have preferred a ruder style as being better suited to express the
character of the original; and sometimes the obscurity which may appear
in the version is a fair copy of the obscurity of the Greek. If I should
ever revise this version, I would gladly make use of any corrections
which may be suggested. I have added an index of some of the Greek terms
with the corresponding English. If I have not given the best words for
the Greek, I have done the best that I could; and in the text I have
always given the same translation of the same word.

The last reflection of the Stoic philosophy that I have observed is in
Simplicius' Commentary on the Enchiridion of Epictetus. Simplicius was
not a Christian, and such a man was not likely to be converted at a time
when Christianity was grossly corrupted. But he was a really religious
man, and he concludes his commentary with a prayer to the Deity which no
Christian could improve. From the time of Zeno to Simplicius, a period
of about nine hundred years, the Stoic philosophy formed the characters
of some of the best and greatest men. Finally it became extinct, and we
hear no more of it till the revival of letters in Italy. Angelo
Poliziano met with two very inaccurate and incomplete manuscripts of
Epictetus' Enchiridion, which he translated into Latin and dedicated to
his great patron Lorenzo de' Medici, in whose collection he had found
the book. Poliziano's version was printed in the first Bâle edition of
the Enchiridion, A.D. 1531 (apud And. Cratandrum). Poliziano recommends
the Enchiridion to Lorenzo as a work well suited to his temper, and
useful in the difficulties by which he was surrounded.

Epictetus and Antoninus have had readers ever since they were first
printed. The little book of Antoninus has been the companion of some
great men. Machiavelli's Art of War and Marcus Antoninus were the two
books which were used when he was a young man by Captain John Smith, and