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 22 · I.22.1e–I.22.1f.2

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Book I Chapter 22 · I.22.1e–I.22.1f.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 540

1e ⟨Ἀετίου⟩

I.22.1e

Λεύκιππος καὶ Δημόκριτος χιτῶνα κύκλῳ καὶ ὑμένα περιτείνουσι τῷ κόσμῳ, διὰ τῶν ἀγκιστροειδῶν ἀτόμων συμπεπλεγμένον.

Ἐπίκουρος ἐνίων μὲν κόσμων ἀραιὸν τὸ πέρας, ἐνίων δὲ πυκνόν, καὶ τούτων τὰ μέν τινα κινούμενα, τὰ δ᾽ ἀκίνητα.

1f ⟨Ἀετίου καὶ Πλάτωνος⟩ · 1

I.22.1f.1

Πλάτων τὸν ὁρατὸν κόσμον γεγονέναι παράδειγμα τοῦ νοητοῦ κόσμου. Τοῦ δὲ ὁρατοῦ προτέραν μὲν τὴν ψυχήν, μετὰ δὲ ταύτην τὸ σωματοειδές, τὸ ἐκ πυρὸς μὲν καὶ γῆς πρῶτον, ὕδατος δὲ καὶ ἀέρος δεύτερον.

1f ⟨Ἀετίου καὶ Πλάτωνος⟩ · 2

I.22.1f.2

Λέγει γοῦν ἐν Τιμαίῳ οὕτως· Τῶν δὲ δὴ τεττάρων ἓν ὅλον ἕκαστον εἴληφεν ἡ τοῦ κόσμου σύστασις· ἐκ γὰρ πυρὸς παντὸς ὕδατός τε καὶ ἀέρος καὶ γῆς συνέστησεν αὐτὸν ὁ συνιστάς, μέρος οὐδὲν οὐδενὸς οὐδὲ δύναμιν ἔξωθεν ὑπολείπων, τάδε διανοηθείς, πρῶτον μὲν ἵνα ὅλον ὅτι μάλιστα ζῷον τέλειον ἐκ τελείων τῶν μερῶν εἴη, πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ἕν, ἅτε οὐχ ὑπολελειμμένων ἐξ ὧν ἄλλο τοιοῦτον γένοιτ᾽ ἄν.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 22

p. 541

1e ⟨Aëtius⟩: The boundaries of worlds

I.22.1e

Leucippus and Democritus stretch a covering and membrane all around the world, interwoven from hook-shaped atoms.

Epicurus holds that some worlds have a rarefied boundary and others a dense one; some of these boundaries move, while others are motionless.⁶⁸⁰

1f ⟨Aëtius and Plato⟩: Soul before body

I.22.1f.1

Plato held that the visible world came into being as a copy of the intelligible world. Of the visible world, soul is prior, and after it comes the bodily part, constituted first from fire and earth, and second from water and air.⁶⁸¹

1f ⟨Aëtius and Plato⟩: No remainder outside

I.22.1f.2

Thus he says in the Timaeus: The world’s constitution has taken each of the four in its entirety. For the one who composed it composed it from all fire, water, air, and earth, leaving outside no part or power of any of them. His intention was, first, that it should be, so far as possible, a whole and perfect living being made of complete parts; and, further, that it should be one, since nothing remained from which another such being could arise.⁶⁸²

680.The covering is made by the interlocking shapes of atoms. In the Epicurean clause, the neuter words for things moving or motionless are taken as referring to boundaries. Compare Epicurus’s Letter to Pythocles, preserved in Diogenes Laërtius 10.88, for the similar description of a world’s boundary.

681.Paradeigma usually means a model or pattern, but LSJ, under this word, expressly records the later sense “copy” with this doxographical sentence as its example. The report therefore does not reverse Plato’s relation between intelligible model and visible world. Soul’s priority is distinct from the order in which the bodily constituents are listed.

682.Timaeus 32c-d. The compiler’s introduction gives way here to a quotation. The argument is that the maker uses all the available constituents, leaving none for another world. Stobaeus ends this excerpt before Plato’s further explanation concerning freedom from age and disease.

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.