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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

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Book I Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Justice and divine punishment

On Justice, appointed by God to watch over what human beings do on earth, and to punish those who do wrong.¹⁰³

1 Hesiod, Works and Days

For the son of Cronus laid down this law for human beings: fish, wild beasts, and winged birds may devour one another, since justice is not among them; but to human beings he gave justice, by far the best gift.¹⁰⁴

2 Sophocles

If you think that, by wronging a ⟨man⟩ of your own kin, you will escape the penalty, your thinking is unsound.¹⁰⁵

3 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

For I see Justice, in time, bringing everything to light for mortals.¹⁰⁶

4 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

For foresight destroys thoughtlessness.¹⁰⁷

5 ⟨Euripides⟩

Pursue virtues; for whoever among mortals is wicked, the gods punish.¹⁰⁸

6 Euripides, Oedipus

The gods are not, surely, biting dogs; but Justice sees even in the dark.¹⁰⁹

7 ⟨Sophocles⟩

No mortal can leap clear of a god’s blow.¹¹⁰

8 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

It is fated that, from evil designs, mortals should reap evil returns.

9 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

The eye of Zeus does not sleep; it is close at hand, though far away.

10 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

No one, though overflowing with wealth, will grow old in safety while defiling the law; some day or night, Justice, keeping silent, springs upon the impious.¹¹¹

11 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

An unjust deed does not escape the gods.

12 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

A divine power devises many evils for mortals.¹¹²

13 ⟨Hesiod, Works and Days⟩

Be very mindful of the watchful regard of the blessed immortals.¹¹³

14a Euripides, Melanippe

Do you think wrongdoings leap up to the gods on wings, and someone then writes them down in the folds of Zeus’s tablet, and Zeus looks at them and passes judgment on mortals? Not even the whole sky would suffice if Zeus were writing down humanity’s sins; nor could he examine them and send a penalty to each. But Justice is somewhere here, close by, if you are willing to see.¹¹⁴

14b ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

Woman, the gods give grief to those human beings they hate, since it is no hardship to them.¹¹⁵

15a Euripides, Phrixus

Any mortal who thinks that, doing some evil from day to day, he has escaped the gods’ notice thinks wrongly, and is caught in that belief whenever Justice has leisure.¹¹⁶

15b ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

He paid the penalty for the evils he had done.

16 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

Keen is the gods’ eye to see all things.

17 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

There is, it seems, there is a divine power, unseen and unexpected by us who live, that has some care for mortal life.¹¹⁷

18 ⟨Euripides⟩

You have paid the penalty. So let no one, if he runs the first stretch of wrongdoing well, think he has beaten Justice, before he reaches the finishing line and rounds the limit of his life.¹¹⁸

19 Dionysius

The eye of Justice, gazing as though from a calm countenance, sees all things alike, always.

20 Sophocles, Ajax

For the seer said that excessive, profitless men fall beneath grievous misfortunes sent by the gods: whoever, born with a human nature, then thinks beyond the measure of a human being.¹¹⁹

21 Euripides

Justice will never come up and strike you in the liver, nor any other mortal who does wrong; but, walking silently and with slow foot, she always catches the wicked among mortals.¹²⁰

22 Theodectes

Any mortal who blames divine things because they pursue the unjust with time, instead of at once, should hear the reason: if punishments were immediate, many would exalt the gods through fear, not through a pious disposition. As it is, with punishment far off, mortals act according to their nature. But when they are found out and seen to be wicked, they pay the penalty in later days.¹²¹

23 Euripides, Andromeda

They say that Justice is the child of Zeus and dwells close to the punishment of mortals.¹²²

24 Aeschylus

For one who has acted, suffering in return is due.¹²³

25 Euripides, Antiope

Justice, yes Justice, is slow; but nevertheless she steals upon her prey unseen, when she has an impious mortal in her grasp.¹²⁴

26–27 Aeschylus, Bacchae

Swift-footed evil comes to mortals for wrongdoing, to the one who crosses the bounds of right.¹²⁵

28 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

You see Justice, voiceless, herself unseen by one who sleeps or walks or sits; she follows close, at one’s side, at another time behind.¹²⁶

29 ⟨An unidentified comic poet⟩

Night hides no deed done wrongly; whatever you do, always suppose someone sees.

30 From Ixion

The man is my enemy, but I revere Justice.¹²⁷

31 Homer

For the blessed gods do not love cruel deeds, but honor justice and the rightful works of human beings.¹²⁸

32 ⟨Sophocles⟩

For Zeus’s dice always fall well.

33 Euripides, Antiope

They say that Justice is the child of Time; she reveals who among us is wicked and who is not.¹²⁹

34 Archilochus

Zeus, father Zeus, yours is the rule of heaven; you look upon human deeds, reckless and lawless; and among wild beasts you care for outrage and for justice.¹³⁰

35 Euripides, Archelaus

For what we do wrongly rightly comes as evil upon those who do it.

36 ⟨Sophocles⟩

Such, then, are these things. But when one of the gods brings harm, not even a strong man could escape.¹³¹

103.Dikē can mean justice, judgment, or punishment, and can also name the personified goddess Justice. The chapter repeatedly moves between these senses. Its excerpts differ about the timing and nature of punishment; they are not parts of a single continuous argument. Chapter numbers here follow Wachsmuth.

104.Works and Days 276–279. “The son of Cronus” is Zeus. The opposition distinguishes the mutual predation of animals from the justice given to human beings.

105.Oedipus Tyrannus 551–552. Wachsmuth restores andra, “man,” from Sophocles. Here dikē refers to the penalty or reckoning for a wrong.

106.Wachsmuth leaves the poet unidentified. His apparatus rejects the earlier transfer to this excerpt of the heading “Euripides, Oedipus,” which belongs to excerpt 6.

107.Pronoia here naturally means foresight; aboulia is want of counsel or judgment. The apparatus questions whether the latter word is sound, but the facing Greek and English retain the printed text.

108.Ion 440–441, identified in the base edition. Aretas is plural, “virtues” or forms of excellence. The supplied author-heading is marked by angle brackets.

109.The first line is textually troubled: the apparatus records several proposed repairs to its wording and meter. The English keeps the contrast recoverable from the printed text rather than importing a conjectural line. The attribution is retained as the heading gives it.

110.Wachsmuth supplies the attribution from Theophilus, To Autolycus II.8; he also notes the line’s transmission among sayings assigned to Menander. The heading therefore remains marked as supplied.

111.The final verb is a past tense used as a general statement: Justice “has sprung” upon the offender. The English present preserves the maxim’s force.

112.Daimōn here means a divine power or agency. The brief line, detached from its dramatic context, does not specify which power or explain whether the evils are deserved.

113.Works and Days 706. Opis combines the gods’ regard with the reverence or reckoning it calls for; “watchful regard” keeps the connection with this chapter’s theme.

114.The fragment challenges the picture of a celestial ledger, while insisting on Justice’s nearness. It should not be made to say simply that justice does not exist. Wachsmuth separates the following three lines as a different excerpt.

115.The opening and the second line have disputed readings. The printed ponēron is taken here in the sense “toilsome” or “burdensome”; the line gives the speaker’s claim about the gods, not an explanation endorsed by the translator.

116.The closing image gives Justice leisure to attend to the offender; it allows for delay without making delay an escape. The next line, joined to this passage in the manuscripts, is separated by Wachsmuth as excerpt 15b.

117.The Greek postpones daimonion, “divine power,” until the last line. The English brings it forward while retaining the emphatic repeated “there is.”

118.Electra 953–956, in the wording printed by Wachsmuth, whose apparatus records a repair in the opening line. Wrongdoing is imagined as a race: early success does not settle the result.

119.Ajax 758–761. The Greek shifts from the plural “bodies,” meaning persons, to the singular “whoever.” Its charge is a failure to keep one’s thoughts within human limits.

120.The vivid bodily blow contrasts with Justice’s quiet pursuit. The fragment does not promise that wrongdoers avoid punishment; its final line expressly affirms that they are caught.

121.The passage explains delay as revealing character beyond obedience produced by fear. The apparatus regards ophthentes, “seen,” in the penultimate line as corrupt and records proposed substitutes; the English retains its printed sense.

122.The title Andromeda is the identification adopted by Wachsmuth; manuscript headings point instead to Andromache. Compare excerpt 33, where Justice is called the child of Time.

123.Wachsmuth marks this as a doubtful fragment in his reference to Aeschylus and records a closely similar line attributed elsewhere to Sophocles. The transmitted author-heading is retained.

124.The transmitted construction is compressed and its verbs have attracted conjectures. “Her prey” makes the image readable in English; it is not an additional object named in the Greek. The combination of delay and an unnoticed approach is retained.

125.The combined numbering 26–27 and the title Bacchae follow Wachsmuth’s printed heading. His apparatus reconstructs that title from a damaged manuscript heading; this is not a heading naming Euripides’s surviving Bacchae.

126.The opening’s “you see” beside “unseen” and the final line are awkward. Wachsmuth retains them while recording the judgment that the lines are either fragmentary or corrupt. “At one’s side” interprets dochmion, literally obliquely or crosswise; it does not resolve the uncertainty.

127.Ixion is a play-title here, not the name of an author. Wachsmuth expressly declines to decide between Aeschylus and Euripides, both of whom wrote a play with that title.

128.Odyssey 14.83–84. In this construction tinousi means “honor” or “value,” rather than “pay a penalty.” The local contrast is between cruelty and right conduct.

129.Chronos is Time, not Kronos, Zeus’s father. Compare excerpt 23: the collection preserves both parentages without reconciling their poetic claims.

130.The printed kathemista contracts kai athemista, “and lawless.” Zeus’s care extends even to beasts, unlike Hesiod’s distinction in excerpt 1. The author-name follows Wachsmuth’s correction of displaced manuscript headings, supported by the parallel in Clement of Alexandria.

131.Electra 696–697. The opening retains the fragment’s connection to a preceding narrative now outside the excerpt.