Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

John Stobaeus

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 15 · I.15.6a.2–I.15.6c

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Facing Pages · Branch 188 of 879

Book I Chapter 15 · I.15.6a.2–I.15.6c

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Ancient Greek

p. 372

6a ⟨Ἀετίου⟩ · 2

I.15.6a.2

Ἀναξαγόρας τὰ ὁμοιομερῆ πολυσχήμονα.

Οἱ ἀπὸ Λευκίππου τὰ ἄτομα πολυσχήμονα.

6a ⟨Ἀετίου⟩ · 3

I.15.6a.3

Κλεάνθης μόνος τῶν Στωικῶν τὸ πῦρ ἀπεφήνατο κωνοειδές.

Ζήνων ἔφασκε τὸ πῦρ κατ’ εὐθεῖαν κινεῖσθαι.

6b ⟨Ἀετίου⟩

I.15.6b

Οἱ Στωικοὶ σφαιροειδῆ τὸν κόσμον ἀπεφήναντο.

Λεύκιππος καὶ Δημόκριτος σφαιροειδῆ τὸν κόσμον.

6c ⟨Ἀετίου⟩

I.15.6c

Διογένης καὶ Ἀναξαγόρας ἔφασαν, μετὰ τὸ συστῆναι τὸν κόσμον καὶ τὰ ζῷα ἐκ τῆς γῆς ἐξαγαγεῖν ἐγκλιθῆναί πως τὸν κόσμον ἐκ τοῦ αὐτομάτου εἰς τὸ μεσημβρινὸν αὐτοῦ μέρος, ἴσως ὑπὸ προνοίας, ἵν’ ἃ μὲν ἀοίκητα γένηται, ἃ δὲ οἰκητὰ μέρη τοῦ κόσμου κατὰ ψύξιν καὶ ἐκπύρωσιν καὶ εὐκρασίαν.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 15

p. 373

6a ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩: Anaxagoras and Leucippus

I.15.6a.2

Anaxagoras held the things with like parts to have many shapes.

The followers of Leucippus held the atoms to have many shapes.⁴³⁵

6a ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩: Cleanthes and Zeno

I.15.6a.3

Cleanthes alone among the Stoics declared fire to be conical.

Zeno said that fire moves in a straight line.⁴³⁶

6b ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩: The world’s shape

I.15.6b

The Stoics declared the world to be spherical.

Leucippus and Democritus held the world to be spherical.⁴³⁷

6c ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩: Diogenes and Anaxagoras

I.15.6c

Diogenes and Anaxagoras said that, after the world had formed and brought living creatures out of the earth, the world somehow tilted of its own accord toward its southern part, perhaps through providence, so that some regions of the world would become uninhabitable and others habitable, according to cold, scorching heat, and a temperate mixture.⁴³⁸

435.Homoiomerē means things whose parts are of the same kind. Wachsmuth exchanges the objects of these two reports: the manuscripts assign atoms to Anaxagoras and things with like parts to Leucippus. His printed correction, followed here, preserves the order of the philosophers.

436.The two statements concern different things: the shape of fire and the direction of its motion. The report singles out Cleanthes within the Stoic school. Compare the statements about fire and circular motion in chapter 14.

437.Kosmos here denotes the ordered world described by each account. The shared predicate “spherical” does not make their accounts of its constituents or formation identical.

438.The report retains both “of its own accord” and “perhaps through providence”; the translation does not resolve their tension. The last three terms concern climatic conditions and habitability. Here ekpyrōsis is rendered “scorching heat,” rather than the destruction of an entire world by fire.

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.