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 49 · I.49.45.27–I.49.45.29

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English Page · Branch 673 of 879

Book I Chapter 49 · I.49.45.27–I.49.45.29

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Ancient Greek

p. 1342

45.27

I.49.45.27

Φιλοῦσι δὲ τὴν μὲν γῆν οἱ ὄφεις καὶ ὅσα ἕρπει· τὸ δὲ ὕδωρ τὰ νηκτὰ πάντα· τὸν δὲ ἀέρα τὰ πτηνά, ἐν οἷς καὶ πολιτεύεται, τὸ δὲ πῦρ ὅσα ὑπερπετῆ ἐστι καὶ ἐγγὺς ⟨ἔχει⟩ τὴν δίαιταν. Οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ τινα τῶν ζῴων φιλεῖ τὸ πῦρ· οἷον αἱ σαλαμάνδραι, ἐν γὰρ τῷ πυρὶ καὶ φωλεύουσιν.

45.28

I.49.45.28

Ἕκαστον γὰρ τῶν στοιχείων περιβολή ἐστι τῶν σωμάτων. Πᾶσα οὖν ψυχὴ ἐν τῷ σώματι οὖσα βαρεῖται καὶ θλίβεται τοῖς τέτταρσι τούτοις. Καὶ γὰρ εἰκός ἐστι καὶ ταύτην τισὶ μὲν τούτων τέρπεσθαι, τισὶ δὲ ἄχθεσθαι. Διὰ τοῦτο οὖν οὐκ ἔχει αὕτη τὴν ἀκροτάτην εὐδαιμονίαν· ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἂν φύσει θεία οὖσα, κἂν τούτοις οὖσα μάχεται καὶ νοεῖ, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὅσα ἂν ἐνόησεν ἀσύνδετος οὖσα σωμάτων.

45.29

I.49.45.29

Ἐὰν μέντοι καὶ ταῦτα σάλον λάβῃ καὶ ταραχὴν ἤτοι ἀπὸ νόσου ἢ φόβου, τότε καὶ αὐτὴ ὡσπερεὶ βυθῷ ἀνθέρικος ἐπικυμαίνεται καὶ οὐδὲν ἑσταμένον φέρει.”

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 49

p. 1343

45.27 · Habitats and the fire-loving salamander

I.49.45.27

Snakes and all creeping things love earth; all swimming creatures love water; winged creatures love air, in which they also live; and those that fly very high and ⟨have⟩ their dwelling nearby love fire. Indeed, some animals also love fire: salamanders, for example, even make their lairs in fire.¹⁶²⁰

45.28 · The embodied soul’s restricted happiness

I.49.45.28

For each element is an enclosure for bodies. Every soul, then, while in the body, is weighed down and pressed upon by these four. It is reasonable that the soul too should take pleasure in some of them and be troubled by others. For this reason it does not possess the highest happiness. Yet, being divine by nature, even among these it struggles and thinks, though not as much as it would have thought if unbound from bodies.¹⁶²¹

45.29 · The soul tossed like a stalk

I.49.45.29

But if these too are shaken and disturbed, whether by illness or by fear, then the soul itself is tossed upon the waves like a stalk upon the deep, and maintains nothing steady.”¹⁶²²

1620.The phrase en hois kai politeuetai is disturbed: the plural “in which” sits awkwardly beside singular air. English gives its likely contextual sense, while retaining the printed Greek. Wachsmuth discusses deletion or correction in the apparatus but does not mark either in his text. The supplied verb “have” remains marked. The fire-dwelling salamander is a claim made by the ancient speaker, not a zoological observation adopted here.

1621.Peribolē denotes an enclosing covering or surrounding. The passage carries the affinities of animals over to the soul’s relation to the elements. The soul remains divine and capable of thought, although its embodied condition restricts that activity. “Happiness” renders eudaimonia, here the soul’s fullest well-being.

1622.This closes excerpt 45. “These” looks back to the bodily elements or the bodily conditions they constitute. Antherikos, “stalk,” is the printed correction of a transmitted word meaning “human being.” The image explains instability through the disturbance of the soul’s surroundings. It does not say that the soul becomes mortal.

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.