From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Excess and greed
πλεονεξία
pleonexiaPleonexia is the tendency to have or seek more than one’s share.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordPleonexia is the tendency to have or seek more than one’s share.
- In StobaeusEryximachus attributes damaging seasonal conditions to greed and disorder among hot, cold, dry, and moist forces.
- In this edition“Excess” clarifies the physical application; “greed” preserves the ethical metaphor.
- A place to beginExcess among natural forces is contrasted with a temperate seasonal mixture.
- English renderings
- excess; greed; seeking more
Meaning
Pleonexia is the tendency to have or seek more than one’s share. Its ethical vocabulary can be extended metaphorically to natural processes.
Use in the book
Eryximachus attributes damaging seasonal conditions to greed and disorder among hot, cold, dry, and moist forces. Balanced love yields a fruitful year; excess disrupts the mixture. The personified language interprets physical imbalance through a pattern familiar from human relationships.
Places to read
- I.9.16.1Excess among natural forces is contrasted with a temperate seasonal mixture.
Translation in this edition
“Excess” clarifies the physical application; “greed” preserves the ethical metaphor.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 116–117. The passage belongs to Eryximachus’s speech in the Symposium, whose medical framework shapes the comparison.
From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Avarice and covetousness
avaricious; covetousness; covet; love of propriety
Avarice and covetousness ordinarily mean acquisitive desire carried into vice.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAvarice and covetousness ordinarily mean acquisitive desire carried into vice.
- In TraherneWhen covetousness fastens upon scarce, insufficient treasures, it produces competition, oppression, and invented wants.
- In this editionDo not silently replace every occurrence of “covet” with the same condemnatory gloss.
- A place to beginCovetousness belongs to the disorders generated by scarce and invented treasures.
Meaning
Avarice and covetousness ordinarily mean acquisitive desire carried into vice. Traherne also uses the vocabulary provocatively for the underlying wish to possess and enjoy great goods, which need not remain vicious.
Use in the book
When covetousness fastens upon scarce, insufficient treasures, it produces competition, oppression, and invented wants. But the desire for all is not simply amputated. In II.79 the avaricious humour and the communicative humour are satisfied together: every person receives all while sharing the enjoyment with others. The point is not that ordinary greed becomes harmless by changing its name. The kind of possession has changed. Nonexclusive enjoyment supplies what accumulation promised but could never secure. Hence fruition can sate covetousness and free a person from the love of money at once. Read the local qualification carefully: “covet” may recommend ardent desire for true goods, whereas covetousness among the works of darkness names a socially destructive misdirection.
Places to read
In this edition
Do not silently replace every occurrence of “covet” with the same condemnatory gloss. The text deliberately reuses the language of acquisitiveness to reveal a different object and mode of possession.
Source note
Primary text: I.33, II.79, II.98. II.79 uses “avaricious” positively within a qualified account of transformed possession.