Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

John Stobaeus

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 4 · II.4.11–II.4.14

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 44 of 516

Book II Chapter 4 · II.4.11–II.4.14

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Ancient Greek

p. 84

Ἰσοκράτους Εὐαγόρα

II.4.11

Ἐγὼ δέ, ὦ Νικόκλεις, ἡγοῦμαι μὲν εἶναι καλὰ μνημεῖα καὶ τὰς τῶν σωμάτων εἰκόνας· πολὺ μέντοι πλείονος ἀξίας ⟨τὰς⟩ τῶν πράξεων καὶ τῆς διανοίας, ἃς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἄν τις μόνον τοῖς τεχνικῶς ἔχουσι θεωρήσειεν.

Δημοκρίτου

II.4.12

Ἰσχυρὸν ἐς πειθὼ λόγος γίνεται.

Σωκράτους

II.4.13

Ἐν μὲν πολέμῳ πρὸς ἀσφάλειαν σίδηρος χρυσοῦ κρείττων, ἐν δὲ τῷ ζῆν ὁ λόγος τοῦ πλούτου.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ

II.4.14

Ὁ λόγος ὥσπερ πλάστης ἀγαθὸς καλὸν τῇ ψυχῇ περιτίθησι σχῆμα.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 4

p. 85

Isocrates from Evagoras

II.4.11

I think, Nicocles, that likenesses of bodies too are fine memorials. Yet likenesses of deeds and thought are worth much more; these one could behold only in discourses composed with art.¹⁰⁸

Democritus

II.4.12

Speech becomes a powerful means of persuasion.¹⁰⁹

Socrates

II.4.13

As a safeguard in war, iron is better than gold; in life, reason is better than wealth.¹¹⁰

The same author

II.4.14

Reason, like a good sculptor, gives the soul a beautiful form.¹¹¹

108.Evagoras 73. The comparison is between bodily portraits and representations of action and thought in discourse. Wachsmuth supplies ⟨τὰς⟩ from Isocrates, carrying forward “likenesses” as the understood noun. Τεχνικῶς refers to the skill or art of the composition, rather than to a technical subject matter.

109.The attribution and the neuter ἰσχυρόν, “a powerful thing,” follow the printed text. Wachsmuth discusses a longer parallel and a comparison with gold in his apparatus; neither the comparative form nor “gold” is added to this brief excerpt.

110.Iron represents the means of defense, as against possession of gold. Λόγος in the corresponding clause can mean reason or intelligent discourse. The comparison makes it a safeguard for living, rather than simply a means of acquiring wealth.

111.The printed “same author” refers back to Socrates. Πλάστης is a modeler or sculptor; λόγος now shapes the soul as an artisan shapes material. The image continues the favorable account of reason in the preceding saying.

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.