From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordSynthetos describes something put together from constituents.
- In StobaeusThe report under Pythagoras’s name distinguishes numbers and their proportions as principles from compounds formed from them as elements.
- In this edition“Composite” emphasizes the resulting whole; “compounded” can emphasize its formation.
- A place to beginElements are described as compounds of numerical principles and proportions.
- English renderings
- composite; compounded
Meaning
Synthetos describes something put together from constituents. The constituents may be principles, powers, or bodies; the adjective does not specify one kind of composition.
Use in the book
The report under Pythagoras’s name distinguishes numbers and their proportions as principles from compounds formed from them as elements. The distinction prevents “element” from automatically meaning an absolutely simple beginning. In discussions of soul, the denial of composition serves a different argument about the relation between soul and its powers.
Places to read
- I.10.12.10Elements are described as compounds of numerical principles and proportions.
- I.49.33.1Soul’s powers are not treated as components added to a composite soul.
- Arith.5aUncompounded being is named within a fragmentary arithmetic account.
Translation in this edition
“Composite” emphasizes the resulting whole; “compounded” can emphasize its formation. Identify the constituents from the text.
The uncompounded
Asunthetos means uncompounded. Arith.5a places it among predicates of an ungenerated and eternal principle, but a gap after the statement that number consists of monads leaves the grammatical antecedent uncertain. The term securely opposes composition; the fragment does not permit an unqualified claim that the immediately preceding “number” receives every subsequent predicate.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 18–19, 124–125, 367. The Pythagorean account is a transmitted philosophical report, not an independently preserved exposition by Pythagoras.