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.50.34–I.50.36.1

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Book I Chapter 50 · I.50.34–I.50.36.1

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Ancient Greek

p. 1604

34

I.50.34

Οἱ Στωικοὶ τὸν σοφὸν αἰσθήσει καταληπτὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ εἴδους τεκμηριωδῶς· οἱ Ἀκαδημαϊκοὶ λόγῳ γνώριμον· Ἐπίκουρος σοφῷ μόνῳ τὸν σοφόν.

35

I.50.35

Δημόκριτος τὰ νεκρὰ τῶν σωμάτων αἰσθάνεσθαι.

36.1

I.50.36.1

Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Φαίδωνος.

Ὡς ἄτοπον, ἔφη, ὦ ἄνδρες, ἔοικεν εἶναι τοῦτο ὃ καλοῦσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἡδύ· ὡς θαυμασίως πέφυκε πρὸς τὸ δοκοῦν ἐναντίον εἶναι, τὸ λυπηρόν, τῷ ἅμα μὲν αὐτὼ μὴ θέλειν παραγίγνεσθαι τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, ἐὰν δέ τις διώκῃ τὸ ἕτερον καὶ λαμβάνῃ, σχεδόν τι ἀναγκάζεσθαι ἀεὶ λαμβάνειν καὶ τὸ ἕτερον, ὥσπερ ἐκ μιᾶς κορυφῆς ἡμμένω δύ᾽ ὄντε·

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 50

p. 1605

34 · Recognizing the wise person

I.50.34

The Stoics hold that the wise person can be apprehended by perception, inferentially from appearance; the Academics that the wise person is known by reason; Epicurus that the wise person is known only to a wise person.¹⁹⁴⁷

35 · Perception in dead bodies

I.50.35

Democritus holds that dead bodies perceive.¹⁹⁴⁸

36.1 · Pleasure and pain joined together

I.50.36.1

From Plato’s Phaedo.

“How strange, gentlemen,” he said, “this thing that people call pleasant seems to be! How remarkably it is related to what is thought to be its opposite, the painful: the two refuse to visit a person together, yet if someone pursues and obtains one, he is almost always compelled to obtain the other as well, as though they were two creatures attached to a single head.”¹⁹⁴⁹

1947.Tekmēriōdōs indicates recognition by evidence or signs, qualifying the Stoic appeal to visible appearance. The final known is understood from the Academic clause, as the editor explains; no gap or new Greek verb is inserted. The three claims concern recognition of wisdom, not merely recognition of a person’s bodily identity.

1948.The terse report gives neither explanation nor qualification. The Greek says that dead bodies perceive; it does not specify which senses or how long such perception would persist. This closes the sequence of short reports before the extended quotations from Plato.

1949.The edition identifies Phaedo 60b-c. The speaker’s bodily experience is disclosed at the end of the excerpt. The Greek dual forms make pleasure and pain a pair; the imagined creatures and joined head personify their close succession, despite their refusal to be present together.

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.