Chapter XXVII
1. There is an allusion to this curious feature of the Olympic contests in the Fourth Idyll of Theocritus. Casaubon (Lect. Theocr. ad Idyll. 4) quoted by Schweighäuser, in his note on this passage (Diss. III. xv. 4), shows from Festus Pompeius that there was a statue in the Capitol of a youth bearing a spade after the manner of the Olympic combatants.
2. Euphrates, a Stoic philosopher, and contemporary of Epictetus. He was tutor of Pliny, the younger.
3. The pentathlos contended in five athletic exercises—viz., running, leaping, throwing the quoit, throwing the javelin, wrestling.
4. Much of this must refer to the period of probation or discipleship, for Epictetus is clear that the ordinary Stoic (who had not embraced the special mission of Cynicism) was not required to forsake his family, or his affairs, or his duties as a citizen, nor even justified in doing so.