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.38.7–I.38.9

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Book I Chapter 38 · I.38.7–I.38.9

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Ancient Greek

p. 754

7 · Κράτης

I.38.7

Κράτης ὁ γραμματικὸς τὸν ἀντισπασμὸν τῆς θαλάσσης αἰτιᾶται.

8 · Ἀπολλόδωρος

I.38.8

Ἀπολλόδωρος ὁ Κερκυραῖος τὰς ἐκ τοῦ ὠκεανοῦ παλιρροίας.

9 · Σέλευκος

I.38.9

Σέλευκος ὁ μαθηματικὸς ἀντιγεγραφὼς Κράτητι, κινῶν καὐτὸς τὴν γῆν, ἀντικόπτειν αὐτῆς τῷ δίνῳ φησὶ τὴν περιστροφὴν τῆς σελήνης· τοῦ δὲ μεταξὺ ἀμφοτέρων τῶν σωμάτων ἀντιπερισπωμένου πνεύματος καὶ ἐμπίπτοντος εἰς τὸ Ἀτλαντικὸν πέλαγος κατὰ λόγον οὕτω συγκυμαίνεσθαι τὴν θάλασσαν.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 38

p. 755

7 · Crates

I.38.7

Crates the grammarian assigns the cause to the sea’s counter-pull.⁹⁷¹

8 · Apollodorus

I.38.8

Apollodorus of Corcyra assigns the cause to returning currents from the Ocean.⁹⁷²

9 · Seleucus

I.38.9

Seleucus the mathematician, who wrote against Crates and himself also sets the earth in motion, says that the moon’s revolution works against the earth’s rotation.⁹⁷³ The air between the two bodies is drawn in the opposite direction and falls upon the Atlantic sea; in this way the sea is made to surge in correspondence with it.⁹⁷⁴

971.Antispasmos means a pull in the opposite direction or a drawing back. This single sentence gives no further mechanism. The final report below says that Seleucus wrote against Crates.

972.The verb is left unstated in Greek and is carried over from the preceding entry. Palirroiai are flows that turn back or return; the report locates their source in the Ocean.

973.The Greek makes “the moon’s revolution” the subject of “works against,” with the earth’s whirling motion as what it opposes. The notice explicitly gives motion to the earth, but does not here describe an orbit around the sun.

974.The intermediary is pneuma, moving air or wind between earth and moon. “In correspondence” renders kata logon in the account’s description of the sea’s response. The related report in the Placita III.17 likewise retains this role for moving air.

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.