Stobaeus, Volume II

Name: Stobaeus, Volume II
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.

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Book II Chapter 9 · II.9.heading–II.9.1

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Ancient Greek

p. 654

Κεφάλαιον Θʹ

II.9.heading

Ὅτι οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν πονηρός.

Δημοκρίτου

II.9.1

Ἀπ’ ὧν ἡμῖν τἀγαθὰ γίνεται, ἀπὸ τῶν αὐτῶν τούτων καὶ τὰ κακὰ ἐπαυρισκοίμεθ’ ἄν· τῶν δὲ κακῶν ἐκτὸς εἴημεν. Αὐτίκα ὕδωρ βαθὺ ἐς πολλὰ χρήσιμον καὶ δῆυτε κακόν, κίνδυνος γὰρ ἀποπνιγῆναι· μηχανὴ ὦν εὑρέθη, νήχεσθαι διδάσκειν.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 9

p. 655

Chapter 9

II.9.heading

That no one is bad willingly.⁹¹⁵

Democritus

II.9.1

From the very same things from which good things come to us, we might also reap bad things; yet we might keep clear of the bad things.⁹¹⁶ For example, deep water is useful for many purposes and, again, harmful, since there is a danger of drowning. A means was therefore found: teaching people to swim.⁹¹⁷

915.Ἑκών means willing or acting voluntarily; πονηρός here is bad or morally base. The heading frames the collection that follows, whose excerpts approach harmful conduct, judgment, and responsibility in different ways. This is Chapter 9 in Wachsmuth, numbered 8 in the Gaisford and Meineke editions named at its opening.

916.The words τῶν δὲ κακῶν ἐκτὸς εἴημεν, yet we might keep clear of the bad things, are uncertain. The apparatus questions εἴημεν, we might be, and reports that other editors supposed a gap after it. Wachsmuth prints neither a gap nor a repair in the main text; the English preserves the tentative wording without adding a condition about knowing how to use things.

917.The example distinguishes a thing’s usefulness from the danger it can also present. Μηχανή is a means or contrivance, and Ionic ὦν means therefore. The printed active διδάσκειν is teaching, retained here; the apparatus records a proposed change to learning. Teaching swimming addresses the danger of deep water while leaving its useful properties intact.

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.