 The major compilation of Epictetus’s teaching is the work standardly referred to in English as the Discourses; it was variously titled in antiquity. The work we have is in four books, or volumes, but the original work comprised eight or more books. According to their preface, the Discourses are not the writing of Epictetus but are ghostwritten by the essayist and historiographer Arrian of Nicomedia in an effort to convey the personal impact of his instruction. Although we lack independent means of verification, we have reason to be confident that the works we have represent Epictetus’s thought rather than Arrian’s own: first, because the language employed is koinē or common Greek rather than the sophisticated literary language of Arrian’s other writings; and second because the brusque, elliptical manner of expression, the precise philosophical vocabulary, and the intellectual rigor of the content are quite different from what Arrian produces elsewhere. A few scholars, including especially Dobbin (1998), argue that Epictetus must have composed them himself, the role of Arrian being merely to preserve a mild fiction of orality.