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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

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Book I Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Colors

On colors.

1 ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩: Definition

Color is a quality of a body that is visible in the primary sense.⁴⁴⁶

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: The Pythagoreans

⟨The⟩ Pythagoreans called the surface of a body its hue. They held the kinds of color to be white and black, red and pale yellow; differences of color arise from the ⟨particular kinds of⟩ mixture of the elements, and those in living creatures from differences in their foods and the airs around them.⁴⁴⁷

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Empedocles

Empedocles declared color to be what fits the passages of sight. There are four colors, equal in number to the elements: white, black, red, and pale yellow.⁴⁴⁸

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Plato

Plato held color to be a flame coming from bodies, with particles commensurate with sight.⁴⁴⁹

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Aristarchus

Aristarchus, the Samian mathematician and pupil of Strato, held color to be light falling upon the underlying objects.⁴⁵⁰

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Zeno

Zeno the Stoic held colors to be the primary configurations of matter.⁴⁵¹

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Democritus

Democritus held that no color exists by nature: the elements, both the solid units and the void, lack qualities. Their compounds, however, are colored through arrangement, configuration, and orientation, which mean, respectively, order, shape, and position; for appearances arise from these. Of these colors as they appear to us there are four varieties: white, black, red, and pale yellow.⁴⁵²

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Epicurus and Aristarchus

Epicurus and Aristarchus held that bodies in darkness have no hue.⁴⁵³

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Aristotle

Aristotle held color to be a boundary within a delimited transparent body. The transparent, he said, is matter that has been filtered, pure and unmixed; and color is what sets this very thing in motion.⁴⁵⁴ Bodies in darkness have hue potentially, but in no way actually; there is a great difference between having none and not being seen.⁴⁵⁵

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: A comparison of accounts

Some of the other thinkers hold that the elements are naturally colored; others that the primary things with like parts possess quality; and others that all atoms, without exception, are colorless. These last suggest that sensible qualities arise from things without qualities, which are apprehended by reason.⁴⁵⁶

2 Plato, Timaeus 67c-68d, part 1

For there is still a fourth class of sensible objects left for us to distinguish, containing many variations within itself. All these together we have called colors: a flame streaming from each body, with particles commensurate with sight so as to produce perception. A little was said earlier about sight itself and the causes of its coming into being.⁴⁵⁷

2 Plato, Timaeus 67c-68d, part 2

The most likely and fitting way to develop a reasonable account of colors would therefore be this: of the particles carried from other things and striking the visual stream, some are smaller, some larger, and some equal in size to the parts of sight itself. Those of equal size are imperceptible, and these we call transparent.⁴⁵⁸

2 Plato, Timaeus 67c-68d, part 3

The larger and smaller particles, which respectively compress and disperse the visual stream, are akin to the hot and cold things affecting flesh, and to the astringent things affecting the tongue and all those heating things that we called pungent. White and black are the same affections as these, arising in a different sphere, though for these reasons they appear different. We should therefore name them accordingly: what disperses the visual stream is white, and its opposite is black.⁴⁵⁹

2 Plato, Timaeus 67c-68d, part 4

But a more piercing rush of another kind of fire strikes and disperses the visual stream all the way to the eyes, forcibly thrusting through and melting the very passages of the eyes. It pours from them a rush of fire together with water, which we call tears; and, itself being fire, it meets what comes from the opposite direction. One fire leaps out as if from a lightning flash, while the other enters and is quenched in the moisture, and all sorts of colors arise in this commotion. We have called this experience “dazzling flashes,” and have named what produces it “bright” and “glittering.”⁴⁶⁰

2 Plato, Timaeus 67c-68d, part 5

There is also a kind of fire intermediate between these, which reaches the moisture of the eyes and mixes with it, but does not glitter. As the gleam of fire mixes through the moisture and produces a bloodlike color, we give it the name “red.” Brightness mixed with red and white produces golden yellow.⁴⁶¹

2 Plato, Timaeus 67c-68d, part 6

As for how much of each is mixed with how much, it makes no sense to state it even if one knew, since one could give neither a necessary explanation nor even a moderately satisfactory likely account of these proportions.⁴⁶²

2 Plato, Timaeus 67c-68d, part 7

Red blended with black and white produces purple; and a dusky hue results when these have been mixed and burned and black is blended in more strongly. Flame red comes from a mixture of golden yellow and gray, and gray from white and black; pale yellow comes from white mixed with golden yellow.⁴⁶³

White combined with brightness and plunged into an intense black produces dark blue; dark blue mixed with white produces pale blue; and flame red mixed with black produces leek green.⁴⁶⁴

2 Plato, Timaeus 67c-68d, part 8

From these examples it is fairly clear to which mixtures the remaining colors may be likened so as to preserve the likelihood of the account. But if someone were to investigate these matters in practice and put them to the test, he would be failing to recognize the difference between human and divine nature.⁴⁶⁵

446.The definition singles out color as a direct object of sight. Proēgoumenōs means primarily or in the first instance. Wachsmuth supplies the attribution to Aëtius for all of excerpt 1; the subdivisions used here separate its individual reports without changing their order.

447.Ōchron is rendered “pale yellow” throughout this chapter, distinct from Plato’s xanthon below. Wachsmuth retains ōchron here and in the reports of Empedocles and Democritus, although his apparatus considers it corrupt and mentions the proposed reading chlōron. The article and poias, “of what kind,” are editorial supplements. The final clause concerns variations of color in living creatures.

448.Poroi are passages or pores. The definition makes the fit between what reaches the eye and the passages of sight central to color perception. The report equates the number of colors with the number of elements without assigning each color to a particular element. Wachsmuth omits a manuscript repetition here of the preceding explanation involving mixtures and variations of food.

449.Symmetra describes a relation of size suitable for vision, rather than requiring all the particles to be exactly equal. The fuller quotation from the Timaeus in excerpt 2 distinguishes particles that are smaller, larger, and equal in size to those of the visual stream.

450.The report identifies Aristarchus by his place of origin and his connection with Strato. Hypokeimena here denotes the objects receiving the light. Compare the statement about bodies in darkness later in this excerpt.

451.Schēmatismoi are configurations or ways in which something is formed. “Primary” renders prōtous; the compressed report does not explain whether this priority is temporal or explanatory.

452.The solid units are the atoms. The denial of qualities concerns the elements, whereas color belongs to their compounds as perceived. Rhythmos here has the older sense of form or configuration, explicitly glossed by schēma, “shape.” The three Greek terms are retained in Wachsmuth’s order, including protropē, “orientation.”

453.Wachsmuth adopts Usener’s correction sōmata, “bodies,” for the transmitted chrōmata, “colors,” both here and in the following Aristotelian report. The statement here is unqualified; the next account introduces a distinction between potentiality and actuality.

454.Compare Aristotle, On Sense 3, 439a-439b, on color and the boundary of the transparent in bodies. “Filtered” follows the printed diēthēmenēn, a reading Diels suspected of corruption, as Wachsmuth’s apparatus records. The summary is translated as it stands rather than replaced with Aristotle’s own fuller formulation.

455.Dynamis and energeia distinguish a capacity from its realization. The final sentence separates absence of hue from absence of its visible manifestation. This qualification is preserved alongside, rather than used to rewrite, the preceding report about Epicurus and Aristarchus.

456.The three groups are not named in this concluding comparison. Homoiomerē are things whose parts are of the same kind; compare the report about Anaxagoras in I.15.6a. The last clause belongs to the account that makes atoms colorless and contrasts rational apprehension of their constituents with sense perception of qualities.

457.The reference to what was said earlier belongs to Plato’s dialogue, not to a missing passage of Stobaeus’s chapter. In this account opsis, “sight,” includes a physical visual stream: the subsequent discussion speaks of its particles and of fire issuing from the eyes.

458.The particles are compared with the material constituents of sight, not with the visible size of the entire eye. “Transparent” describes the absence of a perceptible disturbance in this case. The account is expressly offered as likely or reasonable.

459.Synkrinein and diakrinein describe bringing together and separating: the larger particles compress, the smaller disperse. Plato compares the same kinds of physical action across sight, touch, and taste. “A different sphere” renders en allō genei, a different class or domain of sensation.

460.The description distinguishes fire issuing from the eyes from fire entering them. Marmarygai are flickering or dazzling flashes; lampron and stilbon name the brightness and glitter that produce the experience. Brightness subsequently appears as a component in the account of color mixtures.

461.“Golden yellow” renders xanthon, whose range can include tawny and golden tones. It is distinguished here from ōchron, “pale yellow,” and pyrrhon, “flame red,” in the mixtures below. These English labels are approximate equivalents; the passage also treats brightness as something mixed with colors.

462.The passage withholds numerical proportions for the mixtures it describes. It distinguishes a necessary explanation from an account that is merely likely, while declining to supply either for the exact quantities.

463.Halourgoun is purple, associated with purple dye; orphninon, rendered “dusky,” emphasizes darkness and does not securely identify a single modern shade. Pyrrhon, here “flame red,” belongs to a range of fiery or tawny reds, whereas phaion is the gray or dusky mixture of white and black.

464.The Greek terms are kyanoun, glaukón, and prasion. “Dark blue” and “pale blue” preserve the contrast produced here by adding white; glaukón can also carry gray or greenish associations. Prasion evokes the color of a leek. The stated combinations are retained as Plato gives them, including flame red with black.

465.Eikōs mythos is a likely account or story. Stobaeus’s quotation ends at this contrast between human and divine nature. In the continuation of Plato’s dialogue, the contrast is explained through the divine capacity to combine many things into one and resolve one into many; that continuation is not added to the excerpt here.