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 55 · I.55.heading–I.55.2.1

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Book I Chapter 55 · I.55.heading–I.55.2.1

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p. 1670

Κεφάλαιον ΝΕʹ

I.55.heading

Περὶ γεύσεως.

1

I.55.1

Διδύμου.

Ἀριστοτέλους. Γεύεσθαι διὰ τοῦ μεταξὺ τῶν γευστῶν ὑγρῶν.

2.1

I.55.2.1

Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Τιμαίου.

Πρῶτον οὖν ὅσα τῶν χυμῶν πέρι λέγοντες ἐν τοῖς πρόσθεν ἀπελίπομεν, ἴδια ὄντα παθήματα περὶ τὴν γλῶτταν, ἐμφανιστέον εἰ δυνατόν. Φαίνεται δὲ καὶ ταῦτα, ὥσπερ οὖν καὶ τὰ πολλά, διὰ συγκρίσεών τέ τινων καὶ διακρίσεων γίγνεσθαι, πρὸς δὲ αὐταῖς κεχρῆσθαι μᾶλλόν τι τῶν ἄλλων τραχύτησί τε καὶ λειότησιν.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 55

p. 1671

Chapter 55 · Taste

I.55.heading

On taste.²⁰³⁴

1 · Taste and liquids

I.55.1

Didymus.

Aristotle. We taste through the intervening medium of the liquids that can be tasted.²⁰³⁵

2.1 · The tongue’s distinctive experiences

I.55.2.1

Plato, from the Timaeus.

“First, then, we must explain, if possible, what we left aside in our earlier discussion of flavors: the experiences peculiar to the tongue. These too, like most other things, appear to arise through certain contractions and expansions, and, in addition, to involve roughness and smoothness rather more than the others do.”²⁰³⁶

2034.The editor restores the heading from Photius p. 112b33 and the Laurentian table of contents; it is absent from FP. The principal excerpt explains tastes through bodily interaction, including contraction, cleansing, heat, and fermentation. The concluding passage connects the mouth’s role in nutrition with its role in speech.

2035.The Latin attribution names Didymus, Epitome of Physics, fragment 17, Diels p. 456, without angle brackets in this instance; the Greek heading names Aristotle. The compressed wording includes the plural genitive tōn geustōn hygrōn, the liquids that can be tasted. The relation of these liquids to the intervening medium is left close to the printed wording; saliva or a missing singular noun is not supplied.

2036.The edition identifies Timaeus 65c-66d. Chymoi are flavors or taste-bearing juices. Synkrisis and diakrisis here describe contraction and expansion, as the following account of the tongue’s small vessels makes clear. The printed ei dynaton, if possible, is retained, rather than the ēi dynaton recorded for Plato in the apparatus.

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.