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 50 · I.50.21.1–I.50.22

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Book I Chapter 50 · I.50.21.1–I.50.22

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Ancient Greek

p. 1594

21.1

I.50.21.1

Ἐπίκουρος πᾶσαν αἴσθησιν καὶ πᾶσαν φαντασίαν ἀληθῆ, τῶν δὲ δοξῶν τὰς μὲν ἀληθεῖς τὰς δὲ ψευδεῖς.

21.2

I.50.21.2

Καὶ ἡ μὲν αἴσθησις μοναχῶς ψευδοποιεῖται κατὰ νοητά, ἡ δὲ φαντασία διχῶς [νοεῖται]· καὶ γὰρ αἰσθητῶν ἐστι φαντασία καὶ νοητῶν.

22

I.50.22

Παρμενίδης, Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, Ἀναξαγόρας, Δημόκριτος, Ἐπίκουρος, Ἡρακλείδης παρὰ τὰς συμμετρίας τῶν πόρων τὰς κατὰ μέρος αἰσθήσεις γίνεσθαι τοῦ οἰκείου, τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἑκάστου ἑκάστῃ ἐναρμόττοντος.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 50

p. 1595

21.1 · Epicurus on perception and belief

I.50.21.1

Epicurus holds that every perception and every impression is true, but that some beliefs are true and others false.¹⁹³²

21.2 · A difficult explanatory addition

I.50.21.2

And perception is made false in one way, in relation to objects of thought, whereas impression [is understood] in two ways; for there is an impression both of perceptible things and of objects of thought.¹⁹³³

22 · The fit between object and passage

I.50.22

Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Epicurus, and Heraclides hold that the particular senses perceive their appropriate objects through the commensurability of the passages, each perceptible object fitting its corresponding sense.¹⁹³⁴

1932.Doxai, beliefs or opinions, form the fallible category in this report. The words every perception and every impression are explicit and are both retained. The next sentence creates a difficulty for this claim; its textual status is discussed in the following note.

1933.The sense and attachment of this sentence are uncertain. The apparatus records Usener’s view that it is a gloss belonging to the preceding Stoic report. Wachsmuth prints it here, rejecting only noeîtai, is understood; those brackets are preserved. The verb after whereas remains elliptical when the rejected words are removed. The English is provisional and does not conceal the tension with the preceding assertion.

1934.Poroi are pores or passages, and symmetriai are correspondences of measure or proportion. The mechanism is explained through a fit between the object and the receptive passage. The report groups six names together without giving each thinker a separate version of this account.

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.