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 25 · I.25.7.2–I.25.9.1

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Facing Pages · Branch 303 of 879

Book I Chapter 25 · I.25.7.2–I.25.9.1

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Ancient Greek

p. 602

7 ⟨Πλουτάρχου⟩ · 2

I.25.7.2

Τί οὖν φαίνεται ποιῶν ἄλλο, ἢ τῇ διαζεύξει μαρτυράμενος, ὅτι πῦρ οὐ νομίζει τὸν ἥλιον, ἀλλ᾽ ἕτερον μὲν πυρός, φαινόμενον δὲ ἐν ταῖς ἀνατολαῖς πυρώδη διὰ τὴν ὑγρότητα καὶ τὴν ἀναθυμίασιν, ᾗ μιγνύμενον ἐρυθραίνεται πᾶν τὸ λαμπρόν;

8 (4) Φιλόλαος

I.25.8

Φιλολάου ἐκ Βακχῶν.

9 (5) ⟨Ἀράτου Φαινομένων⟩ · 822-831

I.25.9.1

Μὴ οἱ ποικίλλοιτο νέον βάλλοντος ἀρούρας κύκλος, ὅτ᾽ εὐδίου κεχρημένος ἤματος εἴης, μηδέ τι σῆμα φέροι, φαίνοιτο δὲ λιτὸς ἁπάντῃ. Εἰ δ᾽ αὔτως καθαρόν μιν ἔχοι βουλύσιος ὥρη, δύνοι δ᾽ ἀνέφελος μαλακὴν ὑποδείελος αἴγλην, καί κεν ἐπερχομένης ἠοῦς ἔθ᾽ ὑπεύδιος εἴη. Ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὁππότε κοῖλος ἐειδόμενος περιτέλλῃ, οὐδ᾽ ὁπότ᾽ ἀκτίνων αἱ μὲν νότον, αἱ δὲ βορῆα σχιζόμεναι βάλλωσι, τὰ δ᾽ αὖ περὶ μέσσα φαείνῃ· ἀλλά που ἢ ὑετοῖο διέρχεται ἢ ἀνέμοιο.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 25

p. 603

7 The inference from Homer

I.25.7.2

What else, then, does he appear to be doing, except attesting by this disjunction that he considers the sun different from fire? It appears fiery at its risings because of moisture and exhalation, which redden everything bright that mingles with them.⁷⁷⁶

8 (4) Philolaus: A surviving heading

I.25.8

From Philolaus’ Bacchae.⁷⁷⁷

9 ⟨Aratus, Phaenomena⟩: 822-831

I.25.9.1

When you have need of a day of fair weather, may his disk show no varied colors as he first strikes the fields, nor bear any mark, but appear clear all around.⁷⁷⁸ If the hour of unyoking finds him just as pure, and at evening he sets cloudless, with a gentle glow, he may still bring fair weather when dawn returns.⁷⁷⁹ But not when he rises with a hollow-seeming disk, nor when his rays divide, some striking south, some north, while the parts around the middle shine: then he is passing through rain or wind.

776.This is the commentator’s inference from the word “or,” followed by a physical explanation of the red sunrise. Homer’s simile itself does not explicitly formulate either claim. The English divides the long rhetorical question for readability.

777.Only the heading survives here, as Wachsmuth’s apparatus states. No passage from the Bacchae follows it. The parenthetical 4, and 5 on the next entry, preserve the older excerpt numbering printed alongside Wachsmuth’s.

778.Aratus, Phaenomena 822-891: seventy lines, printed here in ten consecutive blocks. The attribution is supplied by Wachsmuth. The sun is the unexpressed subject at the excerpt’s opening; the first two English lines reverse their order to make the wish clear.

779.The “hour of unyoking” is evening, when working oxen are released. The poem reads the sun’s appearance as a weather sign; it does not present a theory of its physical composition.

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.