From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Mortal
θνητός
thnētosThnētos marks liability to death and can also designate a mortal being.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThnētos marks liability to death and can also designate a mortal being.
- In StobaeusIn Diotima’s discussion of Love, rejecting his divinity does not make him an ordinary mortal.
- In this editionUse “mortal” for the adjective and, where grammar requires, “a mortal” for the being described.
- A place to beginLove occupies an intermediate position between gods and mortals.
- English renderings
- mortal; subject to death
Meaning
Thnētos marks liability to death and can also designate a mortal being. It does not simply mean bodily, since several excerpts recognize immortal bodies.
Use in the book
In Diotima’s discussion of Love, rejecting his divinity does not make him an ordinary mortal. He belongs between mortal and immortal as a great daimōn. The distinction establishes an intermediate order and prevents the contrast from becoming an exhaustive division into only two classes.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
Use “mortal” for the adjective and, where grammar requires, “a mortal” for the being described. Do not substitute “human” automatically.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 117–118, 291. The Symposium excerpt reports Diotima’s teaching within Socrates’s narration; it differs from other speeches about Love in the anthology.
From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Mortal things
θνητῶν (thnētōn); θνητῶν γένεσις (thnētōn genesis); θνέτ' (thnet’)
The adjective for mortal, thnētos in its inflected forms, can refer to human beings but has a broader explanatory role in the physical passages.
Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe adjective for mortal, thnētos in its inflected forms, can refer to human beings but has a broader explanatory role in the physical passages.
- In EmpedoclesB 8 denies an absolute birth or death of any mortal thing, and B 172 says their generation and failing are twofold.
- In this editionThis edition uses “mortal things” to preserve the broad scope.
- A place to readAll mortal things fall under the denial of absolute origin and final destruction.
Meaning
The adjective for mortal, thnētos in its inflected forms, can refer to human beings but has a broader explanatory role in the physical passages. “Mortal things” names what is formed and dissolved through the mixing of enduring constituents. The introduction explicitly warns against restricting the category to human mortals or even to animals.
Use in the book
B 8 denies an absolute birth or death of any mortal thing, and B 172 says their generation and failing are twofold. This is not the claim that compounds never form or break up. The poem explains why the ingredients' persistence and a compound's bounded existence can both be asserted. Mortal things lack the steadfast lifetime of their enduring sources, but their contents do not vanish.
B 352 makes the transition vivid: things previously described as immortal grow mortal as the constituents mix, and countless kinds pour forth. The phrasing refers to the production of destructible formations out of what persists. It need not imply that each root stops existing and is replaced by a numerically new mortal root.
B 212's catalogue includes trees, humans, beasts, birds, fish, and long-lived gods. It shows that the generated world is broader than the human contrast between mortal and divine. The gods in such lists should not automatically be identified with the eternal roots or with every use of “immortal” elsewhere. Conversely, bones and flesh are particular products of mixture even though they are not separate whole animals. The technical reach of mortality depends on formation and dissolution, not simply on a creature's name.
Places to read
- B 8All mortal things fall under the denial of absolute origin and final destruction.
- B 17.3–13Mortal generation and failing are qualified by constituent persistence.
- B 35.14–17Mortal formations arise from previously immortal, unmixed sources.
- B 21.9–142The generated catalogue extends through living kinds to long-lived gods.
- Introduction VI (editorial discussion)The translator explains why the physical use is broader than human mortals.
Translation in this edition
This edition uses “mortal things” to preserve the broad scope. Its introduction's mention of stones as well as bones is an explanatory example, not a quoted additional line. The elided form in B 352 is printed with an apostrophe; the entry records it as a textual form, not a separate lemma.
Source note
“Immortal” and “long-lived” must be distinguished. The latter can describe an immensely durable generated being without establishing ungenerated existence.