The Slave Whose Leg Got Broken By His Master For Fun
The unbreakable life of Epictetus
Imagine you are a slave.
Not just any slave. You’re a slave in the Roman Empire. You are nothing but a piece of property to your master. He controls exactly when you eat, sleep, bathe, and work. If you try to run away, you’ll be branded with the letter ‘F’ for fugitivus on your forehead.
Sounds miserable, right?
Now imagine that your master breaks your leg for fun, giving you a limp for the rest of your life. And then you’re exiled from Rome for pursuing a career in philosophy by an insane emperor who hosts public executions for his own entertainment.
And I thought it couldn’t get any worse.
Terrible as it may be, what you’re looking at is a broad overview of the life of Epictetus, a Roman slave-turned-philosopher who was responsible for distilling the core fundamentals of Stoicism.
Among some of his more popular literary works are Discourses, a series of in-depth conversations on Stoic philosophy and practical ethics, and the Enchiridion, a concise manual offering practical advice for living a virtuous, Stoic life.
But how did Epictetus manage to build a career teaching students philosophy, let alone get out of bed with how wretched his life was?
The answer can be found in the philosophy that he taught.
The misery of Epictetus
If you thought Epictetus’ life was bad, it gets worse.
First, we don’t even know what his real name was. The name Epictetus is derived from the word epíktētos, which in Greek, means “acquired” or “bought.”
Not only was Epictetus a slave, but even his name labeled him as one.
And like most slaves in the Roman Empire, Epictetus was born into slavery.
As a result, he had no rights, no freedom, and lost whatever name was given to him by his parents. And as far as we know, Epictetus didn’t even know his parents.
Epictetus was born in Phrygia, a Roman province in modern-day Turkey, around 55 AD. Children born into slavery (called vernae) were considered property from birth, and their family relationships were often deliberately broken. So slaves could be sold away from their parents at a very young age.
Epictetus was no different, being brought to Rome early in his life and sold to Epaphroditus, a powerful freedman who served Emperor Nero.
At a certain point in his life, Epictetus’ leg became crippled.
Though we don’t have any hard evidence on how it happened (this was almost 2,000 years ago after all), the popular story is that Epaphroditus intentionally broke Epictetus’ leg in a cruel experiment to test his reaction.
The main account of this story comes from Origen, a 3rd-century Christian scholar. The account mentions that Epaphroditus was twisting his slave’s leg, to which he was calmly warned:
“You will break it.”
Epaphroditus ignored this caution, continuing to twist. Once the leg broke, Epictetus, unfazed, simply stated:
“I told you so.”
What a badass.
Epictetus’ response
The primary philosophy of Epictetus is the dichotomy of control.
It’s the idea that all external events are completely outside human influence, and that the only things that we can control are our attitudes, dispositions, and reactions we have in response to those external events.
More often than not, the dichotomy of control is cited as the core belief of Stoicism.
In fact, this concept is placed front-and-center in the Enchiridion, a short handbook of Epictetus’ teachings compiled by his student, Arrian. In the very first passage, it reads:
Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.
— Enchiridion 1.1
Though the concept seems relatively straightforward, drawing the line between these two categories — what we can and cannot control — can be tricky in implementation.
To discern between the two, we should consider Epictetus’ word choice.
“Whatever is of our own doing” falls into the group of things we can control. And “whatever is not of our own doing” falls into the group of things we cannot control.
The key word here is “doing.”
In other words, we can always control our own actions. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should be concerned with every single little action that you could take.
Your brain wouldn’t be able to handle the sheer number of possibilities generated by your potential actions.
But if you take a moment to inspect your actions (or the thought of taking an action), you’ll notice that each “thing” has a different sphere of influence.
On one hand, your actions might be concerned with:
Finding inner peace
Steadying your mind
Becoming more wise
On the other hand, you could also worry yourself with:
Controlling other people’s actions
Vying for the approval of others
Forcing things to go your way
These two types of influence are vastly different. The former is concerned with that which is internal, and the latter deals with the external (precisely what Epictetus believes is out of our control).
Even though it seems like all the bad things that can happen to a person ended up happening to Epictetus, he was still able to live a fulfilling life.
Epictetus knew that it was just many circumstances of his life were out of his control — it was all of them.
He had no influence over where he was born, who his parents were, the fact that he was born into slavery, or that other people treated him cruelly or mocked him or slandered him.
Epictetus knew that if he was going to live a virtuous life, he would have to concern himself as little as possible with that which he could not change.
So instead of quipping back at those who besmirched his name, moping around in the misery of his day-to-day as a slave, or feeling resentment toward the gods who cursed him with such a terrible life, Epictetus simply looked within himself, asking questions like:
“How can I better myself and others?”
“What kind of person do I want to be today?”
“What is the right thing to do, right here, right now?”
He answered all of his questions not with words, but with actions — actions grounded in the dichotomy of control. He focused only on what was always within his power: his thoughts, choices, and behavior. He refused to waste energy on anything outside that domain.
Epictetus fully recognized that he could not choose the cards he was dealt. But he mastered the art of playing them well.