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.7.26.5

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Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.26.5

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Ancient Greek

p. 532

Γένεσις τοῦ οἴκου

II.7.26.5

Συνέρχεσθαι γὰρ τῷ θήλει τὸ ἄρρεν κατὰ πόθον τεκνώσεως καὶ τῆς τοῦ γένους διαμονῆς· ἐφίεσθαι γὰρ ἑκάτερον γεννήσεως. Συνελθόντων δὲ καὶ συνεργὸν τῆς κοινωνίας προσλαβομένων, εἴτε φύσει δοῦλον, (ἰσχυρὸν μὲν τῷ σώματι πρὸς ὑπηρεσίαν, νωθῆ δὲ καὶ καθ’ ἑαυτὸν ἀδύνατον διαζῆν, ᾧ τὸ ἄρχεσθαι συμφέρειν,) εἴτε καὶ νόμῳ δοῦλον, ἐκ τῆς ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνόδου καὶ τῆς πάντων πρὸς ἓν συμφέρον προμηθείας, οἶκον συνίστασθαι.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 533

The Formation of the Household

II.7.26.5

For the male joins with the female out of a desire for procreation and the continuance of the kind; each desires generation.⁷³⁷ When they have come together and taken an assistant into their association, whether a slave by nature—strong in body for service, but dull and unable to live on his own, for whom being ruled is advantageous—or a slave by law,⁷³⁸ a household is constituted from their coming together and from everyone’s taking thought for a single common advantage.⁷³⁹

737.Τέκνωσις is procreation, and γένους διαμονή the continuance of the kind or lineage through generation. The text speaks in terms of male and female and ascribes the desire to each. No modern racial category is implied by γένος here.

738.The distinction between a slave by nature and a slave by law belongs to the account’s ancient justification of slavery. Its description of bodily strength, dullness, and supposed inability to live independently is retained as the author’s claim, not an established description of enslaved people. The legal category is distinguished from that alleged natural condition; the passage does not specify a legal route into enslavement.

739.Συνεργός is an assistant or fellow worker, here explicitly an enslaved person, not freely hired staff. Προμήθεια is forethought or provision. The final clause states the common advantage claimed for the resulting household, without changing the unequal status of its members.

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.