Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
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Facing Pages · Branch 299 of 879
Book I Chapter 25 · I.25.4.1–I.25.4.3
Ancient Greek
p. 5944 ⟨Ἀρείου Διδύμου ἐπιτομῆς⟩ · 1
Ἀριστοτέλους. Ἀριστοτέλης ἐκ πέμπτης οὐσίας τὸν ἥλιον. Πυροῦσθαι δὲ τὸν ἀέρα καὶ σφόδρα γίνεσθαι θερμὸν ἀνίσχοντός τε τοῦ ἡλίου καὶ πλησιάζοντος ἡμῖν, οὐ διὰ τὸ πύρινον εἶναι τὴν οὐσίαν, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὴν ὀξύτητα τῆς κινήσεως αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν πρὸς τὸν ἀέρα παράτριψιν ὑποβεβλημένου αὐτοῦ τῇ φορᾷ καὶ παρακειμένου·
4 ⟨Ἀρείου Διδύμου ἐπιτομῆς⟩ · 2
οὔτε δὲ τὸν ἥλιον οὔτε τῶν ἄλλων ἄστρων ὁτιοῦν πῦρ εἶναι· σφαιροειδῆ μὲν γὰρ τούτων τὰ σχήματα, πυρὸς δὲ ἐκτός· οὔτε γὰρ τὴν περὶ τὸ μέσον οἰκείαν εἶναι κίνησιν πυρός, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ μέσου· οὔτε τὴν τῆς αὐξήσεως τῶν ζῴων καὶ φυτῶν δύναμιν, ἀλλὰ τὴν τῆς φθορᾶς· οὐδὲ τὴν καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸ διαμονήν, τὸ γὰρ πῦρ ἀχώριστον εἶναι τῆς ὕλης. Ἐκ πέμπτης ἄρα τινὸς καὶ διαφερούσης τοῦ πυρὸς οὐσίας τόν τε οὐρανὸν ὑπάρχειν καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ πάντα.
4 ⟨Ἀρείου Διδύμου ἐπιτομῆς⟩ · 3
Καὶ τὸν μὲν ἥλιον ἡμέραν ἀπεργάζεσθαι ὑπὲρ γῆν ἰόντα, νύκτα δὲ χωρήσαντα ὑπὸ γῆν. Καὶ τοῦ μὲν ἑτέρου τῶν τροπικῶν ἐφαψάμενον βραχυτάτην ποιεῖν τὴν ἡμέραν, μακροτάτην δὲ τὴν νύκτα· θατέρου δὲ ἀνάπαλιν· τοῦ δ᾽ ἰσημερινοῦ ἰόντα τε καὶ ἀπιόντα, διαθεῖν δὲ τὸν ἴδιον ⟨ἐν⟩ ἐνιαυτῷ κύκλον.
Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 25
p. 5954 ⟨Arius Didymus, Epitome⟩: Aristotle
Aristotle’s view. Aristotle held that the sun consists of a fifth substance. As the sun rises and approaches us, the air becomes fiery and intensely hot, because of the speed of the sun’s movement and its friction against the air lying beneath and alongside its course, rather than because the sun’s substance is fire.764
4 Aristotle: Why the stars are not fire
Neither the sun nor any of the other stars is fire. Their shapes are spherical, and they have no share in fire. For fire’s natural movement is away from the center, not around it; its power is to destroy animals and plants, not to make them grow. Nor can it persist by itself, since fire cannot be separated from its fuel. Heaven and everything within it therefore consist of a certain fifth substance, different from fire.765
4 Aristotle: Day and the year
The sun produces day as it travels above the earth, and night when it passes beneath it. On reaching one of the tropics it makes the day shortest and the night longest; at the other, the reverse. It passes the equator on its outward and return journeys, and completes its own circuit ⟨in⟩ a year.766
Socrates
Reading Stobaeus, Volume I · Book I Chapter 25 · I.25.4.1–I.25.4.3
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.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.