Epictetus

Epictetus (c. 55 – c. 135 CE) was a Greek Stoic philosopher, born a slave at Hierapolis in Phrygia and enslaved in Rome to Epaphroditus, a freedman of Nero. While still enslaved he studied under the Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus, and he was freed sometime after Nero's death in 68 CE. After the emperor Domitian expelled philosophers from Rome (c. 89–93 CE), he established a school at Nicopolis in Epirus, where he taught for the rest of his life. He wrote nothing himself; his teachings survive through the Discourses and the Enchiridion (The Handbook), both compiled by his pupil Arrian. His philosophy centered on the distinction between what is "up to us"—our judgments and volition—and what lies outside our control, treating ethics as the practical cultivation of inner freedom and assent.