Stobaeus, Volume II

Name: Stobaeus, Volume II
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.

Explore the Lexicon

Stobaeus, Volume IIBook II Chapter 2 · II.2.contrary–II.2.9

Swipe or use the arrow keys.

English Page · Branch 31 of 516

Book II Chapter 2 · II.2.contrary–II.2.9

Book Mode

Ancient Greek

p. 58

Κεφάλαιον Βʹ · συνέχεια

II.2.contrary

Εἰς τὸ ἐναντίον.

Εὐριπίδου Ἱππολύτῳ

II.2.8

Φεῦ φεῦ, τὸ μὴ τὰ πράγματ’ ἀνθρώποις ἔχειν φωνήν, ἵν’ ἦσαν μηδὲν οἱ δεινοὶ λέγειν. νῦν δ’ εὐρύθμοισι στόμασι τἀληθέστατα κλέπτουσιν, ὥστε μὴ δοκεῖν ἃ χρὴ δοκεῖν.

Εὐριπίδου Ἀντιόπῃ

II.2.9

Ἐκ παντὸς ἄν τις πράγματος δισσῶν λόγων ἀγῶνα θεῖτ’ ἄν, εἰ λέγειν εἴη σοφός.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 2

p. 59

Chapter 2 · Contrasting views

II.2.contrary

On the contrary.⁷⁰

Euripides in Hippolytus

II.2.8

Alas, alas, that facts have no voice for people! If they did, clever speakers would count for nothing. But now, with rhythmic speech, they steal away the plainest truths, so that people do not believe what they ought.⁷¹

Euripides in Antiope

II.2.9

On any matter one could set up a contest between two arguments, if one were skilled in speaking.⁷²

70.This heading introduces the collection of contrasting views. Wachsmuth takes the heading and II.2.8–23 from chapter 82 of the Florilegium, as his apparatus explains on pp. 21 and 24. The sequence collects criticisms of verbal display, contentiousness, and useless subtlety; it need not make every contributor an opponent of all reasoned inquiry.

71.The wish is that the facts could speak for themselves and deprive eloquent speakers of their power to mislead. “With rhythmic speech” renders the bodily image εὐρύθμοισι στόμασι, literally “with rhythmical mouths,” following Wachsmuth’s printed reading. The final δοκεῖν concerns what people believe or take to be the case. Wachsmuth cites the fragment as 442 in the Nauck numbering he uses.

72.The two arguments are opposing sides in a contest. The lines say that a skilled speaker can construct such a contest; they do not establish that both sides are true. Compare the distinction made in the Archytas excerpt at II.2.4. As with other dramatic fragments, the speaker’s claim cannot simply be treated as Euripides’ own doctrine.

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.