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.7.18.9–II.7.18.10

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Facing Pages · Branch 226 of 516

Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.18.9–II.7.18.10

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Ancient Greek

p. 448

Ἡδονὴ ἀρετὴ καὶ ἀπώλεια

II.7.18.9

Ἥδιστον γάρ τι καὶ κάλλιστον εἶναι τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν, οὔτε δ’ ἐπιτείνεσθαι καθάπερ τέχνην ὀργάνων πλήθει καὶ παρασκευῇ· οὔτε τὴν αὐτὴν εἶναι θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπου, οὐδὲ γὰρ τὴν ἀρετὴν ἀναπόβλητον ἔτι τῶν σπουδαίων τὸ παράπαν, δύνασθαι γὰρ ὑπὸ πλήθους καὶ μεγέθους ἀφαιρεθῆναι κακῶν.

Σόλων καὶ τέλος βίου

II.7.18.10

Ὅθεν ἐνδοιάσειεν ἄν τις, μήποτ’ οὐδὲ κυρίως εὐδαιμονιστέον τὸν ἔτι ζῶντα, διὰ τὸ τῆς τύχης ἄδηλον. Τὸ γὰρ τοῦ Σόλωνος εὖ ἔχειν· τέλος ὅρα μακροῦ βίου. Μαρτυρεῖν δὲ τούτῳ καὶ τὸν βίον, εὐδαιμονίζοντα τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἡνίκ’ ἂν θνῄσκωσι.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 449

Pleasure Virtue and Loss

II.7.18.9

For happiness is something most pleasant and most noble, yet it is not intensified like an art by the number and provision of instruments.⁵⁹⁶ Nor is it the same for God and a human being. For even the virtue of the good is not altogether incapable of being lost: it can be taken away by the number and magnitude of evils.⁵⁹⁷

Solon and the End of Life

II.7.18.10

Hence one might doubt whether a person still living should even be pronounced happy in the proper sense, because of the uncertainty of fortune. For Solon’s saying is sound: “Look to the end of a long life.”⁵⁹⁸ Life itself also bears witness to this, pronouncing people happy when they die.⁵⁹⁹

596.The printed negative οὔτε is retained. The dependence on supporting goods does not mean that accumulating instruments indefinitely intensifies happiness in the manner of a craft. “Number and provision of instruments” preserves both πλήθει and παρασκευῇ. Wachsmuth records a conjecture that would change the negative, but does not adopt it.

597.The Greek prints ἔτι, further or still, where the apparatus records transmitted ἐπί and a correction by Usener. The English treats it as an additional emphasis in the argument; it is not silently rewritten as an infinitive or restored to ἐπί. Ἀναπόβλητον means incapable of being lost, with the denial qualified by τὸ παράπαν, altogether. The argument concerns human vulnerability to many great evils and explicitly distinguishes divine from human happiness.

598.The opening is a doubt or question prompted by uncertain fortune, not an unqualified declaration that no living person is happy. Εὐδαιμονιστέον concerns pronouncing or counting someone happy. The maxim is attributed to Solon in the source and is translated as printed, including μακροῦ, long.

599.Wachsmuth prints τὸν βίον, life, as the subject of bearing witness and pronouncing people happy. His apparatus records Heeren’s conjecture Βίαντα, Bias, which would instead name a person. That conjecture is not adopted here. The English retains the personification of life; it does not introduce a second named sage into the main text.

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.