Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

John Stobaeus

Stobaeus, Volume I

Name: Stobaeus, Volume I
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek with an independent English translation.

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Stobaeus, Volume IBook I Chapter 15 · I.15.heading–I.15.3a

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Book I Chapter 15 · I.15.heading–I.15.3a

Book Mode

Ancient Greek

p. 366

Κεφάλαιον ΙΕʹ

I.15.heading

Περὶ σχημάτων.

1 Ὁμήρου

I.15.1

Τόσσον ἔνερθ’ Ἀΐδεω ὅσον οὐρανός ἐστ’ ἀπὸ γαίης.

2a ⟨Ἀνωνύμου ποιητοῦ⟩

I.15.2a

Ἀλλ’ ὅγε πάντοθεν ἶσος ⟨ἐὼν⟩ καὶ πάμπαν ἀπείρων.

2b ⟨Ἐμπεδοκλέους⟩

I.15.2b

σφαῖρος κυκλοτερής, μονίῃ περιηγέϊ γαίων.

3a Ἐπιγραφή

I.15.3a

Πορφυρίου.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 15

p. 367

Chapter 15: Shapes

I.15.heading

On shapes.

1 Homer, Iliad 8.16

I.15.1

As far beneath Hades as heaven is from earth.⁴²⁵

2a ⟨An unidentified poet⟩

I.15.2a

But it, ⟨being⟩ equal on every side and wholly boundless.⁴²⁶

2b ⟨Empedocles⟩

I.15.2b

a rounded Sphere, rejoicing in surrounding solitude.⁴²⁷

3a Surviving attribution

I.15.3a

From Porphyry.⁴²⁸

425.The line describes Tartarus in Zeus’s threat to the other gods at the beginning of Iliad 8. Stobaeus extracts the comparison of distances; the name Tartarus belongs to the surrounding Homeric passage.

426.The subject is not identified within the surviving line. Wachsmuth prints the attribution as anonymous and supplies eōn, “being.” His apparatus discusses attribution to Parmenides or Empedocles, but he does not join this line to the following Empedoclean verse. The English preserves that separation and the unfinished construction.

427.Sphairos, “Sphere,” is the name used in this Empedoclean verse. Moniē denotes solitude or being alone; the adjoining adjective gives it an encompassing quality. Wachsmuth supplies the attribution and adopts several readings from parallel witnesses. This fragment remains a separate quotation from 2a.

428.Only this attribution survives here. Wachsmuth states that the manuscripts retain the name in their margins but no text of the excerpt. It is therefore not used to attribute the following definition to Porphyry.

About This Reading Edition

Stobaeus gathered Greek philosophy and poetry for his son Septimius. Volume I presents the dedication testimony, On Arithmetic, Book I through chapter 60, and the ancient contents of all four books. This complete bilingual edition includes an introduction and 2,117 explanatory notes.

Historical Text and Translation

The Greek follows Curt Wachsmuth’s 1884 Volume I, checked against the supplied scan. Gaps, lost-chapter headings, and uncertain attributions remain visible. Chapter 2 includes a labeled proposed reconstruction. The appendix outlines Books I–IV; the full texts of Books II–IV are outside this volume. Reader pages preserve the companion PDF’s numbering.

About Diotimos Editions

Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation directly from the Greek. Prose and verse retain their distinct forms, with mixed passages preserving their quoted verse. Every passage is paired with its Greek and identified by the edition’s reference number. All 2,117 notes remain linked to their passages, with continuous numbering across the introduction and text.

Rights

Stobaeus’s ancient Greek work and Wachsmuth’s 1884 printing are in the public domain. The independent English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. The complete supplied edition is available as PDF, EPUB, Word, and Markdown. The PDF retains the fixed page locations used by the companion lexicon.