must speak clearly and briefly if he would have a chance of being listened to. It seems likely, then, that it was considerations such as these which induced Arrian to put together the leading principles of his master's teaching in that inestimable little work known as the Encheiridion, or Handbook, of Epictetus.
The result has shown how wisely Arrian judged of the means necessary to make Epictetus' influence widely felt, and to give him a permanent hold upon the human mind. For the Encheiridion, as the saying is, took; offering, as it did, an easy means of approach to the mind of a great thinker and an excellent subject for commentators and translators who wished to spread his views.[1] With its richness
- ↑ One remarkable feature of its history is the exhaustive Commentary written on it by Simplicius in the sixth century, wherein chapter after chapter of the Encheiridion is dissected, discussed, and its lessons of edification drawn out with a rather unprofitable laboriousness. Simplicius was a pagan; but Christians, too, paid honour to this 'king of old philosophy.' Adaptations of the Encheiridion were made especially for their
in Montaigne (who has Seneca always on his lips) there are very few references to Marcus Aurelius, and I think only one to Epictetus (Ench. vi.).
