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.42.7.2–I.42.8.heading

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English Page · Branch 447 of 879

Book I Chapter 42 · I.42.7.2–I.42.8.heading

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Ancient Greek

p. 890

7.2

I.42.7.2

Ὅταν ⟨οὖν⟩ καθυπερτερήσῃ τὸ ῥυὲν ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς καὶ ἄθικτον γένηται, τῷ πατρὶ ὁμοιούμενον τὸ βρέφος ἀποδειχθήσεται, ὡς τὸ ἀνάπαλιν τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον τῇ μητρί· ἐὰν ⟨δὲ⟩ τινος μέρους καθυπερτέρησις γένηται, πρὸς ἐκεῖνο τὸ μέρος ἀφομοιοῦται.

7.3

I.42.7.3

Ἔσθ᾽ ὅτε δὲ καὶ εἰς μακρὰς γενεὰς παραβάλλει τὸ βρέφος τῇ μορφῇ τοῦ γεννήσαντος, ἐκείνου δεκανοῦ λόγον ἔχοντος πρὸς τὴν ὥραν, ἐν ᾗ ἡ γυνὴ ἐπαιδοποίει.

8

I.42.8.heading

⟨Πῶς ἄλλοις ὅμοιοι γίνονται οἱ γεννώμενοι καὶ οὐ τοῖς γονεῦσι.⟩

deest.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 42

p. 891

7.2 · The predominance of one parent’s contribution

I.42.7.2

⟨Thus,⟩ when what has flowed from the man predominates and remains untouched, the infant will prove to resemble its father; when the reverse occurs, it will in the same way resemble its mother. ⟨But⟩ if the contribution from a particular part predominates, the resemblance is to that part.¹¹⁴⁶

7.3 · Ancestral likeness and the decan

I.42.7.3

Sometimes, even across many generations, the infant matches the form of an ancestor,¹¹⁴⁷ when the decan associated with that person bears a relation to the hour at which the woman was conceiving.¹¹⁴⁸

8 · Restored topic heading

I.42.8.heading

⟨How those who are born resemble others rather than their parents.⟩

Text missing.¹¹⁴⁹

1146.“Untouched” retains the printed athikton; alternative readings in the apparatus are not substituted. The supplements oun and de are attributed to Heeren and Wachsmuth respectively. The account allows a particular bodily feature, as well as an entire parental likeness, to predominate.

1147.“Ancestor” interprets “the one who begot” in light of “many generations” and the topic heading. The Greek can be construed as making that person’s decan the subject, but can also suggest that the ancestor himself has a decan’s role. The translation adopts the former construal. “Was conceiving” takes the general expression “was producing a child” in the reproductive context of this excerpt; the precise moment is not further defined.

1148.Decans are astral powers discussed earlier in I.21.9. They are associated with thirty-six divisions of the zodiac; compare Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica (1992), Introduction, on the Liber Hermetis. Here an astrological relationship is added to the preceding bodily explanation. Logos is kept as the broad “relation,” without specifying an unexpressed mechanism.

1149.This is a separate restored topic. The text that once distinguished its question from resemblance to ancestors in the preceding passage has not survived.

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.