Book: Fragments

Context and Nature of the Text
The Fragments attributed to Epictetus gather short sayings, paraphrases, and recollected remarks preserved by later authors after his death around 135 CE. Unlike the continuous dialogues of the Discourses or the compact manual of the Enchiridion, these pieces are occasional and aphoristic. Their looseness lets his central Stoic commitments show through from different angles: an insistence on the sovereignty of the moral will, relentless practical training, and reverent acceptance of a providential cosmos.

The Good and What Is Up to Us
Again and again the Fragments sharpen the Stoic distinction between what is up to us and what is not. Our judgments, impulses, and choices, our prohairesis, are the whole of the good and the bad. Health, reputation, wealth, office, even the body fall outside the moral core and so are neither blessings nor evils by nature. Epictetus urges a radical revaluation: loss of externals is not harm, but surrendering integrity is. Freedom is not license to get what one wants, but the unimpeded use of right reason.

Training the Mind
The short pieces stress a craft of living that begins with disciplining impressions. When an image or feeling arrives, pause, test it, and grant or withhold assent as reason directs. Desire must be trained to aim only at the good, and aversion only at the truly bad; otherwise one becomes a slave to fear, anger, and grief. Exercises include mindful attention, rehearsing adversity, speaking modestly, and enduring insult without retaliation. Theory without practice is scorned; philosophy is a physician’s art for the soul, not a game of syllogisms.

Roles, Community, and Conduct
Epictetus frames duties through roles given by nature and circumstance. As human beings we are citizens of a rational cosmos and owe truthfulness, justice, and benevolence. As sons, daughters, parents, friends, or officials, we respect the role without clinging to its externals. He praises the Cynic calling as a severe public service requiring purity and readiness to be mocked. He condemns flattery, idle talk, and displays of learning, urging plain speech and simple living grounded in self-respect rather than public opinion.

Providence, Fate, and Freedom
The Fragments affirm a world ordered by Zeus, in which events unfold by providence. Fate governs externals; our freedom lies in aligning our will with what happens. Piety is to want events to occur as they do occur. Prayer should ask not for outcomes but for the right disposition. Gratitude, not complaint, befits a creature entrusted with reason and a share of the divine order.

Exile, Suffering, and Death
Exile, poverty, illness, and death are frequent touchstones. Epictetus treats them as tests that reveal whether one’s judgments are sound. Exile merely changes location; it does not touch character. Pain demands endurance and clear evaluation. Death is natural and not to be feared; the real danger is living shamefully. Mourning is tempered by remembering what was always on loan and subject to return.

Voice, Style, and Legacy
The voice in these pieces is brisk, sometimes severe, mixing Socratic questioning with homely images of banquets, marketplaces, and gymnasia. The Fragments repeat, vary, and sharpen the same few themes, suggesting classroom improvisation captured secondhand. Taken together they extend the Discourses and Enchiridion by showing a teacher unbending on essentials yet attentive to daily dilemmas, urging students to stake their happiness on what cannot be taken from them: the just and disciplined use of their own mind.