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 31

Antisthenes again

Asked what lesson was most necessary, the same man said, “To unlearn what is bad.”¹¹³⁵

Aristotle

Aristotle said that education is an adornment for those who prosper, and for those who stumble a refuge worthy of a free person.¹¹³⁶

Plato, from Laws, Book 5

For a human being, no possession is better fitted than the soul¹¹³⁷ for escaping what is bad, tracking down and capturing the best things of all, and, after capturing them, living in their company for the rest of life.¹¹³⁸

Plato, from Menexenus

All knowledge, when separated from justice and the rest of virtue, appears as cunning, not wisdom.¹¹³⁹

Aelian

The noble Socrates used to reproach those fathers who, ⟨not⟩ having educated their own sons, later, when in need, brought the young men before the magistrates and prosecuted them for ingratitude because they were not being supported by them.¹¹⁴⁰ For he said that the fathers were demanding the impossible: people who had not learned what is just could not do it.¹¹⁴¹

Antiphon

Education, I think, comes first in human affairs. For whenever one makes a correct beginning in any undertaking whatsoever, the ending too is likely to turn out correctly.¹¹⁴² For whatever kind of seed one sows in the earth, one must expect a corresponding kind of produce. And whenever one sows a noble education in a young body, it lives and flourishes throughout life, and neither rain nor drought takes it away.¹¹⁴³

Antiphon: From the same author

Nothing is worse for human beings than anarchy. Knowing this, people of earlier times accustomed children from the beginning to being governed and doing what they were told, so that, as they grew into men and underwent a great change, they might not be overwhelmed.¹¹⁴⁴

One is bound to become, in character, like the person with whom one spends most of the day.¹¹⁴⁵

Plato, Republic VII

Fatigue and sleep are enemies of learning.¹¹⁴⁶

Plato: From the same work

And the subjects encountered piecemeal in their education must be brought together for them into an overview of the kinship of the subjects with one another and with the nature of being.¹¹⁴⁷

Socrates

Education is a festival for the soul:¹¹⁴⁸ for in it are many things to see and hear.¹¹⁴⁹

Socrates: From the same author

For runners, the prize of victory awaits at the finish; for those who have worked hard, the first prize of wisdom awaits in old age.¹¹⁵⁰

Socrates: From the same author

He saw a rich man without education¹¹⁵¹ and said, “Look, a golden slave too.”¹¹⁵²

Aristotle

When he was asked which living creature is most beautiful, he said, “A human being whose soul has been adorned by education.”¹¹⁵³

Aristotle

When someone reproached the same man for speaking like a barbarian,¹¹⁵⁴ he said, “I do so in speech; you do so in conduct.”¹¹⁵⁵

⟨Demosthenes⟩

Accustoming you to hear what is best is of no small benefit.¹¹⁵⁶

Demosthenes: From the same author

Every natural disposition becomes better on receiving the education suited to it,¹¹⁵⁷ and by far most of all in those who were better endowed than others from the outset. For some become better only than their former selves, while others also come to surpass other people.¹¹⁵⁸

Thucydides

But it is best to be trained in what is necessary.¹¹⁵⁹

1135.The same man refers back to Antisthenes. The printed question asks for the most necessary lesson, retaining ἀναγκαιότατον rather than the alternative best recorded in the apparatus. Ἀπομαθεῖν reverses learning: acquired bad habits or lessons must be unlearned. Τὰ κακά remains general; the excerpt supplies no list of particular vices. Compare the related saying in Diogenes Laertius 6.7.

1136.The adjective ἐλευθέριον carries the sense of what befits a free person and the dignity associated with such an education. Πταίουσι, those who stumble, can describe people encountering reverses; the contrast is with those faring well. The local attribution is Aristotle; compare the related saying in Diogenes Laertius 5.19.

1137.Laws 5, 728C–D. Εὐφυέστερον describes what is better suited by nature to the activities named. The verbs for tracking and capturing make the pursuit of good things a kind of hunt; living together then turns what has been captured into enduring company.

1138.Wachsmuth prints τὰ πάντων ἄριστα, the best things of all, in the plural. His apparatus records the separate Platonic reading τὸ πάντων ἄριστον, a singular object. The English follows the anthology’s plural and its image of sharing the rest of life with what one has obtained. No particular list of goods is supplied by the excerpt.

1139.Menexenus 246E–247A. Ἐπιστήμη is knowledge or skilled understanding, rather than a restriction to modern natural science. Πανουργία here is the cunning that can put such competence to unscrupulous use. The separation from justice and the other virtues determines the judgment; the sentence does not condemn knowledge without that qualification. The local ἀλλ’, but, makes the contrast with wisdom explicit.

1140.Wachsmuth identifies this as fragment 4 of Aelian’s Various History in the Teubner edition he cites. The main text calls Socrates γενναῖος, noble or high-minded; the proposed replacement Athenian is not adopted. The supplied negative ⟨μή⟩ is represented by ⟨not⟩. Its presence is essential: the complaint concerns fathers who failed to educate their sons.

1141.The fathers bring the charge, and they are the people seeking support from the sons. Τρέφεσθαι here is to be maintained or supported; the young men are accused of ingratitude. The concluding reason treats learning what is just as preparation for doing it. The story does not identify a particular prosecution or provide the text of a law.

1142.The heading gives Antiphon’s name without a work title or details sufficient to identify which writer of that name is intended. The phrases I think and likely qualify the priority given to education and the expectation that a good beginning brings a good end.

1143.In the second sowing image the young body receives education as soil receives seed. The neuter pronouns τοῦτο and αὐτό are rendered it, maintaining the image of what is sown. Rain and drought threaten ordinary crops; here the image makes sound education a lasting possession.

1144.Ἀναρχία is an absence of rule or governing authority. Its opposite here is learning ἄρχεσθαι, to be governed, and to do what is ordered. The explanation attributes this early habituation to people of former times, presenting continuity of obedience as preparation for the transition to adulthood.

1145.This saying has no author heading. Wachsmuth’s apparatus records Spengel’s reconstruction of two verses, which Spengel attributed to Menander, and also suggests that Antiphon might have said it. The translation follows the printed prose without adopting either attribution. Τρόποι means character or manner of conduct.

1146.Republic VII.537B. Socrates is explaining why further study is postponed during two or three years of compulsory physical training. Κόποι encompasses exertion and its weariness, rendered fatigue here. The sentence belongs to the discussion of successive stages in the students’ training.

1147.Republic VII.537C. The passage concerns selected twenty-year-olds continuing their training. Χύδην means piecemeal; σύνοψις is an integrated view. The English takes the subjects’ kinship to extend both to one another and to the nature of being. The separate Platonic text includes παισίν, as children, which is absent from Wachsmuth’s main text and is not inserted here.

1148.The printed heading is Socrates. Wachsmuth records Spengel’s proposal to read Isocrates, comparing Panegyricus 43, which praises the founders of Greek festivals. The comparison supplies a related festival theme, without establishing a verbatim source for this saying. The heading is retained as printed.

1149.Wachsmuth marks the second ψυχῆς, of the soul, for deletion following Meineke; it remains bracketed in the Greek and is omitted from the English. The first ψυχῆς is retained. Things seen and heard sustain the image of a festive gathering offering varied experiences.

1150.The comparison gives different finishing points to a footrace and a life of effort. Βραβεῖον is the victor’s prize; πρωτεῖον is a first prize or distinction. Φρόνησις here is wisdom or sound understanding, the reward of sustained effort. The same-author heading continues the attribution to Socrates from excerpt 44.

1151.The heading and the opening he continue the local attribution to Socrates. Wachsmuth’s apparatus records parallel collections assigning the saying to Socrates or Isocrates. These varying attributions do not establish who originally said it.

1152.Ἀνδράποδον is a slave regarded as property. The image makes wealth a golden covering for someone who lacks education; it does not state that the rich man was legally enslaved. The printed καί is retained as too.

1153.The answer makes education the adornment of the soul. The main heading attributes the saying to Aristotle; Wachsmuth’s apparatus also records witnesses that assign it to Socrates. The local attribution is preserved without treating it as proof of historical authorship.

1154.Βαρβαρίζειν here carries the linguistic reproach of speaking in a non-Greek or faulty manner. The reply turns that charge against the critics’ conduct. Λόγος and τρόπος distinguish speech from character or behavior. The Greek you, ὑμεῖς, is plural, although the narrator introduces a single critic.

1155.There is no separate author heading before excerpt 48: the source begins the same man, continuing the preceding attribution to Aristotle. His name is repeated above for orientation. The apparatus asks whether the anecdote belongs to Anacharsis; this possibility is not substituted for the local attribution.

1156.Demosthenis, of Demosthenes, is a supplied Latin attribution. Wachsmuth’s reference is Oration XIII.14; the corresponding passage is section 13 in Butcher’s Greek edition of that speech. There the speaker urges his Athenian audience to listen to sound civic advice. The anthology has an abridged form, with συνεθίζειν, to accustom, retained here without importing the parallel’s first-person verb.

1157.From the same author follows the supplied Demosthenes heading. Wachsmuth identifies the parallel as [Ps.] Demosthenes LXI; the passage is 61.42 in Rennie’s Greek edition. The designation [Ps.] marks a piece transmitted under Demosthenes’s name but treated as pseudonymous. The anthology’s heading is preserved.

1158.Φύσις concerns an individual’s natural disposition or endowment here. The argument distinguishes improvement over one’s own earlier condition from surpassing other people; αὑτῶν is reflexive, themselves. The local γίγνεται, ὅσοις, τοῖς and βελτίοσι are retained rather than replaced by forms from another text.

1159.Thucydides I.84.4, in Archidamus’s speech defending Spartan preparedness. The surrounding argument urges practical preparation for a capable enemy. The anthology retains the infinitives εἶναι and παιδεύεσθαι, rendered impersonally here. The separate Thucydidean text describes the best person with ὅστις and the finite παιδεύεται, and has the superlative ἀναγκαιοτάτοις, most necessary; those forms are not substituted for the local wording.