Epictetus Discourses 1.19: How to Achieve Stoic Freedom

The Discourses of Epictetus were recorded by his student Arrian during teaching sessions at Nicopolis in the early second century. Chapter 1.18 defined the invincible person: one whom nothing outside the sphere of choice can disconcert. Chapter 1.19 applies that definition to specific social situations: the tyrant, the puffed-up official, and the person who wants their name written in contracts. View the full Book 1 commentary.

What Epictetus Is Arguing in Discourses 1.19

In Discourse 1.19, Epictetus gives us a clear account of when someone gains control over us and how we regain it. He uses the tyrant, the puffed-up official, and Epaphroditus, the man who once owned him as a slave, as his examples. The opening sets the problem immediately.

The uneducated person believes their social or material advantage represents something real about their worth. The Stoic philosopher knows it represents a practical arrangement only. This chapter asks: who actually controls whom, and what does that control consist of?

The Tyrant’s Real Claim

The tyrant enters the chapter claiming to be the mightiest of all men. Epictetus responds by asking what the tyrant can actually do for him. Can he give him desires that will always be fulfilled? Can he ensure he never encounters what he wants to avoid? No: the tyrant cannot even do that for himself. When the tyrant replies that all men attend to him, Epictetus is precise.

We attend to things that are useful to us. We maintain the ass, the platter, and the oil flask. That does not make them superior to us. When the tyrant threatens to cut off your head, Epictetus asks whether you should attend to him the way you attend to cholera or a fever: carefully, but without granting it any authority over your judgment. We take precautions with dangerous things. We do not submit our souls to them.

Stoic Freedom

True freedom can only come from within. The tyrant can chain the leg and take the body. What he cannot do is reach the faculty of choice. If you value only your will and your judgment, then what happens to the body is a preferred or dispreferred indifferent: neither good nor bad in the Stoic sense. The body is external. The true good lies in the governing part. As Epictetus says in chapter 1.18: the tyrant can chain the leg but not the choice. Chapter 1.19 is that argument applied without flinching.

Self-Love Is Not Selfish

Every animal does everything for its own sake. Even the sun acts for its own sake, and Zeus himself. This is not selfishness. This is the natural order. The Stoic argument is that living according to your own nature, which is a rational nature, is already the best thing you can do for those around you. When we learn to become the best versions of ourselves, we will also be the best for the world around us.

The Social Animal

This is the philosophical completion of the self-love argument, and it connects directly to oikeiōsis, the Stoic concept of natural affinity that extends from self-care outward to all of humanity. The rational animal cannot attain its own goods in isolation. The development of reason, virtue, and character is inherently social: it requires and produces contributions to the common good. This is also why sympatheia is not merely a cosmic principle but a practical one. What is genuinely good for you, as a rational being, is also good for those around you. Self-development and social contribution are not in tension. They are the same movement.

How We Lose Our Freedom

When we attach value to things outside the sphere of choice and label them good or evil, we become slaves of whoever controls those things. Not just tyrants. Their lackeys, too. The person who manages the emperor’s household. The assistant to the person with the platform. The gatekeeper to the audience. In the age of social media and follower counts, the lackeys have multiplied enormously. People do anything to be seen, to gain followers, to receive likes. By doing so, they hand their will to the crowd. The problem with a crowd is that it is the most volatile tyrant there is. It wants more and more and will drop you without notice.

The person who gives their name and their content to an algorithm has placed their good outside the sphere of choice. The algorithm is a lackey. It does not know where the good lies. It rewards what produces engagement, which is not the same thing at all.

The Shoemaker Who Became Wise

Epaphroditus was Epictetus’s own former master. He was a freedman who had risen to a position of considerable influence in Nero’s court. When Epictetus uses him as the example of someone fawning over a shoemaker because of proximity to Caesar, the irony is personal and pointed: Epictetus is criticising the judgment of the man who once owned him. The shoemaker Felicio was sold by Epaphroditus as useless. When Felicio became Caesar’s shoemaker, Epaphroditus suddenly wanted to consult him. Nothing about Felicio had changed. What changed was his address.

Social psychology calls this status deference: the automatic attribution of wisdom and competence to people in high-status positions regardless of their actual qualities. The shoemaker with the verified account. The influencer appointed by the algorithm. The colleague who got the promotion. They have not become wiser. What has changed is their proximity to something we have decided matters. Epictetus is asking: who made that decision? You did. And you can unmake it.

Write It Upon a Stone

The chapter closes with a man who wants his name listed in every contract for the Priesthood of Augustus. He explains that his name will then be mentioned every time the contract is read. Epictetus points out that the man will not be there when most of those contracts are read, and when he dies, he will not be there at all. Write it on a stone instead, he says: it will remain just as well without you, and you will be just as absent. The name on the contract, like the follower count, like the title, like the status: these remain on their own terms. They are not you. To confuse them with yourself is to hand your freedom to something that does not care about you and cannot care about you.

The Exercise: The Stone Test

Disciplines: Desire · Action   |   Timing: When someone’s approval is shaping your behaviour · 15 minutes

Name one person or institution whose approval or judgment is currently shaping your choices, whether consciously or not. A manager, a platform, an audience, a peer group, a particular individual whose opinion carries more weight than you can fully explain.

Ask three questions. First: if this person or institution lost all their status or power tomorrow, would their opinion of you change in any way that actually matters? Second: has their position given them any genuine insight into where the good lies, or have they simply been appointed shoemaker to Caesar? Third: what would it mean to write your value on a stone instead, something that remains regardless of who reads it or what position they hold?

That stone is the sphere of choice. The judgment, the values, the quality of attention you bring to your own life. These remain when the title changes, when the account loses its following, when the approval is withdrawn. Everything else is borrowed proximity.

This exercise is one of 30 drawn from the Discourses. See the full 30 Epictetus exercises from Discourses Book 1.

← Discourses 1.18: Why We Should Not Be Angry With Others | → Discourses 1.20: How Reason Contemplates Itself

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Epictetus Discourses 1.19 about?

Discourses 1.19 asks how we should behave towards tyrants and shows that the key to Stoic freedom is knowing exactly what anyone in a position of power can and cannot take from you. The tyrant can take the body. He cannot touch the faculty of choice. The chapter moves from the tyrant to the shoemaker who became Caesar’s shoemaker to the man who wants his name on contracts, showing in each case how we hand our freedom to things outside the sphere of choice.

What is Stoic freedom according to Epictetus?

Stoic freedom is not freedom from external events but freedom from being disturbed by them. What is by nature free, says Epictetus, cannot be hindered by anything but itself. The faculty of choice, the prohairesis, cannot be chained or cut off. A person is free when they have placed their good entirely within the sphere of choice and nothing outside that sphere can disconcert them.

How do we lose Stoic freedom?

We lose Stoic freedom when we place our good in things outside the sphere of choice and label them good or evil. This makes us slaves of whoever controls those things: tyrants, but also their lackeys, their assistants, and anyone else connected to what we have decided matters. The moment we attribute wisdom to someone because of their proximity to power, or shape our choices around someone’s approval, we have handed them our freedom.

What is the story of Epaphroditus and the shoemaker in Discourses 1.19?

Epaphroditus, Epictetus’s own former master, sold a shoemaker named Felicio because he was useless. When Felicio was later bought by a member of Caesar’s household and became Caesar’s shoemaker, Epaphroditus suddenly wanted to consult him. Nothing about Felicio had changed. What changed was his address. Epictetus uses this story to illustrate what it means to honour something outside the sphere of choice: the wisdom attributed to the shoemaker was never his. It was the reflected light of Caesar’s position.

What is the Stoic exercise from Discourses 1.19?

The exercise is the Stone Test. Name one person or institution whose approval is currently shaping your choices. Ask whether their position has given them any actual wisdom about where the good lies, or whether they have simply been appointed shoemaker to Caesar. Ask what it would mean to write your value on a stone instead, something that remains regardless of who reads it or what position they hold. That stone is the sphere of choice. Everything outside it is borrowed proximity.

Want to Apply This to Your Own Life?

Reading the Discourses is the beginning, not the end. If you want to work through what Epictetus is asking of you and apply it to what you are actually dealing with right now, I offer one-on-one Stoic coaching. Start with a free consultation. Listen to The Via Stoica Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Browse the Epictetus quotes collection for more passages from the Discourses.

About the Author

Benny Voncken is the founder of Via Stoica and host of The Via Stoica Podcast. He has practiced Stoicism as a way of life for over seven years and draws on almost 15 years of teaching experience to turn dense ancient ideas into daily practice. Since 2023 he has coached clients around the world through one-on-one Stoic coaching. He also leads Stoic walks across Europe, writes the monthly newsletter The Pause, and has spoken at Stoicon.