Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitStobaeus, Volume II

Reading language

Book II Chapter 8

Porphyry continued

It is also acceptable to hold that fate is of this kind, resembling the pronouncements of laws, being itself a law and also,

an ancient decree of the gods, everlasting, sealed with broad oaths,

as Empedocles says.⁸⁶⁷ For laws pronounce, without compelling: if you commit robbery, you will suffer these things; if you excel, you will obtain these rewards. So too the ordinances of fate declare: if you choose a man’s life, you will live in this way; they do not, however, compel you outright to choose it as well. And if, having come to be ⟨among⟩ human beings, you choose a soldier’s life, you must undergo and do these things; yet you are not thereby compelled to choose a soldier’s life and to undergo ⟨and do⟩ these things out of necessity.⁸⁶⁸

Porphyry continued

That is why patterns of both primary and secondary lives are set out. It is up to souls to choose primary lives and live, for example, a human life, and to choose some life among the secondary ones. But once someone has chosen and is living accordingly, he must both do and undergo what follows from it.⁸⁶⁹

Porphyry continued

If, however, by divining Plato’s meaning one can successfully conjecture where Plato obtained these things and discussed them as being in accord with what happens, I would say, I think, that he took them ⟨from⟩ the sages among the Egyptians.⁸⁷⁰ They infer lives from ascendants and from the arrangement, at births, of the planets in relation to the stars in the zodiac, ⟨as⟩ lives that follow the rising of the ascendant.⁸⁷¹

Porphyry continued

He does not, however, agree with the Egyptians that a particular arrangement of configurations compels a particular kind of life for souls entering birth through the ascending degree, with the configurations disposed as they are at that time.⁸⁷² Rather, souls are carried toward ascendants according to the dispositions within them and see lives—⟨which⟩ the configurations signify—inscribed as if on a tablet in the heavenly earth.⁸⁷³ Through self-government the souls that choose can also refrain from living in this way; but, having chosen the things that change in the revolution at each moment of the ascendant’s rising, they must necessarily carry out what is inscribed.⁸⁷⁴

Porphyry continued

Why, then, at the same rising are, say, a dog, a man, a woman, and many men born, when neither the primary life nor the secondary is the same for them all?⁸⁷⁵ First, I would say that the passage is not so swift for all souls that the rising of the ascendant fails to get ahead of their entry. Since the motion is always getting ahead, and each difference according to the lot brings a different pattern of life, those who seem to enter the world in the ⟨same⟩ hour must never coincide in every respect.⁸⁷⁶

Porphyry continued

Next, the lot is outside [text missing], before entry into the region beneath the moon.⁸⁷⁷ ⟨But⟩ the course of the primary life through the seven spheres, as different souls move differently in these matters according to their inclinations toward certain secondary lives, means that they do not all attend in the same way to what is inscribed.⁸⁷⁸

Porphyry continued

By now, then, the soul that has chosen a dog’s life comes to this ascendant, while the one that has chosen a human life comes to that ascendant as the instant shifts. Justice carries the soul, according to the distinctive way its character has been formed, to a certain degree of the revolution that has a life inscribed suited to the soul’s own inclinations.⁸⁷⁹

Porphyry continued

Justice is called Fortune, since she is a cause hidden from human reasoning.⁸⁸⁰ There are twelve zodiacal signs, and the Egyptians believe that souls make their journey here through them almost everywhere. The first degrees of the zodiac, having been assigned to the sign’s lord as a beneficent one, have been handed down as ample; the last degrees in every case have been assigned to the so-called malefic stars.⁸⁸¹

Porphyry continued

Thus the good fortune of the earlier lots has won acceptance, while that of the later ones is said to be cramped.⁸⁸² Plato, then, posits that the particular configurations signify lives, but not that they compel them. Rather, the souls that have made their choice live their lives and necessarily experience the connected sequence of what is inscribed, in accordance with what the configurations signify.⁸⁸³

Porphyry continued

Responsibility for being carried to the ascendant, then, rests with those who have chosen a woman’s or a man’s life or that of another living creature. Choosing the secondary life is likewise the responsibility of the soul carried to this particular ascendant—the life that the arrangement of the stars, ordered in relation to the ascendant, displays as inscribed.⁸⁸⁴

867.The two verse lines are attributed to Empedocles in the source, where Wachsmuth cites verses 369–370 in Stein’s numbering. Broad oaths follows πλατέεσσι… ὅρκοις and retains the unusual image. The verse is embedded in Porphyry’s description of fate as law; it is not a new excerpt or a separate claim by Stobaeus.

868.The printed ἑλοῦ, choose!, is the imperative in the command that the ordinances do not compel one to obey. The law analogy distinguishes a conditional consequence from compulsion to satisfy its condition: a law specifies what follows robbery without forcing someone to rob. Likewise the soldier’s obligations follow the choice of that secondary life. The contrast retains both the primary human life and an occupation within it. Supplied ⟨ἐν⟩ is shown as ⟨among⟩ and ⟨καὶ δρᾶσαι⟩ as ⟨and do⟩. The necessity in the final clause remains within the contrast rather than making the initial choice compulsory.

869.The primary and secondary lives are the distinction developed at II.8.39.5–9 and resumed in II.8.41: a kind of embodied existence, and a further way of life within it. Patterns are the available exemplars of both. The account places the choice with the soul and necessity in the consequences of living the selected life.

870.The Egyptian source is introduced as conjecture, qualified by if, successfully conjecture (ἐπιτυχῶς στοχάσασθαι), I would say, and I think. The account does not establish that Plato derived the Myth of Er from a particular Egyptian text. In ὄντων συμφώνων, being in accord, the matters discussed are the understood subject.

871.Ὡροσκόπος is rendered ascendant, the rising point or degree used to mark the celestial configuration at birth. Here ἀστέρες are the moving heavenly bodies contrasted with stars in the zodiac. Supplied ⟨παρά⟩ and ⟨ὡς⟩ appear as ⟨from⟩ and ⟨as⟩. The printed plural ἀκολούθους refers to the lives inferred from these signs.

872.He is Plato as interpreted by Porphyry. The contrast is between configurations compelling the initial kind of life and configurations indicating lives toward which souls move according to their own dispositions. The Greek construction is compressed, and the statement continues the conjecture begun in II.8.42.6.

873.Heavenly earth follows the printed οὐρανίᾳ γῇ; it is not silently replaced by heaven or sphere. The lives are pictured as writing displayed on a tablet. Supplied ⟨οὓς⟩ is ⟨which⟩. Rejected [γεγραμμένα], written, remains visible in Greek but is omitted in English; the surviving γεγραμμένους already describes the inscribed lives.

874.The wording uses ἑλομένας, having chosen, twice, while distinguishing the ability not to live in a proposed way from the binding sequence once a life is selected. The English keeps this difficult contrast. The changing things are the patterns presented during the celestial revolution, not an added claim that the soul can change its primary kind of life after embodiment.

875.Primary lives distinguish such kinds as human and canine existence; secondary lives further characterize a life within its primary kind. The question challenges an apparently common birth configuration with differences of both kinds. Wachsmuth regards the repeated many men, πολλοὶ ἄνδρες, as corrupt but leaves it in the text; it is retained here.

876.The proposed answer depends on differences of entry while the ascendant continues to rise, so apparent sameness of hour does not mean complete sameness of circumstances. I would say marks the answer as Porphyry’s proposal. Supplied ⟨αὐτῇ⟩ is shown as ⟨same⟩. No precise physical speed or unit of temporal difference is supplied.

877.The two asterisks after ἔξω, outside, mark a gap in Wachsmuth’s text, not necessarily two missing words. The English marks the same loss without inventing a verb or completing the account of the lot. The surviving contrast places the lot outside, before entry into the region below the moon.

878.The seven spheres belong to the celestial journey described in the argument. The primary life has been selected, but inclinations toward secondary lives differentiate how souls attend to the displayed patterns. Supplied ⟨δέ⟩ is ⟨But⟩. The awkward κατ’ αὐτά is kept and rendered broadly as in these matters, without adopting an editorial alteration of its wording.

879.Παράκλισις τῆς στιγμῆς is a shifting or deviation of the instant, distinguishing arrivals at apparently the same time. Ἠθοποιία concerns the formation of character; the character and inclinations of the soul direct its relation to the displayed life. Δίκη, Justice, is personified as carrying the soul; the next sentence explains why this cause is also called Fortune.

880.Fortune, Τύχη, names a cause whose operation is hidden from human reasoning, rather than an absence of causation. Justice and Fortune are two descriptions of the same directing cause. The compressed placement of πανταχοῦ σχεδόν, almost everywhere, leaves its exact scope uncertain; the English keeps it with the journey rather than treating it as a claim about the distribution of Egyptian belief.

881.Ἀμφιλαφεῖς is ample or spacious; the contrast with cramped later lots suggests wider opportunity. Compare Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos I.5, on beneficent and maleficent planets, and On the Disposition of Terms, on planetary rulership of divisions of the signs (I.21 in Hübner’s edition; I.20 in Robbins’s). Porphyry is not assumed to reproduce Ptolemy’s table.

882.In Republic X, earlier numbers give priority in choosing, while the last chooser is still told not to despair. Porphyry supplies an astrological explanation for differences in room for choice. A favorable lot is not made sufficient for good judgment: Plato’s first chooser selects a disastrous tyranny.

883.The distinction is between σημαίνειν, to signify, and ἀναγκάζειν, to compel. Necessity belongs to the εἱρμός, the connected sequence of the selected life, while the initial selection remains attributed to the soul. The feminine ἑλομένας refers to souls; the Greek is not replaced by a formulation making the stars themselves choose.

884.The two clauses with αἰτία, cause or responsibility, are elliptical, and their genitives have prompted proposed grammatical repairs. The English reads responsibility as belonging to the choosers in the first clause and to the soul carried to the particular ascendant in the second, without changing those genitives. The contrast still distinguishes choosing a primary kind of life from choosing its further secondary character.