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 42 · I.42.7.heading–I.42.7.1

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 446 of 879

Book I Chapter 42 · I.42.7.heading–I.42.7.1

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Ancient Greek

p. 888

7

I.42.7.heading

⟨Πόθεν γίνονται τῶν γονέων αἱ ὁμοιώσεις ἢ τῶν προγόνων.⟩

7.1 · (2) Ἑρμοῦ

I.42.7.1

Ἑρμοῦ ἐκ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης.

Παρὰ τί δὲ τὰ βρέφη ὅμοια τοῖς γονεῦσι γίνεται ἢ συγγενείαις ἀποδίδοται; Ἐκθήσω λόγον. Ὅταν νοστίμου αἵματος ἐξαφρουμένου ἡ γέννησις ἀποθησαυρίζῃ γόνον, συμβαίνει πως ἐκπνεῖν ἐκ τοῦ σώματος ὅλου μελῶν οὐσίαν τινὰ κατὰ θείαν ἐνέργειαν, ὡς τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἀνθρώπου γινομένου, τὸ δ᾽ αὐτὸ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γυναικὸς εἰκὸς γίγνεσθαι.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 42

p. 889

7 · Restored topic heading

I.42.7.heading

⟨How resemblances to parents or ancestors arise.⟩¹¹⁴³

7.1 · (2) Hermes: the source of resemblance

I.42.7.1

From Hermes, from Aphrodite.¹¹⁴⁴

Why do infants resemble their parents or show the family to which they belong? I shall set out an explanation. When nourishing blood foams up and the generative process stores away seed, some substance of the limbs somehow issues like a breath from the entire body through divine activity, as though the same human being were coming into existence. It is likely that the same thing also occurs in the woman.¹¹⁴⁵

1143.The restored heading introduces the chapter’s second surviving excerpt. Parents are distinguished from earlier ancestors, anticipating the final sentence of the passage.

1144.Aphrodite is the title of the work attributed to Hermes, not the name of the speaker in this excerpt. The explanation derives reproductive seed from the whole body and applies the process to both parents. Gennēsis, literally “generation” or “procreation,” is rendered “generative process”; the printed word does not itself name an anatomical organ.

1145.The apparatus credits Usener with “foams up,” exaphroumenou, and Meineke with “generation” and the corrected form ekpnein. Wachsmuth retains “as though the same human being were coming into existence,” although Meineke would delete it as a gloss. “Nourishing” follows the nutritious sense of nostimos (LSJ, s.v.).

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.