The Daily Stoic - How Epictetus Captured The Mind Of Marcus Aurelius

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

One of history’s most powerful rulers was shaped by a teacher he never met. In this episode, Ryan talks with Professor William O. Stephens about how Marcus Aurelius discovered Epictetus, why the former slave’s teachings hit him so deeply, and how those ideas about freedom, power, and self-mastery helped shape the philosopher king.William O. Stephens is a philosopher specializing in Stoicism, ethics, and ancient philosophy. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and spent over 30 years teaching at Creighton University, where he is now Professor Emeritus. His work spans topics like friendship, ecology, and human nature, with a focus on Stoic thought. His latest book is Marcus Aurelius: Philosopher-King (2025), and he is also the author of Marcus Aurelius: A Guide for the Perplexed, Epictetus’s Encheiridion: A New Translation and Guide to Stoic Ethics, and Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom. Check out more of William Stephens’ work at https://WilliamOStephens.com/📚 Grab a copy of Marcus Aurelius: Philosopher-King by William Stephens🎟️ DAILY STOIC LIVE | Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you! Grab tickets here |  https://www.dailystoiclive.com/🎙️ AD-FREE | Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/🎥 VIDEO EPISODES| Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. The right book at the right time. It can change everything, right? How did I come to read Marcus Reles? It was at a conference as a college journalist, sponsored by Trojan Condoms of all things, and I asked for a book recommendation, and one thing led to another, and now I have a podcast about Stoicism.

You know, probably exactly like your story. All of our origin stories to this philosophy, and in fact, to many of the books that have changed our lives are random. There's an element of serendipity to them, but usually it comes with some kind of recommendation. And for Marcus Aurelius, right, this is how he comes to Epictetus. The discourses of Epictetus are handed to him by Junius Ristakus, his philosophy teacher. It's one of the great book recommendations in history. A teacher gives it to a young man who is being pulled towards power and fame and responsibility

and empire. And so these words from a former slave teach a man with incredible influence and power about the importance of self-mastery. And that's what I wanted to talk to today's guest about Professor William O. Stevens, who is a professor, Emeritus at Crichton University. He's a long-time scholar of both Marcus Rilus and Epictetus, who wrote this great book on Stoke Ethics. And then he's more recently written a biography of Marcus Aurelius called Marcus Aurelius Philosopher King. And in this little chunk of today's episode, I wanted to ask him about how Marcus came to encounter Epictetus, what struck him about it, and, you know, who fired Epictetus's imagination as well, and how that he's. He said,

teachings of a slave had such a powerful impact on someone destined to rule so many. Marksurelius being groomed for power. Epictetus talking about freedom, literal and figuratively. Mark is surrounded by palaces and status and expectation. Epictetus saying, none of this matters. Doesn't matter how many people you are in charge of if you are not first in charge of yourself. And perhaps that's why Marcus kept coming back to him, why I keep coming back to both of them

and probably why you're listening to this podcast as well. Do check out Mark's Reelius Philosopher King by Professor Stevens and I hope you enjoy this episode. Every time you look at your phone, there's another chaotic headline. You almost feel like you have to be glued to your screen

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That's ironwall.com slash daily stoic. Stop online threats before they become real world attacks, and there's a link in the show notes. What do we know about Marcus's introduction to Epictetus, right? We know that it's a formative book. We know that Rousticus lones him a copy, because he mentions that in meditations. But what else do we know? How does the, how does the world's, greatest book recommendation, uh, happen. Gosh, I don't know of any more details than just that.

It seems that we don't know whether Marcus knew of Seneca. So I don't know if he knew of Seneca's writings, which is surprising because of course, for us, Seneca's corpus is so much bigger than Marcus's writings, the discourses and the Enchuridian and Musonius's lectures combined, right? So there's so much more Seneca that we have. It's disappointing that he doesn't mention Seneca. Donald Robertson told me he thinks that's a conspicuous or an intentional omission. I'd be curious what your opinion was. Yeah, I mean, I can see that.

So Donald thinks that he did know about Seneca, but Seneca's take on things didn't float his boat. Yeah. I mean, that's plausible, I suppose. It would, I mean, it's one way of explaining why he doesn't mention because he, because it supposes that he knew full well about Seneca's output, philosophical output, but chose not to mention it or comment on it. I don't know. That strikes me as a little weird.

It's easy. it's pretty easy to criticize Seneca for a certain kind of hypocrisy, given how much money he did make, not ever becoming emperor, not becoming poor like Antoninus, right? Yeah. But lending out money at exorious rates of interest, right, a really high interest rates, and raking in the interest and becoming extremely wealthy, right?

Yes. And then talking about riding his wagon and his driver being barefooted and how embarrassing it was because it did. So there is so much consciousness with, you know, how Seneca's, how he carries his wealth, projects his wealth, and he recognizes he's supposed to be frugal and austere, and he praises himself for doing that. I can see how that might have been off-putting for Marcus if he knew about the guy and those sorts of stories.

Or just his complicity with Nero, period. You know, I could see sort of condemning him for that reason as well, right? Yeah. And that's, I mean, when I was younger, I thought, wow. Yeah, you know, it's easy to, to, you know, criticize Seneca and think poorly of in that regard. On the other hand, you know, it could be that Seneca believed optimistically that he could have a very positive, formative influence on Nero. Sure. Right.

And their precedence here, right, with Aristotle and Alexander the Great. Yeah. How did that work out? Well, you know, he was quite a conquer that Alexander Magnus guy. Yeah. Right. But, you know, Aristotle is not going to convert him into a philosopher, right? Not very much.

Because, again, he's off pursuing conquest. That's his goal that he's setting for his good life, right? So with Hepatitis, I mean, I'm inclined to think that it's the kind of experience that you and I have when we discover Epictetus for the first time. And we read it, and this guy is electrified. Yes. And like Arian says in the prefatory letter, right, this guy, this. teacher, Epictetus, had the power to make his students feel exactly what he wanted them to feel when he was teaching, when he was lecturing. So he had a connection with his students. He's just so

immediate and powerful and forceful in his teaching style, his energy, and his earnestness, right, his passion for teaching stoicism as a source of freedom and liberation. This is what liberates you from human misery. This is what frees you from bad appetites and being imprisoned, being held captive to the power of others as they threaten your life or threatened to take your property away. Hey, look how Socrates handled that. He was not threatened. He could not be coerced. And stoicism is the armor for resisting any and all coercion.

And I think that resonated. I mean, I just have to imagine that's what resonated with Marcus when he read the discourses. Do we have any idea how old he is when this happens, like when he would have come to Epicetus? I mean, it's probably, you know, when he's, you know, in his teens, when he's in his early to mid-teens, roughly, because that's when he's studying with, you know, sexist and other, in other philosophy teachers of his. And so Junius Rusikas says, well, if you're interested in philosophy, if you're into philosophy, if you're into philosophy, and you like the figure of Socrates. I've got the guy for you. I've got the guy for you.

Read what Epictetus. Because Socrates is Epictetus's biggest hero. It's not Zeno. It's not Chrysippus. It's Socrates, right? Socrates is number one. And second place is Diogenes of Sinope, the cynic. The dog philosopher.

He lived his talk. He walked his talk, as Socrates did. But Socrates had to do it with a wife, with kids. serving as a soldier in the Athenian army, right? Whereas Diogenes, shortcut to virtue. Cynicism, as they say, is the shortcut to virtue. No spouse, no kids, no citizenship. You've got your cloak, your staff, and a leather sack that you keep your food that you

beg off of strangers, right? That's a hard row to hoe for most of us. Whereas for Stoics, you have relationships with friends. friends, family members, you have a job. You live in a house. You don't live in a jar. Do you think there was something transgressive about Marcus's attraction to Epictetus? Like, here you have this kid.

He's on this path. He's being drawn towards power, success, fame, you know, palaces. And what lights him up is a poor slave, you know? Do you think there was some attraction there that might have been part of it? Yeah, well, I mean, there was a tug of war between philosophy and rhetoric. Yeah. And they're fighting over Marcus, right? Because with Fronto, Fronto wanted him to fall in love with oratory, with rhetoric.

And he pushed hard, hard, hard for that. And we know that he was very disappointed when Marcus said, my heart belongs to the philosophy. Yeah. That is my discipline. That is where my head and my heart are is with philosophy. and Franto was very disappointed, and they continued to correspond. But you can understand that. I mean, as a retired philosophy professor myself, you know, when I've had really, really bright students

and I'm trying to share with them my love and passion for philosophy and how it is transformative and is used to transgressive, right, especially these days, right? You know, to be that reflective in a very serious way, the life of ideas, exploring, concept seriously as a good way to live your life, I mean, that's going upstream. That's really going upstream. And so, you know, when I present that to bright students and they're thinking, hell, I like philosophy a lot, Professor Stevens, but, you know, I'm also thinking, you know, chemistry. Yeah. And I'm also thinking, you know, I want to go to law school. And so I'm going to study, you know, government and, you know, that sort of thing. It's like, okay. Because political

science, sure, you know, I see that, but, you know, isn't, isn't the most interesting part of that political philosophy because you need the philosophical foundations, right? And so, you know, students go one way or another. That's up to them. So I can understand Franto's disappointment. But for Marcus, yeah, epictetus really, really won his heart. And that's, and that's what he wanted to do. But it wasn't to be. And it's clear he knows his epicetus. I mean, he is quoting him from memory, you know, years probably after or because he's constantly read and re-read him. But, yeah, there is just something remarkable about the influence on a seemingly powerless person on such a powerful person. Yeah.

And this is a guy who was born into slavery. Epicetus, it's not even a real name. Right. Basically means slave, right? Acquired, yeah. And so he was acquired by one master from another master. And he was given that name. And so that's what he went by.

His mother was a slave. So he's born into slavery, the slave son of a slave mother. Right. And we don't know much at all about Epictetus's. We don't know about his childhood. But, you know, he made his way to Rome. And his master allowed him to study with Muconius Rufus. And he was a natural.

And thank goodness, Arian wrote down his discourses, and so they survived. They were copied and, you know, and that's how they got into Junius Rastikus' library and found their hand to found their way to Marcus. So, yeah, I mean, he knows his Epictetus. He does. He knows his Epictetus very well. And there's just so much earnestness there. Yeah.

Epectetus gets it. This is about freedom.