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 31 · II.31.61–II.31.64

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Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.61–II.31.64

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Ancient Greek

p. 808

Διογένους

II.31.61

Ὅταν ἄλλου τινὸς φροντίζῃς, τότε ἀμελεῖς σαυτοῦ.

Πλάτων

II.31.62

Πλάτων παρεκελεύετο τοῖς μαθηταῖς τρία ταῦτα ἔχειν· ἐπὶ μὲν τῆς γνώμης σωφροσύνην, ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς γλώττης σιγήν, ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αἰδῶ.

Κλεάνθης

II.31.63

Κλεάνθης ἑταίρου ἀπιέναι μέλλοντος καὶ ἐρωτῶντος πῶς ἂν ἥκιστα ἁμαρτάνοι, εἶπεν· «εἰ παρ’ ἕκαστα ὧν πράττοις δοκοίης με παρεῖναι».

Ὁ αὐτός

II.31.64

Ὁ αὐτὸς ἔφη τοὺς ἀπαιδεύτους μόνῃ τῇ μορφῇ τῶν θηρίων διαφέρειν.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 809

Diogenes

II.31.61

Whenever you concern yourself with someone else, you neglect yourself.¹¹⁷⁸

Plato

II.31.62

Plato urged his pupils to have these three things: self-control in their judgment, silence on their tongue, and modesty in their eyes.¹¹⁷⁹

Cleanthes

II.31.63

When a companion was about to leave and asked how he might go wrong as little as possible,¹¹⁸⁰ Cleanthes said, “If you imagined me present at everything you did.”¹¹⁸¹

Cleanthes: The same man

II.31.64

The same man said that the uneducated differ from wild beasts only in their bodily form.¹¹⁸²

1178.The saying contrasts attention to another with neglect of oneself. The indefinite ἄλλου τινός could also mean something else; the Greek does not specify the object of concern more closely. The heading attributes the saying to Diogenes.

1179.Γνώμη here concerns judgment or thought; σωφροσύνη is self-control or soundness of mind. Αἰδώς expresses modesty or a sense of shame that restrains one’s gaze. The name Plato occurs in the opening sentence, without a separate source heading; it is repeated above for orientation.

1180.The companion asks how he might err least, not how he could make error impossible. Cleanthes is named in the opening sentence, without a separate source heading. The Greek does not identify the companion or say where he is going.

1181.The conditional reply supplies a way to answer the preceding question: imagine Cleanthes present at each action. Wachsmuth prints πράττοις, a correction of the manuscript’s πράττεις, and notes a parallel anecdote attributed to Zeno. The local attribution to Cleanthes is retained.

1182.The same man refers to Cleanthes in excerpt 63; the source has no separate author heading here. Ἀπαίδευτοι means people without education or cultivation. The harsh comparison expresses the value the saying places on education; μορφή concerns outward form.

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.