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 30 · I.30.heading–I.30.1.2

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Book I Chapter 30 · I.30.heading–I.30.1.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 690

Κεφάλαιον Λʹ

I.30.heading

Περὶ ἴριδος περὶ ἅλω καὶ παρηλίου καὶ ῥάβδων.

1 ⟨Ἀετίου⟩ · 1

I.30.1.1

Τῶν μεταρσίων παθῶν τὰ μὲν καθ᾽ ὑπόστασιν γίνεται, οἷον ὄμβρος, χάλαζα, τὰ δὲ κατ᾽ ἔμφασιν, ἰδίαν οὐκ ἔχοντα ὑπόστασιν· αὐτίκα γοῦν πλεόντων ἡμῶν ἡ ἤπειρος κινεῖσθαι δοκεῖ. Ἔστιν οὖν κατ᾽ ἔμφασιν ἡ ἶρις.

1 ⟨Ἀετίου⟩ · 2

I.30.1.2

Πλάτων φησὶ Θαύμαντος αὐτὴν γεναλογῆσαι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους διὰ τὸ θαυμάσαι ταύτην. Ὅμηρος·

Ἠύτε πορφυρέην νεφέλην θνητοῖσι τανίσσει.

Καὶ ἐμυθεύσαντό τινες αὐτὴν ταύρου κεφαλὴν ἔχουσαν ἀναρροφεῖν τοὺς ποταμούς.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 30

p. 691

Chapter 30: Rainbows and halos

I.30.heading

On the rainbow, halos, mock suns, and rods.⁸⁸⁶

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Substance and appearance

I.30.1.1

Of the phenomena aloft, some arise as substantial formations, such as rain and hail; others arise as appearances, having no substantial existence of their own. For example, when we are sailing, the mainland seems to move. The rainbow, then, is an appearance.⁸⁸⁷

1 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Iris, wonder, and poetry

I.30.1.2

Plato says that people traced her descent from Thaumas because they wondered at her.⁸⁸⁸ Homer says:

As he spreads a purple cloud for mortals.⁸⁸⁹

Some also told the story that she has a bull’s head and sucks up rivers.

886.“Rods,” rhabdoi, are straight streaks of rainbow-like color, defined at the chapter’s end. A mock sun, parēlios, is an appearance resembling the sun beside it; a halo is the ring described around a luminous celestial body.

887.Hypostasis here is a thing’s substantial existence, contrasted with emphasis, an appearance. The distinction concerns whether the visible phenomenon is itself a separate body. The bracketed Aëtius heading is Wachsmuth’s editorial identification of the source.

888.Theaetetus 155d. Iris names both the rainbow and its divine personification. Plato connects Thaumas, her father, with thauma, “wonder,” in a passage about philosophy’s beginning in wonder. The present report applies that wordplay to the rainbow.

889.Iliad 17.547. The Homeric text normally has irin, “rainbow,” where Wachsmuth prints nephelēn, “cloud,” in Stobaeus. It also has a different form of the verb “stretch.” The facing text and translation retain this version. The implied subject is Zeus, named in Homer’s following line.

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.