Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

John Stobaeus

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 2 · II.2.16–II.2.19

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Facing Pages · Branch 34 of 516

Book II Chapter 2 · II.2.16–II.2.19

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Ancient Greek

p. 64

Κλεάνθους

II.2.16

Κλεάνθης ἐρωτώμενος διὰ τί παρὰ τοῖς ἀρχαίοις οὐ πολλῶν φιλοσοφησάντων ὅμως πλείους διέλαμψαν ἢ νῦν, Ὅτι, εἶπε, τότε μὲν ἔργον ἠσκεῖτο, νῦν δὲ λόγος.

Ἐκ τῶν Σερήνου ἀπομνημονευμάτων· Ἀρκεσιλάου.

II.2.17

Διαλεκτικὴν δὲ φεῦγε, συγκυκᾷ τἄνω κάτω.

Ἀρίστωνος

II.2.18

Ἀρίστων ἔλεγεν ἐοικέναι τὴν διαλεκτικὴν τῷ ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς πηλῷ· πρὸς οὐδὲν γὰρ οὐδ’ ἐκεῖνον χρήσιμον ὄντα καταβάλλειν τοὺς βαδίζοντας.

Θεοκρίτου

II.2.19

Θεόκριτος πρός τινα διαλεκτικὸν συντεταμένως αὐτῷ καὶ ἐριστικῶς ἀποκρινόμενον ἔφη,

“Ὡς ἔρις ἔκ τε θεῶν ἔκ τ’ ἀνθρώπων ἀπόλοιτο”

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 2

p. 65

Cleanthes

II.2.16

Cleanthes was asked why, although few people in earlier times had practiced philosophy, more had nevertheless become distinguished than now. “Because,” he said, “then it was deeds that were practiced, but now it is words.”⁷⁹

From Serenus’s Recollections · Arcesilaus

II.2.17

But avoid dialectic: it turns things upside down.⁸⁰

Ariston

II.2.18

Ariston said that dialectic resembles the mud in the roads: it too is useful for nothing, yet brings down those who walk through it.⁸¹

Theocritus

II.2.19

To a dialectician who answered him in a strained and contentious manner, Theocritus said:

“Would that strife might perish from among gods and human beings!”⁸²

79.Ἔργον and λόγος set action against discourse. The verb ἀσκεῖν, used of practice or training, gives the answer its point: philosophical training has shifted from what one does to what one says. The Greek does not specify a particular quality in which the earlier philosophers excelled.

80.The heading places this saying of Arcesilaus within Serenus’s Recollections. Συγκυκᾷ suggests mixing up or throwing into confusion, reinforced by “upside down.” Wachsmuth detects verse behind the wording but prints no reconstructed meter; the translation likewise adds none.

81.Καταβάλλειν means to throw or bring down. The image turns the defeat of an opponent in argument into a pedestrian’s fall in mud. The charge is that the method obstructs progress without providing a useful result.

82.The quotation is Iliad 18.107, as Wachsmuth’s reference indicates. Ἔρις, “strife,” answers the description ἐριστικῶς, “contentiously”: a Homeric wish is applied to the interlocutor’s argumentative manner. The narrative frame and the quoted verse remain distinct.

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.