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← ExitStobaeus, Volume II

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Book II Chapter 8

Socrates

Socrates said that kingship is the greatest rule, but ruling oneself is the best.⁸¹⁵

Rufus from Epictetus’s On Friendship · 1

Of existing things, god made some up to us and others not up to us. What he made up to us was the finest and most excellent thing, that through which he himself is happy: the use of impressions.⁸¹⁶ For when this is done correctly, it is freedom, a smooth course, cheerfulness, and steadiness; it is also justice and law and self-control and all virtue.⁸¹⁷

Rufus from Epictetus’s On Friendship · Continuation

But all other things he made not up to us. Therefore we too must agree with god and, dividing things in this way, lay claim in every way to what is up to us, entrust what is not up to us to the cosmos, and gladly yield whatever it may need, whether our children, our country, our body, or anything whatsoever.⁸¹⁸

Hermes

There are, then, substance, reason, conception, and understanding.⁸¹⁹ Opinion and perception are also borne toward understanding. Reason moves toward substance, and conception moves through reason. Conception is intertwined with understanding; passing through one another, they became a single form, and this is the form of the soul. Opinion and perception are borne toward its understanding; these do not remain in the same condition. As a result, it overshoots, falls short, and disagrees with itself. It becomes worse when it is separated from understanding; but when it follows and obeys, it shares in conceptual reason through learning.⁸²⁰

Hermes continued

But we have the power to choose; for choosing the better is up to us, and likewise choosing the worse, unwillingly.⁸²¹ For a choice that clings to evils draws near to bodily nature, ⟨and⟩ for this reason fate has dominion over the person who made the choice.⁸²²

Hermes continued

Since, then, the incorporeal substance in us is self-governing, like conceptual reason, and always remains in the same and unchanging condition, fate does not touch it.⁸²³ But, having set before itself the primary discursive reason from the first God, it also lets go of the entire reason that nature assigned to things that come to be. A soul that has shared in these things shares in their fates, although it has no share in the nature of things that come to be.⁸²⁴

From Plutarch’s On Friendship · 1

Therefore we should not altogether belittle our nature as though it had nothing strong, stable, or above fortune.⁸²⁵ On the contrary, we should recognize that it is a small part of the human being, frail and perishable, that is open to fortune, while we ourselves control the better part. There the greatest goods are established—sound opinions, learning, and reasonings leading to virtue—and their substance can neither be taken away nor destroyed.⁸²⁶

Plutarch · Continuation

We should be undaunted and confident about the future and say to fortune ⟨what⟩ Socrates, while seeming to address his accusers, said to the judges: Anytus and Meletus can kill me, but they cannot harm me.⁸²⁷ For fortune can indeed inflict disease, take away possessions, and slander a man before the people or a tyrant. But it cannot make the good and manly and magnanimous ⟨and noble and generous⟩ man bad, cowardly, low-minded, ignoble, or envious; nor can it take away his disposition toward noble things.⁸²⁸

Plato

Things that happen through fortune do not come about through human guidance. Where a human being is a guide toward what is right, these two are the guides: true opinion and knowledge.⁸²⁹

⟨The same author⟩

True opinions, for as long as they remain, are a fine thing and produce every good thing. But they are unwilling to remain for long and run away from the human soul. So they are not worth much until someone binds them by reasoning about the cause.⁸³⁰ Once bound, they first become knowledge, and then stable. This is why knowledge is more valuable than right opinion and differs from it by the bond.⁸³¹

The same author

What then? Have you not noticed how opinions without knowledge are all ugly, with the best of them blind? Or do those who believe something true without understanding seem to differ at all from blind men traveling correctly along a road?⁸³²

815.The saying distinguishes μεγίστην, greatest in extent or power, from ἀρίστην, best in quality. The repetition of the root in ἀρχή, rule, and ἄρχειν, to rule, carries the contrast from kingship to self-government. The anthology reports the statement as a saying of Socrates without naming a source work.

816.The heading preserves both names: Rufus, from the writings of Epictetus On Friendship. It can be understood as words of Musonius Rufus quoted by Epictetus; the layered attribution is retained instead of assigning the passage exclusively to one author. Wachsmuth compares Epictetus fragment 169 in Schweighäuser; the passage is fragment 4 in Oldfather’s collection.

817.Φαντασίαι are impressions, the appearances presented to the mind; their χρῆσις is the use made of them. The account identifies their correct use with freedom and virtue. Εὔροια, a smooth course or flow, continues the image seen in II.8.23. The striking claim that god himself is happy through this use belongs to the source and remains explicit.

818.Συμψήφους, literally voting together or in agreement, describes assent to god’s division of things. Ἀντιποιεῖσθαι is to claim or hold to something, contrasted with entrusting externals to the cosmos. The closing examples place children, homeland, and body among those externals in this account. Ἀσμένους, gladly, emphasizes the willing character of the assent; δέοιτο presents the cosmos as having need of what is yielded.

819.The four opening terms are kept distinct: οὐσία, substance; λόγος, reason; νόημα, conception or a thought; and διάνοια, understanding or the activity of thinking. Their distinction matters to the account of how the soul’s form arises. Νοηματικός is rendered conceptual, retaining its relation to νόημα. The heading attributes the excerpt to Hermes without naming a work.

820.The Greek shifts from plural ταῦτα, these, referring to opinion and perception, to singular verbs and ἑαυτῷ, with itself. The English preserves the shift rather than inserting soul as a definite new subject. The pair is treated collectively as unstable when separated from understanding. Μαθήματα are things learned or branches of learning; the text connects them with participation in reason.

821.The printed ἀκουσίως means unwillingly or involuntarily. Its relation to the assertion that choosing is up to us is difficult. Wachsmuth rejects changing it to ἑκουσίως, willingly, while considering whether an additional adversative might be needed. The English retains unwillingly and does not resolve the tension by reversing the word’s meaning.

822.Αἵρεσις is choice; ἐχομένη describes its clinging to evils, and ἑλομένῳ is the person who has chosen. Εἱμαρμένη is fate, while δυναστεύει expresses its rule or dominion. Supplied ⟨τε⟩ is represented by ⟨and⟩. The account ties subjection to fate to the choice’s approach to bodily nature.

823.Αὐτεξούσιος is self-governing or possessed of authority over itself. Wachsmuth prints ἀσώματος, incorporeal, against a transmitted bodily reading. The distinction between the unchanging incorporeal substance and its involvement with generated things governs the contrast between freedom and fate. Διανοητικός, discursive, belongs to the vocabulary of διάνοια and is distinguished here from νοηματικός, conceptual.

824.The construction is difficult. The English takes παραθεῖσα as having set before itself and προΐησι as lets go; these verbs can carry other senses. Their objects and the clause division follow Wachsmuth’s punctuation. The final concession is explicit: the soul shares the fates of generated things despite not sharing their nature. This is the end of excerpt 31; the numbered subdivisions serve layout only.

825.The heading On Friendship is retained as printed in Wachsmuth. The passage also survives in Plutarch’s On Tranquillity of Mind 17, Moralia 475D–E; the difference in the transmitted title is not resolved by changing this anthology’s heading. The numbered divisions are for bilingual layout and remain parts of a single excerpt.

826.Σαθρόν means unsound or frail, and ἐπίκηρον liable to perish. Οὐσία, rendered substance, can also denote property or possessions; here it belongs to the inner goods that cannot be confiscated or destroyed. Χρησταί describes the opinions as sound or good, rather than explicitly calling them knowledge. The Greek retains the unusual printed ἱδρυνθέντα, established.

827.The opening continues the exhortation begun in II.8.32.1. Supplied ⟨ἃ⟩ appears as ⟨what⟩. Anytus and Meletus were Socrates’s accusers; the distinction between killing and harming recalls Plato, Apology 30C–D. This excerpt gives the saying in its own indirect form and directs its force toward the judges as well as the accusers.

828.Wachsmuth supplies the whole phrase ⟨καὶ γενναῖον καὶ ἐλευθέριον⟩, represented by the bracketed continuation noble and generous. All the adjectives describe the same man. Ἀνδρώδη, manly, commends courage in the account’s idiom. The final disposition toward noble things follows τὴν διάθεσιν τῶν καλῶν; the local wording is retained rather than replaced by the longer continuation in On Tranquillity of Mind.

829.Meno 99A. The excerpt distinguishes what happens by fortune from action guided by a person, and identifies true opinion and knowledge as the two guides to correctness. Δόξα ἀληθής is true opinion, contrasted with ἐπιστήμη, knowledge; the contrast does not make every opinion false. The compressed final wording follows this anthology’s local text.

830.Meno 97E–98A. Wachsmuth supplies the heading the same author, separating this passage from the preceding excerpt; it remains bracketed. In the dialogue the comparison has just been made with Daedalus’s statues, which are said to run away unless tied down. The anthology begins with the true opinions rather than including that illustration.

831.Αἰτίας λογισμῷ is reasoning about the cause or reason why. The bond makes the opinions stable and thus accounts for the superior value assigned to knowledge. Plato’s intervening remark identifying this binding with recollection is absent from the anthology and is not supplied in the translation. The plural ἐπιστῆμαι is rendered by the English mass noun knowledge.

832.Republic VI.506C. Socrates compares true opinion unsupported by understanding with a blind person who nevertheless travels the correct road. The comparison grants the correctness of the result while questioning its basis. The best opinions are called blind, not false. Αἰσχραί, ugly or shameful, retains the negative assessment of opinions held without knowledge.