PREFACE.
But for the zeal and ability of one disciple, we should not now possess any trustworthy account of the philosophy of Epictetus. For, like many other sages, he wrote nothing; and for us he would now be little more than a name, had not Arrian, the future historian of Alexander, taken down a very full record of the oral teaching which he had from Epictetus' own lips in Nicopolis. This record he afterwards published in eight books (of which we now possess four), called the Discourses of Epictetus, and out of these he drew most of the materials for compiling the little work, the Encheiridion, of which I now offer a transla-
tion.
