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 31 · II.31.52–II.31.54

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Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.52–II.31.54

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Ancient Greek

p. 798

Εὐκλείδου

II.31.52

Οὗτοι γὰρ τῶν ἀνθρώπων κάλλιστα μανθάνουσιν, οἵ τινες καὶ τὰ κάλλιστα μιμοῦνται.

Δημώνακτος Ὑψαίου καὶ Σωκράτους

II.31.53

Τὰς μὲν πόλεις ἀναθήμασι, τὰς δὲ ψυχὰς μαθήμασι κοσμεῖν δεῖ.

Σωκράτης

II.31.54

Σωκράτης ἐρωτηθείς, πῶς ἄν τις ἄγοι καλῶς τοὺς ἰδίους παῖδας, εἶπε· «νέους μὲν ὄντας παιδεύσας, ἄνδρας δὲ γενομένους διδάξας συμπεριφέρεσθαι τοῖς ἀποβαίνουσι καὶ τὴν οὐσίαν διανείμας αὐτοῖς, ἵνα μὴ διὰ τοῦτο ἐχθροὶ γένωνται».

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 799

Euclid

II.31.52

For those people learn best who also imitate what is finest.¹¹⁶⁰

Demonax, Hypsaeus, and Socrates

II.31.53

Cities should be adorned with votive offerings,¹¹⁶¹ souls with learning.¹¹⁶²

Socrates

II.31.54

When Socrates was asked how one might guide one’s own children well,¹¹⁶³ he said, “By educating them while they are young, teaching them once they have become men to adapt to what happens, and distributing one’s property among them, so that they do not become enemies over it.”¹¹⁶⁴

1160.The heading supplies only Euclid’s name, without identifying a work or settling which Euclid is meant. The first κάλλιστα is adverbial, best; the second, τὰ κάλλιστα, is the object of imitation, what is finest. The saying does not specify particular models or confine imitation to an artistic practice.

1161.Ἀναθήματα are dedicated offerings, objects set up in honor of a deity. The image compares the visible adornment of cities with the cultivation of souls through μαθήματα, things learned or studies. Κοσμεῖν, to adorn or put in order, applies to both.

1162.The printed heading combines the names Demonax, Hypsaeus, and Socrates; all three are retained without deciding how this composite attribution arose. Wachsmuth’s apparatus also records a related witness naming Democritus. The heading is not treated as evidence that the three named figures jointly composed the saying.

1163.Socrates’s name belongs to the narrative itself; the separate label is repeated for orientation. Ἄγοι, might guide, introduces a question about the direction of one’s children through successive stages of life, not solely their early instruction.

1164.Συμπεριφέρεσθαι τοῖς ἀποβαίνουσι means accommodating oneself to events or outcomes. Οὐσία here is property or an estate. The text does not prescribe equal shares, an age for distribution, or a legal arrangement; nor does it expressly identify with whom the children might become enemies.

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.