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.7.17.1

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Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.17.1

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Ancient Greek

p. 434

Ἡ εὐδαιμονία καὶ τὰ ὑλικά

II.7.17.1

[Ἐκ τίνων ἡ εὐδαιμονία.]

Τὴν δ’ εὐδαιμονίαν ἐκ τῶν καλῶν γίνεσθαι καὶ προηγουμένων πράξεων· διὸ καὶ δι’ ὅλων εἶναι καλήν, καθάπερ καὶ τὴν ἐν τοῖς αὐλοῖς ἐνέργειαν δι’ ὅλων ἔντεχνον. Οὐ γὰρ ἐκβιβάζειν τὴν παράληψιν τῶν ὑλικῶν τῆς εἰλικρινείας τοῦ καλοῦ τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν, ὡς οὐδὲ τὴν τῆς ἰατρικῆς ἔντεχνον δι’ ὅλων ἐνέργειαν τὴν τῶν ὀργάνων χρῆσιν. Πᾶσαν μὲν γὰρ πρᾶξιν ἐνέργειαν εἶναί τινα ψυχῆς.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 435

Happiness and Material Means

II.7.17.1

Happiness arises from noble and preferred actions; hence it is noble throughout, just as performance on the pipes is skilled throughout.⁵⁷⁶ For employing material things does not compromise the purely noble character of happiness, any more than using instruments compromises the wholly skilled character of medical activity. For every action is some activity of the soul.⁵⁷⁷

576.The rejected summary heading reads “From what things happiness arises.” Προηγουμένων is rendered “preferred,” as in II.7.11m.9–10: it concerns precedence in choice rather than actions that happened earlier in time. The repeated “throughout” preserves δι’ ὅλων. Wachsmuth records a proposed gap before the comparison with the pipes, but prints no additional wording or gap sign here; none is supplied in this edition.

577.Αὐλοί are musical wind instruments, rendered “pipes.” The argument then turns to medicine and its instruments. Ἐκβιβάζειν literally means to take outside; the English expresses the denial that employing material things removes happiness from the purity of the noble, or removes medical activity from the sphere of skill. Ὑλικά names material things or means, whereas ὄργανα names instruments. The distinction between activity and its means continues in the next paragraph. Wachsmuth notes that this section also survives in the Florilegium under an attribution to Didymus’s Epitome.

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.