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 1 · I.1.19–I.1.22

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Book I Chapter 1 · I.1.19–I.1.22

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Ancient Greek

p. 48

19 ⟨Εὐριπίδου Θυέστῃ⟩

I.1.19

Θεοῦ θέλοντος κἂν ἐπὶ ῥιπὸς πλέοις.

20 ⟨Ἀδεσπότου τραγικοῦ⟩

I.1.20

Θνητοῖσιν ἀνθρώποισι καταφυγὴ θεοί.

21 ⟨Ἀδεσπότου τραγικοῦ⟩

I.1.21

Καὶ τἀμπλακήματ’ ἔρχεται θεὸς μέτα, ὅθεν λαβόντες οἱ κακῶς πεπραγότες ἱκετηρίαν ἀπῆλθον ἐκ δυσπραξίας.

22 ⟨Ἀδεσπότου τραγικοῦ⟩

I.1.22

Νῦν οὐκέτι μοι δίχα θυμός, ἀλλὰ σαφὴς ⟨φάτις ἔσθ’⟩, ὅτι πάντα βροτοῖς Ζεὺς ἐπικάρσια τέμνει, καθελὼν μὲν δοκέοντ’, ἀδόκητον δ’ ἐξαίρων.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 1

p. 49

19 ⟨Euripides, Thyestes⟩

I.1.19

If God wills it, you could sail even on a wicker mat.⁴⁵

20 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

I.1.20

For mortal human beings, the gods are a refuge.

21 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

I.1.21

God comes in pursuit of transgressions too; from him those who have fared badly take a suppliant’s branch, and escape their distress.⁴⁶

22 ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

I.1.22

Now my heart is divided no longer; ⟨the saying is⟩ clear: for mortals Zeus cuts across every expectation, bringing down what seems likely, and raising up what no one expects.⁴⁷

45.Rhips is a woven or plaited object: the saying imagines an utterly inadequate craft succeeding through divine favor. The assignment to Euripides’s Thyestes is supplied by the editor from parallel testimony, as the brackets indicate.

46.The construction of the first line and its relation to the following two are uncertain. The translation takes erchetai … meta as pursuit of offenses and hothen as referring back to God. Wachsmuth changes the transmitted “safety” to hiketērian, a suppliant’s branch, and discusses disagreement over whether these lines belong together. The resulting image is difficult; the English preserves it.

47.The Greek says literally that Zeus “cuts everything crosswise” for mortals. The next pair, “what seems likely” and “the unexpected,” supplies the sense of overturned expectations. The words “the saying is” are an editorial supplement.

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.