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.7.18.2

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Facing Pages · Branch 222 of 516

Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.18.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 440

Σκοπὸς καὶ τέλος

II.7.18.2

Εἰ δὲ τὸ μὲν εὐδαιμονεῖν τέλος, ἡ δ’ εὐδαιμονία λέγεται σκοπὸς καὶ ὁ μὲν πλοῦτος ἀγαθόν, τὸ δὲ πλουτεῖν ὧν χρή, τοῖς μὲν οὕτω διορίζουσι τῆς ἀκριβείας τῶν ὀνομάτων χάριν· ἀκολουθητέον μέντοι τῇ τῶν ἀρχαίων συνηθείᾳ καὶ λεκτέον τέλος εἶναι ‘οὗ χάριν πάντα πράττομεν, αὐτὸ δὲ οὐδενός’, ἢ ‘τὸ ἔσχατον τῶν ὀρεκτῶν’, ἢ ‘τὸ κατ’ ἀρετὴν ζῆν ἐν ἀγαθοῖς τοῖς περὶ σῶμα καὶ τοῖς ἔξωθεν ἢ πᾶσιν ἢ τοῖς πλείστοις καὶ κυριωτάτοις’.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 441

Aim and End

II.7.18.2

If living happily is the end, while happiness is called the aim, and wealth is a good, while being wealthy … — for those who draw these distinctions for the sake of precision in names …⁵⁸² Nevertheless, one should follow the usage of the ancients and say that the end is “that for whose sake we do everything, while it is for the sake of nothing else,” or “the ultimate object of desire,” or “living in accordance with virtue amid bodily and external goods, either all of them or most of them and the most important.”⁵⁸³

582.The opening sentence is damaged. Wachsmuth prints ὧν χρή, τοῖς after πλουτεῖν, and his apparatus records incompatible repairs and proposed gaps here and after χάριν. The English ellipses mark uncertain wording and connections, not deliberate abbreviation of sound Greek. The intelligible clauses and the reference to terminological precision are translated, but no conjectured completion is presented as the source. The Greek keeps every printed word. The secure contrast is between the noun happiness and living happily, and between wealth and being wealthy; Wachsmuth compares Stoic formulations earlier in the anthology.

583.The resumed prescription beginning ἀκολουθητέον is intelligible. All three definitions of the end are retained, including the final requirement for bodily and external goods. “Ultimate object of desire” renders τὸ ἔσχατον τῶν ὀρεκτῶν. The last alternative allows either all the goods or most and the most important of them; it does not say that any amount of external prosperity is sufficient. The source’s generic attribution to the ancients is retained.

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.