From the Introduction: "Stoic philosophy, of which Epictetus (c.
a.d. 50-130) is a representative, began as a recognizable movement
around 300 b.c. Its founder was Zeno of Cytium (not to be confused
with Zeno of Elea, who discovered the famous paradoxes). He was
born in Cyprus about 336 b.c., but all of his philosophical
activity took place in Athens. For more than 500 years Stoicism was
one of the most influential and fruitful philosophical movements in
the Graeco-Roman world. The works of the earlier Stoics survive
only in fragmentary quotations from other authors, but from the
Renaissance until well into the nineteenth century, Stoic ethical
thought was one of the most important ancient influences on
European ethics, particularly because of the descriptions of it by
Cicero, through surviving works by the Stoics Seneca, Marcus
Aurelius, and also Epictetus--and also because of the effect that
it had had in antiquity, and continued to have into the nineteenth
century, on Christian ethical views. Nowadays an undergraduate or
graduate student learning about ancient philosophy in a university
course may well hear only about Plato and Aristotle, along perhaps
with the presocratics; but in the history of Western thought and
education this situation is somewhat atypical, and in most periods
a comparable student would have learned as much or more about
Stoicism, as well as two other major ancient philosophical
movements, Epicureanism and Scepticism. In spite of this lack of
explicit acquaintance with Stoic philosophers and their works,
however, most students will recognize in Epictetus various ideas
that are familiar through their effects on other thinkers, notably
Spinoza, in our intellectual tradition."