Epictetus

Epictetus was born a slave in Phrygia, was lamed, some say, by his master, studied Stoicism in Rome, was freed, and was banished with the other philosophers by Domitian in 89. He set up a school in Nicopolis in Greece and taught there for the rest of his life. He wrote nothing; the Discourses and the Enchiridion, or handbook, were taken down by his student Arrian. The teaching is that some things are up to us and most are not, and that freedom lies in the difference. Marcus Aurelius read him, and so did the prisoners of every later century.