Ἐγχειρίδιον · the handbook of Epictetus
Some things are up to us.
The rest is not.
The Enchiridion is not a theory of life. It is a Stoic field manual — fifty-one drills for meeting a world that will not obey you, arranged by Arrian from the teaching of a lame former slave who became the most sought-after teacher in the Roman empire.
The first sentence of the manual
ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν
Up to us
- opinion
- aim
- desire
- aversion
by nature free, unrestricted, unhindered
οὐκ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν
Not up to us
- body
- property
- reputation
- office
weak, dependent, restricted, alien
Everything that follows in the manual is this one distinction, applied. Read Section I →
Six parts · 51 sections
A map for the whole manual
The apparatus
Built to be read as a practice
The full text, section by section — and beside it, the working parts laid open: the Greek ideas behind the English, and three quiet voices in the margin. Toggle any of them off and the manual reads clean.
Practice
The drill: how to run the section on a real day — one concrete exercise, in Epictetus' own spirit of homework.
Note
Context: who Chrysippus was, why the raven mattered, what the lame leg confesses — the history under the instruction.
See also
The manual's own cross-weave: where a drill returns, sharpened, forty sections later.
The Greek concepts
12 recurring terms — προαίρεσις, φαντασία, ἀταραξία — marked in the text; hover for the word behind the English. The full glossary →
- Sections
- 51
- Parts
- 6
- Margin notes
- 87
- Greek terms
- 12
- Words
- 7k
“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.”
Enchiridion V
Begin the manual