Epictetus was a Greek stoic philosopher who was probably born a slave in Turkey. He lived most of his life in Rome until he was exiled to Greece. His pupil Arrian wrote down his discourses originally in 8 volumes of which 4 survived. The lectures were not written down verbatim but were probably paraphrased by Arian. The earliest known manuscript is a 12-century manuscript located in the library at Oxford, England.
