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 49 · I.49.44.31–I.49.44.32

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Book I Chapter 49 · I.49.44.31–I.49.44.32

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Ancient Greek

p. 1268

44.31

I.49.44.31

Ζεὺς ἔλεγεν· “ὡς μὴ παντάπασι πολεμήσαι τὸ φῦλον τὸ ἐσόμενον, ἤδη αὐτοῖς καὶ Τύχην καὶ Ἐλπίδα καὶ Εἰρήνην γεγέννηκα”. Ἄρης Ἀγωνίας ἔλεγεν ἤδη καὶ Ὀργῆς καὶ Ἔριδος πατὴρ εἶναι. Ἀφροδίτη οὐκ ἐμέλλησεν, ἀλλὰ εἶπεν· “ἐγὼ δὲ Πόθον αὐτοῖς, ὦ δέσποτα, καὶ Ἡδονὴν ἐπιζεύξω καὶ Γέλωτα· ὡς μὴ χαλεπωτάτην αἱ συγγενεῖς ψυχαὶ τὴν καταδίκην ὑπομένουσαι ἐπὶ πλέον κολάζωνται”.

44.32

I.49.44.32

Ἐτέρπετο, ὦ τέκνον, [ἐπὶ πλέον] Ἀφροδίτης ταῦτα λεγούσης. “Ἐγὼ δέ”, εἶπεν Ἑρμῆς, “καὶ ποιήσω τὴν ⟨τῶν⟩ ἀνθρώπων φύσιν εὐφυῆ καὶ σοφίαν αὐτοῖς καὶ σωφροσύνην καὶ πειθὼ καὶ ἀλήθειαν ἀναθήσω καὶ οὐ παύσομαι τῇ Εὑρέσει συνών, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ὑπὸ ζῳδίων τῶν ἐμῶν γινομένων ἀνθρώπων εἰσαεὶ τὸν θνητὸν βίον ὠφελήσω (ζῴδια γὰρ ἃ ἐμοὶ ἀνέθηκεν ὁ πατὴρ καὶ δημιουργὸς ἔμφρονά γε καὶ νοερά) καὶ τότε πλέον, ὅταν ἡ ἐπικειμένη αὐτοῖς τῶν ἀστέρων κίνησις σύμφωνον ἔχῃ τὴν ἑνὸς ἑκάστου φυσικὴν ἐνέργειαν”.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 49

p. 1269

44.31 · Gifts of Zeus, Ares, and Aphrodite

I.49.44.31

Zeus said, “So that the race to come may not be wholly at war, I have already brought forth Fortune, Hope, and Peace for them.” Ares said that he was already the father of Anguish, Anger, and Strife. Aphrodite did not delay, but said, “I shall join Longing, Pleasure, and Laughter to them, master, so that our kindred souls, enduring the harshest sentence, may not suffer still further punishment.”¹⁵⁴²

44.32 · Hermes promises intelligence and discovery

I.49.44.32

He took pleasure, my child, [still more] as Aphrodite said this. Hermes said: “I shall make the nature ⟨of⟩ human beings well endowed and bestow wisdom, self-control, persuasion, and truth upon them. I shall never cease to associate with Discovery. I shall also always benefit the mortal life of those born under my zodiacal signs, for the signs which the father and craftsman assigned to me are intelligent and endowed with mind. I shall do so still more when the movement of the stars above them brings the natural activity of each into accord.”¹⁵⁴³

1542.Agōnia is rendered “Anguish,” while Eris remains the distinct power Strife. Aphrodite presents desire, pleasure, and laughter as relief for souls undergoing punishment. “Our” makes explicit the kinship implied by syngeneis in her speech; it is not an additional named group in the Greek. The sentence retains the severity of the sentence alongside her intention to alleviate suffering.

1543.The unnamed subject taking pleasure is understood as the god; the apparatus proposes making that subject explicit. The rejected repetition epi pleon remains bracketed. The supplied Greek article tōn is represented by the marked English “of.” Discovery is the personified Heuresis introduced earlier. The final astrological clause is compressed: “each” can concern the individual natural activities involved, and the translation avoids naming particular signs or supplying an astrological scheme absent from the text.

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.