ABSTRACT
Epictetus gained his freedom sometime after the death of the emperor in a.d. 68 and began to teach philosophy in Rome. Domitian seems to have been especially angry with the Stoics for teaching that sovereignty comes from God and is for the benefit of the people. Epictetus moved to Nicropolis in Epirus, where he established a thriving Stoic school and lived a simple life with few material goods. As an old man, he married so that he could adopt a child who otherwise would have been “exposed,” that is, left to die. Those whom he taught described him as a humble, charitable man of great moral and religious devotion. In the austere moral emphasis of Epictetus, with his concomitant stress on self-control and superiority to pain, the Romans found an ideal for the wise man, whereas the Stoic description of natural law provided a basis for Roman law.
