Behind the English
The Greek concepts
The Enchiridion was spoken in Greek; the English settles a dozen technical terms into ordinary words. These are the words underneath — the same ones marked inline in the reading text. Hover or tap a marked phrase anywhere in the manual to see them at work.
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ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν eph' hēmin
Up to us
The manual’s hinge: some things depend on our choice — opinion, aim, desire, aversion — and everything else does not: body, property, reputation, office. Freedom is staked entirely on the first class.
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προαίρεσις prohairesis
The will
The choosing, ruling faculty — will, moral purpose. For Epictetus it simply is the self: the one thing no tyrant, illness, or accident can compel. This translation renders it ‘the will’ and ‘the ruling faculty.’
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φαντασία phantasia
Impression
How a thing appears before you have judged it. The whole discipline begins by pausing here: ‘You are but a semblance, and by no means the real thing.’
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φύσις physis
Nature
The ordered course of the whole. To keep the will ‘in harmony with nature’ is to want events as the world actually delivers them, not as craving or fear repaint them.
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ὄρεξις orexis
Desire
The reaching-out toward a thing as good. The beginner is told to suspend it entirely: desire aimed at externals is disappointment on a schedule.
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ἔκκλισις ekklisis
Aversion
The shrinking from a thing as evil. It is retrained first: moved off sickness, death, and poverty, and onto the only true evils — the will’s own failures.
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καθῆκον kathēkon
Duty
The fitting act — duty as measured by relations: father, brother, citizen, neighbor. The relation is given; performing it well is up to you.
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τὰ ἐκτός ta ektos
Externals
Everything outside the will: the body, money, reputation, office, other people’s conduct. Not evil — raw material. The mistake is looking to them for help or harm.
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ἀταραξία ataraxia
Tranquillity
The calm the training buys: an even flow of life undisturbed by craving or dread. In this translation, ‘tranquillity’ and ‘serenity’ — bought, the manual insists, at a price.
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ἐλευθερία eleutheria
Freedom
The slave-born philosopher’s word for the goal. Whoever wishes for nothing that depends on others cannot be compelled — that, not status, is the free man.
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προκοπή prokopē
Progress
The state between fool and sage where every actual Stoic lives. The proficient blames no one, explains himself to no one, and keeps watch over himself ‘as over an enemy in ambush.’
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φιλόσοφος philosophos
The philosopher
Not an academic: a person in training to live by what reason concludes. ‘Never proclaim yourself a philosopher — show it by actions.’