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.31.85–II.31.87

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Facing Pages · Branch 416 of 516

Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.85–II.31.87

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Ancient Greek

p. 828

Ἐκ τῶν Ἀριστωνύμου τομαρίων καὶ Σωκράτους

II.31.85

Ταῖς μὲν πόλεσι τὰ τείχη, ταῖς δὲ ψυχαῖς ὁ ἐκ παιδείας νοῦς κόσμον καὶ ἀσφάλειαν παρέχει.

Φιλόξενος ὁ μουσικός

II.31.86

Φιλόξενος ὁ μουσικὸς ἐρωτηθείς, τί μάλιστα συνεργεῖ παιδείᾳ, εἶπε, «χρόνος».

Διογένης

II.31.87

Διογένης ἔλεγε τὴν τῶν παίδων ἀγωγὴν ἐοικέναι τοῖς τῶν κεραμέων πλάσμασιν· ὡς γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι ἁπαλὸν μὲν τὸν πηλὸν ὄντα ὅπως θέλουσι σχηματίζουσι καὶ ῥυθμίζουσιν, ὀπτηθέντα δὲ οὐκέτι δύνανται πλάσσειν, οὕτω καὶ τοὺς ἐν νεότητι μὴ διὰ πόνων παιδαγωγηθέντας, τελείους γενομένους ἀμεταπλάστους γίνεσθαι.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 829

From the booklets of Aristonymus and Socrates

II.31.85

Walls provide cities with order and security; for souls, understanding gained through education does the same.¹²⁰⁹

Philoxenus the musician

II.31.86

Philoxenus the musician was asked what contributes most to education. He replied, “Time.”¹²¹⁰

Diogenes

II.31.87

Diogenes used to say that bringing up children resembles the shaping done by potters. Just as potters give clay whatever shape and form they wish while it is soft, but can no longer mold it once it has been fired, so too those who have not been trained through toil in their youth become impossible to reshape once they are grown.¹²¹¹

1209.The compound heading is retained as printed. Τομάρια means small rolls or books; the heading joins the names Aristonymus and Socrates without explaining their relation. Κόσμος can mean order or adornment; the comparison joins it with ἀσφάλεια, security, and makes educated understanding the soul’s counterpart to a city’s walls.

1210.Συνεργεῖ means helps or contributes to. The answer names the time education requires, without specifying a particular course of study. Philoxenus, Diogenes and Monimus are named within the narratives of excerpts 86–88; their separate display labels are editorial.

1211.Ἀγωγή is upbringing or training; διὰ πόνων specifies training through toil or exertion. The contrast is between soft and fired clay. Ἀμεταπλάστους, impossible to reshape, carries that image into the claim about adults; the English preserves the comparison’s categorical wording.

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.