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Stobaeus, Volume II
Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.
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Book II Chapter 8 · II.8.39.3
Ancient Greek
p. 598Πορφυρίου — συνέχεια
ἐντεῦθεν ἤδη ἀμεταστρεπτὶ ὑπὸ τὸν τῆς Ἀνάγκης ἄγει θρόνον καὶ δι’ ἐκείνου διεξελθεῖν ποιήσας ἅμα τοῖς ἄλλοις, ἀπάγει εἰς τὸ τῆς Λήθης πεδίον παρὰ τὸν Ἀμέλητα ποταμόν, ἀφ’ οὗ μέτρον μὲν ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι πιεῖν, τοὺς δὲ πιόντας πάντων ἐκλανθάνεσθαι. Οὕτω δὲ τούτων ἐπικεκλωσμένων καὶ κατηναγκασμένων καὶ ἐπικεκυρωμένων ὑπὸ Μοιρῶν τε καὶ Λήθης καὶ Ἀνάγκης, ἑπομένου καὶ παραφυλάττοντος τὴν εἱμαρμένην τοῦ δαίμονος, τίνος ἂν εἴημεν κύριοι ἢ πῶς ἔτι „ἡ ἀρετὴ ἀδέσποτος, ἣν τιμῶν καὶ ἀτιμάζων πλέον καὶ ἔλαττον αὐτῆς ἕκαστος ἕξει“;
Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 8
p. 599Porphyry continued
From there he leads him, with no turning back, beneath the throne of Necessity. After making him pass through it with the others, he takes him away to the plain of Forgetfulness, beside the river Ameles. From this river, he says, they must drink a measure of water, and those who drink forget everything.841 With all this thus spun, constrained, and ratified by the Fates, Forgetfulness, and Necessity, and with the daimon following and keeping watch over fate, what could we be masters of? Or how could it still be true that “virtue has no master; each person will have more or less of it as he honors or dishonors it”?842
Socrates
Reading Stobaeus, Volume II · Book II Chapter 8 · II.8.39.3
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.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.
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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.