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 15 · II.15.49

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 368 of 516

Book II Chapter 15 · II.15.49

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p. 732

Αἰσχίνου περὶ Δημοσθένους

II.15.49

Πλεῖστον δὲ ἐκ πολιτείας εἰληφὼς ἀργύριον ἐλάχιστα περιεποιήσατο. Νῦν μέντοι τὸ βασιλικὸν χρυσίον ἐπικέκλυκε τὴν δαπάνην αὐτοῦ. Ἔσται δὲ οὐδὲ τοῦθ’ ἱκανόν· οὐδεὶς γὰρ πώποτε πλοῦτος τρόπου περιεγένετο· καὶ τὸ κεφάλαιον, τὸν βίον οὐκ ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων προσόδων πορίζεται, ἀλλ’ ἐκ τῶν ἡμετέρων κινδύνων. Πρὸς δὲ εὐγνωμοσύνην καὶ λόγων δύναμιν πῶς πέφυκε; δεινὸς λέγειν, κακὸς βιῶναι. Οὕτω γὰρ κέχρηται καὶ τῷ αὐτοῦ σώματι καὶ παιδοποιίᾳ, ὥστ’ ⟨ἐμὲ⟩ μὴ βούλεσθαι λέγειν ἃ τούτῳ πέπρακται. Ἤδη γάρ ποτε εἶδον μισηθέντας τοὺς τὰ τῶν πλησίον αἰσχρὰ λίαν σαφῶς λέγοντας. Ἔπειτα τί συμβαίνει τῇ πόλει; οἱ μὲν λόγοι καλοί, τὰ δὲ ἔργα φαῦλα.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 15

p. 733

Aeschines on Demosthenes

II.15.49

Though he has taken a very great deal of money from public life, he has saved very little. For now, however, the king’s gold has flooded in to cover his expenses. Yet even this will not be enough: no amount of wealth has ever overcome a person’s character. And the chief point is that he makes his living from our dangers, rather than from his own revenues.¹⁰⁴⁷ As for sound judgment and power of speech, how is he constituted? A formidable speaker, a bad man in his way of life.¹⁰⁴⁸ For he has so conducted himself, both in the use of his body and in fathering children, that ⟨I⟩ am unwilling to say what he has done. I have before now seen people hated for describing their neighbors’ shameful deeds too plainly. What, then, is the result for the city? Fine words, but base deeds.¹⁰⁴⁹

1047.Against Ctesiphon 173–174. These are Aeschines’s hostile allegations about Demosthenes, rather than established biographical facts. The image of the king’s gold inundating his expenditure suggests money flowing in to meet his spending. Wachsmuth’s local text has unqualified τρόπου, character, and ἡμετέρων, our; the separate speech has an added πονηροῦ, bad, and ὑμετέρων, your. The English follows the anthology.

1048.Εὐγνωμοσύνη is sound or fair-minded judgment, with a moral force sharpened by the contrast with verbal skill. Δεινὸς λέγειν, κακὸς βιῶναι opposes being formidable in speaking to being bad in living. The contrast prepares the concluding opposition between fine words and base deeds.

1049.The source supplies only ⟨ἐμὲ⟩, ⟨I⟩; μή, the negative, is already in the printed text. Παιδοποιία concerns fathering or procreation. Aeschines insinuates misconduct while declining to describe it, and the translation leaves that allegation unspecified. This excerpt closes Chapter 15.

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.