Epictetus, and stoicism as military philosophy

[Epictetus]

I recently bought Robert Dobbin’s newly packaged Penguin translation of my namesake Epictetus. He also has a more scholarly commentary out.

If anyone is interested in Greco-Roman philosophy, I definitely recommend it. It is much more readable than some of the older translations. The Penguin book is clear and straightforward and includes necessary endnotes (which I greatly wanted in the new Hays translation of Marcus Aurelius). Dobbin does seem to have a heavy editorial hand, but he always explains what he did and why.

In the introduction, Dobbin also mentions two other freely available works that may be of more interest to you lovers of military history. These are two lectures given by Admiral James Stockdale to the United States Naval Academy. He describes how Epictetus helped him during his time as a POW in North Vietnam and make very exciting reading.

Stockdale on Stoicism 1
Stockdale on Stoicism 2

Dobbin says that Stoicism in a military context is taught in all of the war colleges of the US military, which I thought was quite fascinating. He also cites another book that seems to be the text of choice for the armed forces, which I hadn’t heard of: US Naval Academy teacher Nancy Sherman’s Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind.

[PMBardunias]

That Stoicism should be so amenable to a military ethos is sot so suprising since Zeno, like the Cynics before him, was heavily influenced by Spartan practices. These practices had emerged from the odd crucible of a society at once both conqueror and under perpetual siege.