 Interpreters must be careful not to prejudge the question of Epictetus’s relation to earlier Greek philosophy. While it is evident that his principal contentions are substantially related to earlier philosophical developments, claims concerning his relation to the earlier Stoics, or possible philosophical innovations or shifts of emphasis, must be governed by a healthy respect for the fragmentary nature of our sources. We possess no comparable record of the oral teaching that took place in the Hellenistic Stoa. Where corroborating evidence exists in literary or doxographical works, we are justified in describing his views as reformulations of the Stoic tradition; otherwise the question of continuity should generally be left open.