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 31 · II.31.49–II.31.51

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 400 of 516

Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.49–II.31.51

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Ancient Greek

p. 796

⟨Demosthenis⟩

II.31.49

Οὐ μικρὸν ὠφελεῖ τὸ τὰ βέλτιστα ἀκούειν ὑμᾶς συνεθίζειν.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ

II.31.50

Ἅπασα φύσις βελτίων γίγνεται παιδείαν προσλαβοῦσα τὴν προσήκουσαν, πολὺ δὲ μάλιστα ὅσοις ἐξ ἀρχῆς εὐφυέστερον τῶν ἄλλων ἔχειν ὑπῆρξε· τοῖς μὲν γὰρ αὑτῶν μόνον βελτίοσι γίγνεσθαι, τοῖς δὲ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων συμβαίνει διενεγκεῖν.

Θουκυδίδου

II.31.51

Κράτιστον δὲ εἶναι ἐν τοῖς ἀναγκαίοις παιδεύεσθαι.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 797

⟨Demosthenes⟩

II.31.49

Accustoming you to hear what is best is of no small benefit.¹¹⁵⁶

Demosthenes: From the same author

II.31.50

Every natural disposition becomes better on receiving the education suited to it,¹¹⁵⁷ and by far most of all in those who were better endowed than others from the outset. For some become better only than their former selves, while others also come to surpass other people.¹¹⁵⁸

Thucydides

II.31.51

But it is best to be trained in what is necessary.¹¹⁵⁹

1156.Demosthenis, of Demosthenes, is a supplied Latin attribution. Wachsmuth’s reference is Oration XIII.14; the corresponding passage is section 13 in Butcher’s Greek edition of that speech. There the speaker urges his Athenian audience to listen to sound civic advice. The anthology has an abridged form, with συνεθίζειν, to accustom, retained here without importing the parallel’s first-person verb.

1157.From the same author follows the supplied Demosthenes heading. Wachsmuth identifies the parallel as [Ps.] Demosthenes LXI; the passage is 61.42 in Rennie’s Greek edition. The designation [Ps.] marks a piece transmitted under Demosthenes’s name but treated as pseudonymous. The anthology’s heading is preserved.

1158.Φύσις concerns an individual’s natural disposition or endowment here. The argument distinguishes improvement over one’s own earlier condition from surpassing other people; αὑτῶν is reflexive, themselves. The local γίγνεται, ὅσοις, τοῖς and βελτίοσι are retained rather than replaced by forms from another text.

1159.Thucydides I.84.4, in Archidamus’s speech defending Spartan preparedness. The surrounding argument urges practical preparation for a capable enemy. The anthology retains the infinitives εἶναι and παιδεύεσθαι, rendered impersonally here. The separate Thucydidean text describes the best person with ὅστις and the finite παιδεύεται, and has the superlative ἀναγκαιοτάτοις, most necessary; those forms are not substituted for the local wording.

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.