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.7.18.13–II.7.18.14

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 228 of 516

Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.18.13–II.7.18.14

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Ancient Greek

p. 452

Λογικὸν ζῆν καὶ χορηγία

II.7.18.13

Οἷς γὰρ λογικόν ἐστι τὸ ζῆν, τούτοις καὶ τὸ εὐδαιμονεῖν ὑπάρχειν· οὐκ ἀεὶ δὲ οὐδὲ τούτοις, ἀλλ’ ὁπότε χορηγούμενον ἔχοιεν τὸ ζῆν.

Ἀρετὴ κακία καὶ αὐτάρκεια

II.7.18.14

Ὡς δὲ τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν λέγεσθαι χρῆσιν ἀρετῆς, οὕτως καὶ τὴν κακοδαιμονίαν χρῆσιν κακίας· οὐ μὴν ὡς τὴν κακίαν αὐτάρκη πρὸς κακοδαιμονίαν, οὕτως καὶ τὴν ἀρετὴν, πρὸς εὐδαιμονίαν. Ὡς δὲ τὸν σπουδαῖον τἀγαθὰ ἔχειν καὶ αὐτῷ συμφέρειν καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 453

Rational Life and Provision

II.7.18.13

For those whose life is rational can also live happily. Yet not even they do so always, but only when their living is provided for.⁶⁰⁴

Virtue Vice and Sufficiency

II.7.18.14

Just as happiness is called the exercise of virtue, so unhappiness is called the exercise of vice. Yet it does not follow that, because vice is sufficient for unhappiness, virtue is likewise sufficient for happiness.⁶⁰⁵ The virtuous person possesses goods, and these benefit both himself and others.⁶⁰⁶

604.The repeated infinitives τὸ ζῆν and τὸ εὐδαιμονεῖν concern living and living happily. Rationality marks those to whom happiness can belong; the subsequent restriction denies that it belongs to them at every time. Χορηγούμενον again means provided for, following Wachsmuth’s correction of προηγούμενον. It recalls the supporting natural goods specified at II.7.18.7, rather than a mere preference for continuing to live.

605.The symmetry of the two definitions is explicitly denied for sufficiency. Αὐτάρκης means sufficient in relation to the stated result. The English spells out the compressed comparison: vice can suffice for unhappiness without virtue alone sufficing for happiness. This is consistent with the supporting conditions required earlier in the section.

606.The final Ὡς δέ introduces a compressed statement about the virtuous person’s possession of goods and benefit to himself and others. The English takes the goods as the subject understood with συμφέρειν, benefiting both him and others. No additional list of goods or new claim that virtue alone secures them is supplied.

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.