Discourses and Selected Writings

Epictetus defines freedom as being able to live how one chooses without compulsion. At the same time, no one “wants to live with delusion and prejudice, being unjust, undisciplined, mean and ungrateful” (174). From these premises, Epictetus concludes that bad people, because they are trapped by bad traits and false ideas, are not free.

In fact, Epictetus goes so far as to say a Roman senator and consul is as unfree as an enslaved person. Imagining a debate with one such senator, Epictetus points out that he is under the authority of the emperor, which Epictetus describes as being like “a slave in a very large household” (175), and asks if he has ever done something he did not want to do in order to please a lover.

Next, Epictetus compares people like the senator to captive animals. Citing Diogenes, Epictetus declares that the “one way to guarantee freedom is to be ready to die” (176). To elaborate on the point, Epictetus describes a freed formerly enslaved person who finds himself with no work and has to rely on sex work. When the formerly enslaved person joins the army, he is still subjected to other people’s control.