Epictetus

Epictetus (about AD 50–135) was born a slave in Hierapolis in Phrygia, in what is now Turkey, and belonged to Epaphroditus, a freedman and secretary of Nero. Lame, possibly from a master's cruelty, he was allowed to study with the Stoic Musonius Rufus and was eventually freed. He taught in Rome until Domitian banished the philosophers in AD 93, then founded a school at Nicopolis in Greece that drew students from across the empire. He wrote nothing; his pupil Arrian recorded the Discourses and compiled the short Encheiridion, or Handbook. His teaching that only our own judgments are within our power remains the heart of Stoicism.