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 8 · II.8.9a–II.8.11

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 281 of 516

Book II Chapter 8 · II.8.9a–II.8.11

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Ancient Greek

p. 558

⟨Anonymi⟩

II.8.9a

τὸ δ’ ἀτυχεῖν ἢ τὸ μὴ θεὸς δίδωσιν, οὐ τρόπου ’σθ’ ἁμαρτία.

Αἰσχύλου

II.8.10

Κοινὸν τύχη, γνώμη δὲ τῶν κεκτημένων.

⟨Euripidis⟩

II.8.11

Τὰ πλεῖστα θνητοῖς τῶν κακῶν αὐθαίρετα.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 8

p. 559

⟨Anonymous⟩

II.8.9a

But being unfortunate, or not, is given by a god; it is no fault of character.⁷⁸⁸

Aeschylus

II.8.10

Fortune is common to all; judgment belongs to those who possess it.⁷⁸⁹

⟨Euripides⟩

II.8.11

Most evils that mortals suffer are of their own choosing.⁷⁹⁰

788.Wachsmuth separates these two verses from the preceding Menander fragment and supplies the Latin heading Anonymi, of an anonymous author. The heading remains bracketed in both languages; the added letter a preserves his separate locator. Τὸ μή abbreviates not being unfortunate, and τρόπου here concerns character. The clause contrasts what a god gives with a fault of character. Wachsmuth considers the wording unresolved and discusses either a gap after gives or deletion of or not. Its compressed form is retained rather than replaced with an apparatus reconstruction.

789.Κοινόν means something shared in common, contrasted with the restricted possessors of γνώμη, judgment or understanding. The neuter κοινόν is retained as printed rather than changed to agree in gender with τύχη. The verse does not say that everyone has equally good judgment.

790.Wachsmuth supplies the attribution in Latin, Euripidis, on the evidence of the following heading, the same author. The supplement remains bracketed. Αὐθαίρετα means self-chosen; τὰ πλεῖστα, most, is essential and is not expanded to all. Suffer makes explicit the relation of the dative θνητοῖς, for mortals, to the evils.

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.