The first-century Stoic philosopher and teacher Epictetus was an enslaved person who succeeded in getting an education and, eventually, his freedom. Images of freedom, slavery and self-belonging ...

Epictetus’s quote ‘It is difficulties that show what men are’ reveals why pressure, resilience and self-control shape ...

Illustration of Epictetus, with lamp and crutch, in Edward Ivie’s 1715 Latin translation of the Enchiridion. Source: Wikimedia Commons/William Sonmans/Public domain Stoic philosophy has exerted an ...

Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher born into slavery in the first century CE, likely in Hierapolis in Phrygia, who later gained freedom, taught philosophy in Rome, and eventually founded a school ...