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 42 · I.42.heading–I.42.1.2

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Book I Chapter 42 · I.42.heading–I.42.1.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 882

Κεφάλαιον ΜΒʹ

I.42.heading

Περὶ τῆς τῶν ζῴων γενέσεως.

1.1 · Πλάτωνος

I.42.1.1

Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Τιμαίου.

Ἐπειδὴ δὲ πάντα ἦν τὰ τοῦ θνητοῦ ζῴου συμπεφυκότα μέρη καὶ μέλη, τὴν δὲ ζωὴν ἐν πυρὶ καὶ πνεύματι συνέβαινεν ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἔχειν αὐτῷ, καὶ διὰ ταῦτα ὑπὸ τούτων τηκόμενον, κενούμενον ἔφθινε, βοήθειαν αὐτῷ θεοὶ μηχανῶνται.

1.2

I.42.1.2

Τῆς γὰρ ἀνθρωπίνης ξυγγενῆ φύσεως φύσιν ἄλλαις ἰδέαις καὶ αἰσθήσεσι κεραννύντες, ὥσθ᾽ ἕτερον ζῷον εἶναι, φυτεύουσιν· ἃ δὴ νῦν ἥμερα δένδρα καὶ φυτὰ καὶ σπέρματα παιδευθέντα ὑπὸ γεωργίας τιθασῶς πρὸς ἡμᾶς ἔσχε· πρὶν δ᾽ ἦν μόνα τὰ τῶν ἀγρίων γένη, πρεσβύτερα τῶν ἡμέρων ὄντα.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 42

p. 883

Chapter 42: On the generation of living creatures

I.42.heading

On the generation of living creatures.¹¹³⁵

1.1 · Plato: a remedy for bodily depletion

I.42.1.1

From Plato, from the Timaeus.

Now that all the parts and limbs of the mortal creature had grown together, and its life necessarily depended on fire and breath, it was being melted and emptied by these and was wasting away. The gods therefore devise a means of helping it.¹¹³⁶

1.2 · Cultivation and another kind of life

I.42.1.2

For they blend a nature akin to human nature with other forms and perceptions, so that it constitutes a different living creature, and plant it. These are the cultivated trees, plants, and seeds of today: schooled by agriculture, they have become tame toward us. Previously there were only the wild kinds, which are older than the cultivated ones.¹¹³⁷

1135.Much of this chapter is lost. Wachsmuth restores its topic headings from the index of the Laurentian florilegium, Γ.10; the general heading is absent from manuscripts F and P. The numbers 1-13 mark the printed sequence of topics. Only three excerpts survive, under topics 1, 7, and 13; the latter two also bear the excerpt numbers (2) and (3). Further subdivisions here serve facing-page comparison.

1136.Timaeus 76e-77c. The passage continues an account of the formation of the human body. The gods’ remedy is the plant life described next, which supplies what the mortal body loses. Pneuma is rendered “breath” here; fire and breath belong to the dialogue’s account of bodily life.

1137.The language of schooling and taming treats cultivation as an education of plants. Zōion, “living creature,” includes plant life in this argument; translating it simply as “animal” would obscure the claim. “Cultivated” renders hēmeros, whose range also includes “tame.”

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.