The Boy Whose Name Meant Bought
Chapters 1 & 2 from Philosophers for Kids — Book One
The Boy Whose Name Meant Bought
There was once a boy whose name meant Bought. They had given him that name because they had bought him. He did not get to choose any of it.
The country he came from was called Phrygia. It is a faraway place. This was a long, long time ago, before there were cars or phones or schools. There was a town in Phrygia called Hierapolis. Hierapolis means Holy City. It sat high on a hill. Hot water came out of the ground there, all by itself. The water made the rocks turn white. They looked like piles of snow that never melted. Steam rose into the sky all day.
People came from far away to wash in the hot water. Some of them were sick. They hoped the hot water would help them. Some of them were rich. They came in fine clothes.
The boy walked among them. He had work to do. He brought them towels. He carried things that other people had dropped. We do not know who his mother was. We do not know who his father was. He was small, and his name was Bought, and he had work to do.
If you had been the boy, you might have cried at this. You might have asked who was going to help you. You might have looked at the steaming pools and the rich travelers and felt very small.
The boy felt all of this too. He was a person, the same as you are a person. Being a slave does not stop you from being a person.
But something else was starting to happen. It happened in a quiet place inside him. Nobody could see it. He was beginning to notice something. There were two kinds of things in his life. There were the things that were done to him. And there were the things he did. They were not the same. He could feel they were not the same. He just did not know it yet, not for sure.
That noticing is where everything begins.
Young Epictetus by Mickey Roberts — who made this after reading the first chapter. You can vote for him for People's Artist of the Year here! Mickey Roberts People's Artist
The Big House and the Master of Letters
When the boy was older but still a boy, he came to Rome. His master was a man named Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus had been a slave once, long ago. But now he was free. Now he was rich and important. He worked for the emperor of Rome. His job was to read the emperor’s letters. His job was to write the answers. The whole world wrote letters to the emperor, and Epaphroditus held them in his hands.
The boy was taken to Epaphroditus’s big house. It was the biggest house he had ever seen. There were marble floors and tall pillars and rooms inside rooms.
The boy was clever. Epaphroditus needed clever slaves. So they taught the boy to read. The master taught him for the master’s own reasons. But once the boy could read, the reading was the boy’s. Nobody could take it back out of him.
In Rome, there was a man who taught about how to live. His name was Musonius Rufus. He was a philosopher. A philosopher is a person who tries to figure out how to live. Musonius was a Stoic. A Stoic is a kind of philosopher.
Epaphroditus allowed the boy to go and listen to Musonius. Maybe Epaphroditus thought it would make the boy more useful. We do not know why. But the boy went. And he listened.
Musonius talked about what matters and what does not matter. He talked about what you can change and what you cannot change. He said that most people spend their lives upset about things they cannot change. He said they forget to work on the things they can.
The boy listened. Then he went back to work.
He carried jars of water. He swept the stone floor. He knelt and tied a rich man’s sandals. The rich man kept talking. The rich man did not look down.
And while he worked, the boy found his own way to say what Musonius had been teaching.
Some things are up to me. Some things are not.
He said it while he carried the water. The water is heavy. That is not up to me. How I carry it. That is up to me. He said it while he tied the sandals. The rich man’s words are loud. That is not up to me. What I think while I hear them. That is up to me.
He kept sorting all day. By the time he went to sleep, he had two piles in his head. One was very small. One was very big. The small pile was his.
Love this!
Incredible!