Stobaeus, Volume I

Name: Stobaeus, Volume I
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek with an independent English translation.

Explore the Lexicon

Stobaeus, Volume IBook I Chapter 50 · I.50.39.1–I.50.40

Swipe or use the arrow keys.

Facing Pages · Branch 809 of 879

Book I Chapter 50 · I.50.39.1–I.50.40

Book Mode

Ancient Greek

p. 1614

39.1

I.50.39.1

Ἐν ταὐτῷ.

Μετρίως ἄρα ἡμῖν πρὸς τὸν διδάσκαλόν σου εἰρήσεται, ὅτι ἀνάγκη αὐτῷ ὁμολογεῖν σοφώτερόν τε ἄλλον ἄλλου εἶναι καὶ τὸν μὲν τοιοῦτον μέτρον εἶναι, ἐμοὶ δὲ τῷ ἀνεπιστήμονι μηδὲ ὁπωστιοῦν ἀνάγκην εἶναι μέτρῳ γίγνεσθαι. . . . .

39.2

I.50.39.2

Πολλαχῇ οὖν, ὦ Θεόδωρε, καὶ ἄλλῃ ἂν τό γε τοιοῦτον ἁλοίη μὴ πᾶσαν πάντως ἀληθῆ δόξαν εἶναι· περὶ δὲ τὸ παρὸν ἑκάστῳ πάθος, ἐξ ὧν αἱ αἰσθήσεις καὶ αἱ κατὰ ταύτας δόξαι γίγνονται, χαλεπώτερον ἑλεῖν ὡς οὐκ ἀληθεῖς.

40

I.50.40

Ἐν ταὐτῷ.

Οὐκοῦν, ὦ Θεόδωρε, τοῦ τε σοῦ ἑταίρου ἀπηλλάγμεθα, καὶ οὔπω συγχωροῦμεν αὐτῷ πάντ᾽ ἄνδρα πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον εἶναι.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 50

p. 1615

39.1 · Expertise and the measure

I.50.39.1

In the same work.

“We shall then have made a measured case against your teacher: he must admit both that one person is wiser than another and that such a person is a measure, whereas there is no necessity whatever for me, lacking knowledge, to become a measure. . . . .”¹⁹⁵⁹

39.2 · Present experiences are harder to refute

I.50.39.2

“In many other ways too, Theodorus, the position could be caught out to this extent: not every belief is invariably true. But concerning each person’s present affection, from which perceptions and the corresponding beliefs arise, it is harder to establish that these are not true.”¹⁹⁶⁰

40 · A conclusion still withheld

I.50.40

In the same work.

“Then, Theodorus, we have finished with your companion, and we do not yet concede to him that every person is the measure of all things.”¹⁹⁶¹

1959.The edition identifies Theaetetus 179a-b and c; the five points mark an omission between selections. The contrast is between a knowledgeable person’s authority and an unqualified appeal to anyone as a measure. The Greek deliberately associates metriōs, measured or moderate, with metron, measure.

1960.The verbs haloíē and helein evoke catching or convicting a claim. The English makes explicit the force of mē pāsan: the conclusion is that not every belief is true. The passage distinguishes that general result from the harder question about current perceptual experiences and beliefs based on them.

1961.The edition identifies Theaetetus 183b. Oupō is not yet, retaining the provisional force of the conclusion. The formula every person the measure of all things is the claim under examination. The excerpt neither names the companion here nor supplies the intervening argument between this and the preceding selection.

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.