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.31.58–II.31.59

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Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.58–II.31.59

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Ancient Greek

p. 804

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ

II.31.58

Ἡ παιδεία εὐτυχοῦσι μὲν ἐστι κόσμος, ἀτυχοῦσι δὲ καταφύγιον.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ

II.31.59

Κρέσσων ἐπ’ ἀρετὴν φανέεται προτροπῇ χρεώμενος καὶ λόγου πειθοῖ ἤπερ νόμῳ καὶ ἀνάγκῃ. Λάθρῃ μὲν γὰρ ἁμαρτέειν εἰκὸς τὸν εἰργμένον ἀδικίης ὑπὸ νόμου, τὸν δὲ ἐς τὸ δέον ἠγμένον πειθοῖ οὐκ εἰκὸς οὔτε λάθρῃ οὔτε φανερῶς ἔρδειν τι πλημμελές· διόπερ ξυνέσι τε καὶ ἐπιστήμῃ ὀρθοπρηγέων τις ἀνδρήιος ἅμα καὶ εὐθύγνωμος γίνεται.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 805

Democritus: From the same author

II.31.58

For the fortunate, education is an adornment; for the unfortunate, a refuge.¹¹⁷¹

Democritus: From the same author

II.31.59

One will appear more effective in promoting virtue by using exhortation and persuasive speech than by using law and compulsion.¹¹⁷² For someone kept from injustice by law is likely to do wrong in secret; but someone led by persuasion to what is right is unlikely to do anything amiss either secretly or openly.¹¹⁷³ Hence, by acting rightly with understanding and knowledge, one becomes at once courageous and upright in judgment.¹¹⁷⁴

1171.Κόσμος here is adornment or distinction; καταφύγιον is a place of refuge. The saying gives education a different benefit in each condition of fortune: it adds to prosperity and offers shelter in adversity. The same-author heading continues the attribution to Democritus.

1172.The opening compares exhortation and persuasion with law and compulsion as means toward virtue. In promoting virtue makes explicit the direction expressed by ἐπ’ ἀρετήν. Προτροπή is exhortation or encouragement; λόγου πειθοῖ is persuasion through speech. Φανέεται is rendered will appear, retaining the form of the claim.

1173.Both εἰκός, likely, and οὐκ εἰκός, unlikely, are retained. The argument contrasts restraint imposed by law with being led through persuasion to what one ought to do. Its claim concerns conduct in private as well as in public; the translation does not turn likelihood into a categorical impossibility.

1174.The conclusion connects right action with ξυνέσι and ἐπιστήμῃ, understanding and knowledge. Ἀνδρήιος expresses courage; εὐθύγνωμος joins uprightness with judgment or disposition. The Ionic forms, including ξυνέσι, ὀρθοπρηγέων and ἀνδρήιος, are retained rather than regularized into Attic spelling.

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.