The significance of Simplicius' commentary lies in the fact that it is a Neoplatonist interpretation of a Stoic text. This volume presents the first critical edition based on all the known manuscripts of this work and offers, in contrast to the edition of Schweighäuser (1800) an…
'[Simplicius'] moral interpretation of Epictetus is preserved in the library of nations, as a classic book, most excellently adapted to direct the will, to purify the heart, and to confirm the understanding, by a just confidence in the nature both of God and man.' Edward Gibbon …
"The Enchiridion or Handbook of the first-century AD Stoic Epictetus was used as an ethical treatise both in Christian monasteries and by the sixth-century pagan Neoplatonist Simplicius. Simplicius chose it for beginners, rather than Aristotle's Ethics, because it presupposed no…