Chapter II

1. The husk is, of course, the body. If it is maintained that Nature has made the ease of this our only proper pursuit, of course the altruistic, or social instincts have to be rejected and denied.

2. The text is here almost certainly corrupt. It runs [Greek: pos oun hyponoetikoi esmen, hois me physike esti pros ta ekgona philostorgia]. All the MSS. agree in [Greek: hyponoetikoi], for which Schweighaeuser desires to read [Greek: pronoetikoi], and Wolf, [Greek: eti koinonikoi]. Salmasius declares emphatically for [Greek: pos oun epinoeis hoti koinonikoi esmen], and this, with a slight alteration suggested to me by an eminent living scholar, is the reading I have adopted: Let us suppose that Epictetus said [Greek: pos oun hyponoeis hoti k.e.], and that this was written in the short lines common in Greek MSS.:--

[Greek:

POSOUNYPO
NOEISOTIKOI
NONIKOI]

The second line, beginning with the same letter as the third, might easily be dropped by a transcriber, and the next transcriber would certainly change the resulting [Greek: hypononikoi] to [Greek: hyponoetikoi]. The existing reading might give the sense, "How are we, then, suspicious of those (if any there be) to whom Nature has given no affection for their offspring?"

3. Outward things--such as making provision for one's family, serving the State, etc.,--actions which are not directly concerned with our spiritual good.

CHAPTER III.

1. Phrygia, the birthplace of Epictetus, was one of the great centers of the wild and fearful cult of Cybele, whose priests gashed and mutilated themselves in the excitement of the orgie.

2. Philosophy is brought upon the scene, speaking first through the mouth of a Stoic, afterwards through that of an Epicurean, and the practical results of each system are exhibited.

3. The Athenians, rather than submit to Xerxes, abandoned their city to be plundered, and took to their fleet, the victory at Salamis rewarding their resolve.

Those who died at Thermopylae were the three hundred Spartans under Leonidas, who held the pass against the Persian host till all were slain. Often as their heroism has been celebrated, perhaps nothing more worthy of their valor has been written than the truly laconic epitaph composed for them by Simonides:

"Stranger, the Spartans bade us die:
Go, tell them, thou, that here we lie."

CHAPTER IV.

1. The sense of human dignity was strong in Epictetus, and he would have it practically observed in men's relations with each other. Compare Ch. v. 7. Zeller must have overlooked these Fragments of Epictetus when he asserted (p. 301) that no Stoic philosopher had ever condemned slavery. So far as we know, however, this is the only condemnation of that institution ever uttered by any Pagan thinker. The usual Stoic view was laid down by Chrysippus, who defined the slave very much as Carlyle does, as a "perpetuus mercenarius"--a man "hired for life, from whom work was to be required, a just return for it being accorded (_operam exegendam, justa proebenda_)". This utterance of Epictetus, as of one who knew slavery from within, and certainly was not inclined to exaggerate its discomforts, is noteworthy enough.