22.) [Footnote 63: [Greek: kakorrugcha paidia].

Another reading is [Greek: kokorugcha], which M.Martha renders, "_Marmots a vilain petit museau_!" It is evident that Epictetus did not like children, which makes his subsequently mentioned compassion to the poor neglected child still more creditable to him.] The whole character of Epictetus is sufficient to prove that he would only do what he considered _most_ desirable and most exalted; and passages like these, the extreme asperity of which I have necessarily, softened down, are, I think, decisive in favour of the tradition which pronounces him to have been unmarried.
We are told that he lived in a cottage of the simplest and even meanest description: it neither needed nor possessed a fastening of any kind, for within it there was no furniture except a lamp and the poor straw pallet on which he slept.

About his lamp there was current in antiquity a famous story, to which he himself alludes.

As a piece of unwonted luxury he had purchased a little iron lamp, which burned in front of the images of his household deities.

It was the only possession which he had, and a thief stole it.