Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Stobaeus, Volume II
Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.
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Facing Pages · Branch 245 of 516
Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.20.14–II.7.20.15
Ancient Greek
p. 486Σωφροσύνη καὶ ὁ κανὼν τοῦ λόγου
Τούτων δή τῶν ἕξεων αἱ μὲν τῷ ὑπερβάλλειν ἢ ἐλλείπειν περὶ πάθη φαῦλαί εἰσιν, αἱ δὲ σπουδαῖαι, τῷ μεσότητες εἶναι δηλονότι. Σώφρονά τε γὰρ εἶναι οὔτε τὸν καθάπαξ ἀνεπιθύμητον οὔτε τὸν ἐπιθυμητικόν· (τὸν μὲν γὰρ λίθου δίκην μηδὲ τῶν κατὰ φύσιν ὀρέγεσθαι, τὸν δὲ τῷ ὑπερβάλλειν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις ἀκόλαστον εἶναι)· τὸν δὲ μέσον τούτων, ὧν δεῖ καὶ ὁπότε καὶ ὁπόσον ἐπιθυμοῦντα καὶ τῷ λόγῳ κατὰ τὸ προσῆκον ὁρίζοντα καθάπερ κανόνι σώφρονα λέγεσθαί τε καὶ κατὰ φύσιν εἶναι.
Ἡ μέση ἕξις τῆς πρᾳότητος
πρᾶόν τε ⟨οὔτε τὸν ἀνάλγητον καὶ μηδενὶ μηδέποτε ὀργιζόμενον⟩ οὔτε τὸν ἐπὶ παντὶ ὀργιζόμενον, κἂν μικρότατον ᾖ, ἀλλὰ τὸν τὴν μέσην ἔχοντα ἕξιν.
Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7
p. 487Self-Control and Reason as a Rule
Of these states, some are base because they exceed or fall short in relation to passions, while others are excellent, evidently because they are means. For neither the person entirely without desire nor the person full of desire is self-controlled. (The former, like a stone, desires not even what accords with nature; the latter is licentious through excess in his desires.)653 But the person between them, who desires what he should, when he should, and as much as he should, and determines the appropriate limit by reason as by a measuring rule, is both called self-controlled and is so in accordance with nature.654
Gentleness as an Intermediate State
Gentle is ⟨neither the callous person who never becomes angry with anyone⟩ nor the person who becomes angry at everything, however trivial, but the person who possesses the intermediate state.655
Socrates
Reading Stobaeus, Volume II · Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.20.14–II.7.20.15
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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.
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.