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 7 · II.7.5b9.1–II.7.5b9.2

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Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.5b9.1–II.7.5b9.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 206

Σοφὸς καὶ ἐρωτικός

II.7.5b9.1

Ἀκολούθως γὰρ τούτοις δογματίζουσι καὶ ὅτι καὶ νουνεχόντως καὶ διαλεκτικῶς ποιεῖ καὶ συμποτικῶς καὶ ἐρωτικῶς. Τὸν δὲ ἐρωτικὸν καὶ διχῇ λέγεσθαι, τὸν μὲν κατὰ τὴν ἀρετὴν ποιοῦν σπουδαῖον ὄντα, τὸν δὲ κατὰ τὴν κακίαν ἐν ψόγῳ, ὡς ἂν ἐρωτομανῆ τινα. εἶναι δ’ ἔρωτα * *· τόν τ’ ἀξιέραστον ὁμοίως λέγεσθαι τῷ ἀξιοφιλήτῳ, καὶ οὐ τῷ ἀξιαπολαύστῳ· τὸν γὰρ ἄξιον σπουδαίου ἔρωτος, τοῦτον εἶναι ἀξιέραστον.

Συμποτικὴ καὶ ἐρωτική

II.7.5b9.2

Ὁμοίως δὲ τῇ ἐρωτικῇ τὴν συμποτικὴν παραλαμβάνουσιν εἰς τὰς ἀρετάς, τὴν μὲν περὶ τὸ ἐν συμποσίῳ καθῆκον ἀναστρεφομένην ἐπιστήμην οὖσαν τοῦ πῶς δεῖ ἐξάγεσθαι τὰ συμπόσια καὶ τοῦ πῶς δεῖ συμπίνειν· τὴν δ’ ἐπιστήμην νέων θήρας εὐφυῶν, προτρεπτικὴν οὖσαν ἐπὶ τὴν κατ’ ἀρετήν, καὶ καθόλου ἐπιστήμην τοῦ καλῶς ἐρᾶν· διὸ καί φασιν ἐρασθήσεσθαι τὸν νοῦν ἔχοντα.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 207

The Wise Person and the Lover

II.7.5b9.1

In keeping with these doctrines, they also maintain that he acts with understanding, with dialectical skill, with skill at symposia, and with skill in love. “Lover,” however, is spoken of in two ways: one who acts in accordance with virtue is virtuous; one who acts in accordance with vice is blamed as a person mad with love.²³⁷ Love is [text missing]. And “worthy of love” is spoken of in the same way as “worthy of affection,” not “worthy of being enjoyed”; for the person worthy of a virtuous person’s love is worthy of love.²³⁸

The Arts of the Symposium and of Love

II.7.5b9.2

Like the art of love, they include the art of the symposium among the virtues. The latter concerns appropriate conduct at a symposium and is knowledge of how drinking gatherings should be conducted and how people should drink together. The art of love is knowledge of the pursuit of young men with good natural gifts, encouraging them toward virtue, and, in general, knowledge of loving nobly. They therefore say that the person with understanding will fall in love.²³⁹

237.The subject of the opening sentence is the wise person carried forward from II.7.5b8. The adverbs concern intelligent and skilled conduct in dialectic, the symposium, and love. The subsequent distinction prevents “lover” from being treated as uniformly a term of praise. The symposium is a drinking gathering, rather than a modern academic conference.

238.The asterisks mark a gap after “love” in Wachsmuth’s Greek. His apparatus offers possible restorations, but none is inserted here; the English explicitly marks the loss. The following distinction separates being worthy of a virtuous person’s love from being an object of enjoyment. Ἀξιοφίλητος is rendered “worthy of affection” to preserve its relation to friendship without making the two Greek compounds identical.

239.The Greek balances the symposium and love with τὴν μέν and τὴν δέ; the English names the arts again to keep their referents clear. Θήρα literally means a hunt or pursuit, and νέων here denotes young men in the ancient erotic and educational setting; it does not specify an exact age. The printed προτρεπτικήν and the compressed ἐπὶ τὴν κατ’ ἀρετήν connect the pursuit with encouragement toward virtue. Compare Diogenes Laertius VII.129 for the related Stoic report.

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.