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 9 · II.9.7.5–II.9.7.6

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Facing Pages · Branch 340 of 516

Book II Chapter 9 · II.9.7.5–II.9.7.6

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Ancient Greek

p. 676

Ἱεροκλέους — συνέχεια

II.9.7.5

Ἐμποδίζεται δὲ πυκνὰ καὶ ἡ φιλάνθρωπος ἰατρικὴ παρὰ τὴν ἑαυτῆς πρόθεσιν ὑπὸ τῆς κακίας. Ἄπρακτα γὰρ γίνεται τὰ βοηθήματα τῆς τέχνης δι’ ἀπείθειαν καὶ ἀκρασίαν καὶ φυγοπονίαν τῶν νοσούντων· καὶ μὴν πολλοὺς μὲν ἀπειργάσατο πτωχοὺς καὶ ἀπόρους ἀσωτία καὶ πολυτέλεια, πολλοὺς δὲ ἀδόξους αἰσχροκέρδεια καὶ μικροπρέπεια. Μετά γε μὴν τὴν κακίαν δευτέρα τῶν τοιούτων πρόφασις ἡ ὕλη.

Ἱεροκλέους — συνέχεια

II.9.7.6

Τὰ μὲν γὰρ μετέωρα καὶ ὑπὲρ ἡμᾶς, ὡς ἂν ἐκ τῆς εἰλικρινεστάτης οὐσίας γεγονότα, δι’ ὁμαλοῦ πορεύεται, πάντων ἐν αὐτοῖς κατὰ τοὺς τῆς φύσεως λόγους περαιουμένων· τὰ δ’ ἐπίγεια καθάπερ ὑποστάθμην καὶ ἰλὺν ἔχοντα τῶν ὅλων τὴν οὐσίαν * * *

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 9

p. 677

Hierocles continued

II.9.7.5

Vice also frequently frustrates the humane art of medicine, contrary to its own purpose. For the aids provided by the art become ineffectual through patients’ disobedience, lack of self-control, and avoidance of exertion.⁹⁴⁹ Moreover, wastefulness and extravagance have made many people poor and destitute; shameful profit-seeking and meanness have made many disreputable. After vice, however, matter is a second cause of such things.⁹⁵⁰

Hierocles continued

II.9.7.6

For things aloft and above us proceed evenly, as things that have come to be from the purest substance, with everything in them being accomplished according to nature’s rational principles.⁹⁵¹ But earthly things, having as their substance, as it were, the sediment and mud of the whole… [text missing]⁹⁵²

949.Φιλάνθρωπος, humane or benevolent toward human beings, characterizes the purpose of medicine. In this ancient ethical account, the patients’ conduct can frustrate the art’s attempted remedies; the examples continue the argument about vice as a cause of external misfortune.

950.Πρόφασις introduces a further cause or occasion of external hardship. The following lines explain ὕλη, matter, through a contrast between the heavenly and earthly realms. This material cause is distinguished from κακία, moral vice.

951.Μετέωρα refers to things aloft, here contrasted with earthly things, and λόγοι to nature’s rational principles. The description belongs to the excerpt’s account of heavenly regularity and earthly material limitations.

952.Ὑποστάθμη is sediment or dregs, and ἰλύς mud or silt. The metaphor makes the earthly realm the material residue of the whole. The printed gap follows οὐσίαν, substance, leaving this final contrast grammatically unfinished.

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.