The Handbook

Introduction

The Handbook is the shortest of the great works of ancient philosophy, and perhaps the one that has been carried most often in a pocket. Its Greek title, Encheiridion, means "something held in the hand": a small book to keep within reach, like a dagger or a tool, for use at the moment of need. It was compiled in the early second century AD by Arrian of Nicomedia, who had studied with Epictetus at Nicopolis and had already written down his master's lectures at length in the Discourses. From that larger work Arrian drew out the core of the teaching in fifty-three short chapters.

The book opens with its central idea, stated without preamble: some things are up to us and some are not. Up to us are our judgments, our impulses, our desires and aversions — whatever is our own doing. Not up to us are our body, property, reputation, office — whatever is not our own doing. Everything else in the Handbook follows from taking this distinction seriously. If we place our good in what is not up to us, we will be hindered, grieved and anxious, and will blame gods and men; if we place it only in what is up to us, no one can compel or harm us. "What troubles people is not things themselves, but their judgments about things."

The rest of the book applies this principle to the whole of life, in images that are hard to forget. Life is a banquet at which we take politely what comes round to us; a voyage on which we may gather shells on the shore but must run to the ship when the captain calls; a play in which our task is to act well the part we have been given, while choosing the part belongs to another. We should say of everything we love what kind of thing it is, so that we are not undone when we lose it; and of everything we lose, that we have given it back. Every situation has two handles, one by which it can be carried and one by which it cannot.

Epictetus speaks with the authority of experience. Born a slave and lame for life, he taught that freedom is not a legal status but a condition of the mind, open to anyone who learns to want only what is truly his own. His voice in the Handbook is direct, often severe, sometimes humorous, and always practical: he cares less for the theory of philosophy than for its practice, and warns his pupils against admiring the explanation of a book instead of living by it. The last chapter leaves the reader with four sayings to keep at hand, ending with the words of Socrates: "Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me."

Few books have travelled so far. The Handbook was paraphrased for Christian monks, translated into Latin in the Renaissance, read by soldiers, statesmen and prisoners, and is still among the most widely read works of philosophy today. This translation is made from the Greek text edited by Heinrich Schenkl (Teubner, 1916). The numbers in the text are the traditional chapter numbers used in every edition and translation.