book in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. The Discourses are the fuller record of his teaching.
Did Epictetus write his own books?
No. Everything was written down by Arrian, who says he recorded what he heard as nearly word for word as he could, as notes for himself. Some scholars doubt the notes are that literal, but the consensus is that the Discourses preserve Epictetus’s own way of speaking.
What is the difference between the Discourses and the Enchiridion?
The Discourses are Arrian’s notes of the classroom talks, long and conversational. The Enchiridion is his much shorter digest of the main ideas, drawn largely from the Discourses and reworked into precepts meant to be kept at hand.
Was Epictetus a slave?
Yes. He was born into slavery in Hierapolis and spent his youth in Rome as the slave of Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman and secretary to Nero. He studied with the Stoic Musonius Rufus, was freed some time after Nero’s death in 68, taught in Rome, and moved to Nicopolis when Domitian banished the philosophers around 93.
Was Epictetus lame?
Yes, but the cause is uncertain. The second-century writer Celsus, quoted by Origen, said his master broke his leg deliberately; the later commentator Simplicius said he had been lame from childhood.
Which translation of Epictetus is best?
For the complete works in modern English, Robin Hard (Oxford World’s Classics, 2014) or Robin Waterfield (Chicago, 2022). Robert Dobbin’s Penguin (2008) is a selection. For the Enchiridion alone, A. A. Long (2018). Higginson (1865) and George Long (1877) are free in the public domain.
Did Epictetus say “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters”?
Not in those words; it is a modern paraphrase. The nearest line is chapter 5 of the Enchiridion, which in Higginson’s translation reads: “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.”
Who was influenced by Epictetus?
Marcus Aurelius, who never met him, quotes him in the Meditations. Pascal called him a great mind, and the Enchiridion sat in the libraries of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The US Navy pilot James Stockdale, shot down over Vietnam in September 1965, later recalled thinking that he was “leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus”.
Footnotes
- Epictetus — Wikipedia
- Discourses of Epictetus — Wikipedia
- Enchiridion of Epictetus — Wikipedia
- Elizabeth Carter — Wikipedia
- How to Be Free — Princeton University Press
- Stoicism: Courage Under Fire — Donald Robertson
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.”
— Epictetus, Enchiridion, chapter 5, in Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s translation
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendationsRead next
