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.8.42.1–II.8.42.2

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English Page · Branch 309 of 516

Book II Chapter 8 · II.8.42.1–II.8.42.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 614

Ἐν ταὐτῷ

II.8.42.1

Πανταχοῦ δὲ τὰς ὑπερβολὰς φεύγειν προσήκει, διώκειν δὲ τὸ μέσον, ἂν μὴ ἤδη τὸ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν πάθεσι κακίας ἀνηκέστοις δεδεμένον δουλεύῃ καὶ ὑποτεταγμένον ᾖ τούτοις.

Πορφυρίου — συνέχεια

II.8.42.2

Ἀρέσκει καὶ τὸ μὴ ἀτάκτως κληροῦσθαι τὰς ψυχὰς τοὺς βίους καὶ λαμβάνειν αὐτούς, ἀλλὰ τάξει καὶ ὡς ἄγει αὐτὰς ἡ περίοδος. Ἡ μὲν γὰρ πρώτη παυσαμένη ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ περιόδῳ πρώτη ἥξει, ἡ δὲ δευτέρα ⟨δευτέρα⟩ ἐν τῇ δευτέρᾳ κληρωσουμένη· στρεφομένας γὰρ ὑπὸ τοῦ παντὸς καὶ καταληγούσας τῇ τούτου φορᾷ περιάγεσθαι ὡς εἰς τάξιν, κλήρων σημαινόντων τὸ πρῶτον καὶ τὸ δεύτερον. Διὸ καὶ τῆς Λαχέσεως οἱ κλῆροι λαμβάνονται τῷ προφήτῃ, ἥτις ἀπὸ τοῦ λαγχάνειν καὶ κληροῦσθαι κέκληται. Λάχεσιν δὲ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς περιστροφὴν πολλοὶ εἶναι εἰρήκασιν.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 8

p. 615

From the same work

II.8.42.1

Everywhere we should avoid extremes and pursue the mean, unless what is up to us, already bound by incurable passions of vice, is enslaved and subjected to them.⁸⁶³

Porphyry continued

II.8.42.2

It is also acceptable to hold that souls are not assigned lives by lot and receive them in a disorderly way, but in order, as the cycle leads them. For the soul that first came to rest in the first cycle will arrive first, and the second ⟨second⟩, to draw its lot in the second cycle. For they are turned by the universe and, coming to the end of their course with its movement, are carried round into a kind of order, the lots signifying first and second place.⁸⁶⁴ That is also why the prophet takes the lots of Lachesis, who is named from obtaining a lot and being allotted one. Many have said that Lachesis is the revolution of the universe.⁸⁶⁵

863.Wachsmuth compares Republic X.619A, where the choice of lives is associated with seeking the middle and avoiding extremes. The qualification about passions remains explicit: the exhortation is not presented as though an agent’s capacity were wholly unaffected by vice. Incurable renders ἀνήκεστος within Porphyry’s ethical argument.

864.The lots are interpreted as positions in an ordered cycle, rather than an absence of order. The repeated first and second and the successive cycles follow the printed wording. Wachsmuth supplies the second occurrence of ⟨δευτέρα⟩; English retains ⟨second⟩. The account is Porphyry’s interpretation of the myth’s cosmic order, not a statement that drawing lots makes every later action involuntary.

865.Republic X.617D is Wachsmuth’s locator for the prophet and Lachesis’s lots. Porphyry connects her name with λαγχάνειν, obtaining by lot, and κληροῦσθαι, being allotted or drawing a lot. He then reports an identification of Lachesis with cosmic revolution. These explanations belong to his reading of the myth; the translation does not turn the etymological explanation into an independently established historical derivation.

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.