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.7.26.3–II.7.26.4

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Facing Pages · Branch 267 of 516

Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.26.3–II.7.26.4

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Ancient Greek

p. 530

Ἐξ οἴκων πόλις

II.7.26.3

Μικρὰ γάρ τις ἔοικεν εἶναι πόλις ὁ οἶκος, εἴ γε κατ’ εὐχὴν αὐξομένου τοῦ γάμου καὶ τῶν παίδων ἐπιδιδόντων καὶ συνδυαζομένων ἀλλήλοις ἕτερος οἶκος ἱφίσταται καὶ τρίτος οὕτω καὶ τέταρτος, ἐκ δὲ τούτων κώμη καὶ πόλις. Πλειόνων γὰρ γενομένων κωμῶν πόλις ἀπετελέσθη.

Πολιτεῖαι ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ

II.7.26.4

Διὸ καὶ τὰ σπέρματα καθάπερ τῆς γενέσεως τῇ πόλει παρέσχεν ὁ οἶκος, οὕτω καὶ τῆς πολιτείας. Καὶ γὰρ βασιλείας ὑπογραφὴν εἶναι περὶ τὸν οἶκον καὶ ἀριστοκρατίας καὶ δημοκρατίας. Γονέων μὲν γὰρ πρὸς τέκνα κοινωνίας τὸ σχῆμα βασιλικόν· ἀνδρῶν δὲ πρὸς γυναῖκας, ἀριστοκρατικόν· παίδων δὲ πρὸς ἀλλήλους δημοκρατικόν.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 531

From Households to a City

II.7.26.3

The household seems to be a small city of a sort, if indeed, as the marriage prospers as one would wish and the children grow and pair with one another, another household is established, and so a third and a fourth, and from these a village and a city.⁷³³ For when several villages came into being, a city was formed.⁷³⁴

Forms of Government in the Household

II.7.26.4

Thus, just as the household provided the city with the seeds of its coming into being, so too it provided the seeds of its constitution. For there is an outline of kingship, aristocracy, and democracy in the household.⁷³⁵ The form of association between parents and children is royal; between husbands and wives, aristocratic; between children and one another, democratic.⁷³⁶

733.The conditional εἴ γε, if indeed, qualifies the comparison. Παίδων is children, and συνδυαζομένων ἀλλήλοις means pairing with one another; the translation does not add a further account of the marriages. The printed ἱφίσταται is an anomalous form. Established gives its contextual sense, without silently replacing the Greek with Meineke’s proposed συνίσταται.

734.The sequence retains household, village, and city, with the final aorist ἀπετελέσθη, was formed. Wachsmuth compares Politics I.2, 1252b15–16 and 28. The passage gives a schematic account of political origins, not a dated history of a particular city.

735.Σπέρματα, seeds, continues the image of political growth; ὑπογραφή is an outline or sketch. The printed phrase εἶναι περὶ τὸν οἶκον is compressed and queried in the apparatus. In the household gives its contextual sense, while the Greek remains as printed.

736.Ἀνδρῶν and γυναῖκας are men and women, here husbands and wives in the household relationship. All three analogies remain in their stated order. Wachsmuth compares Nicomachean Ethics VIII.10–12, 1160b23–25, 32–33 and 1161a3–4. These are the account’s ancient analogies of authority, not a classification of modern family arrangements.

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.