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← ExitStobaeus, Volume II

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Book II Chapter 8

⟨The same author⟩

If someone cannot distinguish the form of the good by an account, setting it apart from everything else, and make his way through all tests as in battle, eager to test according to essence rather than opinion, passing through all this without his account stumbling, one will not say that such a person knows the good itself or any other good whatsoever.⁸³³ Rather, if in some way he touches an image of it, he does so by opinion, not knowledge; and, dreaming and sleeping through his present life, he will reach Hades before awakening here and fall completely asleep.⁸³⁴

The same author

The opinion about noble and just ⟨and⟩ good things and their opposites that is genuinely true and firmly confirmed—whenever it arises in souls, I declare it divine and say that it comes into being in a godlike kind.⁸³⁵

⟨The same author⟩

For when knowledge fails, the person who errs errs in a respect in which he is ⟨not⟩ an expert practitioner.⁸³⁶

Porphyry, On What Is Up to Us

In our former discussions with one another, Chrysaorius, we raised the question of the choice of lives. By assigning this choice to souls outside bodies, Plato seems in danger of abolishing what is up to us and what is generally called self-government, if indeed the souls come to choose with their characters already formed by what they have lived through in the previous cycle and by what they loved or hated, or what pleased or pained them.⁸³⁷ It seemed best to leave these matters aside, since they allowed some plausible lines of defense. But the things he said they undergo through their admission into bodies, once they have chosen and are about to produce particular human beings, seemed difficult to us.⁸³⁸

Porphyry continued

At one point he says, “Let the first choose a life with which he will be joined by necessity”; at another, he says that the daimon allotted to us is an inescapable guardian.⁸³⁹ For Lachesis, who is a daughter of Necessity, sends along with the person who has drawn a lot and chosen a life a guardian of that life and a fulfiller, in every respect, of what has been chosen. This guardian takes the chooser and leads him to Clotho, beneath her hand and the turning of the spindle, and afterward to Atropos, who makes what has been spun irreversible.⁸⁴⁰

Porphyry continued

From there he leads him, with no turning back, beneath the throne of Necessity. After making him pass through it with the others, he takes him away to the plain of Forgetfulness, beside the river Ameles. From this river, he says, they must drink a measure of water, and those who drink forget everything.⁸⁴¹ With all this thus spun, constrained, and ratified by the Fates, Forgetfulness, and Necessity, and with the daimon following and keeping watch over fate, what could we be masters of? Or how could it still be true that “virtue has no master; each person will have more or less of it as he honors or dishonors it”?⁸⁴²

Porphyry continued

When, then, I took Plato’s writings in hand and saw that we had strayed a little from the philosopher’s meaning, we were surprised at those who had raised the difficulties.⁸⁴³ They supposed that he meant simply lives, in the sense in which writers on life mention a farming life, another political, and another military; they took Plato likewise to mean the many different lives observed among human beings. Since the choice of these, and likewise a change away from them, is in many cases up to us, they naturally wonder how someone who has chosen one of them is compelled to fulfill that one alone in every respect.⁸⁴⁴

Porphyry continued

For those of the Stoa understand life as having one particular meaning, that of rational existence. They describe it as a course composed of activities, relations, productive actions, and experiences undergone; Plato, however, also applies the word life to the existence of nonrational animals.⁸⁴⁵ For according to him a swan’s existence is also a life; the lion’s, insofar as it is a lion, is another life, and the nightingale’s another. Human life too is a life, and one kind of it is female, another male; for he says that the patterns of lives are of every kind.⁸⁴⁶

Porphyry continued

One meaning of life in Plato is of this sort; another is what he presents as an incidental feature of these lives, a secondary character attached to life in the primary sense just described. For a dog’s primary life is its existence as a dog. The life of hunting dogs, tracking dogs, dogs kept about the table, or house-guarding dogs is an incidental addition to this life; this would be a secondary life.⁸⁴⁷

Porphyry continued

But in nonrational animals, which are deprived of self-government, this character is added either through nature or through the assignment made by the owner. In humans, being born of good ancestors or obtaining bodily beauty was provided through nature or fortune; at any rate, it is clear that none of these was up to us.⁸⁴⁸ But taking up crafts, pursuits, and sciences, and ⟨the⟩ pursuit of political ways of life and offices, and such things, have come to depend on what is up to us. Some are indeed hard to achieve because they also require assistance from outside; through this dependence they are difficult to attain and not easy to lay aside, as with offices, tyrannies, and popular leadership.⁸⁴⁹

833.Republic VII.534B–D. The supplied heading the same author remains bracketed. The passage describes the demands of dialectical examination: distinguishing the form of the good and sustaining an account through objections. Οὐσία here means essence or what a thing is, contrasted with opinion. Wachsmuth prints the third-person φήσει, will say; one will not say preserves that local shift instead of importing the dialogue’s second-person you will say.

834.The contrast between touching an image through opinion and knowing the good leads into the images of dreaming, waking, and death. Hades is the realm of the dead. The last clause keeps the printed infinitive ἐπικαταδαρθεῖν, to fall asleep completely, rather than replacing it with a different form from the Republic’s direct tradition.

835.Statesman 309C. The speaker is the Eleatic Stranger, who is explaining the divine bond by which the statesman joins different characters. Βεβαίωσις is confirmation or firm assurance, making this more than an unstable belief. Supplied ⟨καὶ⟩ is represented by ⟨and⟩. Δαιμόνιος here means godlike, and γένος a kind or class; the language associates this confirmed true opinion with a divine kind of being.

836.Republic I.340E. This is part of Thrasymachus’s reply to Socrates: in the strict use of a professional title, error occurs when the relevant expertise has failed. Δημιουργός here is a practitioner of a craft or profession, such as a physician. Wachsmuth supplies both the heading the same author and the crucial negative ⟨οὐκ⟩; both remain bracketed in English. The Greek retains the local aorist ἐπιλιπούσης.

837.Porphyry addresses Chrysaorius and examines the choice of lives in Plato’s Myth of Er, Republic X.617D–621B. The relative ἣν refers to the choice assigned to souls outside bodies. The objection is conditional: if earlier experience has already formed their characters, how free is their later choice? The argument does not begin by asserting that Plato has conclusively abolished freedom.

838.The discussion sets aside the objection from prior habituation because plausible defenses are available, then turns to the stronger difficulty about what follows the choice. Εἴσκρισις is admission or entry, here into bodies. The active ἀποφαίνειν describes souls bringing particular human beings into manifestation. This is the opening of one continuous excerpt; the added numerical subdivisions serve bilingual layout only.

839.Republic X.617E and 620D–621A. Daimon here means the guardian spirit associated with the chosen life. The excerpt concentrates on its inescapable guardianship as part of the problem about necessity. The quoted wording is Porphyry’s form of the Platonic passage as printed by Wachsmuth; it is not replaced with the wording of another Republic edition.

840.Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos are the three Fates in the myth. Their relation to Necessity and the spindle gives the choice its binding force. The masculine guardian takes the person who chose the life; the subject is not Lachesis in this clause. The local ἀμετάτροπα means irreversible. The sentence continues into II.8.39.3.

841.Republic X.621A. The plain is named Lethe, Forgetfulness; Ameles is the river beside it. The local text says that drinking causes complete forgetting. Its ἐκλανθάνεσθαι is retained rather than replaced by the different verb in the direct Platonic tradition. The movement beneath Necessity’s throne and the drinking belong to the myth under discussion.

842.The concluding quotation returns to Republic X.617E. Ἀδέσποτος means without a master; it does not mean without moral responsibility. The question is how this claim can stand together with the myth’s constraints. These are objections being recalled and developed, not yet Porphyry’s final answer. His reply follows in II.8.39.4.

843.The reply begins by reconsidering what Plato means by βίος, life. The printed sentence shifts from the singular I took and I saw to the plural we were surprised; the English retains both. Μικράν is rendered a little, following the local wording.

844.The objectors take lives to mean human occupations or ways of living, such as farming, politics, and soldiering. Porphyry’s reply will distinguish these from the primary kind of life constituted by being a human or a particular animal. The qualification ἐν πολλοῖς, in many cases, limits the claim that choosing and changing occupations is up to us.

845.The distinction is expressed through βίος, life or a course of life, and ζωή, existence or being alive. Porphyry reports a Stoic use confined to rational life and contrasts it with Plato’s inclusion of animal lives. The four constituents of the Stoic course remain distinct: activities, relations, productive actions, and what is undergone. Παθήματα here includes experiences undergone, rather than only emotions.

846.Republic X.620A–B supplies the swan, lion, and nightingale examples in the Myth of Er; the patterns of lives are presented at 618A. These references appear as modern locators in Wachsmuth and are moved here. Ἀνδρεῖος in the contrast with γυναικεῖος means male, rather than courageous. The argument distinguishes kinds of embodied life before turning to occupations within them.

847.Προηγούμενος, primary, and δεύτερος, secondary, distinguish levels of description here, rather than successive incarnations. Being a dog is the primary life; hunting, tracking, accompanying people at table, or guarding a house characterizes it further. Συμβεβηκός is an incidental attribute. The comparison develops Porphyry’s interpretation of the Republic X.618A passage cited in Wachsmuth.

848.The account denies αὐτεξούσιον, self-government, to nonrational animals and attributes their secondary roles to nature or an owner’s assignment. It then distinguishes human ancestry and bodily beauty, which are likewise presented as unchosen circumstances. Good ancestors follows the printed ἀγαθῶν without adding a particular lineage or social rank.

849.The contrast concerns taking up a pursuit, rather than guaranteeing success in it. Supplied ⟨τὰς⟩ makes the pursuit of political life and office parallel to the other items; English shows it as ⟨the⟩. Δημαγωγίαι are forms of leadership of the people, here called popular leadership. The text acknowledges both external assistance and the difficulty of relinquishing certain positions once attained.