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.7.25.15–II.7.25.16

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 265 of 516

Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.25.15–II.7.25.16

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Ancient Greek

p. 526

Εὐψυχία καὶ φιλοπονία

II.7.25.15

εὐψυχίαν δὲ ἕξιν ἀήττητον ἐν δεινῶν ὑπομοναῖς, μεταξὺ ἀψυχίας καὶ ἀρειμανιότητος· φιλοπονίαν δὲ ἕξιν ἀνένδοτον πόνοις ἐξεργαστικὴν τοῦ καλοῦ, μεταξὺ μαλακίας τε καὶ ματαιοπονίας.

Καλοκἀγαθία καὶ τελεία ἀρετή

II.7.25.16

Τὴν δὲ ἐκ πασῶν τῶν ἠθικῶν ἀρετὴν συνεστηκυῖαν λέγεσθαι μὲν καλοκἀγαθίαν, τελείαν δ’ ἀρετὴν εἶναι, τά τε ἀγαθὰ ὠφέλιμα καὶ καλὰ ποιοῦσαν τά τε καλὰ δι’ αὑτὰ αἱρουμένην.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 527

Stoutheartedness and Love of Effort

II.7.25.15

Stoutheartedness is a state unconquerable in enduring terrible things, between faintheartedness and warlike frenzy.⁷²⁵ Love of effort is a state that does not yield to toil and works to accomplish the noble, between softness and futile toil.⁷²⁶

Nobility and Goodness and Complete Virtue

II.7.25.16

Virtue constituted from all the ethical virtues is called nobility and goodness, and is complete virtue,⁷²⁷ making good things beneficial and noble, and choosing noble things for their own sake.⁷²⁸

725.Εὐψυχία is stoutheartedness, as in II.7.19.10. Its definition preserves endurance of terrible things and the two extremes: ἀψυχία, faintheartedness, and ἀρειμανιότης, warlike frenzy. The latter word evokes Ares, the god of war, and is not replaced with the earlier rashness or with absence of all fear.

726.Φιλοπονία is love of effort. Both not yielding to toils and accomplishing the noble remain. Μαλακία is softness or inability to bear hardship, while ματαιοπονία is futile toil. The mean therefore concerns the end and character of effort, not an unqualified preference for the greatest amount of labor.

727.Καλοκἀγαθία remains nobility and goodness, the compound used at II.7.18.4 and 20.2. Here it is constituted from all the ethical virtues and called complete. Its earlier inclusion among qualities of the rational part is not silently removed or made identical to this formulation.

728.The two activities remain distinct: making good things beneficial and noble, and choosing noble things for their own sake. The printed order ὠφέλιμα καὶ καλά, beneficial and noble, is retained; Wachsmuth records a proposed different order in the apparatus. The conclusion does not reduce nobility to usefulness. Section 25 ends here, before the transition to household management and politics in section 26.

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.