Epictetus (AD 55–135) was a Greek sage and Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia, now Pamukkale, Turkey. His given name is unknown; the name Epictetus means “acquired”. As a youth he served as a slave to a freedman, Epaphroditos, who was a secretary to the Roman emperor Nero. He was disabled from an early age, which may have factored in his being allowed by his master to follow his passion for philosophy. His education gave him respectability. When he was freed in 68 AD after Nero’s death he taught philosophy in Rome. He fled Rome and founded a school of philosophy in Nicopolis in Greece about 93 AD when the emperor banished all philosophers from the city.  As befits his philosophy, he lived a solitary, simple and life until his old age, when he adopted and raised a friend’s child otherwise fated to die.  He died in or about 135 AD.