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.31.128.2

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Book II Chapter 31 · II.31.128.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 972

Πρὸς Ἀγησίλαον — συνέχεια

II.31.128.2

Νόμος μὲν ⟨ὁ⟩ πρὸς τὸ εἰκὸς ἄγων, ὦ Ἀγησίλαε, ἀνθρώπου δόγμα πάντως· παντὸς δὲ ἀμείνων ὃν Λυκοῦργος εὗρε· νόθα δὲ ἐπὶ νόθοις θηρεύειν κενὸς ὁ πόνος. Μηθὲν οὖν ἀνθρώπινον παίδευμα τῷ παιδὶ πρόσφερε, ἴθι δ’ ἐπὶ τὸν δεύτερον μὲν ἀναγεγραμμένον, πρῶτον δὲ καὶ μόνον ἐν θεοῖς κείμενον, ὅς ἐστι νοῦς ἐπιστήμων ⟨ἀεὶ⟩ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ὡσαύτως ἔχων.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 31

p. 973

Letter to Agesilaus continued

II.31.128.2

⟨The⟩ law that leads toward the plausible, Agesilaus, is certainly a human judgment.¹⁴³⁵ Yet the one Lycurgus found is better than any; to hunt spurious things with spurious means is futile labor.¹⁴³⁶ So offer the boy no human learning. Turn to the one recorded as second, but first and alone established among the gods,¹⁴³⁷ which is knowing intellect, ⟨always⟩ remaining the same in the same way.¹⁴³⁸

1435.Wachsmuth prints Usener’s supplied article ⟨ὁ⟩, reflected by ⟨The⟩. Τὸ εἰκός can mean what is likely, plausible or appropriate; its precise force in the contrast with human judgment is uncertain here.

1436.Lycurgus is named as the finder of a superior law. Νόθα, spurious things, and νόθοις, with spurious things, leave the objects and means of the hunting metaphor unspecified; the English does not identify a particular foreign curriculum.

1437.No noun is repeated after the masculine article in the printed Greek. Usener’s proposed ⟨νόμων⟩, of laws, appears only in the apparatus and is not adopted. The relation of recorded as second to first among the gods remains uncertain.

1438.Νοῦς ἐπιστήμων is knowing intellect. Its sameness and constancy distinguish it from the human judgments described above. Wachsmuth prints Usener’s supplied ⟨ἀεὶ⟩, ⟨always⟩.

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.