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Stobaeus, Volume II
Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.
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Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.120.2
Ancient Greek
p. 892Ἀρχύτα — συνέχεια
Δύο μὲν ὦν ἔντι βίοι ἀντίπαλοι, τοὶ τῶν πρατήων ἀντιποιεύμενοι, πρακτικός τε καὶ φιλόσοφος· πολὺ δὲ κάρρων δοκέει εἶμεν ὁ ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων κεκραμένος ποτὶ καιρὼς τὼς ἁρμόδδοντας συντεταγμένος καθ’ ἑκατέραν διέξοδον. Γεγόναμες γὰρ ποτ’ ἐνέργειαν νοεράν, ἃν καλέομες πρᾶξιν· τᾶς δὲ διανοίας ἁ μὲν πρακτικὰ ἐπὶ τὰν πολιτικὰν φέρεται, ἁ δὲ ἐπισταμονικὰ ἐπὶ τὰν θέαν τῶν συμπάντων, αὐτὸς δ’ ὁ καθόλω νόος ταύτας τὰς δύο δυνάμιας ἀμπέχων ἐπὶ τὰν εὐδαιμονίαν, τὰν φαμὲς ἐνέργειαν ἀρετᾶς ἐν εὐτυχίᾳ εἶμεν, οὔτε πρακτικὰν ἔασαν μόνον ὥστε καὶ μὴ τὰν ἐπιστάμαν περιέχεν, οὔτε θεωρητικὰν ὡς ἄπρακτον εἶμεν· ἁ γὰρ τέληος διάνοια ποτὶ δύο ἀρχὰς ἐπικρατέας ῥέπει, ποθ’ ἃς καὶ ὁ ἄνθρωπος πέφυκε, τάν τε κοινωνικὰν καὶ τὰν εἰδημονικάν· καὶ γὰρ αἰ κατὰ τοίας ἀντιλήψιας δοκέοντι ἀντιθλίβεν ἀλλάλας ταὶ ἀγωγαί (ταὶ μὲν γὰρ πολιτικαὶ ἀφέλκοισαι τᾶς θεωρίας, ταὶ δὲ θεωρητικαὶ ἀπὸ τᾶς πολιτείας μετάγοισαι ἐς ἁσυχίαν), ἀλλ’ ὦν τὰ πέρατα συναψαμένα ἁ φύσις ἀπέδειξεν ἐν τωυτῷ ἁνωμένα· οὐ γὰρ ἀντιπαθέες ἔντι ταὶ ἀρεταί, ἀλλ’ ἁρμονίας ἁπάσας συμφωνότεραι.
Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31
p. 893Archytas continued
There are, then, two rival lives, competing for primacy: the practical and the philosophical. A life blended from both, arranged along each course for suitable occasions, seems much better.1305 We were born for intellectual activity, which we call action. Of thought, the practical part turns toward civic life, the part concerned with knowledge toward contemplation of all things. Intellect as a whole, encompassing these two powers, aims at happiness—which we say is the activity of virtue amid good fortune—allowing it neither to be solely practical and so exclude knowledge, nor contemplative and so inactive.1306 For complete thought inclines toward two governing principles for which the human being is naturally fitted: the social and the knowing. Even if the ways of life answering to such conceptions seem to crowd each other out (civic pursuits drawing one away from contemplation, contemplative pursuits leading from civic life into quiet), nature has brought their ends together and shown them realized together. For the virtues are not mutually opposed, but more concordant than any harmony.1307
Socrates
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.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.
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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.