Epictetus · c. 50 – c. 135 CE
Discourses 1.29 ¶3 — Epictetus
From “On Constancy (Or Firmness)”
Translation by George Long (1877)
Epictetus, Discourses 1.29 ¶3
How strange then that Socrates should have been so treated by the Athenians. Slave, why do you say Socrates? Speak of the thing as it is: how strange that the poor body of Socrates should have been carried off and dragged to prison by stronger men, and that anyone should have given hemlock to the poor body of Socrates, and that it should breathe out the life. Do these things seem strange, do they seem unjust, do you on account of these things blame God? Had Socrates then no equivalent for these things? Where then for him was the nature of good? Whom shall we listen to, you or him? And what does Socrates say? Anytus and Melitus can kill me, but they cannot hurt me: and further, he says, “If it so pleases God, so let it be.”
Cite this passage
Epictetus, Discourses 1.29 ¶3, tr. George Long (1877)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/discourses/1.29.3
Epictetus, Discourses (as recorded by Arrian), tr. George Long (1877). Text: Standard Ebooks (CC0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesSocrates was hauled to prison and poisoned, but all that was done to his body, not to his character, so nothing that mattered to him was harmed. The passage invites you to listen to him rather than complain against God about injustice, because those who persecute a good person can kill but cannot hurt.
Older wording
- “hemlock”
- — a poison used to execute prisoners in Athens
- “Anytus and Melitus”
- — the men who accused Socrates
Themes and situations
- Courage
- Death and mortality
- Virtue and character
- Acceptance and fate
- Freedom
- Being treated unfairly
- Fear of death
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