Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Stobaeus, Volume II
Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.
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English Page · Branch 303 of 516
Book II Chapter 8 · II.8.39.5–II.8.39.6
Ancient Greek
p. 602Πορφυρίου — συνέχεια
Οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς βίον λέγεσθαι ὑπολαμβάνουσι καθ’ ἕν τι σημαινόμενον λογικῆς ζωῆς, διέξοδον αὐτῷ ἀποδιδόντες ἐξ ἐνεργειῶν καὶ σχέσεων καὶ ποιήσεων καὶ παθημάτων συνεστῶσαν, ὁ δὲ Πλάτων καὶ τὰς τῶν ἀλόγων ζωὰς λέγει βίους. Βίος γὰρ κατ’ αὐτὸν καὶ ἡ τοῦ κύκνου ζωὴ καὶ πάλιν ἄλλος βίος ὁ λέοντος, καθ’ ὃ λέων, καὶ ἄλλος ὁ ἀηδόνος· βίος δὲ καὶ ὁ ἀνθρώπειος καὶ τούτου ὁ μέν τις γυναικεῖος, ὁ δὲ ἀνδρεῖος· λέγει γὰρ εἶναι παντοδαπὰ τῶν βίων τὰ παραδείγματα.
Πορφυρίου — συνέχεια
Ἓν μὲν οὖν τοιοῦτον παρ’ αὐτῷ σημαινόμενον βίου, ἕτερον δὲ ὃ παρίστησι συμβεβηκός τι τούτων καὶ δεύτερόν τινα χαρακτῆρα ἐπὶ προηγουμένῳ τῷ ῥηθέντι βίῳ. Προηγούμενος μὲν γὰρ βίος κυνὶ ὁ κατὰ τὴν κυνὸς ζωήν· ἐπισυμβαίνει δὲ τῷ τοιούτῳ βίῳ ἡ τῶν θηρευτικῶν κυνῶν ἢ τῶν ἰχνευτικῶν ἢ τῶν περὶ τράπεζαν ἢ τῶν οἰκοφυλάκων, καὶ δεύτερος ἂν εἴη οὗτος βίος.
Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 8
p. 603Porphyry continued
For those of the Stoa understand life as having one particular meaning, that of rational existence. They describe it as a course composed of activities, relations, productive actions, and experiences undergone; Plato, however, also applies the word life to the existence of nonrational animals.845 For according to him a swan’s existence is also a life; the lion’s, insofar as it is a lion, is another life, and the nightingale’s another. Human life too is a life, and one kind of it is female, another male; for he says that the patterns of lives are of every kind.846
Porphyry continued
One meaning of life in Plato is of this sort; another is what he presents as an incidental feature of these lives, a secondary character attached to life in the primary sense just described. For a dog’s primary life is its existence as a dog. The life of hunting dogs, tracking dogs, dogs kept about the table, or house-guarding dogs is an incidental addition to this life; this would be a secondary life.847
Socrates
Reading Stobaeus, Volume II · Book II Chapter 8 · II.8.39.5–II.8.39.6
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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.