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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 49

58.34 · The earth’s movement resembles breathing

“It sways and surges up and down, and the air and the breath around it do the same. For it accompanies the fluid both when it rushes toward the far side of the earth and when it rushes toward this side. Just as in breathing creatures the flowing breath continually passes out and in, ⟨so there too the breath, swaying together with the fluid,⟩ produces terrible winds of immense force as it enters and leaves.”¹⁷³⁸

58.35 · The alternating filling of the channels

“When the water withdraws into the region called below, it flows into the streams in those parts of the earth and fills them, as though people were pouring water into them. When it leaves there again and rushes this way, it fills the channels here in turn. What has filled them flows through the conduits and through the earth, each portion reaching the places to which a way has been made for it, and forms sea, lakes, rivers, and springs.”¹⁷³⁹

58.36 · The waters return by different routes

“From there, back beneath the earth, some waters travel through longer and more numerous regions, others through fewer and shorter ones, and discharge again into Tartarus. Some enter much lower than the place from which they were poured out, others only a little lower; all enter below their outflow. Some return directly opposite the place where they emerged, others on the same side.”¹⁷⁴⁰

58.37 · Winding streams and the central limit

“Some go all the way around, winding once or several times around the earth like snakes, and descend as far as possible before discharging again. From either side they can descend as far as the center, but no farther, for the region on the other side becomes uphill for each of the two flows.”¹⁷⁴¹

58.38 · Ocean and Acheron

“The other streams are many, great, and of every kind. Among these many there are four in particular. The greatest, flowing farthest out around the circumference, is called Ocean. Opposite it, and flowing in the contrary direction, is Acheron. It flows through various deserted regions and then, passing underground, reaches the Acherusian lake. There the souls of most of the dead arrive and remain for certain allotted ⟨periods⟩, some longer, ⟨others shorter,⟩ before being sent out again into the births of living creatures.”¹⁷⁴²

58.39 · The fiery river and its boiling lake

“A third river issues between these two and, near its outlet, falls into a great region burning with much fire. It forms a lake larger than the sea in our region, seething with water and clay. From there it proceeds in a circuit, turbid and muddy, winding through the earth to various places and to the edge of the Acherusian lake, without mixing with its water.”¹⁷⁴³

58.40 · Pyriphlegethon and the volcanic streams

“After winding many times beneath the earth, it discharges farther down in Tartarus. This is the river called Pyriphlegethon, fragments of which the volcanic streams blow up wherever they happen to occur upon the earth.”¹⁷⁴⁴

58.41 · The Stygian region and its lake

“Opposite this, in turn, the fourth river first falls into a region that is terrible and savage, as the story goes, colored throughout like dark blue pigment. They call the region Stygian, and the lake the river forms by flowing into it they call Styx.”¹⁷⁴⁵

58.42 · Cocytus flows in the opposite direction

“After falling into this lake and acquiring terrible powers in its water, the river sinks beneath the earth and winds along in the direction opposite to Pyriphlegethon, meeting it at the Acherusian lake from the other side. Its water too mixes with nothing else. It likewise completes a circuit and discharges into Tartarus opposite Pyriphlegethon. Its name, as the poets say, is Cocytus.”¹⁷⁴⁶

58.43 · Judgment of the dead

“With this arrangement established, when the dead arrive at the place to which the daimon brings each one, first both those who have lived well and reverently and those who have not undergo judgment.”¹⁷⁴⁷

58.44 · The souls whose lives were intermediate

“Those judged to have lived an intermediate life go to Acheron, board the conveyances provided for them, and on these reach the lake. They dwell there and, through purification and payment of penalties, are absolved of their wrongdoings, if any have done wrong. For their good deeds each receives honors according to desert.”¹⁷⁴⁸

58.45 · Those judged incurable

“But those judged incurable because of the enormity of their offenses, having committed many great acts of temple robbery, many unjust and unlawful killings, or other deeds of that kind, are cast by ⟨the⟩ fate appropriate to them into Tartarus, from which they never emerge.”¹⁷⁴⁹

58.46 · Serious wrongs capable of remedy

“Those judged to have committed great but remediable offenses, for example, people who in anger have done violence to a father or mother and spend the rest of their lives regretting it, or who become killers in some other comparable way, must fall into Tartarus. But after they have fallen in and spent a year there, the current casts them out: the killers along Cocytus, and those who struck their fathers and mothers along Pyriphlegethon.”¹⁷⁵⁰

58.47 · Appealing to those they harmed

“When the currents carry them to the Acherusian lake, they cry out and call, some to those they killed, others to those they abused. Calling them, they supplicate and beg them to allow them to come out into the lake and to receive them. If they persuade them, they come out and their sufferings end. If not, they are carried back into Tartarus and from there into the rivers again.”¹⁷⁵¹

58.48 · The sentence continues until persuasion succeeds

“They do not cease undergoing these sufferings until they persuade those they wronged. For this is the sentence the judges imposed upon them.”¹⁷⁵²

1738.The substantial supplement remains marked. Within it the edition prints xynaiōroumenōn, a genitive plural that does not agree with the singular pneuma; the English provisionally renders the intended joint swaying without changing the Greek. “Breath” preserves pneuma and the analogy with respiration. The surrounding pronouns are compressed; “the fluid” makes the understood reference explicit.

1739.The Greek shifts to the plural participle epantlountes, “pouring water upon,” without an expressed subject. English supplies the human comparison rather than altering that form. The printed construction around the streams is compressed, and the interpretation remains provisional. Thalattan is singular, “sea,” as in this edition.

1740.The account distinguishes length of route, level of return, and side of the chasm. The final Greek omits a repeated verb; English supplies “return” from the preceding movement. The word katantikry, “directly opposite,” will recur in the arrangement of the four named rivers.

1741.The center sets a limit to downward movement from either side. “Uphill” renders anantes and explains why neither flow continues descending past the middle. The snake comparison concerns the winding routes. It is separate from the description of the fluid’s oscillation through the central chasm.

1742.The supplied “periods” and “others shorter” remain marked. The phrase ta peri kyklōi is compressed and rendered as the outer circuit of Ocean. Acheron is distinguished from the lake it reaches. The souls’ return is to births of living creatures generally; the wording does not restrict it to human births.

1743.Kata meson is taken as a position between the two rivers already named. The third river forms a separate boiling lake before reaching the vicinity of the Acherusian lake. Its contact with that lake is explicitly qualified: the waters do not mix. The river receives its name in the next unit.

1744.The name Pyriphlegethon identifies the fiery river. Katōterō tou Tartarou is understood provisionally as a lower part of Tartarus, in keeping with the preceding description of rivers returning at lower levels; the Greek genitive is retained. The volcanic streams are described as expelling portions of this subterranean river.

1745.Kyanos is rendered by its dark blue color, without assigning a precise modern material. The region is Stygian, while the lake is Styx. The Greek construction after “Stygian” is elliptical; English repeats “they call” to convey the naming of the lake without adding a word to the facing Greek.

1746.The fourth river is distinct from the lake of Styx through which it passes. The repeated references to opposition place its movement and return in relation to Pyriphlegethon. “Meeting it” makes explicit the preceding river as the understood counterpart; the stated lack of mixing remains intact.

1747.The account returns from geography to the soul’s fate. The printed aorist diedikasanto occurs within a general description of what happens on arrival; English uses the present to express that general sequence. Hosiōs, “reverently,” concerns conduct toward divine or sacred obligations alongside living well.

1748.Mesōs describes lives falling between the extremes that follow. Ochēmata means conveyances or vehicles; the text does not specify their construction. Release is here connected with purification and satisfaction for wrongdoing, while beneficial actions receive corresponding honors. This differs from the irreversible punishment in the next unit.

1749.The supplied article before “appropriate fate” remains marked. Hierosyliai are acts of robbing sacred property, rendered “temple robbery.” The decisive qualification is the judgment of incurability; the next group has also committed serious wrongs but is distinguished as capable of remedy. “Never” is explicit in the Greek.

1750.The printed correction hyp’ orgēs, “in anger,” is retained. The account expressly includes subsequent regret in the example of parental violence. Patraloiai and mētraloiai name those who strike or abuse parents, not necessarily those who kill them. The one-year stay precedes a further condition of release, explained next; it does not itself end the punishment.

1751.Release now depends on the response of the people harmed. The verbs describe calling, supplication, and persuasion; the passage does not use a separate word for forgiveness. English makes “the currents” explicit from the preceding sentence. The destination requested is the lake, rather than an immediate ascent to the upper earth.

1752.The condition of release is repeated as the judges’ sentence. This distinguishes remediable punishment, whose duration depends on persuasion, from the preceding one-year stage and from the permanent confinement of those judged incurable. The Greek provides no further timetable.