Trnusactions. 67 



examination of a camp. Wliat thorough and systematic 

 excavations at Birrens and Birrenswark might bring to light, no 

 one can meantime tell. The expense would be considerable, and 

 the results might not be proportionate. But the question that 

 has occupied our attention this evening is not likely to be 

 satisfactorily answered, unless the camps themselves can be got 

 to give the needed evidence. 



2. All that is known oj Ejyictetus. 

 By Edward J. Chinnock, LL.D. 



Arrian wrote a life of Epictetus, which is mentioned by 

 Simplicius, the last of the great philosophers. This valuable 

 book has not come down to us, and the consequence is that we 

 know .scarcely anything of one of the most admirable men of 

 antiquity. The date of his birth and death are alike unknown, 

 and only a few facts in his life have been discovered from the 

 incidental remarks of about half-a-dozen authors. These notices 

 are as follow : — 



Snidas writes : — " Epictetus, a philosopher, of Hierapolis, a 

 city of Phrygia, a slave of Epaphroditus, one of the emperor 

 Nero's bodyguards. He was lame of one leg from a flux, dwelt 

 at Nicopolis, a town of New Epirus, and lived until the reign of 

 Marcus Antoninus. He wrote many books." This last statement 

 we know on the authority of Arrian and Simplicius to be 

 incorrect. 



Simplicius, in chapter 13 of his "Commentary on the 

 Encheiridion," says : — " Epictetus himself, who says this, was 

 both a slave and weak in body, and lame from an early age. He 

 practised the severest poverty, so that his house in Rome never 

 needed any bolts ; since there was nothing within except a straw- 

 mattress and a rush-mat, upon which he used to sleep." The 

 same writer, in chapter 46 of the same work, says : — " This 

 admirable JCpictetus, after he had passed the greater part of his 

 life alone, at lengtli late in life took a woman into his house as 

 nurse for a child, which one of his fridnds, on account of poverty, 

 was going to expo.se, but which Epictetus took and reared." 



Lucian, in his life of the philosopher Demouax (ch. 55), has 

 the following ancedote : — " When on one occasion Epictetus 

 found fault with him, and advised him to take a wife and be^-et 



