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.49.60.3–I.49.60.4

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Book I Chapter 49 · I.49.60.3–I.49.60.4

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Ancient Greek

p. 1470

60.3

I.49.60.3

Ἔνθα δῆ⟨λον⟩ τὸ μετὰ παιδείας ἑκάστῳ καὶ φιλοσοφίας ὄφελος, ἂν μνημονεύουσα τῶν καλῶν ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ δυσχεραίνουσα τὰς αἰσχρὰς καὶ παρανόμους ἡδονὰς δύνηται κρατεῖν καὶ προσέχειν αὑτῇ καὶ φυλάττειν, μὴ λάθῃ θηρίον γενομένη καὶ στέρξασα σώματος οὐκ εὐφυοῦς οὐδὲ καθαροῦ πρὸς ἀρετήν, φύσιν ἄμουσον καὶ ἄλογον καὶ τὸ ἐπιθυμοῦν καὶ θυμούμενον μᾶλλον ἢ τὸ φρόνιμον αὔξοντος καὶ τρέφοντος.

60.4

I.49.60.4

Αὐτῆς γὰρ τῆς μετακοσμήσεως εἱμαρμένη καὶ φύσις ὑπὸ Ἐμπεδοκλέους δαίμων ἀνηγόρευται,

σαρκῶν ἀλλογνῶτι περιστέλλουσα χιτῶνι,

καὶ μεταμπίσχουσα τὰς ψυχάς.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 49

p. 1471

60.3 · Education guards against a bestial life

I.49.60.3

Here the benefit that comes to each person with education and philosophy is ⟨clear⟩, if the soul, remembering noble things and recoiling from shameful and unlawful pleasures, can maintain control, attend to itself, and keep watch, lest it unknowingly become a beast and embrace the nature of a body ill-suited and impure in relation to virtue: an uncultivated and irrational nature, fostering and nourishing desire and anger rather than understanding.¹⁷⁶²

60.4 · The soul changes its garment

I.49.60.4

For the fate and nature of this very rearrangement has been proclaimed a daimon by Empedocles,

wrapping them in an unfamiliar tunic of flesh,

and clothing the souls afresh.¹⁷⁶³

1762.The supplement completes dēlon; English marks the whole word clear. The printed conditional an and dynētai are retained rather than replaced by the alternative wording recorded in the apparatus. The long sentence makes education a means of guarding the soul’s dispositions. The attachment of physin to the preceding genitive construction is compressed; the English interpretation remains provisional.

1763.The edition identifies the verse as Empedocles, line 402 in Stein’s numbering. The unusual printed allognōti is retained, provisionally rendered unfamiliar; the apparatus records competing readings involving a differently colored garment. The Greek does not print an object within the verse; English supplies them from the souls in the next clause. Daimōn is not equated here with an evil spirit.

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.