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 38 · I.38.heading–I.38.2

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Book I Chapter 38 · I.38.heading–I.38.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 750

Κεφάλαιον ΛΗʹ

I.38.heading

Πῶς ἀμπώτιδες καὶ πλήμμυραι γίνονται.

⟨Ἀετίου.⟩

1 · Ἀριστοτέλης καὶ Ἡρακλείδης

I.38.1

Ἀριστοτέλης καὶ Ἡρακλείδης ὑπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου τὰ πλεῖστα τῶν πνευμάτων κινοῦντος καὶ περιφέροντος· ὑφ᾽ ὧν ἐμβαλλόντων μὲν προωθουμένην ἀνοιδεῖν τὴν Ἀτλαντικὴν θάλασσαν καὶ κατασκευάζειν τὴν πλήμμυραν, καταληγόντων δ᾽ ἀντιπερισπωμένην ὑποβαίνειν, ὅπερ εἶναι τὴν ἄμπωτιν.

2

I.38.2

⟨Εὐ⟩ήνιος [Μεσήνιος] ἡλίῳ καὐτὸς τὴν αἰτίαν ἀνατίθησι, καθ᾽ οὓς μὲν ἂν τόπους γένηται τῆς γῆς πλημμύροντι τὰ πελάγη, ἐξ ὧν δ᾽ ἂν τύχῃ παραποστὰς ὑποσυνέλκοντι. ταῦτα δὲ συμβαίνειν περὶ τὰς ἑῴας καὶ τὰς μεσημβρινὰς ἐκκλίσεις.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 38

p. 751

Chapter 38: Ebb and flood tides

I.38.heading

How ebb and flood tides arise.

⟨Aëtius.⟩⁹⁶³

1 · Aristotle and Heraclides

I.38.1

Aristotle and Heraclides attribute them to the sun, which sets most of the winds in motion and carries them around. When these winds strike it, the Atlantic sea is pushed forward and swells, producing the flood tide; when they subside, it is drawn back and sinks, which is the ebb tide.⁹⁶⁴

2 · The sun’s presence and withdrawal

I.38.2

⟨Eu⟩enios [Messenian]⁹⁶⁵ likewise assigns the cause to the sun: it makes the seas rise in flood in those regions of the earth where it comes to be, and draws them back from those from which it happens to move away. These effects occur around the morning and midday turnings.⁹⁶⁶

963.The bracketed Latin source-heading, translated here, identifies Aëtius III.17.1-9. The Laurentian florilegium, A.38, preserves a fuller chapter than manuscripts F and P: excerpts 2-4 and 6-9 are absent from those two witnesses. All nine reports printed by Wachsmuth are translated below.

964.The opening Greek leaves “attribute them” understood from the chapter’s subject. The immediate force acting on the sea is wind; the sun initiates its movement. These are reported opinions under the two philosophers’ names, not direct quotations from identified works.

965.The name is textually uncertain. Wachsmuth prints Elter’s restoration Euēnios, based on Photius’s list of authors, and rejects “Messenian” as a divergent written form of the damaged name. The brackets preserve those decisions. Meineke had instead proposed identifying the author as Dicaearchus of Messene; that is not the text printed here.

966.Ekkliseis means turnings or deviations. “Morning” and “midday” take the adjectives temporally in this solar context; they can also mean “eastern” and “southern.” The compressed wording does not establish precisely what these turnings are. The English leaves that uncertainty open.

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.