Epictetus was born a slave around AD 50 in Hierapolis, in Phrygia (in today’s Turkey). In Rome he was owned by Epaphroditus, a wealthy freedman who served as secretary to the emperor Nero, and he studied Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus. He gained his freedom after Nero’s death in 68 and taught philosophy in Rome.
Around 93, when the emperor Domitian banished philosophers from the city, he moved to Nicopolis in Epirus, in Greece, and founded a school there. He wrote nothing himself. His teaching survives through his pupil Arrian, who recorded it in the Discourses and the short handbook known as the Enchiridion. He died around 135.