Stobaeus, Volume II

Name: Stobaeus, Volume II
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.

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Stobaeus, Volume IIBook II Chapter 7 · II.7.6a.2–II.7.6a.3

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Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.6a.2–II.7.6a.3

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Ancient Greek

p. 240

Χρυσίππου Διογένους καὶ Ἀρχεδήμου ὅροι

II.7.6a.2

Ὅπερ ὁ Χρύσιππος σαφέστερον βουλόμενος ποιῆσαι, ἐξήνεγκε τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον· ‘ζῆν κατ’ ἐμπειρίαν τῶν φύσει συμβαινόντων’. Διογένης δέ· ‘εὐλογιστεῖν ἐν τῇ τῶν κατὰ φύσιν ἐκλογῇ καὶ ἀπεκλογῇ’. Ἀρχέδημος δέ· ‘πάντα τὰ καθήκοντα ἐπιτελοῦντας ζῆν’.

Ἀντιπάτρου ὅροι τοῦ τέλους

II.7.6a.3

Ἀντίπατρος δέ· ‘ζῆν ἐκλεγομένους μὲν τὰ κατὰ φύσιν, ἀπεκλεγομένους δὲ τὰ παρὰ φύσιν διηνεκῶς’. Πολλάκις δὲ καὶ οὕτως ἀπέδιδον· ‘πᾶν τὸ καθ’ αὑτὸν ποιεῖν διηνεκῶς καὶ ἀπαραβάτως πρὸς τὸ τυγχάνειν τῶν προηγουμένων κατὰ φύσιν’.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 241

Chrysippus Diogenes and Archedemus on the End

II.7.6a.2

Chrysippus, wishing to make this clearer, expressed it thus: “to live in accordance with experience of what happens by nature.” Diogenes said: “to reason well in selecting and rejecting things in accordance with nature.”²⁹⁰ Archedemus said: “to live carrying out all appropriate actions.”²⁹¹

Antipater on the End

II.7.6a.3

Antipater said: “to live continually selecting what is in accordance with nature and rejecting what is contrary to nature.”²⁹² They also frequently defined it thus: “continually and unswervingly to do everything in one’s power toward obtaining the things preferred in accordance with nature.”²⁹³

290.Diogenes is the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon, as at II.7.5b6. In his formula, both selection and rejection govern “things in accordance with nature.” The English does not replace this with selecting natural things and rejecting unnatural things, the explicit contrast in Antipater’s following formula. Compare Diogenes Laertius VII.88 for the related formulations.

291.Καθήκοντα are appropriate actions, the term used in the earlier divisions of ethics at II.7.2. Archedemus’s formula is preserved separately from reasoning well in selection and from living according to experience. The shared subject does not make the three statements identical quotations.

292.The placement of διηνεκῶς, “continually,” makes the selection and rejection an ongoing manner of life. Both sides of the contrast, κατὰ φύσιν and παρὰ φύσιν, are explicit here. The wording therefore differs from the preceding Diogenes formula.

293.The following verb is plural, ἀπέδιδον, “they defined,” rather than a singular naming Antipater again. The English retains that shift. “Everything in one’s power” renders πᾶν τὸ καθ’ αὑτόν. The aim is obtaining naturally preferred things, but the formula defines the end through one’s continual, unswerving effort toward them; it does not state that every desired external result must be attained.

About This Reading Edition

The complete surviving text of Stobaeus’s second book, through II.46.22, in Ancient Greek and English, with an introduction and 1,541 explanatory notes. All forty-six chapter headings remain, including the notices for chapters whose texts are missing.

Historical Text and Translation

Greek: Curt Wachsmuth, Ioannis Stobaei Anthologii libri duo priores, volumen II (Berlin: Weidmann, 1884), printed p. 1 and pp. 3–264. The supplied edition preserves consequential editorial signs, reconstructed joins, qualified attributions, and missing-text notices. English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes: Diotimos Editions, 2026.

About Diotimos Editions

This historical edition credits Diotimos Editions as its English translator.

Rights

Stobaeus’s ancient Greek work and Wachsmuth’s 1884 edition are in the public domain. The supplied English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes are published with the site owner’s authorization.