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 6 · I.6.11–I.6.13

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Facing Pages · Branch 101 of 879

Book I Chapter 6 · I.6.11–I.6.13

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Ancient Greek

p. 198

11 Φιλήμονος Ἀποκαρτεροῦντι

I.6.11

Νῦν δ’ οἶδ’ ἀκριβῶς τὴν τύχην, ὡς οὐ μία, οὐδ’ ἔστι πρῴην, ἀλλὰ μετὰ τῶν σωμάτων ἡμῶν, ὅταν γινώμεθ’, εὐθὺς χἠ τύχη προσγίνεθ’ ἡμῖν συγγενὴς τῷ σώματι· κοὐκ ἔστιν ἕτερον παρ’ ἑτέρου λαβεῖν τύχην.

12 ⟨Εὐριπίδου⟩

I.6.12

Τὸν εὐτυχοῦντα καὶ φρονεῖν νομίζομεν.

13 ⟨Ἀδήλου λυρικοῦ ποιητοῦ⟩

I.6.13

Τύχα μερόπων ἀρχὰ καὶ τέρμα, τὺ καὶ σοφίας θακεῖς ἕδρας καὶ τιμὰν βροτέοις ἐπέθηκας ἔργοις· καὶ τὸ καλὸν πλέον ἢ κακὸν ἐκ σέθεν, ἅ τε χάρις λάμπει περὶ σὰν πτέρυγα χρυσέαν· καὶ τὸ τεᾷ πλάστιγγι δοθὲν μακαριστότατον τελέθει. τὺ δ’ ἀμαχανίας πόρον εἶδες ἐν ἄλγεσιν, καὶ λαμπρὸν φάος ἄγαγες ἐν σκότῳ, προφερεστάτα θεῶν.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 6

p. 199

11 Philemon, The Man Who Starves Himself

I.6.11

Now I know precisely what fortune is: it is not one, nor does it exist beforehand. Rather, with our bodies, as soon as we are born, fortune too comes to us, born together with the body; one person cannot take another person’s fortune.²¹⁹

12 ⟨Euripides⟩

I.6.12

We think the fortunate man is wise as well.²²⁰

13 ⟨An unidentified lyric poet⟩

I.6.13

Fortune, beginning and end of humankind, you sit upon wisdom’s seats and have set honor upon mortal works. From you comes more good than evil, and grace shines about your golden wing; what is given in your balance becomes most blessed. Amid pain you saw a way out of helplessness and brought bright light into darkness, foremost of the gods.²²¹

219.The passage gives each person a fortune that begins with bodily life. Prōiēn normally means “recently” or “the day before yesterday”; “beforehand” is a contextual reading here. Wachsmuth prints Bentley’s conjecture for manuscript prōtē, “first.” The line remains uncertain.

220.The supplied attribution is drawn by Wachsmuth from the scholia on Pindar, Nemean 1.13. The maxim distinguishes the appearance of wisdom that success confers from proof that wisdom caused it.

221.The source leaves this lyric poet unidentified, rejecting attempts to attach displaced author-headings to the hymn. Its favorable picture of Fortune belongs beside, rather than being reconciled with, the hostile or skeptical sayings elsewhere in the chapter. The text of several lines is reconstructed in the apparatus.

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.