Epictetus

a celebrated Stoic; born in Hierapolis, Phrygia, about a. p. 60, and lived at Rome, -where he was a slave of Epaphroditus, a brutal freedman of Nero, whose abuse and maltreatment he bore with fortitude. Epictetus himself did not leave any written account of his doctrines, which appear to have been of the most elevated kind. In his discourses he aimed to impre his hearers with the love of practical goodne . He did not despise knowledge, but considered it as a means to an end. His doctrines approach more nel to Christianity than those of any of the earlier Stoics, and although there is no trace in what is recorded of them of his having been directly acquainted with Christianity, it is at least probable that the ideas diffused by Christian teachers may have indirectly influenced them.